The New Yorker - 13 June 2022

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JUNE 13, 2022

10 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

17 THE TALK OF THE TOWN

Steve Coll on Truth Social and the Trump primaries;
gun buybacks in Brooklyn; Queen Elizabeth goes platinum;
a best-seller at leisure; Tig Notaro’s family ties.

ANNALS OF NATURE

Elizabeth Kolbert 22 Contact
How animals see the world.

SHOUTS & MURMURS

Dennard Dayle 27 The History of Group Projects

ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS

Rebecca Mead 28 A Hamlet for Our Time
Robert Icke’s bold reinterpretation of Shakespeare.

A REPORTER AT LARGE

Patrick Radden Keefe 34 King Josh
Did a C.I.A. hacker target his own agency?

LETTER FROM SANTIAGO

Jon Lee Anderson 48 New Man
The millennial star of the Latin American left.

FICTION

Souvankham Thammavongsa 58 “Trash”

THE CRITICS
A CRITIC AT LARGE

Joan Acocella 62 Pinocchio’s many lives.

BOOKS

67 Briefly Noted
Garth Greenwell 69 The cult novels of a legendary gay writer.

THE ART WORLD

Peter Schjeldahl 72 American modernists and Walter Price.

THE CURRENT CINEMA

Anthony Lane 74 “Crimes of the Future,” “Miracle.”

POEMS

Charles Simic 38 Six Poems
Saeed Jones 55 “A Spell to Banish Grief ”

Edward Koren COVER

“Out with the Old”

DRAWINGS Maddie Dai, Johnny DiNapoli, Joe Dator, Carolita Johnson, P. C. Vey, Hartley Lin, Liana Finck, Roz Chast,
Jon Adams, Jason Adam Katzenstein, Zachary Kanin, David Sipress SPOTS Hannah Robinson

His dad grew up
in a poorhouse.

CONTRIBUTORS

Patrick Radden Keefe (“King Josh,” Rebecca Mead (The Talk of the Town,
p. 34), a staff writer, is the author of p. 19; “A Hamlet for Our Time,” p. 28)
“Say Nothing” and “Empire of Pain.” has been a staff writer since 1997. She
His new book, “Rogues: True Stories most recently published “Home/Land.”
of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks,”
is out this month. Jon Lee Anderson (“New Man,” p. 48),
a staff writer, began contributing to the
Elizabeth Kolbert (“Contact,” p. 22) be- magazine in 1998. His books include
came a staff writer in 1999. Her latest “Che Guevara” and “Guerrillas.”
book is “Under a White Sky.”
Souvankham Thammavongsa (Fiction,
Charles Simic (Poems, p. 38), a Pulitzer p. 58) won the 2020 Scotiabank Giller
Prize-winning poet, will publish a new Prize for her short-story collection,
collection, “No Land in Sight,” in July. “How to Pronounce Knife.”

Joan Acocella (A Critic at Large, p. 62) Saeed Jones (Poem, p. 55) is the author
has been a staff writer since 1995. Her of the memoir “How We Fight for Our
most recent book is “Twenty-eight Lives” and the poetry collection “Pre-
Artists and Two Saints.” lude to Bruise.” His new book, “Alive
at the End of the World: Poems,” is
Edward Koren (Cover) began contrib- forthcoming in September.
uting to The New Yorker in 1962. His
exhibition “Down to the Bone” is on Dana Goodyear (The Talk of the Town,
display at the Peabody Essex Museum, p. 21) is a staff writer and the host of
in Salem, Massachusetts, through Feb- the podcast “Lost Hills.”
ruary 5, 2023.
Garth Greenwell (Books, p. 69) has
Hannah Goldfield (Tables for Two, p. 15) published “What Belongs to You” and
is the magazine’s food critic. “Cleanness.”

THIS WEEK ON NEWYORKER.COM

PERSONS OF INTEREST PERSONAL HISTORY LEFT: YANN STOFER; RIGHT: ALICE PROUJANSKY
Adam Nayman looks back on Keith Gessen writes about the
David Cronenberg’s career upon the home birth of his first child and
release of the director’s latest film. his introduction to parenting.

Download the New Yorker app for the latest news, commentary, criticism,
and humor, plus this week’s magazine and all issues back to 2008.

THE MAIL

IN OUR GENES may one day find themselves advocating
for leaving the matter to the states”(Com-
As professionals in the field of geneal- ment, May 9th). In my book “Break It
ogy,we read with interest Maya Jasanoff’s Up,” I offer several examples of histori-
article on the subject (A Critic at Large, cal secessionist movements in the United
May 9th). We cannot dispute Jasanoff’s States, including some with what we
synopsis of the history of genealogy, or would now call a progressive bent. One
that it has played a role in reinforcing possibly salient story is that of the anti-
notions of superiority and power. How- slavery Northerners who,in the eighteen-
ever, we wish to offer a more optimistic fifties, supported the defiance or the
viewpoint.Although some people do use abrogation of federal laws, such as the
genealogy to nefarious ends, many of to- Fugitive Slave Act and the Dred Scott
day’s genealogists,professionals and hob- decision, despite otherwise favoring a
byists alike, strive to provide a voice for strong central government.Slavery’s dom-
the voiceless.The beauty of genealogy is ination of American political institutions
that it can show us the bigger picture of appeared to be so unbreakable that states’
history by focussing on marginalized in- rights—or, for some, secession from the
dividuals and their lives. Union—seemed to be the only hope for
insuring a refuge for freedom.
Professional genealogists can recon-
struct social histories of communities ne- 1Richard Kreitner
glected by schoolbooks, and give solace
to families who have endured genera- Beacon, N.Y.
tional trauma. We use crowdsourcing
techniques to gather information about PHOTO REALISM
enslaved people whose names are barely
recorded. We help adoptees learn about I was moved by James Nachtwey’s photo
their health and personal history. We aid portfolio of the war in Ukraine, and im-
the descendants of Holocaust victims and pressed by the fact,noted by David Rem-
survivors in discovering the fates of their nick in the introduction, that he entered
families and reclaiming citizenships taken the fray at the age of seventy-four (“A
from them. We assist in the repatriation Harrowed Land,”May 9th). I hope that,
of the remains of soldiers killed in action. in addition to recognizing the accom-
plishments of older male war photogra-
Family stories can be messy, and rac- phers, we can honor the women who re-
ism and inequality run through them corded scenes of war. Gerda Taro and
just as they do through our broader cul- Lee Miller are just as excellent examples
tural history. Although our discipline is of war photographers from the past as
imperfect, it is popular for good reason. the usual suspects Robert Capa (to whom
In our experience, the quest for ances- some of Taro’s photos were credited) and
tral identity is less often rooted in a Mathew Brady (whose Civil War im-
yearning for superiority than in the de- ages were often taken by others). As a
sire for a deeper understanding of the former TV-news video journalist who
struggles and the sacrifices of those who sometimes worked in war zones, I fre-
came before us. quently felt like an anomaly; discover-
Board of Directors ing these women war photographers
Association of Professional Genealogists made me realize that was not the case.
Lisa Seidenberg
1Wheat Ridge, Colo. Westport, Conn.

LEAVE IT TO THE STATES •

Jeannie Suk Gersen, in her piece about Letters should be sent with the writer’s name,
the implications of overturning Roe v. address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to
Wade, observes that this may not be the [email protected]. Letters may be edited
ultimate goal of today’s anti-abortion for length and clarity, and may be published in
movement, and concludes that “liberals any medium. We regret that owing to the volume
of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.

JUNE 8 – 14, 2022

GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

Montgomery Clift changed everything.With his matinée-idol looks and his brilliant understanding of Method
acting, the Omaha, Nebraska, native created complicated characters at a time when the American male was
supposed to be anything but. Clift paved the way for Brando and Dean, and the purity of his art is on full dis-
play in a retrospective at Film Forum (through June 16), which includes John Huston’s haunting “The Mis-
fits”and George Stevens’s unsurpassable “A Place in the Sun,”co-starring Clift’s great friend Elizabeth Taylor.

PHOTOGRAPH BY GABRIEL ZIMMER

As ever, it’s advisable to confirm engagements interpolates a recording of the poised battle cry Omar-S, Egyptian Lover, DJ
in advance and to check the requirements for into her piece “Forward Into Light,” which she Godfather, and SHYBOI
wrote for the New York Philharmonic’s mul-
1in-person attendance. tiyear series commemorating the centennial ELECTRONIC This is the definition of a stacked d.j.
of women’s voting rights in the United States. lineup, with skittish hi-hat programming its most
MUSIC The Philharmonic gives the work’s world pre- obvious common denominator. Omar-S and DJ
mière, alongside Mahler’s eloquently expansive Godfather are both from Detroit; the latter has
Answer Code Request and Symphony No. 1 and Hilary Hahn’s rendition long specialized in fast-and-nasty ghettotech,
of Barber’s Violin Concerto, a piece that swings whereas the former typically plies his trade at
Silent Servant from sweet airs to a finale of buzzing agita- slower house tempos. Both are appealingly osten-
tion.—Oussama Zahr (Carnegie Hall; June 10.) tatious as producers and as d.j.s. The L.A. electro
ELECTRONIC The Berlin techno producer and pioneer Egyptian Lover is a perfect bridge be-
d.j. Answer Code Request plays regularly at Linda May Han Oh tween the two, and the evening’s early arrivers
the techno temple Berghain, but his new four- have an additional advantage: SHYBOI is seldom
song EP, “Shattering,” shows a fetchingly light JAZZ In the late fifties, an album like Linda predictable, and setting the table for the others
touch: its production, built on breakbeats as May Han Oh’s “Aventurine,” which mates
much as kick drums, is spare, almost aerated. a jazz ensemble with a collaborative string 1should bring out the best in this learned Brook-
This approach should make a cunning contrast quartet, might have been classified as Third
with the Los Angeles native Silent Servant, Stream music, a short-lived jazz-classical lyn d.j.—M.M. (Knockdown Center; June 12.)
whose drums and bass lines tend to wallop. hybrid. These days, this venturesome yet
That’s been especially true in the last half de- distinctly lyrical recording is just another ART
cade, as the latter producer began to foreground example of the all-embracing eclecticism that
an industrial tinge, turbocharging his d.j. sets, is part and parcel of millennial jazz. Though Dana Hoey and Caitlin Cherry
particularly in person.—Michaelangelo Matos Oh’s arresting compositions and arrangements
(BASEMENT; June 10.) have the upper hand throughout the album, Since the nineteen-nineties, Hoey, a photogra-
a quintet showing at the Village Vanguard pher, has depicted women in staged scenes of
Irreversible Entanglements allows the leader’s superb bass playing (heard, physical conflict, making visible the often hidden
to great effect, when alongside Pat Metheny tensions of female relationships, and challeng-
JAZZ To see the free-jazz and poetry quintet and Vijay Iyer) to shine as well.—Steve Fut- ing stereotypes of gendered power dynamics.
Irreversible Entanglements perform is to wit- terman (Village Vanguard; June 7-12.) Her new pictures take aim at the Wild West
ness an act of galvanic discovery—or, to quote
the group’s vocalist Camae Ayewa, a.k.a. Moor AMBIENT MUSIC
Mother, “energy time.” Ayewa and the band’s
other members—the bassist Luke Stewart, the
drummer Tcheser Holmes, the saxophonist
Keir Neuringer, and the trumpeter Aquiles
Navarro—met seven years ago, at a Music
Against Police Brutality event in Brooklyn.
They have since issued three liberationist LPs
of Afrofuturist creative music, including this
past year’s “Open the Gates,” released through
the Chicago avant-garde-jazz outpost Interna-
tional Anthem and the New Jersey punk-rock
label Don Giovanni; the group’s incendiary
improvisations, which, on this new album,
also feature galactic synthesizers and tolling
bells, evoke the defiant contexts of both im-
prints.—Jenn Pelly (National Sawdust; June 11.)

OPPOSITE: SOURCE PHOTOGRAPHS FROM FILM FORUM; RIGHT: ILLUSTRATION BY YIMIAO LIU Eiko Ishibashi A solitary brand of ambient Muzak has become big business for wellness
companies selling increased productivity through sonic curation.This idle
EXPERIMENTAL POP Hatched in the avant-garde music is designed to recalibrate the brain—to help the listener focus better,
but indebted to nobody’s stylistic rule book, the sleep better, live better.These aims guide the electronic singer-songwriter
Japanese musician Eiko Ishibashi has released James Blake’s new album of soundscapes, created in collaboration with the
haunted ambient pieces, crisp instrumental A.I.-powered app Endel, as part of its selection of real-time, personalized
works suggestive of jazz, and albums at the sonic environments. “Wind Down” is music for decompression, designed to
periphery of art pop. Ishibashi’s recent album, ready the listener for bed. Composed entirely of chiming keys, airy synths,
“For McCoy,” employs drones and musique and disembodied vocals, the record is soothing, winding, and trippy, like
concrète to honor a certain Jack McCoy—not navigating the gorgeous, uncanny architecture of the smartphone game
some esoteric composer but, rather, Sam Wa- Monument Valley. As an aural relaxant, it is nearly hypnotic, a balm that
terston’s “Law & Order” character, a bona-fide imitates the ocean and the sky; as an album, it can feel like the soul has been
middlebrow god. Through a decade and a half separated from the machine and is drifting off on its own.—Sheldon Pearce
of issuing a steady drip of records, culminating
in her mournful score for the art-house hit
“Drive My Car,” Ishibashi, incredibly, has never
performed Stateside. She amends this oversight
with two solo performances, which feature the
sound artist Michael J. Schumacher and the
guitar adventurer Loren Connors in opening
spots.—Jay Ruttenberg (Artists Space; June 8-9.)

New York Philharmonic

CLASSICAL “Shout, shout, up with your song!”
the British composer Ethel Smyth’s suffragist
anthem “The March of the Women,” from 1910,
begins. The composer Sarah Kirkland Snider

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022 11

AT THE GALLERIES Karla Knight

“Road Trip” is a somewhat misleading title for
this American painter’s new show: her mind is
on intergalactic, not cross-country, travel. (That
being said, stretches of empty roads do seem to
attract U.F.O. sightings.) Knight’s vibrant, man-
dalic drawings, paintings, and tapestries reflect
her fascination with the paranormal, at least as
an organizing principle. They incorporate an
extraterrestrial language of her own invention,
which evokes both ancient writing systems and
modern sci-fi symbology. Hilma af Klint’s ec-
static representations of spiritual dimensions
loom large in Knight’s work, and the two women
share an interest in the conceit of artist-as-chan-
neller. Knight’s “Wheel,” from 2022—with its
pastel palette, orrery-like structure, and central
golden orb—is especially af Klintian, imbued
with a kindred creative passion. On a rough
surface of vintage cotton seed bags, Knight
pairs embroidered lines with richly pigmented
areas, achieving a weathered and handwrought

1effect that is every bit as compelling as her more

hard-edged imagery.—J.F. (Edlin; through July 1.)
DANCE
The three-year-old project space Mister Fahrenheit isn’t clandestine, per
se. Unlike Manhattan’s strictly word-of-mouth galleries (Fulton Ryder, American Ballet Theatre
Club Rhubarb), its address is on the record: 234 West Tenth Street. From
noon to five, Mondays through Wednesdays, visitors to a busy West Village For the first time since the start of the pan-
block—lined with town houses, coffee shops, thrift stores, and the N.Y.P.D.’s demic, American Ballet Theatre takes up resi-
Sixth Precinct station—are buzzed through a discreetly marked gate to dence at the Met. The five-week season begins
discover a garden-level refuge from the commercial grind of contemporary with “Don Quixote” (June 13-18), a barn-raiser
art’s big-box mainstream. It’s hard to imagine an artist better suited to the of a ballet overflowing with bravura displays
liminal charms of Mister Fahrenheit than Gedi Sibony, a mid-career New and lively Iberian-flavored music. The com-
York sculptor acclaimed for his alchemical way with salvaged materials, pany fields no fewer than five different casts,
in which concealment often plays a key role. The dramatic centerpiece including a début in the role of Kitri for one
of his exhibition, a quintet of recent works on view through June 22, is a of its newest principal dancers, Skylar Brandt
twenty-six-foot-long ochre curtain that cascades from the ceiling, draped (June 14 and June 18 matinée), an impeccable
so that it appears to envelop the space when seen from above while open- technician, and for the rising soloist Catherine
ing a narrow passageway at ground level. Sibony’s repertoire also includes Hurlin (June 15 evening), a daredevil and a
tenderly retouched found canvases, one of which is included here. But natural comedian, who seems particularly
painting materializes most surprisingly in a cast-off cupboard, which, in suited to the role.—Marina Harss (Metropolitan
Sibony’s hands, becomes a floating homage to Matisse.—Andrea K. Scott Opera House; through July 16.)

archetype of the trailblazing male rebel. Cherry, of abstraction, line the upper three-fifths of Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane ILLUSTRATION BY EVE LIU
a painter in her mid-thirties, considers images the Guggenheim’s ramp, in the retrospective
and fantasies of Black femininity and celebrity, “Around the Circle.” The show’s curator, Megan Dance Company
inspired by the fever dream of the Internet; in Fontanella, recommends starting at the bottom,
the works on view here, Cardi B, Lil’ Kim, Naomi with the overwrought works of the artist’s final “Curriculum II” continues a series of works
Campbell, and other stars sport cowboy hats phase, and proceeding upward, back to the sim- that juxtapose dance phrases from Jones’s ar-
in glam deployments of a rodeo aesthetic. The pler Expressionist landscapes and horsemen of chive with topical and philosophical subjects—
figures appear against meticulously rendered his early career. This course is canny in terms of in this case, ideas about race and technol-
backdrops that suggest psychedelic screen sav- your enjoyment, which increases as you go. The ogy—conveyed through spoken text and song.
ers. By contrast, Hoey’s photos are set in stark teeming complexities that mark Kandinsky’s What do the words and ideas have to do with
desert-prairie landscapes. They include a riff on late phase are numbingly hermetic. A middle the physical forms and patterns? That’s the
the Marlboro Man, with a white woman in the range, from about 1910 to the early twenties, question “Curriculum II” asks. Commissioned
rugged hero’s place, and a mid-tussle shot of a seethes with the artist’s excitement as he aban- earlier in the pandemic as a film, it’s been re-
showdown that upends the sexist trope of the so- dons figuration to let spontaneously symphonic imagined as a stage work, premièring at Peak
called catfight. Deftly, and very differently, these forms, intended as visual equivalents of music, Performances, in Montclair, N.J., where much
two artists explore an ever-potent American enthrall on their own. Finally, we are engulfed of the audience is seated onstage, close to the
mythos, imagining for it a new cast of charac- in cadenzas of hue that may be the strongest art instruction.—Brian Seibert (Alexander Kasser
ters.—Johanna Fateman (Petzel; through June 25.) of their kind and their time, relatively crude but Theatre; June 9-12.)
more vigorous than the contemporaneous feats
Vasily Kandinsky of Matisse, Derain, Braque, and other Parisians mayfield brooks
whose Fauvism anchors standard accounts of
Some eighty paintings, drawings, and wood- modernism.—Peter Schjeldahl (Guggenheim Mu- Closing out Platform 2022: The Dream of
cuts by Kandinsky, the Russian hierophant seum; through Sept. 5.) the Audience (Part II) and continuing the
program’s theme of processing grief, brooks’s
“Sensoria: An Opera Strange” is an extension
of the artist and improviser’s “Whale Fall”
film, released this past year. Like that work,
“Sensoria” considers how a dead whale’s body
decomposes as it descends to the ocean floor.
This time, though, the emphasis is auditory:

12 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022

brooks’s movement is accompanied by laments, ensemble attacks both with such verve.—Rollo high-concept onstage fun, helps Kakoma, the
chants, and other sounds inspired by whale Romig (New World Stages; through June 19.) rest of the singers, and a wonderful jazz band
song, created in collaboration with Anya Yer- create a heartening, haunting spectacle.—Vin-
makova, a composer versed in underwater Dreaming Zenzile son Cunningham (New York Theatre Workshop;
music.—B.S. (Danspace Project; June 9-11.) through June 26.)
This jam-packed concert-play—at New York
English National Ballet Theatre Workshop, in a co-production with Notes on Killing Seven Oversight,
the National Black Theatre—celebrates and Management and Economic
This company’s much celebrated “Giselle,” poetically retells the life of the legendary South Stability Board Members
which premièred in 2016, is not your typical African singer, songwriter, and activist Miriam
Romantic-era staple—no long gauzy tutus Makeba. Makeba died in Italy, in 2008, after Early in Mara Vélez Meléndez’s upbeat, occa-
or spirited village dances here. The contem- a concert organized in support of the writer sionally uneven, drag-fuelled disquisition on
porary-dance choreographer Akram Khan Roberto Saviano. “Dreaming Zenzile” takes colonialism, nationalism, and authenticity—di-
translates the ballet’s dramatic situation—a place at that final concert, where Miriam—the rected by David Mendizábal—Lolita (the charis-
young woman is betrayed by a nobleman in dis- thrillingly talented Somi Kakoma, who also matic Christine Carmela), one of the play’s two
guise—to reflect modern themes: displacement, wrote the script—is an elder statesperson, out- characters, asks the audience an itchy question:
alienation, the abuse of the powerless, and wardly optimistic about the election of Barack Why do we “hesitate to kill our leaders”? What
the desire for vengeful justice. On June 8 and Obama, gamely ready to put on a show. But follows deepens rather than answers the ques-
on the evening of June 11, the role of Giselle she’s interrupted by spirits—a knockout sing- tion. Lolita, a Puerto Rican trans woman, visits
is performed by Tamara Rojo, for whom this ing-and-dancing ensemble consisting of Aaron the offices of PROMESA (“promise” in Span-
version was created.—M.H. (BAM’s Howard Marcellus, Naledi Masilo, Phumzile Sojola, ish)—a sunny-sounding agency tasked with over-
Gilman Opera House; June 8-11.) and Phindi Wilson—who come bearing a life’s seeing Puerto Rico’s ever-mounting debt to the
quantity of swiftly moving memories. So much U.S. government—hellbent on offing its mem-
Hudson River Dance Festival biography insures some clunky moments, but bers. Instead, she meets the board’s Nuyorican
the director Lileana Blain-Cruz, a master of
Returning to the Pier 63 lawn, this year’s free
festival features an especially strong lineup. PODCAST DEPT.
The Martha Graham Dance Company brings
the choreographer’s great psychodrama “Er-
rand Into the Maze,” from 1947. Ronald K.
Brown’s EVIDENCE, a Dance Company
performs part of his soul-lifting classic
“Grace.” The inventive hoofers of Dorrance
Dance build up the rhythms of the aptly ti-
tled “Boards & Chains.” And the delightful
Calpulli Mexican Dance Company presents
excerpts of “Boda Mexicana” and “Puebla:
The Story of Cinco de Mayo.”—B.S. (Pier 63
at Hudson River Park, near 23rd St.; June 9-10.)

ILLUSTRATION BY HOI CHAN Okwui Okpokwasili & Peter Born The comedian and podcaster Jamie Loftus’s unique mix of reporting,humor,
and lyrical writing lends her shows an essayistic, exploratory intimacy,
On display as part of L.M.C.C.’s River to making her one of the most interesting voices in podcasting. Her first
River Festival, “repose without rest without show,“My Year in Mensa,”took listeners through the process of applying
end” is mainly a video-and-sound installation. for—and embedding within—the high-I.Q. society, with hilarious results.
Like Okpokwasili and Born’s “Adaku’s Revolt,” In “Lolita Podcast,” she tackled Nabokov’s controversial novel, grappling
about a girl who rejects chemical straighteners with the disconnect between her love for the book’s prose and its disturb-
and hot combs, the new work is concerned ing depiction of child abuse. “Aack Cast” was a deep dive into the world
with hair: the piece connects Adaku’s story of Cathy Guisewite, the “Cathy” comic-strip creator, and her enduring, if
to seeds that were carried in the hair of Black hotly debated, feminist legacy. Now Loftus has turned her attention to a
people as they escaped from slavery, and to more mystical sphere—American spiritualism. In her new series, “Ghost
the root systems of trees. On June 13 and Church,” Loftus traces the history of people who believe that they can
June 20, performances bring the installation commune with the dead, interspersing archival findings with a trip to one
to embodied life.—B.S. (Amphitheatre at 28 of the last spiritualism camps in the country. She approaches her subject
with a sideways glance and yet never makes a mockery of those who swear
1Liberty; June 12-26.) that séances work. It is Loftus’s probing curiosity that is her greatest asset,
and she brings it to “Ghost Church” in full force.—Rachel Syme
THE THEATRE

¡Americano!

Inspired by 9/11, the teen-age Tony (Sean
Ewing) dreams of becoming a Marine, but he
doesn’t know that he’s a capital-“D” Dreamer:
his parents never told him that he was born
in Mexico. And so he learns from a military
recruiter that he’s been living in the U.S. with-
out documentation for the past sixteen years.
Directed by Michael Barnard, who wrote the
book with Jonathan Rosenberg and Fernanda
Santos, this relentlessly patriotic musical in-
sists on America’s greatness and goodness so
vehemently and unvaryingly that it starts to
seem deranged. It’s fortunate, then, that Carrie
Rodriguez’s songs are so muscular and appeal-
ing, that Sergio Mejia’s choreography is so joy-
ful and precise, and that the eighteen-member

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022 13

receptionist (Samora la Perdida), who has found since another one—an alternative planet, just gender-fluid character named Neptune, who’s
an identity not in one gender expression or an- like ours, apparently filled with the same peo- played by both a male actor (Elvis Ngabo) and
other but in the shape-shifting act of drag. The ple—has turned up in the sky. There is barely a female one (Cheryl Isheja). Neptune, with a
receptionist comes up with drag personas for a murmur of science here: anyone expecting metaphysical connection to the precious coltan,
each of PROMESA’s members, creating a kind talk of wormholes, or of gashes in the space- enables the group to take over the Internet
of campy exorcism. The highs are deliriously fun, time continuum, will be disappointed. But and, under the name of Martyr Loser King,
but repetition makes the show drag, and not in the movie, which Cahill and Marling wrote, broadcast the protesters’ message to the world.
is suitably obsessed with second chances, and The directors, Saul Williams (who also wrote
1the good way.—V.C. (Soho Rep; through June 19.) with the roads that could have been—or might the script and the music) and Anisia Uzeyman
yet be—followed. Anyone who can explain the (who also did the cinematography), conjure this
MOVIES final shot deserves a refund.—Anthony Lane fantasy world with fluorescent costumes, extrav-
(Reviewed in our issue of 8/15/11.) (Streaming on agant special effects, and boldly choreographed
Another Earth Hulu, Prime Video, and other services.) production numbers that match the enthusiastic
music. Yet for all its defiant energy, the movie
A young woman, Rhoda (Brit Marling), who Neptune Frost is far from utopian; the filmmakers’ visionary
caused the deaths of others in a car crash, tries speculations are balanced by a chilling realism
to make amends. She goes to work for a man This ardently imaginative science-fiction musi- and a sense of political tragedy.—Richard Brody
who suffered in the crash (William Mapother), cal is set in an unspecified African police state (In theatrical release.)
without telling him who she is, or what she that censors media, suppresses protest, and
did, and they become uneasy friends. This is nourishes its kleptocracy via murderously au- Orlando
not the most believable setup in the world, but thoritarian management of its coltan mines.
then the world itself, in Mike Cahill’s grave, A young miner named Matalusa (Bertrand Sally Potter’s 1992 adaptation of the novel by
ambitious, and sometimes ridiculous 2011 film, Ninteretse), after the killing of his brother, flees Virginia Woolf provides a sumptuous frame-
is no longer quite what we believed at the start, the capital for an encampment of technocentric work for Tilda Swinton’s ethereal virtuosity. The
revolutionaries. There, he joins forces with a drama, spanning four centuries, shows the twists
ON THE BIG SCREEN and turns of one fantastic private life that’s
formed and deformed by the prerogatives of
royal power. In 1600, Queen Elizabeth I—played
with quietly gleeful ferocity by Quentin Crisp—
elevates the androgynous young man Orlando
to a place by her side. Orlando makes his way
through the pressure cookers of the seventeenth
century’s absolute rule and, in 1700, gets an am-
bassadorial posting to Constantinople. Lurching
ahead by decades and centuries, Orlando never
ages but nonetheless changes: emerging as a
woman in the eighteenth century, she confronts
a new age of aristocratic authority and persecu-
tion; brought up to speed in London in the late
twentieth century, she still faces the pomp and
cultural primacy of the same damned monarchy.
Potter’s ironies veer between the blunt and the
exquisite, the oblique and the confrontational,
exposing the cruel hazards of nature and the
perversities of culture alike.—R.B. (Streaming
on Freevee and iTunes.)

Plunging into the maelstrom of American politics, the Italian director Mi- La Ricotta EVERETT
chelangelo Antonioni emerged with a daring and flamboyant blend of fiction
and documentary in “Zabriskie Point,” from 1970, which screens on June 12 In 1962, the Italian director Pier Paolo Paso-
at Metrograph, in a series programmed by the photographer and filmmaker lini took a flying leap into hectic modernity
Cindy Sherman. A student activist named Mark (Mark Frechette)—who’s with this short apocalyptic screed against the
implicated in the shooting of an officer at a campus strike, in Los Angeles, film business and the un-Christian coldness
where police killed a protester—steals a small plane and escapes to the of contemporary Christendom. Orson Welles
Mojave Desert.There, in a duet for airplane and automobile that resembles plays a director who is filming the Passion on a
a balletic pas de deux, he encounters a young secretary named Daria (Daria hillside near Rome. Stracci (Mario Cipriani),
Halprin), who is driving to a corporate conference. What ensues, amid the an extra who plays the repentant thief, craves
encroaching development that they find there,is an orgy of destruction,along ricotta for his meagre sustenance but can’t af-
with an actual orgy that eroticizes the craggy and forbidding landscape. For ford it; to get it he becomes, in real life, a thief.
all the righteous outrage, government violence, and industrial corruption The on-set sequences are savagely satirical, as
that Antonioni depicts, he also exults in the ornamental extravagance of when a diva feeds her dog caviar while Stracci
mass culture. By way of wide-screen images filled with the giddy illusions looks on, and when crew members call out for
and gaudy forms of American advertising, architecture, and technology, he the crown of thorns as if it were hardware.
realizes his freest, wildest aesthetic adventure.—Richard Brody Interviewed by a visiting journalist, Welles
gives voice to Pasolini’s own creed of Catholic
Marxism; Stracci suffers a scourging of Biblical
proportions as he awaits his scene while bound
to a cross. Intercutting color and black-and-
white footage, parodying silent-film antics, and
inserting scenes of youths dancing the twist,
Pasolini both affirms the classical grandeur of
cinematic modernism and conveys his sense of a

1time out of joint. In Italian.—R.B. (Streaming on

the Criterion Channel, MUBI, and other services.)

For more reviews, visit
newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town

14 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022

PHOTOGRAPH BY EMMA RESSEL FOR THE NEW YORKER; ILLUSTRATION BY JOOST SWARTE 1 cucumber. Everything had been prepared What delighted me about Wood-
by a woman named Raghida Haddad Spoon was the sense of connection it
TABLES FOR TWO (WoodSpoon profile: Tate’s Kitchen), gave me, and the curiosity it fulfilled; it
who was born in Beirut, spent years really did feel like being invited into my
WoodSpoon working for the New York City may- neighbors’(carefully vetted) kitchens. On
or’s office, and lives in Brooklyn. When a given day, I could order Guyanese curry
The other night, using a delivery plat- I spoke to her later, the reason for the chicken, dim-sum-style turnip cakes, and
form called WoodSpoon, which offers above-and-beyond bounty became clear: Peruvian alfajores. The food was com-
meals cooked in the homes of neighbor- she simply couldn’t help herself. “I have forting but also stimulating and educa-
hood chefs, I ordered what seemed to be witnessed my mom, my grandmother, tional. My order from Haddad came with
a reasonable amount of Lebanese food every woman in my family offering food, a handwritten note: “I loved the dishes
for dinner. What arrived was more like so I give so much food!”she told me.“It’s you chose as they seem to be a culinary
catering for a small but festive affair— not that I’m not a good businesswoman, bridge between the East & the West.”
enough for days—in containers densely it’s just—it’s in my DNA.”
packed with lacy, crisp-edged zucchini I got a similar card from Yuhe Su
fritters, layered carefully between sheets The crux of some of WoodSpoon’s (WoodSpoon profile: Daddy’s Got
of parchment and strewn with arugula, subway ads is that the company proffers Chopsticks), whose menu paints a fas-
pine nuts, and pomegranate seeds, comfort through food without the has- cinating, deeply personal portrait. Su,
glistening like jewels; garlicky sautéed sles of human interaction, let alone the a photographer, grew up in Harbin, in
dandelion greens, luscious with olive obligations of family: “It’s like getting northeast China, before moving to New
oil and garnished with radishes carved Grandma’s soup,without questions about York to attend Parsons. Of his dishes, the
into roses; neatly cut wedges of kibbeh your love life,”one poster declares.This is hearty, fragrant lamb-and-sour-cabbage
saynieh, a tray-baked loaf of ground beef, a common trope in branding that targets soup, featuring long ruffled noodles, tofu,
cracked wheat, onion, pomegranate millennial and Gen Z city dwellers, who and star anise, is the most representative
syrup, and spices and herbs including are often cynically imagined as anxiety- of his native region, he explains: “When
cinnamon and marjoram. ridden and antisocial. But this under- I was living with my grandma, every year,
cuts WoodSpoon’s true appeal, as well she would use a gigantic jar to pickle as
I was surprised not only by the gen- as the company’s compelling origin story. much cabbage as possible, then make this
erous portions but also by the add-ons Pre-pandemic, Oren Saar, a young Israeli dish all the time until it ran out.”
and flourishes: cups of sumac, za’atar, immigrant living in New York, was intro-
and olive oil; fresh pita and lush green duced to a fellow-expat who had a side Su’s desserts include flaky Portuguese-
salads; whipped baba ghanoush and hustle making and selling Israeli food. style egg tarts—just like the ones he
hummus, dotted with more pomegran- Saar loved to cook himself but didn’t used to eat in Harbin at Kentucky Fried
ate seeds, sprigs of mint, and scallions; a have time to make certain labor-inten- Chicken, which bought a recipe for them
zesty yogurt sauce thick with chopped sive dishes that he missed from home, from a famous bakery in Macau in 1999,
such as jachnun, a Yemenite Jewish pastry the year in which rule of that city was
that’s traditionally baked overnight. After transferred from Portugal to China.“Oh
Saar’s wife requested the acquaintance’s I miss KFC in China so much!!”Su’s de-
jachnun while in labor, a startup was born: scription reads. His homesickness is our
a marketplace of culinary side hustles. gain. (Entrées around $10-$22.)

—Hannah Goldfield

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022 15



THE TALK OF THE TOWN

COMMENT Trump may be keeping his options voters to his revenge campaign against
THE TRUMP PRIMARIES open because he is reportedly itching to the Republican congresswoman Liz
run for President again in 2024, and his Cheney, one of the ten House Repub­
Since late April, citizens nostalgic for forced exile from Twitter and Facebook licans who voted to impeach him in the
Donald Trump’s Twitter feed have has clearly sapped his reach. His success last days of his Presidency. She is now
been able to sate themselves on Truth on Twitter arose from his capacity to out­ the vice­chair of the House select com­
Social, a platform launched in February rage or amuse a global audience of both mittee investigating the January insur­
by one of Trump’s companies. After an enemies and acolytes (Arnold Schwarz­ rection, which will hold televised hear­
initial period of silence, the former Pres­ enegger and Kim Jong Un,as well as your ings beginning this week. Wyoming’s
ident now “truths” and “retruths” multi­ Trumpist cousin across town). On Truth Republican primary is on August 16th,
ple times a day for his three million­plus Social, he reprises old hits—the Mueller and Trump has endorsed Harriet Hage­
followers. (He had about eighty­nine “witch hunt,”weak Democrats—for ho­ man,a former Never Trumper who now
million followers on Twitter when the mogenous loyalists. The vibe so far sug­ says that she doesn’t know who really
company suspended his account perma­ gests punk rock on Broadway.Trump ap­ won in 2020. Hageman has a large poll­
nently after January 6th, for fear that it pears to be ginning up a celebrity feud ing lead, but Cheney has a formidable
would inspire further violent acts.) His with Elon Musk, who has made moves campaign war chest. Earlier this year,
posts are as replete as ever with lies and to buy Twitter and has said that he would Trump failed to persuade Wyoming’s
rants, served up in his familiar vernacu­ allow Trump to return.The former Pres­ legislature to rewrite state rules that
lar: “Our Elections are Rigged, Inflation ident insists that he’s not interested.“They allow Democrats and Independents to
is rampant, gas prices and food costs want me back so badly,” he told a crowd participate in the Republican primary,
are ‘through the roof,’our Military ‘Lead­ in Wyoming in late May. “And I’m not so crossover votes may help Cheney.
ership’ is Woke, our Country is going to going back, because we have Truth!”
hell,” he recently mused. As the self­described “king of en­
He was in Wyoming to rally maga dorsements,”Trump has drawn an eclec­
Truth Social is a characteristic Trump tic parade of supplicants to Mar­a­Lago,
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOÃO FAZENDA business: opaque and unconvincing. Last where he performs a version of his role
fall, its parent company announced a on “The Apprentice.” He has called his
planned merger with a “blank check”com­ record of backing candidates who won
pany—a Wall Street concoction that can primaries held in May “very big and suc­
sell shares to the public with less scrutiny cessful,” but the lopsided numbers he
than other exchange­listed firms. That brags about (“for the ‘Cycle,’ 100 Wins,
deal hasn’t closed yet; meanwhile,the Se­ 6 Losses”) include many nods to unop­
curities and Exchange Commission is in­ posed or safe Republican incumbents,
vestigating whether the announcement whose victories were already assured. In
was on the up­and­up. A recent regula­ highly contested races, his interventions
tory filing states that Truth Social’s pros­ have had mixed results. His support
pects rely heavily on Trump’s appeal to helped J. D. Vance win Ohio’s Republi­
his fans, yet Trump himself seems equiv­ can primary for a U.S. Senate seat. On
ocal about his project. According to the Friday, his candidate Mehmet Oz was
filing, once Trump posts something on declared the winner of the Senate pri­
Truth Social, he is “generally obligated” mary in Pennsylvania, where, also with
not to post the same message on other Trump’s blessing,Doug Mastriano,a far­
social­media platforms—for six hours. right Christian nationalist who paid for

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022 17

buses to carry protesters to Washington fifty percentage points. Georgia’s secre- trol of election machinery in other swing
on January 6th,won the Republican nom- tary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who states, the stage could be set for another
ination for governor. He has said that famously ignored Trump’s plea during constitutional crisis around voting re-
he had serious doubts about the legiti- a phone call to “find” enough votes to sults in 2024, whether Trump is the Re-
macy of Joe Biden’s victory in 2020; if tip the state his way, also comfortably publican Presidential nominee or not.
Mastriano wins in November, he will defeated a Trump-backed challenger.
wield considerable authority over his Trump apparently feels no compunc-
state’s election administration. An optimistic reading is that Geor- tion, as a former President, about ques-
gia’s Republican voters were, at the least, tioning the legitimacy of the nation’s
Yet Trump failed dramatically to put disinterested in Trump’s unrelenting ob- courts or the rule of law.“Our Legal Sys-
his men in position for state offices in session with his loss to President Biden. tem is corrupt, our Judges (and Jus-
Georgia, where he tried to oust Brian Yet, according to a poll from last year by tices!) are highly partisan, compromised
Kemp, the incumbent Republican gov- the University of Massachusetts at Am- or just plain scared,”he recently wrote on
ernor, by backing David Perdue, a for- herst, well more than half of Republican Truth Social.His new platform may look
mer U.S. senator. (Trump’s pick for the voters nationwide believe Trump’s Big like a cynical way to make money—the
Senate, Herschel Walker, did win his Lie that Biden’s victory was rigged. regulatory filing warned investors of many
primary.) In 2020,Kemp repeatedly with- Trump’s grip on Trumpism may be loos- potential hazards, citing the examples of
stood Trump’s pressure to change Geor- ening a little, but the malignancy he has Trump Plaza and Trump Castle, among
gia’s Presidential-election results. For- seeded in American politics cannot be other past failures. But Trump’s abuse of
mer Vice-President Mike Pence travelled eradicated anytime soon. His talking Truth as a business brand is trivial com-
to the state last month to appear with points about corrupt elections resound pared with his ongoing vandalism in the
Kemp, making a show of his estrange- daily across right-wing media. Republi- public square. In November, his name
ment from Trump, a break that became can leaders and candidates embrace his won’t be on ballots, but voters will have
irreparable when Pence declined to over- isolationism and his mobilization of to decide once more whether to endorse
turn Biden’s victory in the Electoral Col- white-grievance politics. If Mastriano is his hold on our faltering democracy.
lege.Kemp crushed Perdue by more than elected,or if like-minded allies take con-
—Steve Coll

TRADE-IN DEPT. I mean for law officials, no problem. metal-recycling facility in New Jersey.)
BUYBACK But for personal people? Nah.” He In 2008, the Reverend Joseph Jones
walked out of the church with four
Not long ago, in New York City, a hundred dollars’worth of gift cards and gathered a group of pastors in Brooklyn
paramedic was shot inside an am- a new iPad Mini. to hold a church-hosted gun buyback.
bulance by the patient he was trans- The Kings County District Attorney’s
porting to the hospital; a Goldman A few minutes later,someone arrived office had attempted buybacks before,
Sachs employee was killed by a gun- with a pump-action shotgun wrapped but people were distrustful. “It wasn’t
man on a subway train that was cross- in a garbage bag.Then a football coach till we said ‘Bring them to the church’
ing the Manhattan Bridge; and an from Bed-Stuy drove up in a Jeep and that it worked,” Jones said. “People felt
eleven-year-old girl, Kyhara Tay, stum- handed over a pistol. “I got it because I like the pastor or the rabbi or the faith
bled into a Bronx nail salon covered in needed protection in my neighborhood,” leader would defend them if something
blood.“Ow, ow, it hurts,”she was heard he said. “What am I gonna do if a guy came up.” That summer, six churches
screaming, having been fatally shot in breaks into my house and pulls out a across Brooklyn opened their doors. “I
the stomach. Police said that the sus- 9-millimetre? Pull out a baseball bat?” had grandmas bringing weapons. I had
pects were two teen-agers, who were He added, “The gun was illegal, so I aunties and uncles bring shotguns.There
aiming at a thirteen-year-old down the decided to just get rid of it.” Someone were people bringing Desert Eagles
street. Days later, Yuronza Streeter, a else turned in an AR-15-style rifle with from their military days. It was a pleth-
tall man in a polo shirt and sunglasses, a sawed-off stock, and a mom arrived ora of weapons,” Jones said. They col-
walked up to Emmanuel Baptist to give up her kid’s plastic toy gun. lected almost two thousand firearms.
Church, in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill Pastors have since hosted buybacks all
neighborhood, carrying a revolver and “There’re no questions asked,” a over Brooklyn.
a semi-automatic pistol. Then he plainclothes cop, dressed in jeans and
handed them over to the police.“I don’t white Nike Jordans, said, on the side- The one at Emmanuel Baptist was
like guns, even though I’m ex-military,” walk outside.“You get a ticket.We pro- sponsored by the restaurant Junior’s
Streeter said. “I know what a gun can cess the gun. We get you a gift. Ten (“The World’s Most Fabulous Cheese-
do.They don’t need to be on the street. minutes!” Inside, another cop said, cake”) and the D.A.’s office. “We’re not
“They’re not swabbed for DNA. Liter- using tax dollars to pay for this. We’re
ally, nothing is done to these guns. using money that’s coming from drug
They’re put into a bag, and they’re dealers,”Eric Gonzalez,Brooklyn’s D.A.,
brought to an off-site location, and said, inspecting a Smith & Wesson re-
they’re destroyed.”(Handguns are melted volver that had just been dropped off in
down at a steel plant in Pennsylvania; the church hallway,amid walls decorated
rifles and shotguns are shredded at a with children’s art.(New York’s criminal-

18 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022

forfeiture statute allows law enforcement the center of London a day in advance Queen Elizabeth
to repurpose criminal proceeds.) of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations re-
vealed that today’s designers had reverted ready had a game plan for the next big
A cop dragged a trash can full of to tried and true. Along Regent Street, one, the Queen’s funeral.
long-barrelled guns across the floor of more than a hundred enormous Union
a room lined with picture books. Gon- Jacks, strung five abreast, fluttered above For less prepared Jubilee-ers, serried
zalez said, “I lost a brother to gun vi- the streams of buses and pedestrians like ranks of portable toilets lined the Mall’s
olence. I don’t often talk about it. He a proud if leaky canopy of patriotism. sidewalk, in the shadow of the grand
was my younger brother. He passed mansions of St. James’s. Schoolchildren
when he was twenty-four.” Gonzalez Seventy years! Who could have imag- in the crowd debated the important stuff.
said that when he was growing up, in ined just how long Elizabeth II might “The Queen is technically not rich—
East New York (“the murder capital,” reign? Only two years more, and she’ll she just has a lot of expensive things,”
he called it), he knew a lot of kids who best Louis XIV’s record as the world’s one middle-school-age boy informed a
had guns in their homes.They are tough longest-serving monarch—and he was girl. “The house is priceless,” she con-
to get rid of. With the buyback pro- four years old when he became king, so, firmed. A young man in an ill-fitting
gram, he said, “hopefully, we’ll reduce cheating. After two years of cancelled black suit with a framed portrait of the
the need to put people in jail for ille- events and gatherings banned, it was a Queen circa 1997 jammed under his arm
gal possession.” relief not to have to countenance a scurried across the street, cell phone to
Zoombilee. And to what efforts had ear. To the clicking of cameras, two
Down the hall, two men who had commercial establishments gone to mark Guardsmen in their red tunics and bear-
just got rid of their guns sat waiting in this bright moment amid late-pandemic skin helmets marched toward the pal-
folding chairs. Gonzalez wandered past. hardship and a cost-of-living crisis ex- ace, stepping aside to allow an ambu-
“You guys made a good decision,” he acerbated by a European war on a scale lance to pass. A Household Cavalry
said.A cop called out,“Ticket No.66953?” not seen since just before Her Majesty soldier had been thrown from his horse,
Ticket No. 66953—a bald man wearing came to the throne? On Regent Street: it was reported later: one of the Jubilee’s
a Miles Davis T-shirt—collected his hats off to the window dresser for Guess, first injuries, but surely not the last.The
iPad Mini. Grinning, he said, “You se- who had accessorized the store’s haughty supplies of gin and Estrella had barely
rious? Whaaaaaaat?” mannequins with a pair of fake corgis. been broached.
At Piccadilly Circus, the shimmering
Outside, a bespectacled man with L.E.D. screen displayed a message from And so, on to Piccadilly, where, at
a graying beard, who introduced himself the retailers John Lewis and Waitrose: a café within Fortnum & Mason, those
as Abdul Sadiq,carried a Mitchell electric- “Congratulations Your Majesty.” That in the know could order, off menu, a
guitar box. Inside: a hammydown rifle. ad alternated with another, for Estrella serving of Platinum Pudding: a des-
“It wasn’t an assault weapon or nuthin’. Damm beer—maybe a fitting induce- sert created by an amateur baker named
It was in the family for a while, some- ment for the British public, who had Jemma Melvin, who won a nationwide
body who passed on.” Sadiq laughed. “If been granted an extra day off and who competition to design a comestible fit
you got something laying around, why never seem to need encouragement to for street-party tables up and down the
not? I mean, don’t give ’em your last gun. raise a glass, can, or bottle. land. Concocted from layers of Swiss
It’s fucking Saturday night in Brooklyn.” roll, lemon curd, citrus jelly, mandarin
Down on the Mall, the avenue that oranges, custard, amaretti cookies, and
1—Adam Iscoe leads from Trafalgar Square to Buck- shards of “jeweled chocolate bark”—
ingham Palace,some of the Queen’s sub- phew—the dessert looked like “sum-
LONDON POSTCARD jects had already pitched tents at prime, mer in a glass,” remarked Annalivia
PLATINUM PUDDING barricade-side spots for the procession.
Rachael Axford, an office worker for a
For Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation, in renewable-energy company in Corn-
1953,lampposts along the processional wall, had taken the sleeper train from
route were painted lilac, pale blue, and Penzance—though there had been no
white,at the instigation of Sir Hugh Cas- sleeping, she said, what with all the ex-
son,an architect who made his mark with citement, and the gin. She had decked
the Festival of Britain, in 1951.The result her spot with regional bunting, a white
was so “lively and apt,” this magazine’s cross on a black background, and her
correspondent Mollie Panter-Downes yellow-and-blue beach tent—a nod of
noted at the time, “that they will surely solidarity to Ukraine—was supplied with
shock to death those diehard Britons who folding chairs,sleeping bags,some Union
think you can’t go wrong with a nice lot Jack-patterned clothes, and gin. Also: a
of red, white and blue, and a sprinkling Shewee urination funnel, for emergen-
of ‘Long May She Reign’s.” A stroll in cies.“I don’t think any other country can
touch us for the pageantry,”Axford said.
She had camped at Harry and Meghan’s
wedding, in Windsor, in 2018, and al-

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022 19

“Damn it, Bill! Don’t tell me you forgot to put the time on the invite.” a lonely kid in the woods,” he said. “I
just would tell stories to myself. Cow-
•• boy stories and war stories and fanta-
sies. Nothing against Newburgh”—his
Foreman, who was at the café with her cliff, in a long-sleeved shirt and boat home town, on the other side of the riv-
shoes.He smirked a little.It was a pleas- er—“but it was: get me out of here, get
daughter Eve. Neither could actually ant late morning in late spring. Sun- me out of this life, get me out of the
shine, birds. He head-nodded toward woods. I found out that the guy who’d
sample the pudding (Eve: nut aller- the Hudson. “I don’t think about suc- owned the Daily News was a Patterson.
cess,”he went on.“I have nothing against I had this fantasy that he would show
gies; Annalivia: gut-reset program), but people who want to drive Rolls-Royces. up in a big limousine and say, ‘I’m your
It just doesn’t interest me. It doesn’t in- father,’ and take me to New York.”
Annalivia’s brother Hugh was game. terest me to have a big house, per se.
But this”—the view—“does interest me.” His own father had grown up in New-
He wrinkled his nose as he described He’d been up since five-thirty—Times, burgh’s poorhouse. “There was a little
Journal, nine holes at Sleepy Hollow. bit of a jealousy between us,” Patterson
the flavor as “light,” and was skeptical Later, a nap would probably be in order, said. Patterson the elder managed to
and then maybe dinner out with his graduate college but wound up in work-
of its colors, which were as subtle as wife, Sue. They like low-key stuff with ing-class jobs. “Bright guy, driving a
friends.“The occasional thing with peo- bread truck,” Patterson said. “And then
Casson’s painted lampposts. “I served ple like President Clinton and Hillary, he went and he sold insurance for Pru-
which is nice,” Patterson said. “We ac- dential, pretty much door to door. He
my country, and there’s nothing patri- tually saw them Saturday night.” just didn’t have confidence. Almost
sounds like ‘Portnoy’s.’”
otic about that,” Hugh—a onetime Patterson, who is seventy-five, was
resting up for a thirteen-city book tour Patterson padded into the kitchen.
captain in the 5th Royal Inniskilling for his autobiography, which he’d begun Sue had laid out a spread: handpicked
as a Covid project: “James Patterson,” by mangoes from their house in West Palm
Dragoon Guards—declared. After the James Patterson. The book consists of Beach, hummus, homemade cornbread.
scores of anecdotes,a page or two long— “It’s a tradition that started with Clin-
family left, however, the pudding glass “dirt poor” childhood, first kiss (Veron- ton,”Patterson said.When he and Clin-
ica Tabasco), advertising career (“I’m a ton co-wrote “The President Is Miss-
was scraped clean by a less critical sub- Toys R Us kid”), hobnobbing with fa- ing,” they did some press interviews at
mous folk—sprinkled with the odd sales Patterson’s house. “We had fruit and
ject, who washed it down with a cup pitch.He starts a chapter by talking about cornbread,” Patterson said. “Clinton
a forthcoming book of his wife’s: “It will stood here for an hour and a half.”
of Platinum Jubilee–Blend Tea. It had be published in the spring of 2023. Don’t
miss it.” The sin that pays the wage. “He ate, like, most of the pan,” Sue
been a long morning, and a very, very said.
Why did he become a writer? “I was
1long reign. Patterson took a plate and headed
—Rebecca Mead toward his office, upstairs. “I don’t even
know what the fuck these things are,”
LIFE STORY he said, passing some awards. “I’m just
OUT OF THE WOODS not a trophy person.Legacy means noth-
ing to me. What do I care? I’m dead.”
The writer James Patterson is not In a living room, there was a big photo
the type of rich person who refuses of an American flag. “We just like the
to talk about being rich. “Here’s the photograph,” he said. “We’re not Re-
wages of sin,” he said the other day, sit- publicans, but it’s now almost like Re-
ting on the patio of his estate in Briar- publicans own the flag. Fuck it, we like
the flag, too.”

Upstairs,he surveyed his bookshelves.
An assistant had recently cleared and
restocked them with hundreds of Pat-
terson’s own works. He keeps a more
eclectic collection at his library in Flor-
ida: Günter Grass, Cheever, Bulgakov,
Laurence Sterne. He likes to surprise
people with stories of his youth as a “lit-
erary twit.” He almost wrote a master’s
thesis on the metafictionist John
Hawkes, who once said, “The true en-

20 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022

emies of the novel were plot, character, co-create, and co-parent. Their sons, “On and on and on,” Notaro said.
setting, and theme.”“I don’t think I was Max and Finn, are five; they call Al- “Tig wrote back, ‘O.K., dyke.’ And I
ever a big snob,” Patterson said. “But, lynne Mom and Notaro Mère.Allynne’s guess that was kind of it.”
directionally? Yeah.” father, who moved in with them during On her new album, “Drawn,” No-
the pandemic, is Papa Grande. taro describes how she knew she wanted
Later, he went for a walk around the to spend her life with Allynne. After a
back yard.“This is Sue’s,”he said, of the The other day, Notaro and Allynne gig in Philadelphia, Notaro was hos-
pool. He calls it Lake Susan. She was were at their home,an ivy-covered house pitalized, with internal bleeding, and
an All-American swimmer at Wiscon- in Los Angeles, sitting on a white couch had to have stomach surgery. “We had
sin and swims laps every day. “She stays with a giant gray cat, Fluff, between so many times where I was, like, ‘This
in shape,”Patterson said.“She’s sixty-four them. (When Notaro uses Instagram, is the person,’” Notaro says. “But that
now. Just in case you thought I was rob- which is not often,it is from the account particular time . . . I’m in my little di-
bing the cradle.” @therealfluffnotaro.) They had just got aper, crinkle, crinkle, as I’m moving,
home from a Dodgers game. Max and and this is how I knew, Stephanie, I
He looked out over the river. Some- Finn were in the yard with Papa Grande, was, like, ‘Ah, she’s the one.’ She was
where upstream was Mt. Beacon, which working on their batting. laughing so hard.”
he used to stare at from the opposite This spring, Notaro’s stepfather—
bank.“In Catholic grammar school, this Allynne, who has auburn hair and Cowboy Ric, to her kids—died unex-
priest used to come in once a week for blue eyes, said that, not long after the pectedly, of C. difficile infection. Max
religious whatever—you know, ‘You waiting-room encounter, she and No-
want to go to Hell?’ He goes, ‘You see taro met for real, on an indie film. “We Stephanie Allynne and Tig Notaro
Mt. Beacon over there? Imagine if a were kind of funny, small parts in the
bird, every thousand years, he brought movie,”Allynne said.Notaro added,“And and Finn overheard their mothers talking
over here as much as he could carry in we played love interests.You should watch about burying him next to Notaro’s
his beak.’ ” He went on, “ ‘When that it knowing that we later get married,and mother,in the family plot in Mississippi.
bird has brought Mt. Beacon over to that I was deathly ill.” Notaro, it turned (Ric inspired a central character in “One
this side of the river, that would be the out, had pneumonia, a severe intestinal Mississippi,” a series that Notaro co-
beginning of an eternity in Hell.’” Pat- infection called C. difficile, and bilateral wrote with Allynne and starred in,based
terson laughed. “You never forget this breast cancer; Allynne was twenty-five on her mother’s sudden death, in 2012.)
shit! That’s real good. That is a writer.” and straight. “I’m neck-deep in grieving,”Notaro said.
“And then your child is, like, ‘Wait, we
1—Zach Helfand After Notaro was given her diagno- have to bury Cowboy Ric?’It’s, like,‘Oh,
sis, she went onstage at Largo, a club gosh. Um, yes, we have to bury him.’
L.A. POSTCARD where she does a monthly show, and ‘Why do we have to bury Cowboy Ric?’
MEET-CUTE greeted the audience with “Hello. Good ‘Because he died, and that’s what you
evening, hello. I have cancer. How are do when someone dies, you bury peo-
Ten years ago, Stephanie Allynne you?”It was an electrifying set. She later ple.’And he’s,like,‘In the ground?’‘Yeah,
went to an audition for an animated joked about the revenge that her body in the ground.’ And he’s, like, ‘Well, we
show. In the waiting room, she over- was taking on her: after so many years can just dig him up whenever we want
heard one of the other actors, a thin of listening to her talk about being flat- to, right?’ ” She paused to consider the
woman with delicate features and crop- chested,she said,her breasts had got sick ways of kids: “You’re destroyed by your
ped hair,say,“Whenever a director comes of it and decided, “Let’s kill her.” She emotions, but you’re also laughing.”
up to give me a note, I say, ‘Before you chose not to get reconstructive surgery.
give me a note, I just have to tell you, I —Dana Goodyear
have no range.But go ahead.What were Notaro and Allynne began a text
you going to say?’”Allynne thought this friendship.“I started bringing my phone
was so funny that she went over to the to the bathtub—I just didn’t want to
sign-in sheet and found the woman’s miss anything,” Notaro said. Then, on
name: Tig Notaro. Valentine’s Day, Allynne invited Notaro
to meet her at a bar. When Notaro got
Notaro,whose given name is Mathilde, there, she found that she and Allynne
is a bone-dry standup from a French were wearing the same type of chunky-
family in Mississippi. Her brother wool cardigan. They traded sweaters
dubbed her Tig.When people avoid ad- and spontaneously kissed. “I’ve never
dressing her by name, she knows why: just started kissing somebody in such a
they’re afraid that her name might be public place like that—I would never
Pig. She and Allynne got married in do that!” Notaro said. “And she’d never
2015. Now they co-write, co-direct, kissed a woman.”

The next day: confusion.“I had a lit-
tle mental crisis,” Allynne said. “I wrote
Tig the longest e-mail: ‘I really like you,
I liked kissing you, but I just want you
to know I am not gay.’”

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022 21

ANNALS OF NATURE pitched cries that resembled the squeals
of piglets. Payne found the tape mes-
CONTACT merizing and listened to it hundreds of
times. Finally, it dawned on him that
Can humans truly learn how animals perceive our shared world? what he was listening to had a structure.

BY ELIZABETH KOLBERT With the help of a machine called
a sound spectrograph, Payne converted
Learning what organisms experience could help explain what they communicate. the voices on the tape into a series of
squiggle-like notations. The exercise
One evening almost sixty years Aside from the dead one, Payne had took years, but eventually it confirmed
ago, a Tufts University researcher never actually seen a whale, nor did he what he had suspected. The hump-
named Roger Payne was working in know where whales could be observed. backs always made their wails, squeals,
his lab when he heard a radio report At the suggestion of an acquaintance, he and grunts in a particular order—A, B,
about a whale that had washed up on made his way to Bermuda.There he met C, D, E and never A, B, D, C, E, in
a beach nearby. Although it was a cold, an engineer who had worked for the Payne’s formulation.The paper in which
wet March night, he decided to drive United States Navy, monitoring Soviet he announced his discovery appeared
to the shore. When he arrived, he dis- submarines via microphones installed off in Science in the summer of 1971.
covered that the animal had been mu- the coast.While listening for enemy subs, “Humpback whales (Megaptera novae-
tilated.Two passersby had carved their the engineer had chanced upon other angliae) produce a series of beautiful
initials in its flanks. Someone had undersea sounds. He played a tape of and varied sounds for a period of 7 to
hacked off its flukes, and another per- some of them to Payne, who later re- 30 minutes and then repeat the same
son, or perhaps the same one, had stuck called, “What I heard blew my mind.” series with considerable precision,”
a cigar butt in its blowhole. Payne stood Payne wrote. Each series, he argued,
in the rain for a long time, gazing at Payne took a copy of the tape home qualified as a “song.”
the corpse.He had been studying moths; with him. The sounds—made, the en-
now he decided to switch his attention gineer had determined, by humpback While the paper was in the works,
to cetaceans. whales—ranged from mournful wails Payne arranged to have the humpbacks’
that evoked the call of a shofar to high- songs released as an LP. The album
spent several weeks on the Billboard
200 and sold more than a hundred thou-
sand copies.This was a particularly im-
pressive feat,as one commentator noted,
for a “work with no musicians, no lyr-
ics, no danceable beats and actually no
singers either. (Humpback whales do
not possess vocal cords; they make sound
by their pushing air out through their
nasal cavities.)” The humpbacks in-
spired many terrestrial performers; Judy
Collins incorporated some of their calls
into her album “Whales and Nightin-
gales”; Pete Seeger wrote “Song of the
World’s Last Whale”; and the New
York Philharmonic played “And God
Created Great Whales,” a piece com-
posed by Alan Hovhaness.

In 1977, when NASA launched Voy-
agers 1 and 2, designed to probe the far
reaches of the solar system, the songs
of the humpbacks went with them.
The agency outfitted each craft with a
“golden record” that could be played
using a stylus (also included) by any
alien who happened to intercept it.The
recording featured greetings in fifty-five
languages—“Hello from the children
of planet Earth,” the English speaker
said—as well as a sequence from one
of Payne’s whales.

At the time the Voyagers set out, no

22 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022 ILLUSTRATION BY JÉRÔME BERTHIER

one knew what, if anything, the hump- each eye has two. A scallop’s eyes are Connecting ©2020 KENDAL
backs were trying to convey.Today, the arrayed around the edge of its body, like generations.
probes are more than ten billion miles spikes on a dog collar.
from Earth, and still no one knows. But Experience a retirement community
people keep hoping. Our brains combine the informa- that’s bringing generations together
tion gathered by our two eyes into a —engaging at every age and stage.
Imagine the following scene: You are single image. With dozens (or hun-
in a room with an owl, a bat, a mouse, dreds) of eyes, scallops face a steeper 1.800.548.9469 EQUAL HOUSING
a spider, a mosquito, and a rattlesnake. challenge. But they don’t have much OPPORTUNITY
Suddenly, all the lights go off. Instead brainpower to devote to the task. (In
of pulling out your phone to call an fact, they don’t have brains.) In an ef- kao.kendal.org/intergenerational
exterminator, you take a moment to fort to figure out what the scallops were
ponder the situation. The bat, you re- doing with all their eyeballs, Daniel ADVERTISEMENT
alize, is having no trouble navigating, Speiser, a biologist at the University of
since it relies on echolocation.The owl South Carolina, developed an experi- WHAT’S THE
has such good hearing that it can find ment he called Scallop TV.He strapped BIG IDEA?
the mouse in the dark. So can the rat- the animals onto little pedestals,planted
tlesnake, which detects the heat that them in front of a computer monitor, Small space has big rewards.
the rodent is giving off. The spider is and forced them to watch images of
similarly unfazed by the blackout, be- drifting particles. Scallops are filter TO FIND OUT MORE, CONTACT
cause it senses the world through vi- feeders, meaning that they consume
brations.The mosquito follows the car- plankton they strain out of the water. JILLIAN GENET 305.520.5159
bon dioxide you’re emitting and lands Speiser found that if the computer- [email protected]
on your shin. You try to swat it away, generated particles were big enough
but because you’re so dependent on vi- and were moving slowly enough the
sion you miss it and instead end up scallops would open their shells. “It’s
stepping on the rattler. wild and creepy to see all of them open-
ing and closing at the same time,” he
Ed Yong, a science writer for The tells Yong. He thinks that their eyes
Atlantic, opens his new book, “An Im- function independently, like motion
mense World: How Animal Senses detectors. When one eye senses some-
Reveal the Hidden Realms Around thing potentially tasty, it sends a sig-
Us” (Random House), with a version nal to investigate. If Speiser is correct,
of this thought experiment. (His ver- Yong notes, then even though scallops’
sion also includes a robin, an elephant, eyes are both numerous and complex,
and a bumblebee, though not the the animals don’t possess what we would
potentially fatal encounter with the think of as vision. They see, he writes,
snake.) Yong is interested in what an- “without scenes.”
imals might communicate to us if they
could, which is to say, what they per- “An Immense World” is filled with
ceive. Humans, he points out, see the strange creatures like scallops and
world one way. Other species see it strange experiments like Scallop TV.
through very different eyes, and many Harbor seals have a fringe of vibra-
don’t see it at all. Attempting to ex- tion-sensitive whiskers jutting from
change one world view—or, to use the their snouts and eyebrows. To gauge
term Yong favors, Umwelt—for an- how sensitive the whiskers are, a team
other may be frustrating, but, he ar- of marine biologists at the University
gues, that’s what makes the effort of Rostock, in Germany, trained two
worthwhile. It reminds us that, “for all harbor seals to follow the path of a min-
our vaunted intelligence,” our Umwelt iature submarine.Then they blindfolded
is just one among millions. the animals and plugged their ears. To
study how moths elude bats, scientists
Consider the scallop. (What’s sold at Boise State University cut off some
at the supermarket fish counter is just moths’ tails and fitted out others with
the muscle that scallops use to open fake wing extensions. To ascertain
and close their shells; the entire animal whether hermit crabs experience pain,
resembles a fried egg.) Some species of a pair of researchers at Queen’s Univer-
scallop have dozens of eyes; others have sity Belfast prodded them with electric
hundreds.Inside them are mirrors,com- shocks, and to figure out the same thing
posed of tiny crystals, that focus light for squid a biologist at San Francisco
onto the retina—retinas, really, since State sliced them with scalpels. When

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022 23

“This should be enough spinach for dinner, are using their songs to communicate
but we won’t know until we sauté it.” with one another, they are doing so not
just across space but also across time. A
•• call made by a humpback near Bermuda
would take twenty minutes to reach a
I got to the story of Kathy, a bottlenose One might try to imagine, Nagel humpback swimming off the coast of
dolphin who refused to don a sound- wrote, “that one has very poor vision, Nova Scotia. If the Canadian whale an-
blocking mask that researchers wanted and perceives the surrounding world by swered immediately, it would be forty
her to wear, I silently cheered for her. a system of reflected high-frequency minutes before the Bermuda whale heard
sound signals,” or that “one has web- back. To imagine what it’s like to be a
The black ghost knifefish is, as its bing on one’s arms, which enables one whale, “you have to stretch your think-
name implies, a nocturnal hunter. to fly around at dusk and dawn catch- ing to completely different levels of di-
By firing a specialized organ in its tail, ing insects in one’s mouth.” But that mension,” Clark says.
a knifefish creates an electric field that wouldn’t help much.
surrounds it like an aura.Receptors em- Meanwhile, you don’t have to under-
bedded in its skin then enable it to de- “I want to know what it is like for a stand what it’s like for a bat to be a bat
tect anything nearby that conducts elec- bat to be a bat,” Nagel insisted. “Yet if to appreciate what might mess with a
tricity, including other organisms. One I try to imagine this, I am restricted to bat’s way of being. Yong pays a night-
researcher suggests to Yong that this the resources of my own mind, and time visit to Grand Teton National Park
mode of perception, known as active those resources are inadequate.” The with Jesse Barber, a biologist at Boise
electrolocation, is analogous to sensing question “What is it like to be a bat?,” State University. Barber is concerned
hot and cold. Another posits that it’s he concluded, is one that people will about what’s become known as “sensory
like touching something, only without never answer; it lies “beyond our abil- pollution.” Even in the Tetons, lights
making contact. No one can really say, ity to conceive.” now illuminate the darkness. Insects are
though, since humans lack both elec- drawn to the lights; bats are attracted to
tric organs and electroreceptors.“Who Yong’s response to Nagel,who makes the insects; and, the worry is, owls pick
knows what it’s like for the fish?” Mal- several appearances in his pages, runs off the bats.To test this hypothesis, Bar-
colm MacIver, a professor of biomed- along the lines of “Yes, but . . .” Yes, we ber and his students spend the night
ical engineering at Northwestern, asks. can never know what it’s like for a bat tagging bats in a campground parking
to be a bat (or for a knifefish to be a lot. The lot, Barber complains, is “lit up
The most famous iteration of this knifefish). But we can learn a lot about like a Walmart because no one thought
question comes from the essay “What echolocation and electrolocation and about the implications for wildlife.”
Is It Like to Be a Bat?,” published in the many other methods that animals
1974 by the philosopher Thomas Nagel. use to sense their surroundings. And Yong wants us to think more about
Bats are closely enough related to hu- this experience is, for us, mind-expand- these implications, which can upset en-
mans, Nagel noted, that we believe ing. Yong speaks to Christopher Clark, tire ecosystems. He offers the example
them capable of what we’d call expe- a Cornell researcher who in the nine- of Woodhouse’s scrub jays, which are
rience. But how can we get inside their teen-seventies worked with Roger Payne, native to the western United States and
furry little heads? The difficulty is not listening for whales. Whale songs lie at central Mexico. The birds are impor-
just that they can’t tell us. It’s that their the opposite end of the spectrum from tant to the survival of piñon pines be-
Umwelt is utterly foreign. bat calls; they are very low frequency cause they spread the trees’ seeds. But
and can travel vast distances. If whales they’re bothered by the noise of com-
pressors, so they avoid spots where nat-
ural gas is being extracted. Research-
ers found that, where the jays still find
quiet, piñon-pine seedlings are four
times more common than in noisy areas
the birds have abandoned.

“Through centuries of effort, peo-
ple have learned much about the sen-
sory worlds of other species,” Yong
writes. “But in a fraction of the time,
we have upended those worlds.”

In September, 2015, a British docu-
mentary f ilmmaker named Tom
Mustill was vacationing in California
with a friend when the two decided to
take a kayak trip in Monterey Bay.The
aim of the trip was to see whales up
close, but Mustill and his friend got

24 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022

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more than they had bargained for. As Mustill decided to make a documen- whales, which, instead of singing, issue
they were paddling about, a humpback tary, “The Whale Detective,” which patterns of clicks, known as codas, that
shot up out of the water just feet from ran a couple of years ago on PBS. Now have been compared to Morse code.)
their boat. (Mustill later compared the he has written “How to Speak Whale:
experience to watching the space shut- A Voyage Into the Future of Animal “Is it too much of a leap to think we
tle take off.) The whale, which weighed Communication” (Grand Central). might someday decode the sperm whale
thirty tons, came down more or less on click for ‘mother’?” Mustill writes. “For
top of them. The two kayakers were Like Yong, Mustill is interested in ‘pain’? For ‘hello’?The answer is,of course,
sucked under, along with their boat. animals’perceptions. But he wants that we cannot know until we try.”
Mustill thought that he had been torn to push beyond mere Umwelt-switch-
apart and attributed his lack of pain to ing to an exchange of what might, No less than “An Immense World,”
being in shock. But he and his friend broadly speaking, be called ideas. Early “How to Speak Whale” is dogged by
both resurfaced in one piece.They made in the book, he goes to visit Payne, the “what is it like” question. Mustill
it to shore, where the company that had who’s now eighty-seven. Why, he asks, suggests that decoding whale-speak
rented them the kayak offered them do humpbacks sing? And what do their could finally produce an answer. The
free hot chocolate. songs mean? Payne says he can’t say: problem, or perhaps the paradox, is that
“I would desperately love to know.” to decipher whales’ songs or clicks we
Mustill continued with his vaca- would need to have access to the expe-
tion, which included a camping trip Mustill isn’t deterred. He delves into riences they’re referring to. And this is
in Big Sur. When he got back in cell- the latest research on animal commu- precisely what we lack. Wittgenstein
phone range, he learned that someone nication.Many species have been shown was even blunter than Nagel. “If a lion
on a nearby boat had captured his to have highly complex systems of con- could speak, we could not understand
whole whale encounter on video, and veying information—so complex that him,” he maintains in “Philosophical
that the video, posted to YouTube, had they probably deserve to be called lan- Investigations.”
gone viral. By the time Mustill re- guages, though people tend to reserve
turned to London, it had been viewed the word “language” for themselves. Mustill never addresses this prob-
four million times. The story was Chimpanzees in the Budongo forest of lem directly. “How to Speak Whale” is
picked up around the world. “Baleia Uganda, for instance, have a repertoire borne along by his faith that whales
de 40 toneladas quase esmaga casal de of at least fifty-eight gestures, which have something intelligible to tell us
canoístas” (“Forty-ton whale they combine in sequence much the way and his hope that one day soon we’ll
nearly crushes couple of kay- we combine words. Prairie dogs in the figure out what that is. “Songs of the
akers”), the Cape Verdean newspa- American West make distinctive cries Humpback Whale,” the album that
per Expresso das Ilhas reported. “ ‘How to indicate different predators, and they Payne released in 1970, helped bring
am I not dead?’” the headline in the seem to be able to incorporate descrip- about the end of commercial whaling,
Daily Mail ran. tions into them: a big dog, for example, Mustill notes.Think how transforma-
will elicit one sort of cry; a small dog, tive it would be if we could chat with
As a result of his newfound fame, another sort. Chestnut-crowned bab- whales about their love lives or their
Mustill became, in his words, “a light- blers, sweet-looking brown-and-white sorrows or their thoughts on the phi-
ning conductor for whale fanatics.”Ev- birds native to Australia, respond dif- losophy of language. “The more we
eryone, it seemed, had a story about ferently when elements of their calls are learn about other animals and discover
whales. Many involved interspecies played in different orders, much as we evidence of their manifold capacities,
communion. A member of the British would respond differently when offered, the more we care, and this alters how
Navy told him about how whales had say, a cake pan rather than a pancake. we treat them,” Mustill writes.
sung to him in his submarine. A book
publisher told him about how a preg- Owing to advances in recording tech- This seems to be true, or at least it
nant dolphin—both dolphins and por- nologies and artificial intelligence, re- seems as if it should be true. And yet
poises belong to the group known as searchers in the burgeoning field of bio- every year the outlook for nonhuman
toothed whales—had indicated that acoustics can now download thousands species grows grimmer. In the case of
she, the publisher, was also pregnant, of hours of animal sounds and leave the marine-mammal species, the Interna-
something she herself had not known work of sifting through them to a com- tional Union for Conservation of Na-
at the time. A scientist recounted lock- puter. This has opened up tantalizing ture now classifies a third as endan-
ing eyes with a gray whale that ap- new possibilities,including that of trans- gered. A recent study by a team of
proached her in a Mexican lagoon and lating animal-communication systems European researchers concluded that
let her rub its enormous tongue. into English—or Arabic, or Xhosa. Six even many of those species which seem
years after Mustill was nearly killed by to be doing all right,such as gray whales,
Mustill himself couldn’t shake the the humpback, a group of scientists are threatened by climate change. As
experience. A whale researcher told from, among other institutions, Har- Mustill himself observes, “To be alive
him that the only reason he had sur- vard, M.I.T., and Oxford formed the and explore nature now is to read by
vived was that the humpback, upon Cetacean Translation Initiative,or CETI, the light of a library as it burns.”
noticing him and his friend, had pur- to try to decipher whale communica-
posefully turned its body so that it tions. (The team is working with sperm So what message would the world’s
wouldn’t kill them when it landed. remaining whales deliver to us if they
had the chance? How do you click
“What the #@ ϟ !”? 

26 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022

SHOUTS & MURMURS Hello, Jonas:
Beautiful, isn’t she? The grandest

commercial dirigible the world has ever
seen. And, after her second transatlan-
tic tour dazzles the doubters, there are
sure to be many more. Jules Verne’s race
is on, and we’ll win it.

All you need to do is watch the pres-
sure gauge.

Easy, right? While off icials run
around navigating, herding passengers,
and checking the water tanks, just keep
an eye on a dial. Just give us one active,
open, awake eye. Please.

Yours, Captain Gunther

THE HISTORY earestday ethelyay:
OF GROUP PROJECTS ouyay ademay uresay isthay inelay

isn’t appedtay, ightray?

estbay, uliusjay

BY DENNARD DAYLE Dear Omega D5:
Everyone screws up. When I joined
LUCI GUTIÉRREZ Dearest Adam: monstrosity the Greeks dropped off this
I hate to waste bark on an extra note, morning. You have the password, so I the Council, I recommended contact-
can’t get past the guards without you. ing a race of sentient, spacefaring lo-
but I want to make sure we’re on the custs. Believe me, it took centuries to
same fig leaf. I’m glad things are going well with clean up that mess. I still can’t sleep
Helen, but we were just at war with without an electrified mosquito net.
In Year Zero, when we divided up her ex. Let’s bring this thing home.
duties (or privileges, as the Holy Fa- But bringing back those humans? A
ther calls them),you chose serpent-slay- Best, Aeneas little more than a screwup. Introduc-
ing.In fact,you insisted on it.You prom- P.S.: Did you see Achilles fight that ing them to our lives has been nothing
ised to “make the first boots” out of river? Lunacy.Thank Apollo we’re done short of apocalyptic. An apocalypse it
anything that slithered past the gate. with that. was your specific job to prevent.

That was charming, but I need you Dear James (Idiot) Longstreet: I know that fact-checking isn’t as
to follow through. Not to point fin- You call this a terrain map? This gar- fun as First Contact. But it would have
gers, but it’s looking a little serpenty helped to know if a species was dim
around here. Lots of missing mice and bage is the closest I’ve come to ques- enough to fight two world wars. With
shed skin on the ground. To say noth- tioning the white man’s place in the that kind of planet, we should have
ing of the black clouds spelling out “I natural order. Any of your slaves could taken a wait-and-see attitude. Or va-
AM THE GREAT DEVOURING SER- have done a better job. porized them from orbit.
PENT.” That’s trouble.
This forest full of cover you drew Now we don’t have either option.
I love sharing garden duties with between us and the Yankees? It doesn’t There are humans in every space sta-
you. But it has to be just that: sharing. exist. I can only assume that you’re tion, starting new religions and cough-
Not me gardening and you chewing just trying to practice drawing trees. ing on endangered sentients.Last week,
hallucinogenic flowers. You know I’m Very pretty, James. It’s a shame any one of them landed on a Council ter-
ophidiophobic. I’d probably say or eat soldier charging that gap will be blasted ritory and declared it “New Texas.”We
anything to get rid of a snake. If you into nothing. vivisected him quickly, but there are
won’t do it for God, do it for me. certain to be more on the way.
Perhaps you don’t read the papers,
We’re a team. Don’t leave me hold- but this battle is slightly important. It I encourage you to adopt a more
ing the first bag. will determine if Yankee morale sur- fastidious attitude. Get into details.
vives the summer, along with most of When you find a new species, ask:
Love, Eve our men. Please pull your weight. Did they take fascism seriously? How
many genocides per decade do they
Hey, Paris: Unfortunately, there’s no time to commit? Are their leaders the loud-
Hope this scroll finds you well. If redo these maps. We have to show Lee est, most sociopathic members of their
something. Just remember that, tomor- hives? Did they invent nukes before
not,have the messenger flogged.I know row night, every dead patriot will be nonstick pans? The galaxy will be
that makes you feel better after a tough on your head. Woe to the fools sent to better for it.
battle. eke a victory out of this.
Sincerely, Alpha 70-1 
Just a quick reminder that we still Scornfully yours, General Pickett
have to thoroughly inspect that wooden

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022 27

ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS marize his character’s emotional state,
spoke telegraphically: “Seen Ophelia.
A HAMLET FOR OUR TIME Scared her. Has a book.”(After the so-
liloquy, Polonius comes across Hamlet
The director Robert Icke wrests modern resonances from Shakespeare’s words. and asks what he is reading.) Slight, in
jeans, sneakers, and a dark shirt, Law-
BY REBECCA MEAD ther, who is twenty-seven, has a soft
voice and a gentle manner.
How to be Hamlet? That was the have covered the distance in the time
question facing Robert Icke, the that it takes most actors to deliver his “Had a bad night of sleep,”Icke,who
theatre director, and Alex Lawther, the most quoted soliloquy. In a few weeks, is thirty-five,added.Tall and broad-shoul-
actor, when they met recently in Lon- Lawther would be performing as Ham- dered, with owlish spectacles, he sat
don to rehearse the play from which, let at the Armory, in New York City. cross-legged on the floor in a black
it has been quipped, everyone knows In the play, the Prince’s dead father re- denim jacket and black sweatpants.
at least six words. They were in a spa- appears as a ghost, but Lawther and
cious, light-filled hall at the Bishops- Icke were contending with ghosts of Lawther said, “The book thing is
gate Institute, a Victorian-era struc- their own: the accumulated legacies of mysterious to me still.”
ture near the Spitalfields Market. How performers, directors, critics, and other
could they make anew a work that was interpreters who have played Hamlet, “It’s odd, isn’t it?” Icke said. “It’s al-
already being celebrated more than four or seen “Hamlet.”In other words: How most like that’s what you used to do in
hundred years ago, when its author not to be Hamlet? the lobby for four hours together.” His
walked along the streets directly out- observations often folded in phrases
side the institute? Shakespeare lived Lawther and Icke were going over from the play (“Sometimes he walks
for a time in St. Helen’s Bishopsgate, the Prince’s most famous monologue, four hours together / here in the lobby,”
a parish so close by that he could nearly about suicide, which falls in the mid- Polonius says of Hamlet, when con-
dle of the play. Lawther, trying to sum- templating the source of the Prince’s
melancholy), but they weren’t showy
Icke pores over Shakespeare with a scholar’s attention and a dramatist’s freedom. quotations; he was reflexively fitting
Elizabethan language into a modern
context. Carrying a book around was,
Icke suggested, “almost like force of
habit—like you’re on autopilot.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Lawther said.
“And then it’s a useful shield, isn’t
it, when you see Polonius?” Icke went
on. “Because I can’t imagine you are in
a fit state to read anything.”
Lawther nodded. “So I’m looking
at the pages, at the words, not being
able to focus on them,” he said.
“Maybe you are telling the truth
when Polonius says,‘What do you read,
my lord?,’ and you say, ‘Words,’ ” Icke
said, with a laugh. (Hamlet’s response
is often delivered mockingly.)
Lawther considered Icke’s argument.
Rocking back and forth on his heels,
he ran a hand through his tousled hair.
For a moment longer, he was silent.
Then he began: “To be. Or—not . . .
to be. That is the question.”

Icke, one of Europe’s boldest theatre
directors, is known for restaging, and
sometimes rewriting, canonical works
in surprising and illuminating ways—
often by going back to the page and to
first premises, asking questions that
performance tradition or textual famil-
iarity can leave unexamined. At the
Almeida Theatre, in London, where he
was the associate director from 2013 to

28 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022 PHOTOGRAPH BY JEFF BROWN

2019, he directed his own adaptation of The production was supposed to Everything is up for grabs. Rob is re-
“The Oresteia.”His version took brac- come to the Armory in 2020, but the ally surgical, and precise, about cutting
ing liberties with the foundational te- pandemic upended this plan. Scott was through all of that plastic wrapping and
nets of Greek tragedy: there was no unavailable to perform the role in New trying to work out what is actually hap-
chorus, and characters died onstage, as York, and so Icke cast Lawther, another pening in a scene, in a way we can un-
they never did for the Greeks.The show actor best known for roles in film and derstand today.”Watching Shakespeare
received rave reviews: Susannah Clapp television. (He starred in the dark- had often left Lawther feeling frus-
wrote in the Guardian that “you can comedy series “The End of the F***ing trated, he said,“because I’ve not under-
almost see the dust flying off the old World”and anchored a particularly har- stood, and I should have understood.”
master.” (It will be performed in rep- rowing “Black Mirror” episode, “Shut He added, “Hopefully, we are pushing
ertory at the Armory with “Hamlet.”) Up and Dance.”) Lawther is nearly against that. It feels like Rob is trying
In Icke’s production of Schiller’s “Mary twenty years Scott’s junior, and though to make a play that his fifteen-year-old
Stuart,”the audience arrived at the the- much of the production remains un- self would have been excited by.”
atre not knowing which of two ac- changed—with several of the lead ac-
tresses—Juliet Stevenson or Lia Wil- tors reprising their roles—the play’s In fact, Icke first read “Hamlet”when
liams—would play the title role and gravity has been shifted by the pres- he was fifteen, in Stockton-on-Tees,
which the role of Queen Elizabeth I. ence of a more youthful Hamlet.“There in northeast England. (His speech,
An onstage coin flip decided the cast- is no way I can fall back into the ver- which is enthusiastic and often amused,
ing, a high-stakes and thrillingly the- sion of the play we had, because the retains a regional accent.) The class an-
atrical move that underlined the arbi- version of the play we had was cali- alyzed key scenes for weeks. “Hamlet”
trariness of an unstable monarchy. brated around an older Hamlet,” Icke left Icke cold. “The play never made
told me. “For example, in the second sense to me emotionally,” he told me.
Icke first staged “Hamlet” in 2017, scene, when Laertes asks if he can go
also at the Almeida, with Andrew Scott back to Paris, and Claudius says, ‘Of Not until Icke became an under-
in the lead role; the production trans- course you can,’ and off he goes, Ham- graduate, at Cambridge, did his en-
ferred to the West End later that year. let is sitting there going, ‘Great! They gagement with Shakespeare intensify.
Scott was then best known for his per- are going to let me go back to univer- He began one-on-one tutorials with
formance as Moriarty, on “Sherlock”— sity—I can’t wait, this has been hell- Anne Barton, the influential critic and
and later played the “hot priest” on ish.’ And then they say no, and he re- scholar, who by then was in her seven-
“Fleabag”—and this was his first Shake- alizes that he can’t get out. I always ties and teaching only a handful of stu-
spearean role onstage.The production, thought Andrew’s Hamlet was doing dents.“I used to go to her once a week,
in which Denmark was imagined as a his Ph.D., or maybe his second Ph.D., and write an essay, and argue about text
chilling surveillance state, incorporated and waiting around to be king—and and so on,” Icke told me. Barton was
the use of video to powerful effect— so it’s a much bigger deal for that Ham- married to John Barton, a founder of
the Ghost is initially observed on grainy let that Claudius has popped in be- the Royal Shakespeare Company. Icke
security footage—and was heralded for tween the election and his hopes. But developed relationships with both Bar-
its emotional veracity.Especially praised the theatrical logic is very different tons that endured long past his time
was the immediacy of Scott’s perfor- when Hamlet is an undergraduate, and as a student. Anne Barton died in 2013.
mance; even when speaking the char- he just wants to go back to Wittenberg At her memorial, Icke recalled, “a lot
acter’s most familiar lines, he appeared to do his finals. That feels like a com- of people said they had had the same
to be thinking and feeling them for the pletely different story.” experience—that Anne kind of took
first time. them under her wing, and took their
Hamlet’s grief also has a different brain out of their head, and made it
To prepare to direct Scott, Icke had weight when the role is played by an smarter, then gave it back.”
delved into the literature of grief, read- actor, like Lawther, who still resembles
ing C. S. Lewis’s 1961 memoir,“A Grief a teen-ager.The portrayal may be par- Among the plays he and Barton dis-
Observed,” about the death of his be- ticularly powerful for a contemporary cussed was “Hamlet.”Barton,he learned,
loved wife, and the work of Thomas audience aware of the alarmingly high was impatient with the character of
Lynch, the contemporary poet who is incidence of mental-health struggles Ophelia: in her introduction to the Pen-
also an undertaker. Whereas earlier among young people today. Icke ob- guin edition of the play,she called Ophe-
generations have viewed Hamlet as served, “The loneliness and vulnera- lia “naïve, passive and dependent.” Icke
neurotically indecisive or Oedipally bility of Hamlet, the isolation of his told me, “We talked about ‘Why isn’t
compromised, the Hamlet of Icke and feelings and his grieving, and the way Ophelia’s story moving? Why do you
Scott is undone by grief. “The grief is that seems to crack into something never care? Why do you never follow
present before the Ghost is—maybe more dangerous than sadness feels es- that story—and why is it never clear
the Ghost could even be a product of pecially sharp in the mouth of some- why she’s mad?’I always feel like Ophe-
the grief,”Icke told me.“Hamlet’s black one as young as Alex.” lia is sidelined in productions, and even
clothes, constant tears, and general dis- in the text.” Icke proposed a dramatur-
position are, he says, only the outside Lawther told me, “Working with gical solution, arguing that the play
trappings of woe—it’s what’s inside Rob, there’s a real insistence on treat- would work much better if two early
him that counts.” ing the text like it’s a new piece of work. scenes were transposed, and Polonius

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022 29

“She’s a Malaysian Longhair, but we don’t know what.” ternoon, which, in the winter, was only
a couple of hours before twilight. The
•• prologue of “Romeo and Juliet” refers
to its “two hours’ traffic of our stage,”
and his two children—Laertes and its social position that it cannot allow but Icke told me that no modern pro-
Ophelia—were introduced before Ham- her to pursue her own desires. In this duction of the play is over so quickly,
let is told by his friend Horatio of the context, it becomes piercing when, after “partly because we speak more slowly,
sighting of his father’s spirit. “I always Ophelia’s suicide, Gertrude expresses a and partly because we spend more time
felt that you were getting Part Two of belated wish that Ophelia had been her on the scenery changes and on the silly
the more important story before you son’s bride. “You’re, like—what? Ger- dances at the party.”
were getting Part One of the less im- trude was fine with it? Everyone was
portant story, and that made the less fine with it?”Icke said.“That was some- In some respects, Icke takes fewer
important story feel genuinely irrele- thing Anne Barton said that was really liberties with “Hamlet”than have some
vant,” Icke explained. “It was always, helpful to me—that all the ingredients other recent versions. A production at
like, ‘That guy’s going to see a ghost! are there for the match to proceed, and the Globe earlier this year replaced the
And, by the way, here’s some advice what happens is just about insecurity, Player King’s gnarly “Hecuba” speech
about your trip to France.’ And you and that Ophelia doesn’t believe in her- with a more accessible scene from
think, I don’t care about that—there’s self enough.There’s nothing either good “Romeo and Juliet,” and turned the
a ghost! ” or bad but thinking makes it so. So gravedigger scene into a modern-lan-
much of the play is like that.” guage standup routine. The composer
Icke’s Almeida production contains Brett Dean’s recent opera of “Hamlet,”
this structural change, so that Hamlet’s Altering the text of “Hamlet” is which opened in May at the Met, in
complex relationship with Ophelia is hardly without precedent. Most New York, dispenses with most of the
introduced—in the form of Laertes modern productions depend on judi- fretful monologues, turning the story
warning her to deflect any advances cious excisions: trimming the lengthy, into a sleek potboiler. The casting of a
from the Prince—before Horatio in- business-filled gravedigger scene, or female Hamlet—as happened at the
forms him of the appearance of the taking a knife to the entire subplot in Young Vic last year, in the person of
Ghost. “I think it makes a huge differ- which young Fortinbras, the son of the Cush Jumbo—is now conventional
ence as to how you are invited to take Norwegian ruler who was defeated by enough not to raise eyebrows. Last year
seriously the Ophelia bit of the story— the elder Hamlet, sets about recon- also introduced an octogenarian Ham-
and it gives me a hugely valued excuse quering lands that his father had lost. let: Sir Ian McKellen played the lead
to get Hamlet and Ophelia together Uncut, “Hamlet” might run to an in an age-blind production, fifty years
alone onstage for a moment,”Icke said. audience-defeating four hours. Eliza- after he last had a crack at the role.
The revision not only enriches the emo- bethan practice seems to have been to
tional dynamic between Hamlet and tear much more speedily through the Directors and scholars of “Hamlet”
Ophelia; it frames Ophelia’s tragedy- plays—at the original Globe Theatre, have long had to confront the fact that
within-a-tragedy as the story of a young performances began at two in the af- there is no authoritative version of the
woman whose family is so uncertain of play. In the early seventeenth century,
three different versions were printed:
the First Quarto (1603), the Second
Quarto (1605),and the First Folio (1623).
There are radical differences among
them. The First Quarto—sometimes
called the Bad Quarto—seems to have
been transcribed from the memory
of an actor who played the minor role
of Marcellus, one of the watchmen.
(Scholars have noted that the lines spo-
ken by Marcellus are unusually consis-
tent with later versions.) The Second
Quarto is roughly twice the length of
the First Quarto and differs from it in
about a thousand,sometimes very small,
instances. In the “Hamlet”that appears
in the First Folio—the first collected
works of Shakespeare, posthumously
printed in 1623—more than two hun-
dred lines of the Second Quarto have
been cut, and seventy lines have been
added.In one of the First Quarto’s most
notable differences, Hamlet’s most in-

30 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022

delible six words are followed by “Ay, the late seventeenth century. It omits with Hamlet eavesdropping on the
there’s the point”—a variation that, on punctuation, too, partly because no- King’s tormented mutterings. In Icke’s
the very rare occasions it is staged, can body actually knows how—or if— version, the Prince hears these words
leave audiences befuddled,as if the actor Shakespeare punctuated his manu- while brandishing a gun at the King.
playing the Prince had forgotten some scripts. Icke writes in an introduction “The deeper you go into that play, in
of the most famous lines in the canon. that his broader aim is “to strip away terms of travelling in it through time
from the play its weighty literary in- as an audience, the more you are in-
For scholars, the differences in the heritance,the heavy sense of dusty rules, vited to be suspicious about what Ham-
various “Hamlet”s offer a puzzle to un- the clutter of technical terminology, let is seeing,”Icke told me.“I don’t think
lock: what do they tell us about Shake- and to return it simply to being sheet you are invited to endorse his perspec-
speare’s revision process, Elizabethan music for actors to act.” tive. I don’t think it’s a play about a cor-
performance practices, and the fallibil- rupt world and the one truthful indi-
ity of scribes and compositors? In “1599: Among Icke’s most consequential vidual in it.”
A Year in the Life of William Shake- textual choices is the inclusion of a
speare,” James Shapiro, a professor of scene, from the First Quarto, in which A play as rich as “Hamlet” resists
English at Columbia,gives a close read- Horatio informs Gertrude that Clau- being summed up by any single theme,
ing of one such discrepancy. In Clau- dius has plotted to have Hamlet killed Icke acknowledged. But exploring the
dius’s confession scene, which appears on his voyage to England.This has the literature on grief—and how the emo-
immediately after the play-within-a- effect of deepening and complicating tion can sometimes become debilitat-
play, Hamlet happens upon the King, the character of Gertrude, whose tra- ing—helped him find a fresh way of
who is apparently at prayer, and con- jectory through the play,in Icke’s hands, looking at Hamlet’s predicament. The
siders killing him on the spot. In the involves a gradual realization of the Prince, Icke realized, is so paralyzed
Second Quarto, Hamlet says, “Now ways in which her own choices—start- with grief that he has become a by-
might I do it, but now ’a is a-praying”; ing with her insistence that Hamlet go stander to his own life. Seen in this
the First Folio version reads, “Now not to Wittenberg—have helped bring light, the Ghost’s final words to his
might I do it pat, now he is praying.” about the tragic conclusion. (In New son—“Remember me”—seemed less
Shapiro writes of this minute textual York, Jennifer Ehle will play the role.) like a plea than like an oppressive com-
divergence: “In the earlier version, a “If only Hamlet went to Wittenberg, mand. And Claudius’s first speech as
more hesitant Hamlet can’t take revenge and came back home at Christmas—I king, in which he declares that it is
because Claudius is praying. In the always think that would be the ideal “wisest sorrow”to think on his departed
revised version, a more opportunistic outcome,” Icke said. “Let him calm brother “together with remembrance
Hamlet can act precisely because he has down a bit—let him go visit his mates of ourselves,” struck Icke as emotion-
caught his adversary off guard but won’t, and do his plays. And then you can ally mature. Icke went on, “When do
because to do so would mean sending have a grownup chat with him, and you stop mourning and resume life?
a shriven Claudius to heaven.” Shapiro maybe apologize a bit about the speed- When do you stop thinking about your
argues reprovingly that modern editors, iness of the marriage.” dad and think about yourself? How can
by combining different bits and pieces a child follow all of his father’s advice,
from the three versions, have “cobbled Icke’s Claudius—played both in about thoughts and clothes and man-
together a ‘Hamlet’ that Shakespeare London and in New York by Angus ners, and at the same time ‘to thine own
neither wrote nor imagined.” Wright—is a more sympathetic char- self be true’? When does remembering
the past start to ruin the future?”
A theatre director need not observe acter than is usually portrayed. The
a scholar’s rigor.Although Icke’s “Ham- production even raises doubts about Not every critic has been enthusi-
let” hews most closely to the Second whether Claudius has in fact commit- astic about the way Icke inter-
Quarto, it incorporates variations from ted the murderous deed of which the rogates canonical works. Michael Bil-
the other versions and modernizes the Ghost accuses him. Icke frames Clau- lington, the lead drama critic for the
language at different points. When dius’s confession—“Oh, my offense is Guardian for nearly fifty years, until
Icke’s Laertes warns Ophelia to ignore rank it smells to heaven / it hath the his retirement from the role in 2019,
Hamlet’s overtures, she reminds him primal eldest curse upon’t / A brother’s called Icke’s “Hamlet”production “chic
not to behave like “a puffed and reck- murder”—as possibly just a product of yet dotty.” Among the decisions that
less libertine” who “ignores his own Hamlet’s fevered brain. The scene is puzzled him was the staging of Clau-
advice”—rather than, as the Second normally staged as a scene of prayer, dius’s confession scene. “Why, if the
Quarto and the First Folio have it,“recks king came clean, wouldn’t his nephew
not his own rede.”Icke’s textual choices shoot him?” he wrote. Billington had
and adjustments have been collated in been even more skeptical of a 2016
a new edition of the play, which was Almeida production of “Uncle Vanya,”
edited by Ilinca Radulian, an associate which Icke had set in the contem-
director on the Almeida production. porary English countryside. “Icke is
Icke’s version also dispenses with the fighting with phantoms if he assumes
traditional Act and Scene divisions, that only a radical approach can get
which were imposed by an editor in

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022 31

to the heart of the play,”he thundered. the Apocrypha in order to complicate wimpy—like she’s twelve and Victo-
Icke was unfazed. “I think those ar- the story of the Biblical traitor. rian. But she left her house in the mid-
dle of the night to get married! I’ve
guments are so silly—when people say, The downside of his newfound cre- never seen a production where the in-
‘This is not meant to be done this way.’” ative freedom, Icke said, is having to security is plausible. You always think
he told me. “With Chekhov, it’s meant make work in Dutch rather than in the jealousy makes Othello look like
to be done in Russian, with an interval English. In Amsterdam, he told me an idiot, because there’s obviously not
between every one of its four acts.” with regret, mounting a new Shake- been any infidelity. I think you want
Claims about tradition are even more speare production is off the table, at to set the pieces up so that it’s very
questionable when applied to the works least for now.Though some critics may plausible, so that by the time you hit
of Shakespeare,the original performances disapprove of Icke’s approach to Shake- the end,and Iago says,‘What you know,
of which there is very little documen- speare, it is far from iconoclastic: the you know,’you’re,like,‘What do I know,
tary evidence. depth of his attention to the plays is mate? I don’t know anything.’ ”
an indicator of the depth of his appre-
In 2018, Icke was invited to work at ciation of Shakespeare’s art. Icke said At its best, Icke’s method—poring
the Internationaal Theatre Amsterdam, of the Bard, “He’s astonishingly, hum- over the text with a scholar’s meti-
the company co-founded by the exper- blingly great. He really is as good as culousness but with a dramatist’s free-
imental Belgian director Ivo van Hove. he’s cracked up to be. He writes great dom—has the rare effect of reshaping
Icke is now an artist-in-residence there. parts for actors. The plays themselves viewers’experience of a play with which
In Amsterdam, he has directed a tense are deep and resonant and beautiful they might have believed themselves
production of “Oedipus” in which the and moving. And funny! There is a familiar. Our understanding of Shake-
titular figure is portrayed as a mod- particular relief-pleasure in coming speare’s works has been formed as much
ern-day politician anxiously awaiting back to works of art which are so pro- by performance tradition as by the words
election results in a “war room” with a foundly graceful and achieved and full. on the page. In one of our conversa-
large countdown clock.(The critic Mark It reminds you that it’s possible.” He tions, Icke drew on the example of
Fisher said that “the narrative exercises is, though, impatient with the some- the so-called balcony scene in “Romeo
a thriller-like grip,the countdown clock times calcified performance tradition and Juliet,” which—as other observers
marking time, not only until the elec- of Shakespeare, and with any approach have noted—makes no reference to a
tion results, but before the secrets of to the plays which assumes that their balcony at all. The tradition of posi-
the past explode into the present.”) In meaning is settled. “Like, where’s the tioning Juliet on one didn’t begin until
April,the Amsterdam theatre premièred hard proof that Desdemona didn’t the eighteenth century. Icke told me,
“Judas,”a new play, written and directed cheat?” he asked me during one of our “As soon as you see a balcony, you’re
by Icke, which explores textual varia- conversations. “It’s always cast really dealing with a production that proba-
tions among the four Gospels and all bly hasn’t read the play very carefully.
To be faithful that way is to be pro-
“I thought I’d drop by and see how you were enjoying your alone time.” foundly unfaithful. I want that scene
super-teen-age—set in her bedroom—
and I want him in through the win-
dow, and she locks the door, and there’s
a bed. That’s a much better scene. It’s
a much more ‘Oh, God, are we really
going to do this?’ scene. They are both
so anxious about it—are they married,
and are the vows the right vows, and
should he get out or should he come
in? And it’s only at the end of the scene
that they get around to admitting that
they love each other, because they are
being so angsty.”

The performance tradition of “Romeo
and Juliet” is so strong, Icke asserted,
that it drains the scene of any narrative
or surprise: “You’re just, like, ‘Oh, here
is the famous bit.’ ” Given that “Ham-
let” is composed almost entirely of fa-
mous bits, reëxamining what’s actually
on the page can be all the more unex-
pected. When I got home one evening
from talking with Icke, and found my
sixteen-year-old son writing a paper on

“Hamlet” for English class, I e­mailed disparages his own inaction compared we have shuffled off this mortal coil / must
Icke the essay prompt: “ ‘The usurping with the martial maneuvers of young give us pause,’” he repeated.
king is no simple villain but a complex, Fortinbras, who commands an army to
compelling figure.’ ” Icke wrote back, battle over a worthless patch of ground “It’s that ‘pause’that stops the image,”
“Great question—but tell your son from in Poland—“to my shame I see / the Icke suggested. “You go, ‘Yeah, that’s
me that there is no usurping king in imminent death of twenty thousand what I’m talking about. That’s why peo­
Hamlet. . . . Claudius seems to have men / that for a fantasy and trick of ple don’t just kill themselves.’”
been voted in fair and square (it is, after fame / go to their graves like beds.”
all, an elective monarchy).” This moment has taken on a new res­ “It feels like the videotape suddenly
onance since the twenty­ runs backwards,” Lawther said.
When weighing the question of fourth of February, 2022.
how his “Hamlet”should be,Icke “Exactly,” said Icke. “And it’s also
told me, he found a key insight in the “You try to be as hon­ clear now, in a way that it
advice that the Prince—who is himself est as you can,” Icke told wasn’t before,that you aren’t
a director and playwright, of sorts—of­ me. “I am not making it really talking about killing
fers to the Players: “Speak the speech I for an audience in the fif­ Claudius in any direct way.
pray you as I pronounced it to you, trip­ teen­nineties.Even if it was Because when you say ‘take
pingly on the tongue.” Icke told me, one hundred per cent au­ arms,’I think you are going
“British theatre has interpreted that as thentic, in terms of every to say, ‘Take arms against
a line meaning ‘Speak the speech as I stitch on every actor’s body, Claudius,’and then it doesn’t
pronounced it to you before, in an un­ and every intonation, what go that way.”
seen scene.’ And it seems to me to be you can’t change is the “‘ Take arms against
much more simple—that he is saying, landscape inside my head. I am not Claudius and, by oppos­
‘Speak it to me as I was speaking to you. thinking about Henry VIII making his ing, end him,’ ” Lawther
Just say it normally.’” Icke went on, “So own church. It is not what I bring into
much of Hamlet’s advice to the Play­ the theatre with me. It is not what I said, his voice ironic.
ers is him going, ‘Stop overacting. Just read on my phone before I switch it “But that’s kind of what you should
make it really conversational.’ He says off for the play. There’s a dishonesty, I
nothing about verse. He says nothing think, in pretending that is possible. be saying,” Icke said.
about rhyming couplets—even though Because the most authentic thing that “It is what I should be saying,”Law­
the play he is talking about is incredi­ exists is the relationship between the
bly formal in its verse,and really punches actor and the audience.” ther agreed.
its rhymes at you, in a fairly medieval “This speech feels like it’s got more
way. I had a strong sense that you could Before there is an audience, though,
find all the beauty and emotional intri­ there is just an actor and a director, to­ to do with the first soliloquy than
cacy in the dialogue while making it gether in a rehearsal room, working anything that happened to you last
feel like they talk like that all the time. out in conversation how to speak the night in Elsinore,” Icke said. “It feels
It didn’t have to be this ridiculous over­ speech. At the Bishopsgate Institute, like it picks up on ‘If only the everlast­
done exercise,like you’re talking to some after Lawther had run through the so­ ing had not fixed / His canon against
children who aren’t listening.” liloquy, Icke backed up to the lines “For self­slaughter’—and it just unpacks
in that sleep of death what dreams may that thought.” He went on, “It’s also
There are dimensions of “Hamlet” come / When we have shuffled off this weird because you don’t go, ‘Look, I
that have ceased to be perceptible to a mortal coil, / Must give us pause.”The know you are wondering whether I am
modern audience—that couldn’t be final words, Icke suggested, were a kind going to kill my uncle.’You very much
conveyed at the most drearily peda­ of self­command:“ ‘Must give us pause’— take the lead in what we are all going
gogical speed—but would have been you’re using it to stop the thought, and to think about. You don’t seem at all
rivetingly present to Shakespeare’s go, ‘O.K. Think about that.’” Icke went embarrassed by going, ‘O.K., guys—
contemporaries. Hamlet’s speculation on, “But it could also be it connects to I’ve been thinking about suicide.’ You
about whether the Ghost is truly his what goes just before it—‘What dreams don’t project any shame.”
father’s spirit returned from the dead, may come?’ It sounds almost threat­
or whether it is an emanation of the ening—like the dreams are going to “That’s right,” Lawther said. “Not
Devil, sent to tempt him into evil, come and stop you in your tracks. The yet.”
would have made a very different problem is that death­sleep I’ve been
impression in a world in which the talking about—what dreams are going “It’s so weird, this play,” Icke said.
Church had, only a few decades ear­ to show up after we have fallen off the He reminded Lawther that this speech
lier, written the medieval concept of end of the universe?” takes place just one day after Hamlet
purgatory out of its theology. “Differ­ has seen his father’s ghost. But the
ent parts of the play light up at differ­ Lawther’s expression was serious,con­ Prince is lost in his own plot. “None
ent times,” Icke said. “And others go centrated, vulnerable. His face seemed of what’s coming next—Polonius, and
dark.” In Hamlet’s final soliloquy, he haunted by Hamlet’s knotty intellection then ‘Oh, my God, Guildenstern! Hi,
as he turned his own ideas over in his Rosencrantz!,’ and then the Players—
mind.“ ‘What dreams may come / when none of that takes any real account of
the fact that you’re supposed to be kill­
ing Claudius.”

Lawther laughed softly.
So did Icke, who added,“It’s almost
like you’re having the day you would
have had anyway.” 

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022 33

A REPORTER AT LARGE

KING JOSH

The surreal case of the disgruntled C.I.A. hacker accused of exposing the agency’s digital arsenal.

BY PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE

N estled west of Washington, to plug a thumb drive into the machine.” they came up with nicknames for one
D.C., amid the bland northern In this manner, human spies, armed another. One unit member, who got
Virginia suburbs, are generic- with the secret digital payloads designed braces as an adult, became known as
looking office parks that hide secret gov- by the Operations Support Branch,have Train Tracks. When another brought
ernment installations in plain sight.Em- been able to compromise smartphones, food into the office one day, but didn’t
ployees in civilian dress get out of their laptops, tablets, and even TVs: when share it with some members of the team,
cars, clutching their Starbucks, and dis- Samsung developed a set that responded his colleagues bestowed a new handle:
appear into the buildings. To the casual to voice commands, the wizards at the Dick Move.The group’s ultimate man-
observer,they resemble anonymous cor- O.S.B. exploited a software vulnerabil- ager was a more senior C.I.A. official,
porate drones.In fact,they hold Top Se- ity that turned it into a listening device. named Karen, who acknowledged that
cret clearances and work in defense and the members could get “boisterous,”
intelligence. One of these buildings, at The members of the O.S.B. “built adding, “Folks could get a little loud, a
an address that is itself a secret, houses quick-reaction tools,”Anthony Leonis, little bit back and forth.” Some O.S.B.
the cyberintelligence division of the Cen- the chief of another cyberintelligence guys brought Nerf guns to work—not
tral Intelligence Agency. The facility is unit of the C.I.A., said. “That branch mere pistols but big, colorful machine
surrounded by a high fence and moni- was really good at taking ideas and pro- guns—and they would occasionally
tored by guards armed with mili- totypes and turning them into tools shoot darts at one another from their
tary-grade weapons. When employees that could be used in the mission, very desks. Sometimes people got carried
enter the building, they must badge in quickly.” According to the man who away, and work was paused for some
and pass through a full-body turnstile. supervised the O.S.B., Sean, the unit sustained bombardment. But Silicon
Inside, on the ninth floor, through an- could be “a high-stress environment,” Valley was known for tricking out of-
other door that requires badge access, is because it was supporting life-or-death fices with foosball tables and climbing
a C.I.A. office with an ostentatiously operations.(With a few exceptions, this walls, and it’s likely that the C.I.A.
bland name: the Operations Support piece refers to agency employees by wanted to foster a loose culture on the
Branch. It is the agency’s secret hacker pseudonyms or by their first names.) hacking team, to help engineers remain
unit, in which a cadre of élite engineers innovative and, when necessary, blow
create cyberweapons. But, while these jobs were cutting off steam.
edge and—at least vicariously—dan-
“O.S.B. was focussed on what we re- gerous, the O.S.B. was, in other re- One of the Nerf gunfighters was
ferred to as ‘physical-access operations,’” spects, just like any office. There was a Joshua Schulte—his real name. A
a senior developer from the unit, Jer- bullpen of cubicle workstations. A skinny Texan in his twenties, he had
emy Weber—a pseudonym—explained. dozen or so people clocked in every a goatee and a shaved head. In what
This is not dragnet mass surveillance day. “We were kind of known as the may have been a preëmptive gambit,
of the kind more often associated with social branch,” another O.S.B. em- Schulte gave himself the nickname
the National Security Agency. These ployee, Frank Stedman, recalled. The Bad Ass, going so far as to make a fake
are hacks, or “exploits,”designed for in- experience of O.S.B. engineers bore nameplate and stick it on his cubicle.
dividual targets. Sometimes a foreign some resemblance to the Apple TV+ But others in the office called him
terrorist or a finance minister is too so- drama “Severance,”in that each morn- Voldemort—a reference to the hair-
phisticated to be hacked remotely, and ing they entered a milieu with its own less villain in the Harry Potter books.
so the agency is obliged to seek “phys- customs and camaraderie—one sealed Schulte and his colleagues worked
ical access”to that person’s devices.Such off from the rest of their lives. Because on sophisticated malware with such
operations are incredibly dangerous: a of national-security concerns, they code names as AngerQuake and Bru-
C.I.A. officer or an asset recruited to couldn’t take work home, or talk with tal Kangaroo. The hackers christened
work secretly for the agency—a courier anyone on the outside about what they their exploits with names that reflected
for the terrorist; the finance minister’s did all day.Their office was a classified personal enthusiasms. Several pro-
personal chef—must surreptitiously im- sanctum, a locked vault. Like the crew grams were named for brands of whis-
plant the malware by hand. “It could of a submarine, they forged strong key: there was Wild Turkey, and Ard-
be somebody who was willing to type bonds—and strong antagonisms. beg, and Laphroaig. One was called
on a keyboard for us,” Weber said. “It McNugget. Though there was some-
often was somebody who was willing There was banter, plenty of it, much thing dissonantly adolescent about
of it jocular, some of it juvenile. The
coders were mostly young men, and

34 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022

At the C.I.A., Joshua Schulte became so known for his temper that his colleagues gave him a nickname: the Nuclear Option.

ILLUSTRATION BY EIKO OJALA THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022 35

naming highly classified digital hack- trusted member of the inner circle had anyone “can say they’re an F.B.I. agent.”
ing tools in such a fashion, it seemed engaged in betrayal. In the estimation The Bureau was pursuing what it
harmless enough: if the tools worked of another senior C.I.A. official, Sean
as planned, none of the code would Roche, the leak amounted to “a digital calls an “unsub”—or “unknown sub-
ever be detected. And, if the target of Pearl Harbor.” ject”—investigation.“A crime had been
an operation did discover that some committed; we didn’t yet know who had
nasty bit of malware had infiltrated But who could have stolen the data? committed it,” one of the lead investi-
her device, a silly name would offer no In a statement, WikiLeaks suggested gators, Richard Evanchec, later testi-
clue that it had been created by the that the person who shared the intel- fied. Fairly quickly, the agents ruled out
United States government. Deniabil- ligence wished “to initiate a public de- a foreign power as the culprit, deciding
ity was central to what the O.S.B. did. bate” about the use of cyberweapons. that the unsub must be a C.I.A. insider.
But WikiLeaks had also shown, quite They zeroed in on the classified com-
On March 7, 2017, puter network from which the data had
the Web site WikiLeaks recently, a willingness to be been stolen—and on the agency em-
launched a series of disclo- a mouthpiece for foreign ployees who had access to that network.
sures that were catastrophic intelligence services: in Among those who did were the O.S.B.
for the C.I.A. As much as 2016, the site had released hackers on the ninth floor of the agen-
thirty-four terabytes of e-mails from the Demo- cy’s secret cyber installation in Virginia.
data—more than two bil- cratic National Committee
lion pages’ worth—had which had been stolen by This was a befuddling prospect: the
been stolen from the agency. hackers working on behalf O.S.B. engineers devoted their profes-
The trove, billed as Vault 7, of the Kremlin. Vault 7, sional lives to concocting clandestine
represented the single larg- some observers speculated, digital weapons. Making public the
est leak of classified infor- might also be the work of source code would render their inven-
mation in the agency’s history. Along a hostile government.James tions useless. Why destroy your own
with a subsequent installment known Lewis, of the Center for Strategic and work? As the F.B.I. interviewed mem-
as Vault 8, it exposed the C.I.A.’s hack- International Studies, told the Times, bers of the team, a suspect came into
ing methods, including the tools that “A foreign power is much more likely focus: Joshua Schulte. Voldemort. He
had been developed in secret by the the source of these documents than a had left the agency in November, 2016,
O.S.B., complete with some of the conscience-stricken C.I.A. whistle- and was said to have been disgruntled.
source code.“This extraordinary collec- blower.” Perhaps Russia was again the He now lived in Manhattan, where he
tion . . . gives its possessor the entire culprit. Or might it be Iran? worked as a software engineer at
hacking capacity of the C.I.A.,” Wiki- Given that the software exposed in Bloomberg. As Schulte was leaving the
Leaks announced. The leak dumped Vault 7 had been maintained on a pro- office one evening, Evanchec and an-
out the C.I.A.’s toolbox: the cus- prietary C.I.A. computer network that other F.B.I. agent intercepted him.
tom-made techniques that it had used was not connected to the Internet, the When they explained that they were
to compromise Wi-Fi networks,Skype, spectre of espionage raised another investigating the leak, he agreed to talk.
antivirus software. It exposed Brutal alarming possibility. Might a foreign They went to a nearby restaurant,Persh-
Kangaroo and AngerQuake. It even ex- adversary have obtained “physical ac- ing Square,opposite Grand Central Ter-
posed McNugget. cess”—smuggling a tainted thumb drive minal. Schulte may not have realized it,
into the C.I.A.? Had the agency’s own but the other patrons seated around
In the days after this colossal breach modus operandi been used against it? them were actually plainclothes F.B.I.
became public, the C.I.A. declined to As the intelligence community mo- agents, who were there to monitor the
comment on the “authenticity or con- bilized to identify the source of the situation—and to intervene if he made
tent of purported intelligence docu- leak, the federal government found it- any sudden moves. Schulte was amia-
ments.” Internally, however, there was self in an awkward position—because ble and chatty. But, when Evanchec
a grim realization that the agency’s se- Donald Trump, shortly before being looked down, he noticed that Schulte’s
crets had been laid bare. “I was sick to elected President, had celebrated the hands were shaking.
my stomach,”Karen, the O.S.B. super- hacking of Democratic officials, declar-
visor, later recalled. “That information ing, “I love WikiLeaks.” Nevertheless, Schulte was born in 1988 and grew
getting out into a forum like that can this new breach was perceived as such up in Lubbock, Texas. He was the
hurt people and impact our mission. an egregious affront to U.S. national oldest of four boys; his father, Roger, is
It’s a huge loss to the organization.” security that the Administration was a financial adviser; his mother, Deanna,
Malicious code that had originated at determined to get to the bottom of it. is a high-school guidance counsellor.
the C.I.A. could now be attributed to The F.B.I. began an investigation, and Schulte was a bright child, and in ele-
the agency. And the potential fallout agents worked around the clock. But mentary school he was fascinated when
extended beyond the digital realm: a an atmosphere of paranoia enshrouded one of his teachers took apart a com-
foreign target who had been hacked the inquiry. One F.B.I. agent described puter in front of the class. By the time
might now be able to identify the mal- how a C.I.A. officer who was ap- he was in high school, his parents told
ware,determine when it had been placed proached for an interview reacted with me, he was building computers him-
on a device, and even deduce which reflexive suspicion, pointing out that self.“Some people are born with certain

36 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022

talents,” Deanna said. While Schulte employees had access to the network to the government at a markup. He
was studying engineering at the Uni- that held the source code for the group’s threatened to file a complaint with the
versity of Texas at Austin, he did an many projects. Being a system admin- C.I.A.’s inspector general, claiming
internship at I.B.M., and another at istrator was regarded, Weber said, as “a “fraud, waste, and abuse.” Frank Sted-
the N.S.A. On a blog that he main- privileged position.”Schulte made good man, who worked on Almost Meat, felt
tained in college, he espoused libertar- friends at work; he became particularly that the episode illustrated Schulte’s
ian views. He was a devotee of Ayn close with another member of the tendency to react with a “disproportion-
Rand, and came to believe that, as O.S.B. team, named Michael. They ate response.” The man known as Bad
he put it, “there is nothing evil about played video games together after hours, Ass and Voldemort accrued another of-
rational selfishness.” He also had a or went to the gym. fice nickname: the Nuclear Option.
certain intellectual arrogance. “Most
Americans, most people in general, are But Schulte could also be abrasive. Schulte had been on the job for about
idiots,” he wrote in 2008. “Josh was very opinionated on the way three years when a new programmer
things should be done,”Weber observed. named Amol joined the O.S.B. He sat
“I don’t want a ‘Big Brother’ con- “So he had some rough edges.” In par- near Schulte, and they were partnered
stantly looking over my shoulder,” ticular, if Schulte felt wronged in some on a project code-named Drifting Dead-
Schulte once wrote, and his libertari- way, he had a pronounced tendency to line. According to Weber, Amol and
anism might have seemed difficult to overreact. One day at work, he shot a Schulte “didn’t get along, and from the
square with a career in intelligence.Kavi rubber band at Michael, and Michael get-go.” Initially, people ribbed Amol
Patel, who knew Schulte in junior high returned fire.“This went back and forth because he behaved in a professional
and became close friends with him in until late at night,” Michael recalled. manner that was at odds with the pre-
high school, recalled, “He was always “He trashed my desk,I trashed his desk.” vailing frat-house vibe. Schulte liked to
a huge Ron Paul guy,” adding that The conflict escalated until both men shoot Amol with his Nerf gun.As Amol
Schulte was drawn to “the people who were throwing punches. grew more accustomed to the O.S.B.’s
say the government is infringing on our raucous culture,he started fighting back.
rights.” Nevertheless, according to Schulte could get “a little off the He would collect Schulte’s Nerf darts
Schulte’s parents,his dream was to work hinge,”Sean remembered.At one point, and stash them behind his desk. He
for the government. “He never talked agency officials decided to assign a con- began trolling others in the office, ma-
about the private sector at all,”Deanna tractor a project, Almost Meat, that was ligning their skills as coders and devis-
told me, explaining that he was moti- based in part on Schulte’s code. “Josh ing his own cruel nicknames. He re-
vated by patriotism. “I think he was was offended,”Weber recalled. He pro- ferred to Schulte as Bald Asshole.Amol
very proud to serve his country.” In a tested that his hard work would be was heavy, and Schulte reciprocated by
blog post, Schulte argued that “privacy handed to a third party, then sold back
and individual security are antitheti-
cal,”and that “increasing one ultimately “We just have a few more tragedies to report
decreases the other.” By the time he before we can get to the fun stuff.”
finished college, in 2011, he had been
hired by the C.I.A. Many people re-
garded the N.S.A. as the premier gov-
ernment employer for coders and hack-
ers, but the C.I.A.’s hacking unit may
have offered more palpable proximity
to exciting operations on foreign soil.
Schulte wanted to fight terrorists.

Like drone pilots who destroy vil-
lages in Afghanistan from an air-con-
ditioned trailer in Nevada, the engi-
neers of the O.S.B. experienced an
uncanny incongruity between the safety
of their surroundings and the knowl-
edge that their work supported high-
stakes covert operations abroad. “We
were very mission-focussed,” Jeremy
Weber recalled.“But, you know, we had
fun at work, too.” Schulte proved to be
a capable programmer, and in 2015 he
was granted a special distinction when
he was made a system administrator
for the C.I.A.’s developer network, or
DevLAN. Now he could control which

SIX POEMS

MY DOUBLE MY DARLING CLEMENTINE

Eyebrows raised in surprise, You lifted our low-down mood
He got into the habit This dark autumn evening,
Of talking to himself Playing that sweet old song
And answering his own questions With a comb and toilet paper.
In a loud and angry voice.

A TREE OF DIGNIFIED APPEARANCE MY MOTHER HOPED

Fed up with its noisy leaves To take her sewing machine
And its chirping little birds, Down into her grave,
Plus that young woodpecker And I believe she did that,
Drilling himself a new home. ’Cause every now and then
It keeps me awake at night.

WHERE DO MY GALLOWS STAND? FOR RENT

Outside the window A large clean room
I looked out of as a child With plenty of sunlight
In an occupied city And one cockroach
Quiet as a graveyard. To tell your troubles to.

—Charles Simic

making fun of his weight. Their bick- you were dead, and that’s not a threat, ber their obligations to their country.
ering intensified. it’s a fucking promise.”Schulte charac- Amol,she thought,seemed embarrassed
terized this as a credible death threat to have been hauled before the school
In October, 2015, Amol complained that had left him fearing for his life. principal. Stith decided that the cod-
to Sean, the hacking-unit supervisor.“I He suggested that Amol was “upset ers should be physically separated.“Our
have had enough of Schulte and his and unstable,” and possibly bipolar. nation depended on us,” she pointed
childish behavior,”he wrote.“Last night, out later.“I needed them to be focussed.”
he shot me in the face with his nerf Schulte felt that his superiors weren’t
gun and it could have easily hit me in taking his accusations seriously. He nei- Schulte was furious to learn that he
the eye.” Schulte also wrote to Sean, ther liked nor respected Karen, his ul- had to switch desks. He said that he
saying that Amol was “very derogatory timate boss, referring to her as a “dumb would relocate only if his managers is-
and abusive to everyone.”According to bitch.” One C.I.A. security official re- sued the directive in writing. So they
Schulte, Amol had told him, “I wish sponded to the dispute by saying that did.Even then,he refused to fully move.
you were dead,”“I want to piss on your he couldn’t play “high school counselor,” He didn’t like the new location. It had
grave,” and “I wish you’d die in a fiery which only exacerbated Schulte’s anger. no window. It was an “intern desk,” he
car crash.”Such rhetoric, Schulte noted, Schulte escalated the matter by com- scoffed; Amol, meanwhile, had been
“does little to foster collaboration.” plaining to the director of the cyberin- “ ‘promoted’ to a better desk,” leaving
telligence division, Bonnie Stith—an Schulte “exposed to questions and rid-
Weber subsequently confirmed that agency veteran who oversaw several icule about why I was demoted.”
Amol had indeed said some of these thousand employees. One might sup-
things. But he pointed out that Amol pose that she had more pressing mat- Up to this point, though Schulte
had done so only after protracted ar- ters to contend with, but she offered to could be vexing and obstreper-
guments with Schulte, and that the at- sit down with Schulte and Amol and ous, he was working within the broad
tritional verbal combat Schulte seemed try to broker peace. Initially, Schulte bureaucratic parameters of the agency.
to favor could “exhaust” a person. In refused, saying that he was afraid to be Others might have found his vendetta
March, 2016, the discord between the in the same room with Amol. But she against Amol irrational, but he had
two hackers reached a new level, when insisted, and at the meeting she urged confined it to traditional channels,
Schulte lodged a formal complaint with both men to consider the “honor” of pushing his appeal up the chain of
security officials at the C.I.A., report- being C.I.A. employees, and to remem- command. Now he embarked on a
ing that Amol had told him, “I wish

38 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022

more decisive escalation, concluding, exaggerated,” and read like “a fictional sentment for Weber. At the Loudoun
as he later explained, that “since the narrative.” As an intelligence profes- County court hearing on the restrain-
Agency wouldn’t help me, perhaps the sional trained in the art of threat as- ing order, Weber had shown up—as a
state would.”Citing fears for his safety, sessment, he considered it “insulting” show of solidarity with Amol. Schulte
Schulte filed for a restraining order that Schulte thought any of them might regarded Weber as a bureaucratic toady,
against Amol in Virginia state court. fall for such a ruse. Karen’s “loyal pawn.” Weber,he felt,“had
played politics to overthrow me from
This was a startling departure from Next, Schulte appealed to several of my own project.”
normal conduct for the C.I.A.The agency the most senior officials at the C.I.A.,
has an estimated twenty thousand em- including Meroë Park, the executive And so Schulte, without asking for
ployees, and, because of the sensitivity director. “I know you don’t deal with authorization, reassigned himself access
of its work, it enjoys remarkable auton- personnel issues and likely won’t spend to his old project. When his managers
omy within the federal government, much time on this, but management’s learned of this, they were so alarmed
sometimes appearing to operate as a abuse of power and consistent retal- that they stripped Schulte of his ad-
self-governing fief.The notion of allow- iation against me has forced me to ministrator privileges. Weber later said
ing an internal squabble to spill into the resign,” he wrote, on June 28, 2016. of Schulte’s transgression, “The agency
unclassified realm was anathema.“It was Schulte hung on a little longer, but by exists in a world of trust.We are granted
so unusual to have agency employees in November he was gone. At Bloomberg, access to classified information, and we
a local court,” Stith later said. he would make more than two hun- are trusted to only use that information
dred thousand dollars a year—a sig- for the expressed reasons we’re given
Amol was obliged to appear at an nificant increase from his government access to it.” If you can’t “trust the per-
open hearing at a Loudoun County salary. Though he was legally bound son that you’re working with,”he pointed
courthouse. Inside the agency, a secu- to protect the confidentiality of his out, you’re in trouble. (Schulte has dis-
rity organ known as the Threat Man- C.I.A. work, he could tell people he puted Weber’s account of these events.)
agement Unit was activated, and a de- had been at the agency, and he discov-
cision was made to separate the warring ered that in the private sector this con- Official secrecy is a slippery phe-
O.S.B.programmers even further,mov- ferred a certain cachet. Reflecting on nomenon. Organizations such as
ing Schulte to a different branch alto- Schulte’s good fortune, Stedman noted WikiLeaks espouse an absolutist com-
gether, on the eighth floor. Schulte fired that sometimes “good things happen mitment to transparency,but,in a world
off an intemperate e-mail: “I just want to bad people.” where genuinely bad actors exist and
to confirm this punishment of removal the interests of nation-states don’t al-
from my current branch is for report- Before Schulte’s departure, there had ways align, most Americans would ac-
ing to security an incident in which my been one final fracas. Schulte was, in his knowledge the need for some degree
life was threatened.” Of course, it was own telling, trying “to make the best of of secrecy, as a prerogative of statecraft
also possible to read this relocation as my situation and move forward,” but and national defense. Nevertheless, the
a logical bureaucratic response to the after relocating to the eighth floor he U.S. system of classification has grown
restraining order that Schulte had ob- attempted to work on Brutal Kanga- wildly out of control. In 1989, Erwin
tained, which compelled Amol to avoid roo—only to find that his access had Griswold, who had argued the Penta-
any contact with him—even crossing been denied. “Imagine my shock,” he gon Papers case on behalf of the gov-
paths in the hallway. ernment—and was therefore hardly a
later recalled, noting that Brutal Kan- friend to leakers—published an op-ed
Leonard Small, an official from the garoo had been his project; he felt a huge in the Washington Post in which he
agency’s Office of Security,later said that proprietary investment in the program. maintained that there were too many
“Josh’s escalating behavior” kept “going Schulte consulted the audit logs on the state secrets. Classification had evolved
on and on.”In an e-mail to Small,Schulte system, and determined that Weber had into a bureaucratic reflex, he pointed
threatened to go public, saying that a stripped him of his access. Weber later out, and “the principal concern of the
lawyer he had spoken to had suggested, explained that his reasoning had been classifiers is not with national security,
“An article titled ‘c.i.a. punishes em- simple: in Schulte’s new branch, he “was but rather with governmental embar-
ployee for reporting office going to be working on new projects,” rassment.”More recently,the 9/11 Com-
death threats’ would be an article and therefore wouldn’t need access to mission concluded that overclassifica-
that the media would be very interested the old ones. But Schulte saw it as ret- tion, far from keeping the country safer,
in.” Schulte hadn’t yet “proceeded with ribution. He had developed a special re- actually jeopardizes national security,
this option,” he said, because he was by inhibiting the sharing of informa-
“hoping there is an alternative.” tion among government agencies.

Others in the O.S.B. expressed frus- Before Daniel Ellsberg leaked
tration with Schulte’s refusal to drop the Pentagon Papers, in 1971, he had
the matter. At one point, Stedman ob- photocopied seven thousand pages by
served,“The boy needs to learn how to hand. (He enlisted his teen-age son to
take his medicine.” Nobody believed help.) Digital technology has allowed
that Amol had posed a genuine threat such leakers as Edward Snowden and
to Schulte’s life. Stedman later declared
that “the whole writeup is bullshit and

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022 39

Chelsea Manning to purloin much country out of a sense of professional had been certified to hold Top Secret
vaster reams of data with significantly grievance: after an agency officer named documents—even though anyone could
greater ease. “I would come in with Edward Lee Howard was fired, in 1983, go to the Internet to see the materials
music on a CD-RW labelled with some- because he had lied about drug use and that were on it.
thing like ‘Lady Gaga,’ erase the music other minor transgressions during a
then write a compressed split file,”Man- polygraph exam, he began feeding the Soon after the F.B.I. began its in-
ning once boasted, recalling how she K.G.B. sensitive intelligence; when the vestigation,agents placed Schulte under
lip-synched to Gaga’s “Telephone”while agency discovered the breach, Howard surveillance, and they learned that he
“exfiltrating possibly the largest data fled to Russia, where he lived until his was about to leave for Mexico. Edward
spillage in American history.” death, in 2002. After Ellsberg made the Snowden had fled to Hong Kong and
moral decision to leak the Pentagon then to Russia, where he remains, be-
Snowden and Manning were not Papers, it took him weeks of compli- yond the reach of U.S.authorities.Faced
seeking to blow the whistle on any one cated work to make good on that ob- with the possibility that Schulte might
particular policy, in the manner that jective. But with digital technology the abscond in similar fashion, investiga-
Ellsberg was; theirs was a more gener- window between impulse and consum- tors made their move,with Agent Evan-
alized disaffection,and the troves of data mation shrinks considerably, and, as ev- chec stopping him as he left work at
that they exposed were indiscriminate, eryone who worked with Josh Schulte Bloomberg and taking him to Pershing
comprising not just instances in which knew all too well, when he was mad he Square. It had emerged that when
U.S. authorities had engaged in appall- had poor impulse control. Schulte left the C.I.A. he had not re-
ing, illegal conduct but also instances in turned his special black government
which they had behaved appropriately. Even as F.B.I. investigators pin- passport, which assured the holder of-
One could debate whether the term pointed Schulte as the prime suspect, ficial status when travelling abroad.
“whistle-blower”is adequate to describe their work was frustrated by the pag- Schulte eventually acknowledged that
someone who leaks gigabytes of data. eantry of overclassification.WikiLeaks he still had the passport, but main-
But it’s clear that these wholesale dig- had posted the Vault 7 tools on the tained that the trip to Mexico was sim-
ital disclosures are themselves an unin- Web, where anyone could see them, but ply a spring-break excursion with his
tended consequence of overclassifica- officially the C.I.A.and the F.B.I.main- brother. (Roger Schulte told me that
tion. The number of Americans who tained that the documents remained the brothers had purchased round-trip
possess a security clearance has swelled classified. As a result, only investiga- tickets for a short visit to Cancún.)
to more than five million, because clas- tors who held the necessary security
sification has swathed in secrecy so many clearances were permitted even to ac- The investigators had a warrant to
functions of defense and intelligence cess WikiLeaks to see what had been search Schulte’s apartment, so they all
work. Given the expanding universe of stolen. F.B.I. officials were so nervous went together to his building,on Thirty-
classified documents,the widening pool about visiting the Web site using Bu- ninth Street. It was full of computer
of professionals with access to them, reau computers or Internet connections equipment. When F.B.I. agents ob-
and the increasing ease with which data (thereby possibly exposing their own tained a warrant for Schulte’s search
can be downloaded and filched, further networks to a cyber intrusion) that they history from Google, they discovered
jumbo leaks appear inevitable. dispatched an agent to purchase a new that, starting in August, 2016—when
laptop and visit the Web site from the he was preparing to leave the C.I.A.—
Unlike other prominent digital leak- he had conducted thirty-nine searches
ers, Schulte did not seem like an ideo- safety of a Starbucks. Once the Vault 7 related to WikiLeaks.In the hours after
logical whistle-blower. Ayn Rand fan- materials had been downloaded from WikiLeaks posted Vault 7, he searched
boys are not exactly famous for their the Internet, the laptop itself became for “F.B.I.,” and read articles with such
doctrinal consistency,and Schulte’s con- officially classified, and had to be stored titles as “F.B.I. Joins C.I.A. in Hunt for
cerns about “Big Brother” don’t appear in a secure location. But the evidence Leaker.”For a guy who was a supposed
to have occasioned much soul-search- locker normally used by agents, which expert in information warfare, Schulte
ing in the years he spent building sur- held drugs and other seized evidence, seemed shockingly sloppy when it came
veillance weapons for a spy agency. On wouldn’t do, because it was classified to his own operational security. Even
an anonymous Twitter account that only up to the Secret level. Instead, the so, the F.B.I. hadn’t found a smoking
Schulte maintained, he reportedly ex- investigators stored the laptop in a su- gun. It had amassed circumstantial ev-
pressed the view (in a since-deleted pervisor’s office, in a special safe that idence tying Schulte to the Vault 7 leak,
tweet) that Chelsea Manning should but it hadn’t found any record of him
be executed. Weber recalled Schulte transmitting data to WikiLeaks—or,
saying that Snowden deserved the same. indeed, any proof that the secret files
Could it be that Schulte had leaked the had ever been in his possession.
C.I.A.’s digital arsenal not because of
any principled opposition to the poli- Schulte was not under arrest, so he
cies of the U.S. government but because got a room at a hotel while the search
he was pissed off at his colleagues? There of his apartment continued. The F.B.I.
are prior examples of C.I.A. employ- seized his computer hardware,for foren-
ees who have been driven to betray their sic analysis. When computer scientists
at the Bureau examined Schulte’s desk-

40 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022

top,they discovered a “virtual machine”— “Oh, yeah? Would a ‘never spontaneous’ person order
an entire operating system nested within two pairs of final-sale chinos online?”
the computer’s standard operating sys-
tem. The virtual machine was locked ••
with strong encryption, meaning that,
unless they could break the code or get inappropriate behavior. One woman message loaded with a virus, destroy-
the key from Schulte—both of which told me that he had repeatedly exposed ing her computer. He boasted about
seemed unlikely—they couldn’t access it. his penis to students when they were the hack afterward, the woman said.
But they also had Schulte’s cell phone, both in the junior-high band.“He would
and when they checked it they discov- try and touch people, or get people to Schulte’s friend Kavi Patel acknowl-
ered another startling lapse in opera- touch him—that was a daily occur- edged that Schulte would “draw swas-
tional security: he had stored a bunch of rence,” she said. She loved music, but tikas all over the place.”He wasn’t anti-
passwords on his phone. she was so intent on getting away from Semitic,Patel contended; he just relished
Schulte that she asked her parents to getting a rise out of people. He recalled
One of the passwords let the inves- let her quit the band. She was too un- Schulte telling him, “I don’t really care
tigators bypass the encryption on the comfortable to explain to her parents one way or the other, but it’s fun to see
virtual machine. Inside, they found a exactly what had transpired. “It’s hard the shock on people’s faces.” Patel was
home directory—also encrypted.They to put it into words,”she recalled.“You’re also in the junior-high band. When I
consulted Schulte’s phone again, and, twelve. It’s just ‘Hey, this kid is super asked him if he remembered Schulte
sure enough, another stored password gross, and it makes me want to not be exposing himself, he said that he never
unlocked the directory.Next,they found part of this school right now.’”Her par- witnessed it,but had heard about it hap-
an encrypted digital lockbox—a third ents, not grasping the gravity of what pening “two or three times.” Accord-
line of defense. But, using encryption had happened, insisted that she remain ing to Patel, Schulte seemed to confirm
software and the same password that in the band. “I was traumatized,” she it to him on one occasion: “I was, like,
had unlocked the virtual machine, they told me. I also spoke to a friend of the ‘Dude, did you do this?’ And he was,
managed to access the contents. Inside woman, who remembered her recount- like, ‘Heh, heh.’” Patel added, “It’s not
was a series of folders. When the in- ing this behavior by Schulte at the time. something that’s out of his character.
vestigators opened them, they found an A third woman told me that Schulte At all.” (Presented with these allega-
enormous trove of child pornography. and some of his friends got in trouble tions, several attorneys who have rep-
at school after trying to stick their hands resented Schulte had no comment.
When the news broke that Schulte into her pants while she slept on the Deanna recalled learning that Joshua
was a suspect in the Vault 7 leak, bus during a field trip. Schulte, she said, had drawn a swastika in his notes for a
Chrissy Covington, a d.j. and a radio took revenge by sending her an AOL lesson on the Second World War, but
personality in Lubbock who had at- she and Roger said that they were not
tended junior high school with him,
took to Facebook to express her sur-
prise.“The gravity of his crimes? OMG.
Y’all,” she wrote, in a group chat with
several classmates who had also known
Schulte. Covington and Schulte had
been friendly; as teen-agers, they chat-
ted on AOL Instant Messenger. She
was surprised to learn not only that he
might be the leaker but also that the
C.I.A. had given him a job in the first
place.“How could you hire Josh Schulte?”
she said when I spoke to her recently.
“007 he’s not.”Schulte had always struck
Covington as an “oddball,” but mostly
harmless. On Facebook, however, she
started to hear from classmates who
shared unpleasant memories of Schulte
crossing boundaries and making oth-
ers uncomfortable.Several former class-
mates recalled to me that Schulte was
infamous for drawing swastikas in
school, and that, on at least one occa-
sion, he did so on the yearbook of a
Jewish student.

Other classmates recalled sexually

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022 41

“I’ll be back at the end of the year with a 1099.” porn archive on his server. He had ti-
tled it /home/josh/http/porn. Sturm,
•• taken aback,warned Schulte to “rename
these things for god’s sake.”
aware of other incidents involving swas- tances could store whatever they wanted.
tikas or the junior-high band.They dis- Unbeknownst to him, he contended, When F.B.I. investigators searched
pute the classmate’s recollection of the people had used the server to hide con- Schulte’s phone, they found something
incident on the school bus.) traband. He “had so many people ac- especially alarming: a photograph that
cessing it he didn’t care what people put looked as though it had been taken in-
When Schulte was in college, he ar- on it,” Roger Schulte told the Times. side the house in Sterling, Virginia,
gued on his blog that pornography is a where he had lived while working for
form of free expression which “is not But,according to the F.B.I.,as agents the C.I.A. The photograph was of a
degrading to women”and “does not in- gathered more evidence they unearthed woman who looked like she was passed
cite violence.” He went on, “Porn stars chat logs in which Schulte conversed out on the bathroom floor. Her under-
obviously enjoy what they do, and they about child pornography with fellow-en- wear appeared to have been removed
make quite a bit of money off it.” Of thusiasts. “Where does one get kiddie and the hand of an unseen person was
course, some women are coerced into porn anyways?”Schulte asked, in a 2009 touching her genitals. State investiga-
pornography, and if you mistake the exchange.This was another instance in tors in Loudoun County subsequently
simulated enjoyment in a porn perfor- which Schulte seemed recklessly disin- identified the woman and interviewed
mance for the real thing then you don’t clined to cover his tracks. His Google her. She has not been publicly named,
understand much about the industry. search history revealed numerous que- but she told them that she had been
But more to the point: child pornogra- ries about images of underage sex. In Schulte’s roommate and had passed out
phy is not free expression; it’s a crime. the chat logs, people seeking or discuss- one night,with no memory of what had
After Schulte realized that the illicit ar- ing child pornography tended to use happened. The encounter in the pho-
chive had been discovered, he claimed pseudonyms. One person Schulte in- tograph was not consensual,she assured
that the collection—more than ten thou- teracted with went by “hbp.” Another them. According to subsequent legal
sand images and videos—didn’t belong went by “Sturm.” Josh’s username was filings,the investigators concluded,after
to him. In college, he had maintained “Josh.” At one point, he volunteered to consulting the victim, that the hand in
a server on which friends and acquain- grant his new friends access to the child- the photograph belonged to Schulte.

On August 24, 2017, at 5:30 a.m., a
dozen armed federal agents hammered
on the door of his apartment in Man-
hattan, startling him awake. Once in-
side, they bellowed, “Turn around and
put your hands behind your back!” Ac-
cording to an account written by Schulte,
he was led “like a prized dog” into the
federal courthouse in lower Manhat-
tan, where he was cuffed and shackled,
then turned over to the U.S. Marshals.
At this point, the F.B.I. and federal
prosecutors had been investigating
Schulte’s possible role in the Vault 7
leak for five months,but they still hadn’t
indicted him.Instead,they now charged
him with “receipt,possession,and trans-
portation”of child pornography.Schulte
pleaded not guilty.When he heard that
the government was pushing to keep
him detained pending trial, his stom-
ach dropped. “The crime I am charged
with is in fact a non-violent, victimless
crime,” he objected, displaying an ob-
durate heedlessness when it comes to
how child pornography is made. (In a
recent court filing, Schulte asserted that
he has been “falsely accused” of acquir-
ing child pornography.)

A judge ultimately ruled that Schulte
could be released on bail, on the ground

42 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022

that he posed no immediate threat to he vowed to go down swinging and titled them “Presumption of Innocence.”
society. But his release came with strin- “bring this ‘justice’ system crumbling Perhaps WikiLeaks simply stumbled
gent conditions. He would be under to its knees.” on the Facebook page where these es-
house arrest, unable to leave his apart- says appeared—or perhaps it was in
ment except for court dates. And he First, he would need a phone. At the touch with Schulte. If indeed Schulte
could not access the Internet. Schulte prison, he could make calls on pay managed to contact WikiLeaks from
bridled at this, observing, “Today, ev- phones—but they were monitored and prison, he was adopting a curious strat-
erything is done online so it’s incredi- did not offer Internet access. Luckily, egy: it would be pathologically self-sab-
bly difficult.” Never one to meekly ad- black-market smartphones were easy otaging to counter allegations that he
here to a directive that he found to come by: Luna had a sideline in had shared a set of documents with
objectionable, Schulte chose to ignore smuggling them into the facility. Ac- WikiLeaks by sharing another set of
the condition. In December, the gov- cording to a former inmate who did documents with WikiLeaks.
ernment presented evidence that he had time at the M.C.C. alongside Schulte,
defied court orders by going online, and the going rate there for a contraband In one of these jailhouse medita-
on several occasions had even logged smartphone was several thousand dol- tions, Schulte wrote that, in prison, it
on to the Internet using Tor—a system lars. Schulte figured out a way to hot- is prudent not to discuss your case with
that enables users to access Web sites wire a light switch in his cell so that it anyone, because “people are vultures
anonymously. Meanwhile, authorities worked as a cell-phone charger. (The and will do anything to help their own
in Virginia charged him with sexual as- person who knew Schulte during this situation”—including barter your in-
sault, citing as evidence the photograph period praised his innovation, saying, formation for a better deal. “Any sce-
discovered on his phone. Schulte was “After that, all M.C.C. phones were nario that encourages disloyalty, dis-
taken into custody once again and locked charged that way.”) Schulte and Amanat, sention, and ‘snitching’ is a powerful
up at the Metropolitan Correctional who had also obtained a phone, would psychological tool,” he warned. But
Center,in Manhattan.He was still there meet in the cell of a guy named Chino, Schulte may not have appreciated quite
in the summer of 2018, when the gov- and Luna would serve as lookout while how true this was, because at a certain
ernment filed a superseding indictment the others used their clandestine de- point his trusty lookout, Carlos Luna,
with ten new counts and charged him vices.On an encrypted Samsung phone, informed prison authorities that Schulte
with leaking Vault 7. Schulte created an anonymous Face- had a cell phone.
book page called John Galt’s Legal De-
“I finally meet my new celly,”Schulte fense Fund and posted some of his When this news reached the F.B.I.,
wrote, in a prison diary. “He’s in prison writings. He set up a Twitter ac- officials panicked: if Schulte could sur-
for bankruptcy. He’s a nice guy who is count, @FreeJasonBourne, and, in a reptitiously make calls and access the
on medication for a mental illness.” drafts folder, he saved a tweet that said, Internet, there was a danger that he
Schulte hated confinement (“If you try “The @Department of Justice arrested was continuing to leak. “There was a
to shower without purchasing shower the wrong man for Vault 7. I person- great deal of urgency to find the phone,”
shoes then you will almost certainly ally know exactly what happened, as do one Bureau official later acknowledged.
contract MRSA or some other skin- many others. Why are they covering it One day in October, 2018, no fewer
eating staph bacteria”), but he appears up?”Schulte also contacted Shane Har- than fifty agents descended on the Met-
to have found ways to keep his tem- ris, a journalist at the Washington Post. ropolitan Correctional Center, accom-
per under control, having observed that In messages to Harris, Schulte pre- panied by a cell-phone-sniffing dog.
it was necessary to exercise basic di- tended to be other people—a cousin, After they recovered the device, inves-
plomacy, given that some members of or one of his three brothers—and prom- tigators found that it was encrypted—
his new cohort were convicted mur- ised to share explosive information. In but also that Schulte, true to form, had
derers. He was fascinated by the inno- this sock-puppet guise, he sent Harris written the password down in one of
vative ways that inmates gamed prison what the government alleges was clas- his notebooks. He was placed in soli-
regulations, noticing that many peo- sified information about his case. tary confinement.
ple “claim to be Muslim or Jewish” be-
cause doing so entitled them to sup- Astonishingly,it appears that Schulte The criminal trial of Joshua Schulte,
posedly better food.And he made some may have even made contact with Wiki- which commenced on February 4,
friends on the floor where he was Leaks during this period. In a Twitter 2020, at the federal courthouse in Man-
housed, including Omar Amanat, a post on June 19, 2018, WikiLeaks re- hattan, was unlike any other in U.S. his-
Wharton-educated financier who was leased seven installments of Schulte’s tory. A decision had been made to post-
facing charges related to conspiracy to prison writings, billing them as an ac- pone the child-pornography indictment
commit securities fraud, and Carlos count in which the “Alleged CIA and the Virginia sexual-assault charge;
Luna, a seasoned drug traff icker. #Vault7 whistleblower” would finally both cases could be pursued at a later
Schulte ref lected, “I’ve lost my job, speak out in “his own words.” Schulte date. For now, the government focussed
health insurance, friends, my reputa- seems to have envisaged these essays, on Vault 7, issuing ten charges, ranging
tion, and an entire year of my life— which combined diaristic accounts of from lying to the F.B.I. to illegal trans-
and this is only the beginning.” But prison life with a broader critique of mission of classified information. It had
the criminal-justice system, as a sort of taken federal prosecutors three years to
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” He assemble the evidence that they would

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022 43

present in court, in part because of the ficials available; much of this account have to take this as a given—I don’t
official secrecy involved and in part be- is drawn from their trial testimony.) dwell on Mr. Schulte’s shortcomings,”
cause they intended to summon more Agency witnesses further avoided scru- she said, when I asked her about his
than a dozen C.I.A. officers to testify, tiny by using a special elevator; during volatility. “He’s my client.” We met at
under oath,about Schulte’s tenure at the their testimony, the courtroom was a coffee shop near Gramercy Park.
O.S.B. This was a delicate and highly closed to the public.These precautions Shroff is diminutive and intense, and
unusual strategy.To speak in public about seemed somewhat excessive. After all, quick to chuckle at the Kafkaesque pre-
what happens on the job is to violate the witnesses were not covert opera- dicaments of this case. But she was also
one of the signature prohibitions of an tives with assumed names, or highly severely constrained in what she could
agency career. It was an indication of placed U.S. assets in treacherous cir- say to me. “We don’t have the ability to
how seriously C.I.A.officials took Schul- cumstances abroad. They were, by and cross-examine the classification author-
te’s alleged offenses that they were pre- large, just like Josh Schulte: E-ZPass ity,” she pointed out; when the govern-
pared to forgo this traditional reticence warriors who lived in the D.C. suburbs ment designates something Secret, she
for the purposes of a trial. and commuted to an office park. It was cannot appeal the decision. Before the
a stretch to suggest that the very fact trial began, Shroff already possessed a
As the proceedings got under way, of their employment at the C.I.A. Top Secret security clearance—she had
the theatre of secrecy was conspicuous: amounted to a grand state secret. needed one to defend other clients fac-
most of the C.I.A. witnesses would ap- ing national-security charges—but in
pear using pseudonyms, or would be One member of Schulte’s defense order to represent Schulte she had to
identified only by their first names.(The team was Sabrina Shroff, a feisty and be “read in” to even higher levels of fe-
agency declined to comment for this tenacious federal public defender who tishistically compartmentalized secrecy.
story, or to make any of the relevant of- grew up in Islamabad. “You’re going to All the classified material she would
need to consult could be accessed only
in a room on the ninth floor of the court-
house—a Sensitive Compartmented
Information Facility, or scif, designed
to house classified information.The de-
fense team felt hamstrung in its efforts
to represent its client. Normally, de-
fense attorneys receive the names of
prosecution witnesses in advance, and
can research their backgrounds while
preparing for cross-examination.When
Shroff and her fellow-attorneys got the
names, however, they were prohibited
from performing any Google searches
that might in any way link these indi-
viduals to the C.I.A. Because some wit-
nesses had common names, and Shroff
and her team could not add the letters
“C.I.A.” to their search terms, it was
occasionally impossible to gather any
information.“These are shadows to us,”
one of Shroff’s partners, Edward Zas,
protested to the judge in the case, Paul
Crotty. “We are completely blind.”

Every day of the trial, a small posse
of blond women in professional garb
arrived and sat together,observing.They
kept to themselves and didn’t speak to
anyone else, but it was generally under-
stood that they were lawyers or officials
from the C.I.A.Their facial expressions
uniformly unrevealing, they came and
went in lockstep, like Stepford Wives,
but they radiated muted power.

The parade of witnesses from the
C.I.A. offered a rare glimpse of the of-
fice dynamics in a Top Secret unit.It was

sobering. The descriptions of Schulte’s professional biography that emerged at by the C.I.A. after the Vault 7 expo-
workplace called to mind not the steely trial was so damning that a decision to sure concluded that security procedures
competence of “The Bourne Identity” leak terabytes of classified data seemed had indeed been “woefully lax,” and
but, rather, the tiresome high jinks and almost like a logical dénouement: the that the agency’s hackers “prioritized
petty scheming of “Office Space.” This final explosion of a man whose nick- building cyber weapons at the expense
was the paradox of the proceedings: there name was literally the Nuclear Option. of securing their own systems.”)
was no way for the C.I.A. to exact ret- Schulte’s incriminating Google searches
ribution against Schulte without, in the further deepened his appearance of Nevertheless, the prosecutors pre-
process, revealing a great deal of unflat- guilt. And, on the sixth day of the trial, sented striking circumstantial evidence
tering information about itself. Jurors prosecutors laid out what they regarded indicating that Schulte had probably
would be told the story of an élite na- as a coup de grâce—the transmitted the material to WikiLeaks.
tional-security division that had become digital equivalent of fin-
consumed by juvenile name-calling and gerprints at a crime scene. On April 24th, he down-
recrimination; senior C.I.A. officials Even after Schulte was loaded Tails, an operating
would have to submit to cross-examination stripped of his administra- system that WikiLeaks rec-
about the frequency and the severity of tive privileges, he had se- ommends for submitting
Nerf-gun fights, or about the lax secu- cretly retained the ability data to the organization;
rity that had made the breach possible. to access the O.S.B. net- on April 30th, he stayed up
Schulte’s former colleagues portrayed work through a back door, all night, frequently check-
him as thin-skinned and volcanically by using a special key that ing his computer, and at
malicious, and this proved to be the core he had set up. The pass- 3:21 a.m. he consulted a
of the government’s case.“He’s not some word was KingJosh3000. Web page that offered
kind of whistle-blower,”one of the pros- The government contended that on guidance on how to make
ecutors,David Denton,told the jury.“He April 20, 2016, Schulte had used his sure that a terabyte of data
did it out of spite. He did it because he key to enter the system. The files were has been “transferred correctly.” That
was angry and disgruntled at work.” backed up every day, and while he was evening, he also searched for tips on
logged on Schulte accessed one par- how to wipe a device of its contents.
But Shroff ’s defense strategy rested ticular backup—not from that day but What the government could not prove
on a sly pivot: she readily conceded that from six weeks earlier, on March 3rd. was any direct communication between
Schulte was an asshole. “He antago- The O.S.B. files released by WikiLeaks Schulte and WikiLeaks.
nized his colleagues,”she said.“He an- were identical to the backup from Hovering over the proceedings was
tagonized management. He really was March 3, 2016. As Denton told the ju- a dark question: how much harm had
a difficult employee.”Nevertheless, she rors, it was the “exact backup, the exact been caused by the leak? When Shroff
added,“being a difficult employee does secrets, put out by WikiLeaks.” cross-examined Sean Roche, the C.I.A.
not make you a criminal.” official who described Vault 7 as a “dig-
But all this was quite a complex fact ital Pearl Harbor,” she asked, “How
Shroff further suggested that the pattern to present to a jury, involving many people died in Pearl Harbor?”
story of Vault 7 was a parable not about virtual machines and administrative “More than three thousand,”Roche
the rash decision of one traitor but about privileges and backups and logs; much replied.
the systemic ineptitude of the C.I.A. of the expert testimony presented by How many people died as a result
The agency didn’t even realize that it the prosecutors was bewilderingly tech- of Vault 7? she asked.
had been robbed, she pointed out, until nical. Shroff, meanwhile, insisted that “I don’t have an answer to that,”
WikiLeaks began posting the disclo- Schulte hadn’t stolen the data. Perhaps Roche said.
sures. “For God’s sakes,” Shroff said in someone else in the office—or at the “In fact, none, correct?” Shroff said.
court. “They went a whole year with- agency—had done it. The real outrage Roche was probably being hyper-
out knowing that their super-secure sys- was that a crucial C.I.A. computer net- bolic. But this may have been an in-
tem had been hacked.”Then the agency work, DevLAN, had been unprotected. stance in which the secrecy surround-
embarked on a witch hunt, she contin- Hundreds of people had access to ing the case put the government at a
ued, and quickly settled on an “easy tar- DevLAN, including not just C.I.A. em- disadvantage. After China uncovered a
get”: Schulte.Within this narrative, the ployees but contractors. The C.I.A.’s network of U.S. intelligence assets
string of prosecution witnesses recount- hackers appear to have disregarded even operating inside its borders in 2010,
ing horror stories about Schulte’s work- the kinds of elementary information-se- authorities in Beijing systematically
place behavior almost seemed to play curity protocols that any civilian worker rounded up a dozen people who had
in Shroff’s favor.Her client was a scape- bee can recite from mandatory corpo- secretly been working for the C.I.A.
goat,she insisted—the guy nobody liked. rate training. Coders exchanged pass- and murdered them, crippling Ameri-
words with one another, and sometimes can espionage efforts in the country for
The government had amassed a shared sensitive details on Post-it notes. years to come. That deadly purge did
powerful case indicating that They used passwords that were laugh- not become public knowledge until it
Schulte was the leaker. It was abun- ably weak, including 123ABCdef. (A was reported in the press, in 2017. Given
dantly clear that he had motivations classified damage assessment conducted that the O.S.B. hacks often required
for taking revenge on the C.I.A. The human assistance to install, it seems

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022 45

possible that foreign powers penetrated the use of torture, and extrajudicial kill- tunate to have a lawyer like Shroff, but
by such exploits could have leveraged ing have done little to enhance the he doesn’t necessarily share this view;
the leak to identify American assets and prestige or the moral standing of Amer- after the government announced that
seek retribution in a manner similar to ica’s defense and intelligence establish- it would retry him, he dismissed her
what occurred in China. If any coun- ment. And many people consider and opted to represent himself. Shroff
tries did—or if they do so in the fu- Snowden and Manning, along with Ju- has stayed on, however, as standby
ture—that is information that the C.I.A. lian Assange, the founder of Wiki- counsel. “I’ve been with Mr. Schulte
would be unlikely to publicize. Leaks,to be heroes.Of course,in Schul- for five years,” she said. “We went
te’s case there did not appear to be any through a pandemic together, we went
One morning in March, 2020, the moral imperative driving the leak. If through a trial together—most mar-
jurors in the Schulte case entered he did it, he wasn’t blowing the whis- riages don’t survive this kind of trauma.”
the courtroom to discover a giant bot- tle but seeking payback. And he con- Shroff told me that she and Schulte
tle of Purell on a table. The attorneys tinued to deny that he did it. Edward spend hours on end in the scif, where
had been so consumed by the case that Lee Howard, the disgruntled C.I.A. he is formulating his new defense,
they had hardly noticed the pandemic officer who handed secrets to the So- along with another lawyer, Deborah
barrelling toward them. Meanwhile, viets, went to his death denying that Colson, and a paralegal. For security
one of the jurors ended up being re- he had done so.The person who served reasons, they can’t take garbage out of
moved from the case, because, much time with Schulte in the M.C.C. said, the room, so trash accumulates among
like Schulte himself, she couldn’t stay “What Josh told me is that he thinks the boxes of highly classified docu-
off the Internet. (The normal prohibi- Amol set him up.” ments. The lawyers used to bring
tion on jurors reading press coverage Schulte snacks (gummy bears, Dr Pep-
was particularly acute in this instance, The mistrial was a devastating turn per) before the Marshals banned food
because, if the jury knew that Schulte for the government, but Schulte’s fa- in the scif. “He’s such a persnickety
had also been charged with sexual as- ther,who came from Texas with Deanna eater,” Shroff said, with affectionate
sault and possession of child pornog- to attend the proceedings and staunchly exasperation. “If I go to Chipotle, it
raphy, it could prejudice the verdict.) believed in his innocence, was disap- has to be white rice and only black
The juror seemed only too happy to be pointed.Roger Schulte,who didn’t know beans.” In prison, Schulte has grown
cut loose, telling the Post, “Sitting in what a hung jury was, asked Shroff, an impressive beard.
that chair for five weeks was like pun- “You mean he wasn’t acquitted?” The
ishment for my ass.” After Shroff de- child-pornography and sexual-assault To nobody’s surprise, Schulte has
livered an emphatic closing argument cases have still not been resolved.When tangled with his prison guards, and in
in the case, she visited the bathroom, I asked Roger and Deanna about those repeated filings to the new judge in
where she crossed paths with one of charges, they said that, though they be- his case, Jesse M. Furman, he has sin-
the Stepford Wives. Up to this point, lieve in Josh’s innocence, they haven’t gled out individual guards and sug-
none of these C.I.A. women had ut- spoken to him about the particulars of gested that they should be facing crim-
tered a word to her. “Nice job,” the either case, or examined the available inal charges. Schulte has filed more
woman said, crisply, and walked out. evidence themselves, so they were not than sixty official challenges to the
in a position to offer any preview of his conditions of his confinement. In pro-
As the jurors began deliberations, lix memos, many of them handwrit-
they sent out a series of notes with ques- defense.But the U.S.government,rather ten, he has condemned the Justice De-
tions that seemed to indicate some gen- than push forward with these other partment, the C.I.A., the F.B.I., and
uine confusion about the technical as- cases—which might have resulted in the Bureau of Prisons. He refers to
pects of the government’s case. On an easier conviction—instead an- his cell as a “torture cage,” and main-
March 9th, they convicted Schulte of nounced that it would put Schulte on tains that his living conditions are
two lesser charges—contempt of court trial again for Vault 7. “below that of impoverished persons
and lying to the F.B.I.—but hung on living in third world countries.” One
the eight more serious counts, includ- Schulte currently resides at the Met- of his complaints is that the guards
ing those accusing him of transmitting ropolitan Detention Center, in do not give him adequate bathroom
national-security secrets to WikiLeaks. Brooklyn, where he has been prepar- breaks during the hours he spends
Judge Crotty declared a mistrial. ing for his new trial. Most observers preparing his case in the prison law
of the case agree that Schulte is for- library.And so,lately,Schulte has taken
The prosecution had clearly blundered to urinating in the law library. He has
by getting so mired in technical minu- also converted to Islam. When I men-
tiae, and Shroff had ably defended her tioned this to Kavi Patel, he burst out
client. But it was also tempting to won- laughing. “He’s manipulative,” Patel
der whether in the years since Wiki- said. “I don’t know how else to say it.”
Leaks was established, in 2006, public One might question whether this con-
attitudes toward both the intelligence version is simply a ploy to get better
community and the act of leaking itself food. But many people discover faith
might have shifted. Endless revelations behind bars, and Schulte recently ob-
concerning warrantless wiretapping,

46 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022

served a month of daytime fasting “Can you try to get my plants on the fire escape?”
during Ramadan.
••
The new trial is scheduled to begin
on June 13th. The government seems
unlikely to present quite as much evi-
dence of Schulte’s antisocial behavior
this time. It may abbreviate the tech-
nical evidence, too. The proceedings,
however, will remain blanketed in se-
crecy: Matthew Russell Lee, an inde-
pendent journalist who covered the first
trial, recently filed an objection to the
government’s motion to seal the court-
room during testimony from C.I.A. of-
ficers, but it appears that that condi-
tion will again apply.Schulte,meanwhile,
has sought to call no fewer than for-
ty-eight current or former C.I.A. em-
ployees as witnesses. One of the peo-
ple he has tried to summon is Amol.
At a recent hearing, Schulte suggested
that, if the evidence he requests is too
sensitive to transport to the scif, per-
haps “they should take me to the C.I.A.”
Judge Furman responded flatly, “You
are not going to the C.I.A.”

We live in an era that has been myself wondering whether Schulte was yond which the C.I.A. will not ven-
profoundly warped by the head- more idiot or savant. ture. Deanna Schulte told me that one
strong impulses of men who are tech- reason her son had elected to serve as
nically sophisticated but emotionally When you consider the powerful his own counsel is that he wants to
immature. From the whoopie-cushion forces arrayed against him—and the “put it all out there.”
antics of Elon Musk to the Panglos- balance of probabilities that he is
sian implacability of Mark Zuckerberg, guilty—Schulte’s decision to represent In a June 2nd court filing, Schulte
a particular personality profile domi- himself seems reckless. But, for the suggested, with a menacing flourish,
nates these times: the boy emperor. C.I.A. and the Justice Department, he that if the government goes to trial with
While reporting this article, I often remains a formidable adversary, be- the child-pornography charges he plans
wondered how the C.I.A. could have cause he is bent on destroying them, to make it maximally painful for the
missed the obvious combustibility of he has little to lose, and his head is full C.I.A. His defense, he promised, will
this profile when it hired Schulte and of classified information. “Lawyers are incorporate extensive testimony about
gave him a security clearance. In order bound,”Shroff told me.“There are cer- agency “operations and assets,”and will
to get an agency job, Schulte had been tain things we can’t argue, certain ar- potentially require courtroom appear-
subjected to a battery of tests—but, guments we can’t make. But if you’re ances from “9 covert officers, 17 overt
when his lawyers tried to obtain the pro se”—representing yourself—“you officers, and at least 1 asset.”
psychological profile that the agency can make all the motions you want.
had produced on him, the C.I.A. would You can really try your case.” In a contest between the dictates
not turn it over. Perhaps, as the agency of official secrecy and the imperatives
took up digital spying and sought The government does not bring a of justice, odds are that secrecy will
to bolster its hacking capability, it lawsuit every time it identifies some- win. Schulte knows this, and that may
deëmphasized qualities like emotional body who has inappropriately leaked be his greatest advantage. He has said
stability and sang-froid, and turned a classified information. On the con- of the Vault 7 case, “I expect a not
blind eye to the sorts of erratic or anti- trary, a decision is often made to set- guilty verdict on all counts, and any-
social tendencies that are widely ac- tle the matter quietly, rather than risk thing less will be an utter failure.”
cepted in Silicon Valley (and even em- further exposure of secrets in a public Shroff told me of her client, “He’s
braced as the price of genius). The trial. Schulte might well attempt to hopeful now.” Roger Schulte said the
agency may have been blinkered about force the disclosure of so many secrets same thing, assuring me that Josh has
Schulte’s destructive potential because that the authorities will feel compelled learned a lot about the legal process,
it had concluded that this was simply to drop the charges against him or to and that he isn’t giving up. “He seems
how coders behave. I sometimes found offer an attractive plea deal.There may to be holding pretty strong,” Roger
be some threshold of disclosure be- said. “He’s a fighter.” 

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022 47

LETTER FROM SANTIAGO

NEW MAN

Can Chile’s young President reimagine the Latin American left?

BY JON LEE ANDERSON

F ebruary in Santiago, the capital the world’s largest producer of copper Gabriel Boric, who is thirty-six, campaigned
of Chile, is like August in Paris: and its second-largest of lithium; Chi-
the end of summer, when every- na’s supply of batteries and cell phones
one who can afford a vacation escapes depends on the trade.
for a last gasp of freedom. Many santia-
guinos go to the nearby Pacific beaches, Boric had also heard that Vladimir
or to the chilly lakes in the south. After Putin was considering a visit to Argen-
two months of frenetic activity that fol- tina, and wondered if he’d want to add
lowed the election of December 19th, Chile to his itinerary. He grimaced as
Gabriel Boric, the country’s President- he thought about it. Some on Chile’s
elect, was also planning to take a break. hard left see Russia as an ally against
American “hegemony,”but Boric didn’t
At a back-yard barbecue,a few weeks want Putin in his country.
before his inauguration,Boric explained
that he and his partner were heading Boric is thirty-six—a year older than
to the Juan Fernández archipelago, the minimum age for a Chilean Presi-
four hundred miles off the coast. Their dent—with a stocky build, a round,
destination was the island where the bearded face, and a mop of brown hair.
Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk was He described these developments with
marooned in the eighteenth century, an air of thrilled complicity; they were
helping inspire Daniel Defoe’s “Robin- among the most important moments of
son Crusoe.” Boric planned to swim his life so far. He was not yet officially
and fish, and also to read through a pile President, but he had been given a car
of books: the Defoe classic, biographies and bodyguards, and was briefed daily
of Chilean Presidents,a history of East- by the outgoing administration. He had
ern Europe by Timothy Snyder. He felt declared that his government would be
that he had some catching up to do on feminist, and that his cabinet, in a first
geopolitics, since he was already being for Latin America, would be predomi-
courted by superpowers. nately female; fourteen out of twenty-
four ministers would be women,includ-
After Boric’s victory, President Joe ing the secretaries of defense and the
Biden had called to offer congratulations, interior.Two ministers were openly gay.
and to invite him to a summit of hemi- Many of Boric’s officials were young
spheric leaders in Los Angeles. Chile, leftists, like himself.
with its four thousand miles of coastline,
is a tactical outpost in Latin America—a His partner, Irina Karamanos, also
region where Biden has been trying, in- represented a break with the past. A
termittently,to increase his outreach.The thirty-two-year-old of Greek and Ger-
trip would be complicated for Boric; he man descent, she speaks five languages,
had won office at the head of a left-wing has degrees in anthropology and edu-
coalition that included Chile’s Commu- cation, and is regarded as a leader in
nist Party, which tends to regard the feminist politics. She had already man-
United States as an imperialist aggres- aged to pique some Chileans by declar-
sor. But, he told me, the summit wasn’t ing that she would “reformulate”the role
for several months, and “Biden said I of First Lady, because she was “neither
didn’t have to decide right away.” first nor a lady.”

The Chinese Embassy had hand- Boric’s opponent in the election was
delivered a letter from Xi Jinping, in José Antonio Kast, an ultraconservative
which he courteously reminded Boric Catholic with nine children. An admirer
that the People’s Republic of China was of Brazil’s far-right Jair Bolsonaro, Kast
Chile’s biggest trading partner. Chile is had promised a pro-business, law-and-
order government that would keep out

48 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 13, 2022