February 3, 2014 Events Tonight: Elif Batuman and Gary Shteyngart at 92Y By Dan Piepenbring Join us this evening at 92Y, where, snow be damned, Gary Shteyngart and Elif Batuman will take the stage to read from their latest work. They’ll be introduced by Sloane Crosley and our very own Lorin Stein, respectively. The night begins at 8:15; those unable (or unwilling) to face the slush can watch a free livecast here. (If last night’s Super Bowl was any indication, it will be much better than whatever’s on TV.)
February 3, 2014 Our Daily Correspondent, The Poem Stuck in My Head Candlemas Day By Sadie Stein From Poetry of the year. Passages from the poets descriptive of the seasons. With twenty-two colored illustrations from drawings by eminent artists, ed. Joseph Cundall, 1853. Yesterday, the Seahawks romped to a 43-8 blowout over Denver. The general consensus is that Super Bowl XLVIII was disappointing: tension-free, uncomfortably lopsided, vaguely embarrassing for Manning. The commercials were meh. Bruno Mars kind of brought it, but no one really tuned in to watch Bruno Mars. The much-ballyhooed winter weather was anticlimactically mild, too, although one assumes the Red Hot Chili Peppers were chilly. After the drama of the polar vortices and the endless gray of this winter, it was almost a letdown when the day dawned mild. And, of course, on Saturday, Philip Seymour Hoffman had been found dead in his New York apartment. The Internet erupted with grief and tributes. Everyone wanted to watch Capote and Pirate Radio and The Talented Mr. Ripley (a few bold people even queued Along Came Polly). We completely forgot about Groundhog Day; I did, at any rate. But it was Groundhog Day, and, weather notwithstanding, both Punxsutawney Phil and the poor man’s groundhog, Staten Island Chuck, saw their shadows. The mayor dropped Staten Island Chuck. The origins of the groundhog custom are murky, although it arrived in America via the Pennsylvania German community and is likely rooted in European animal lore, dating back to pagan times. But it also coincides with the ancient feast of Candlemas Day, which was, according to Christian tradition, the date of the presentation of Jesus at the temple and the fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary. Like so many things, it may well be some sort of compromise between pagan and Christian calendars. For many centuries, it was on Candlemas that English farmers removed cattle from the hay meadows and any fields that needed plowing or sowing. To this day, it is a Quarter Day in Scotland, on which debts are traditionally paid and law courts are in session. The following is one of several traditional rhymes associated with the second of February: If Candlemas be fair and bright,Winter has another flight.If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,Winter will not come again. And, of course, yesterday was relatively fair, at least in Pennsylvania (and, I guess, Staten Island). But it doesn’t seem to matter, does it? The groundhog always seems to predict more winter—Wikipedia notes that he calls it for spring only 13.7 percent of the time—which is probably safer. On the other hand, there was Shubenacadie Sam, the Nova Scotia groundhog. Because of his advantageous time zone, he is the first groundhog of the year to make a prediction for North America. And despite everything, he foresaw an early spring.
February 3, 2014 Arts & Culture Recapping Dante: Canto 16, or the Pilgrim’s Progress By Alexander Aciman Giovanni Stradano, Canto XVI, 1587. This winter, we’re recapping the Inferno. Read along! At this point in The Inferno, as Dante continues to test, stretch, and deplete Virgil’s patience, let us imagine for a moment what Virgil might say given the opportunity to write a performance review for the pilgrim. Performance Review Pilgrim name: Dante AlighieriOccupation: Poet/expert stalker/political commentator (fascist?)Age: Roughly halfway through the journey of his life Supervisor’s notes: Dante has done well on this divine quest so far, especially considering the fact that I found him lost in a forest not long ago. When we reached the end of this most recent section of Hell, Dante confessed that he’d intended to use a belt to fight off the leopard I saved him from—it’s safe to say that he has made considerable progress since he first came on. I still worry about him, however. He seems to listen to me almost blindly—I’m fairly certain that if I told him to jump off a bridge, he might actually do it. He can’t think for himself, and he’s not exactly a self-starter; he has middle management written all over him. He’d make a great lifelong employee, though I recommend putting him through purgatory before sending him up high. He still has a lot to learn. Read More
February 3, 2014 On the Shelf A Day in the Sun for Beleaguered Librarians, and Other News By Dan Piepenbring Photo: Bill Branson Remembering Philip Seymour Hoffman. Who are Joyce’s modern heirs? Rivka Galchen and Pankaj Mishra discuss. No longer shall they toil in obscurity: Lemony Snicket has launched the Prize for Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity. The Hardy Boys face what are undeniably their strangest mysteries yet. Is Eurostile Bold Extended the most popular typeface in science fiction? A look at the typography in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
February 2, 2014 On Sports The Sportsman’s Code of Chivalry By Miranda Popkey Two Sundays ago, I watched the AFC Conference game with some friends. Picture a Venn Diagram; label one circle “Fans of the New England Patriots” and the other “People Who Have Studied Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” The person who exists at the intersection of those two circles was sitting on a couch across from me, anxiously eating chips and guacamole. As the Patriots slipped further and further behind the Broncos, talk turned to Arthurian legend, and to knightliness at large. Peyton Manning, our group quickly agreed, was the Lancelot of quarterbacks. Like Lancelot, he’s unquestionably the most talented of his cadre—a fact confirmed when he was, to no one’s surprise, named this year’s league MVP. He’s also, like Lancelot, doltish and unbeautiful: in T. H. White’s The Once and Future King, Lancelot is, to quote King Arthur, “the ugliest man I have ever seen”; Peyton can’t claim that honor, but he does have a grotesquely large forehead, scarred by the Riddell helmet he is forced to squeeze over it. And both Lancelot and Peyton are doomed to be surpassed by a dim younger relative—in the former’s case, it’s the unbearably pure Galahad, Lancelot’s son, the only knight allowed to glimpse the Holy Grail; in Peyton’s case, it’s his younger brother, Eli, whose childishly transparent expressions of disappointment have been turned into exemplars of gif art, and who already has two Super Bowl rings to Peyton’s one. Which made Tom Brady his Tristan: not quite as skilled, but achingly handsome. Metaphors aside, there is a sort of gallantry we expect from our athletes. NFL players do not, of course, swear their troth to a code of chivalry; nevertheless there are rules, largely unspoken, to which professional athletes are expected to adhere. Off the field, if not on, while speaking to the press, if not while concussing one another, we want our athletes, like our knights, “to refrain from the wanton giving of offense”; “to eschew unfairness, meanness, and deceit”; and “to live by honor and for glory.” Read More
January 31, 2014 Arts & Culture, Our Daily Correspondent Inch by Inch By Sadie Stein When we graduated sixth grade, in the skirts and ties we had laboriously sewn—mine was apple-green gingham—with the corsages and boutonnieres our teachers had made to match, I was the first to receive my diploma. This was not a particular distinction; it was just because I was the shortest person in the entire grade. And at the end of the ceremony, we sang “The Garden Song,” aka “Inch by Inch, Row by Row,” and I remember being very conscious that this was the last time we would ever sing it, and that now everything would be different. And not just because we were moving to the Upper School Campus a few hundred yards away. Because we would not be allowed to be kids in the same way ever again. I remember blinking back tears. All week, I have wanted to write about Pete Seeger, but every time I sit down to do so I have been overcome with emotion and affection for my progressive elementary school with its earnest devotion to the tenets of secular humanism and folk music, and have wanted to write hundreds of pages. I want to write about City and Country and the Weed Wallow and the holiday assembly and the apple assembly. And Mary and Sally and Joyce and Colleen and and Mrs. English and Betty (teachers) and Mr. Schwartz (the principal) and Mr. Ellis (the custodian). In fifth grade, in June, we donned costumes and did sword dances and played recorders and invited our parents to the medieval feast. At the third grade cookout we wore the Native American garb we had sewn and beaded and dyed with onionskins and cooked fish and oysters in a fire behind the upper-school library. Then, there was the endless work on those skirts. I also know that none of this would mean anything to anyone who didn’t attend my school, and that we all have our own early memories, tender as a bruise, and that unless one is Proust, it really doesn’t much matter. Read More