14 minute read
The Art of the Miniature XXIX
from ICON Magazine
new books
The Premonition: A Pandemic Story by Michael Lewis W. W. Norton & Company, $25
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“I would read an 800-page history of the stapler if he wrote it.” –John Williams, New York Times Book Review
For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about. Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’s taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.
The characters you will meet in these pages are as fascinating as they are unexpected. A thirteen-year-old girl’s science project on transmission of an airborne pathogen develops into a very grown-up model of disease control. A local public-health officer uses her worm’s-eye view to see what the CDC misses, and reveals great truths about American society. A secret team of dissenting doctors, nicknamed the Wolverines, has everything necessary to fight the pandemic: brilliant backgrounds, world-class labs, prior experience with the pandemic scares of bird flu and swine flu…everything, that is, except official permission to implement their work.
Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Forever by John McWhorter Avery; $24
One of the preeminent linguists of our time examines the realms of language that are considered shocking and taboo in order to understand what imbues curse words with such power— and why we love them so much. Profanity has always been a deliciously vibrant part of our lexicon, an integral part of being human. In fact, our ability to curse comes from a different part of the brain than other parts of speech--the urgency with which we say “f&*k!” is instead related to the instinct that tells us to flee from danger.
Language evolves with time, and so does what we consider profane or unspeakable. Nine Nasty Words is a rollicking examination of profanity, explored from every angle: historical, sociological, political, linguistic. In a particularly coarse moment, when the public discourse is shaped in part by once-shocking words, nothing could be timelier.
Backroads Buildings: In Search of the Vernacular by Steve Gross and Susan Daley Schiffer, $36
From New England to the Deep South, photographers Susan Daley and Steve Gross have captured more than 100 forgotten buildings along America’s old auto routes. Isolated in full-color and black-andwhite portraits, the roadside cafés, feed stores, grange halls, juke joints, and general stores are a poignant reminder of the ingenuity of local building practices and working-class culture during the years between the Civil War and the Great Depression. With their humble beauty and distinctive character, these once-useful structures infuse the American landscape with a strong sense of place. This collection of buildings preserves a sampling of our country’s architecture heritage and encourages travelers to slow down and notice the details.
Vegetable Simple: A Cookbook by Eric Ripert Random House, $35
Eric Ripert is the chef and co-owner of the acclaimed restaurant Le Bernardin, and the winner of countless Michelin stars, well known for his exquisite, clean, seafood-centered cuisine. In Vegetable Simple, Ripert turns his singular culinary imagination to vegetables: their beauty, their earthiness, their nourishing qualities, and the ways they can be prepared. From Sweet Pea Soup to Fava Bean and Mint Salad, warming Mushroom Bolognese to Roasted Carrots, Eric Ripert articulates a vision for vegetables that are prepared simply, without complex steps or ingredients, allowing their color and flavor to remain uncompromised. Complete with gorgeous photos by renowned photographer Nigel Parry, this is a necessary guide for the way we eat today.
One Two Three: A Novel by Laurie Frankel Henry Holt & Co., $26.99
Everyone knows everyone in the tiny town of Bourne, but the Mitchell triplets are especially beloved. Mirabel is the smartest person anyone knows, and no one doubts it just because she can’t speak. Monday is the town’s purveyor of books now that the library’s closed―tell her the book you think you want, and she’ll pull the one you actually do from the microwave or her sock drawer. Mab’s job is hardest of all: get good grades, get into college, get out of Bourne.
For a few weeks 17 years ago, Bourne was national news when its water turned green. The girls have come of age watching their mother’s endless fight for justice. But just when it seems life might go on the same forever, the first moving truck anyone’s seen in years pulls up and unloads new residents and old secrets. Soon, the Mitchell sisters are taking on a system stacked against them and uncovering mysteries buried longer than they’ve been alive.
As she did in This Is How It Always Is, Laurie Frankel has written a laugh-out-loudon-one-page-grab-a-tissue-the-next novel, as only she can, about how expanding our notions of normal makes the world a better place for everyone.
The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War by Malcolm Gladwell Little, Brown, $27
In The Bomber Mafia, Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history. Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists, the “Bomber Mafia,” asked: What if precision bombing could cripple the
enemy and make war far less lethal?
In contrast, the bombing of Tokyo on the deadliest night of the war was the brainchild of General Curtis LeMay, whose brutal pragmatism and scorched-earth tactics in Japan cost thousands of civilian lives, but may have spared even more by averting a planned US invasion. In The Bomber Mafia, Gladwell asks, “Was it worth it?”
Things might have gone differently had LeMay’s predecessor, General Haywood Hansell, remained in charge. Hansell believed in precision bombing, but when he and Curtis LeMay squared off for a leadership handover in the jungles of Guam, LeMay emerged victorious, leading to the darkest night of World War II.
Alice Neel: People Come First by Kelly Baum and Randall Griffey Metropolitan Museum of Art, $50
“For me, people come first,” Alice Neel (1900–1984) declared in 1950. “I have tried to assert the dignity and eternal importance of the human being.” This ambitious publication surveys Neel’s nearly 70-year career through the lens of her radical humanism. Remarkable portraits of victims of the Great Depression, fellow residents of Spanish Harlem, leaders of political organizations, queer artists, visibly pregnant women, and members of New York’s global diaspora reveal that Neel viewed humanism as both a political and philosophical ideal. In addition to these paintings of famous and unknown sitters, the more than 100 works highlighted include Neel’s emotionally charged cityscapes and still lifes as well as the artist’s erotic pastels and watercolors. Essays tackle Neel’s portrayal of LGBTQ subjects; her unique aesthetic language, which merged abstraction and figuration; and her commitment to progressive politics, civil rights, feminism, and racial diversity.
An Ugly Truth by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang Harper, $29.99
For the past four years, Facebook has been under constant fire, roiled by cascading controversies and crises. It turns out that while the tech giant was connecting the world, they were also mishandling users’ data, spreading fake news, and amplifying dangerous, polarizing hate speech. Leadership decisions at the company enabled, and then attempted to deflect attention from, massive privacy breaches and Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Time after time, Facebook’s engineers were instructed to create tools that encouraged people to spend as much time on the platform as possible, even as those same tools boosted inflammatory rhetoric, conspiracy theories, and partisan filter bubbles. Each misstep set off a fresh cycle of earnest apologies and glib assurances: We’ll do better. Yet these lapses were not accidental, and the apologies ultimately devoid of accountability. The issues surrounding privacy and speech aren’t bugs; they are features, baked into the company’s DNA— and its algorithms. And while consumers and lawmakers have focused their outrage on privacy breaches and misinformation, Facebook has been consolidating power, devouring competition, posting record profits, and shoring up its dominance via aggressive lobbying efforts. n
disruptors
A.D. AMOROSI
The times they are a-changin’—just not fast enough, or fair enough for the Black community.
With his new book, retired Harvard Business School professor Steven Rogers aims to set the historical record straight
WHEN HEEDED CALLS FOR social justice are at the highest, retired Harvard Business School professor, podcaster, and author Steven Rogers is at his most disruptive, and yet, fair- minded.
Rogers is preparing to rock the boat with the May 25 publication of A Letter to My White Friends & Colleagues: What You Can Do Right Now to Help the Black Community.
Rogers’ book is a deep dive into the history of how the United States government, the Federal Reserve, and the entire banking system have made it next to impossible for Black entrepreneurs, Black businessmen big and little, Black-owned banks, and the everyday citizen to get ahead. A Letter to My White Friends & Colleagues is meant to show whites who truly wish to balance the economic scales, immediate ways in which to pay into the system to make things right/fair for Black Americans; ways that include the long-discussed call for governmentbacked reparations to Black descendants of slaves from 1619 to 1865.
Beyond its readability, the best thing about Rogers’ A Letter to My White Friends & Colleagues: What You Can Do Right Now to Help the Black Community is how much sense he makes.
My conversation with Rogers occurred on the morning after the George Floyd murder trial ended with Derek Chauvin’s conviction.
Let’s get this out in the open right now. Neither you nor I planned this conversation mere hours after Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd. It’s an interesting day.
You are absolutely correct.
What is your take on everything that happened in that courtroom yesterday?
Yesterday, I was concerned, as were most Black people, about what would happen. As a Black American, I can tell you that we have a history of being denied justice and seeing repre-
hensible decisions made by the courts. When the jury gave their verdict, there was relief on my part. But, A.D., the first thing that came to mind was the Emmett Till trial. I thought about how Black Americans have finally been given a chance to experience what we’ve been told is our inalienable right—justice for all. The Emmett Till story is similar to George Floyd’s in that a Black 14-year-old was lynched. That trial was the first media trial of the Civil Rights Movement. Till was accused of saying something like, “Hey, baby,” to a 21-year-old white woman. In response, her husband and his halfbrother went to Till’s home, got him out of bed, beat him to death, shot him, hung him, and threw him in the river. There was a witness: Till’s uncle, Moses Wright. When he was asked during the trial if he recognized the men who took Till from his home, Moses stood—a Black man in the South—pointed to the two men and said, “There he.” The Floyd trial was similar: a horrific crime against a Black man, viewed by witnesses.
That was historic.
This was very similar to what we had with the George Floyd case in that we had a “There he” moment: the cell phone cameras showed us who perpetrated this crime. Unlike in Mississippi in 1955, justice prevailed this time. It did not prevail in 1955 and put Black people through post-traumatic stress disorder following that decision. Last night, however, Black people were relieved. I don’t know if it was joy, but there was a relief. We desperately needed this to happen, and directly related to that time in 1955 when we saw something eerily similar. Fact is, those two men eventually confessed to killing Emmett Till without fear of conviction. This has been a scar on America, as well as a pain that Black America has had to carry. This time, a white murderer got what he deserved in his crime against a Black man. That’s rare for America.
And what should the next steps be for all sides of the equation?
We needed this decision to be made so that the country could begin to heal. I didn’t believe that there was any healing done just by Chauvin being put on trial. The healing truly begins when Black people get what they’re entitled to. What we’re entitled to is not only justice in the courts but economic justice. I encourage whites to share their wealth with Blacks by doing business with Black-owned businesses, supporting historic Black colleges and universities, putting their money in Black-owned banks, and supporting legislation for reparations. All that needs to happen next—white America doing something tangible to help the Black communi-
ty which has been hurt over centuries by the government, for the strict purpose of enhancing whites while impoverishing Blacks. Every white person should now ask and act on “How can I make this country better as it relates to Black Americans.”
I went to school on the Main Line. Radnor High School, down the street from Villanova. But I’m not a rich suburban kid. My mother was a single parent on welfare. I went through a program, “A Better Chance,” that identified minority children with strong academic potential and then sent them to private schools to better themselves.
I live in Philadelphia. We’ve had a string of Black murders, and the Black Lives Matter Movement is gaining real traction here. As someone who works for several local newspapers and ICON, I notice how we’re writing more stories about supporting Black businesses such as restaurants. That’s great. But as these stories are coming out, Photo: Suzanne Kreiter/Boston Globe I’m finding from Black and white friends that they never even realized that half of these places even existed. Is there a way, first, to promote the existence of all these great Black owned businesses so that we can support them?
It’s a large portion of your new book. Can you distill the history of how, specifically, the government wronged the Black community? That’s a great question. In the book, I detail it as three things: slavery, Black Codes, and redlining. More succinctly, the federal government has denied Black-owned banks the same financial support and guarantees that they provide to white-owned banks with their FHA Loan Program. The reality is Black-owned businesses have great relationships with Black-owned banks. Still, the Federal government denied Blackowned banks the same capital and guarantees that they gave whiteowned banks that allowed them to leverage their capital. The government choked the source of capital for Black-owned businesses. In the Italian community, the Bank of Italy was so crucial to Italian business that—despite discrimination against Italians and Irish—the federal government looked at them as white. The federal government said they weren’t giving money to Black banks or any banks doing anything for Black business or individuals. That was redlining. In 1930, the Bank of Italy changed its name to the Bank of America.
Absolutely. To your point right there, what we know as Americans is that no community can be healthy and vibrant without the existence and strong foundation of private enterprise. If you look at America and see its 300 million people, there are about 30 million businesses. So there’s a 10-to-1 ratio between businesses and people. What we know is that within the Black community that ratio is about 15-to1. What we know is that 94% of Black-owned businesses are small with single owners. First, we need more Black-owned businesses to get closer to that ratio. That will help make it possible for the Black community to be vibrant because the largest private employers of Black people in the U.S. are Black-owned businesses. More and larger ones would employ more Black people. We need more of those, and we need
them to grow. To your point, we need a public service announcement. We need the U.S. government to say ‘Support Black-owned businesses,’ a statement similar to those we make for health reasons.
Only this is for the health of the nation.
Yes. But I also don’t want to exaggerate that fact because Black-owned businesses alone can’t do it. The government has done so much to hurt the Black community that to put all of the weight on the shoulders of Black-owned business is unfair. Without capital and growth, Black-owned business stays small.
You come from the Italian community, right? You know from your own experiences the importance of small businesses in the Italian community. We know that that is also common in Chinatown. Chinatown—no matter where in America we’re talking about—represents Chinese- and Asian-owned businesses.
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