Lars Attacks!
“Ayee-eeee…” Lars von Trier says, physically wincing, as it begins. (His ramblings are prompted by a question partly inquiring about the interest he had expressed to a Danish film magazine about the Nazi aesthetic and their achievements in the field of design.) “Yeah, okay. I remember that…” He asks me to stop it for a moment, then continues. “Terrible…” He sees the distressed look on Dunst’s face, helpless to stop the flow of disastrous words from the mouth of someone inches away from her. “I kind of didn’t look at her,” he remembers. “But I had a feeling that she was kind of reacting. But then I thought ‘Ah, these Americans, they’re always so scared of everything, you know…’ ” Just watching Dunst’s face, as it shifts between amusement, concern, bafflement, horror, compassion, and pain, without ever losing its dignity, tells you as much about what is happening as Trier’s words do.
After Suicides, a Family’s Journey Toward Grace
He grew up the middle of three brothers. By his 25th birthday, he was the only one left. Brett, the youngest, killed himself in December 2005, two months before he turned 20. His depression could appear with a stunning swiftness. On that final night, he talked of forgiveness and the future. And then, like the flipping of a switch, something changed. The oldest, Beau, struggled for years with depression. In the final few months of his life, mounting problems pulled him into a downward spiral. His family tried to help, but nothing could keep him from slipping farther into darkness. Four years after his brother’s death, Beau told his stepfather that Brett, who had shot himself in the head, had done it wrong. Days later, he went up to the attic of his family’s home and shot himself in the chest.
Predators and Robots at War
Most Americans are probably unaware, for example, that the US Air Force now trains more UAV operators each year than traditional pilots. (Indeed, the Air Force insists on referring to drones as “remotely piloted aircraft” in order to dispel any suspicions that it is moving out of the business of putting humans into the air.) As I write this, the US aerospace industry has for all practical purposes ceased research and development work on manned aircraft. All the projects now on the drawing board revolve around pilotless vehicles. Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies around the country eagerly await the moment when they can start operating their own UAVs. The Federal Aviation Administration is considering rules that will allow police departments to start using them within the next few years (perhaps as early as 2014).
The Hunter’s Wife
(Fiction) It was the hunter’s first time outside Montana. He woke, stricken still with the hours-old vision of ascending through rose-lit cumulus, of houses and barns like specks deep in the snowed-in valleys, all the scrolling country below looking December—brown and black hills streaked with snow, flashes of iced-over lakes, the long braids of a river gleaming at the bottom of a canyon. Above the wing the sky had deepened to a blue so pure he knew it would bring tears to his eyes if he looked long enough.
The Making of ‘Nevermind’ (Excerpt from ‘Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge’)
DAVE GROHL: (Nirvana drummer; Foo Fighters singer/guitarist) “More low end! I want it to sound like the Melvins!” “It has to be heavier, heavier, heavier!” Butch was doing his best to do what Kurt wanted, and it just wasn’t turning out. BUTCH VIG: The mixes were sounding kind of muffly, and Gary Gersh and Silva came by and listened and they were like, “Let’s just get a good mix guy in, and we’ll try and keep the band away from the studio a little bit and let him do his thing.” I was like, “Cool.” So they sent over a list of all these mix guys. I showed the list to Kurt and at the bottom was Andy Wallace, and it listed Slayer first on his credits. He said, “Call that guy.” If he’d looked further on Andy’s credits, it had Madonna. If Madonna’s name had been first, Andy wouldn’t have gotten the call.
Jane Jacobs and the Rebirth of New York
A few weeks ago I took a break from reading Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities to visit the block of Hudson Street in Manhattan’s West Village where Jacobs lived when she wrote her classic book on urban planning. One block over, on Bleecker Street, the storefronts bear the names of some of the most iconic brands in fashion – Steve Madden, Juicy Couture, Coach, Michael Kors – but Jacobs’ old block of Hudson between Perry and West 11th retains its scruffy charm, mixing small residential buildings with restaurants, a bar, a nail salon, a bodega, and a dry cleaner.
Fantasyland: Jean Paul Gaultier’s Inspirations
He finds a lot of ordinary things delightful; in fact, he is one of the most consistently enthusiastic people I’ve ever met. He hates what he thinks of as the French habit of being blasé, of dismissing just about everything as pas mal. Instead, his usual mode of speech is fuelled by high-octane superlatives. The cat-food can was “super-super-beautiful!” Talking about it reminded him of other similarly undervalued things that have interested him over the years, especially subcultures like British punks (“super-elegant!”), street people (“I saw someone, very poor, he put a big pullover over his coat, and I thought it was super-beautiful!”), Hasidim (“I saw a lot of rabbis with their traditional clothes. I was amazed by how fabulous and beautiful it was!”), and redheads (“I feel like, red hair, it’s a surprise! A good surprise! It’s super-beautiful!”).
The Most Racist Thing That Ever Happened to Me
I asked my 105 interviewees, What is the most racist thing that has ever happened to you? The response I received most often was indicative of modern racism: The answer is unknowable. “I imagine it’d be a thing I don’t even know ever happened,” Aaron McGruder said. “It would be that opportunity that never manifested and I’ll never know that it was even possible.” A decision is made in a back room or a high-level office, perhaps by someone you’ll never see, about whether or not you get a job or a home loan or admission to a school. Or perhaps you’ll never be allowed to know that a home in a certain area or a job is available. This is how modern institutional racism functions and it can weigh on and shape a black person differently than the more overt, simplistic racism of the past did.
Shorty
A pediatrician first recognized my failure to thrive, as he called it, when I was seven months old. An average-sized baby at birth, born by C-section to my petite mother, I had started to gain only ounces between monthly visits. Conspicuous smallness runs in my family. My mother is barely 4’11”. My grandfather (5’8″) says we are descended from a Russian clan, the Zichs, none of whom were over five feet tall. But I was emerging as a frontrunner in the shortness contest. At three years old I was 23 pounds; four, 26; five, 28. Most toddlers gain about three to five pounds per year and grow two to three inches. I was growing less than two inches and gaining less than two pounds per year. While my classmates’ torsos stretched and their legs thinned, I never made it onto the government growth charts. I was not too much bigger than an average terrier.
Autistic and Seeking a Place in an Adult World
Justin is among the first generation of autistic youths who have benefited throughout childhood from more effective therapies and hard-won educational opportunities. And Ms. Stanton-Paule’s program here is based on the somewhat radical premise that with intensive coaching in the workplace and community — and some stretching by others to include them — students like Justin can achieve a level of lifelong independence that has eluded their predecessors. “There’s a prevailing philosophy that certain people can never function in the community,” Ms. Stanton-Paule told skeptics. “I just don’t think that’s true.”
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