{"id":120169,"date":"2018-01-12T13:00:37","date_gmt":"2018-01-12T18:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=120169"},"modified":"2018-01-12T12:59:29","modified_gmt":"2018-01-12T17:59:29","slug":"staff-picks-obama-netflix-escorts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/12\/staff-picks-obama-netflix-escorts\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Picks: Obama, Netflix, and Escorts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I never expected to like Netflix\u2019s The End of the F***ing World<\/i><\/a>, but it needed only a few minutes of my attention to have me laughing out loud. Though the description might be off-putting\u2014\u201cBored with killing animals, seventeen-year-old James is busy plotting his first real murder when brash new girl Alyssa catches him off guard at school\u201d\u2014the show is witty and barefaced in the way that a Wes Anderson film could be if Anderson\u2019s films weren\u2019t so masculine. Alyssa and James have a push-pull relationship that left me refreshed at the end of the show\u2019s eight twenty-minute episodes, wondering where the two and a half hours had gone. \u2014Eleanor Pritchett<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you live in the New York City area or are visiting soon, please carve ten minutes out of your day for\u00a0The New York Earth Room<\/a><\/i>\u00a0and then, if you have ten more minutes, The Broken Kilometer<\/i>. These are two strange little rooms, both created by the artist Walter De Maria, both maintained by Dia<\/a>, both completely free to enter.\u00a0I won\u2019t (oh god, a pun, why not) soil\u00a0<\/i>the surprise of either piece, but I will say that when\u00a0I visited these two exhibits in quick succession last Sunday, I saw the city open up\u2014almost unfold before my eyes\u2014in ways that it hadn\u2019t for me ever before. What other rooms could be lurking among the tapas restaurants and purveyors of high-end socks? I wondered. What other mysteries does the city hold? \u2014Brian Ransom\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Mohsin Hamid<\/p><\/div>\n

There is no longer any need for me to tell you\u00a0that Exit West<\/em><\/a> is a worthwhile read. Barack Obama made me redundant\u2014bless him\u2014when he put the book on his\u00a0end-of-the-year reading list<\/a>. Mohsin Hamid\u2019s text is like a perfectly adult connect-the-dots, and Obama, not one to shy from hard work, perhaps appreciated the pencil Hamid hands the reader. The book opens with a sketch of a city \u201con the brink of war.\u201d Keep following those points, and by page thirty-seven the city could be Istanbul, by forty-two it could be Beirut, by fifty-seven it could be Damascus. Keep reading, and you have drawn\u00a0a confusing constellation of points that chart their way through extremism, anti-intellectualism, isolationism, hallucinogenics, and the Internet. In the case of Exit West<\/em>, connections are as terrifying as negative space. Two young people fall in love in a falling city. For safety and stability, only a few months after meeting each other, the couple pretends to be married. Their bond is their only ballast as they leave their city, first for Greece and then the further West. Maybe Obama, a man of intense empathy, appreciated the way Hamid evokes\u00a0starving in a settlement in Greece. Maybe Obama, a man of nuance and perspective, liked the way Hamid asks other questions of the reader beneath the text such as: What is marriage? And sweetly, provocatively: What is sex? Maybe Obama, as an athletic reader, appreciated how the novel rushed by. The pacing of the book left this reader wide awake past midnight, with ample time to wonder whither our world will go without a reader-in-chief. \u2014Julia Berick<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Men at the Golden Globes in 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

Dayna Tortorici recently published an essay in n+1<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/i>about her fear of \u201c<\/span>an impending male backlash,\u201d a suspicion that the men she knew \u201chad begun to feel persecuted as a class.\u201d \u201cThe way they had learned to live in the world\u200a,\u201d she writes, \u201c\u200ano longer fit the time in which they were living.\u201d What these men were discovering, in a moment of societal\u00a0convulsion, was \u201cthe guarantee that some will find the world less comfortable in the process of making it habitable for others.\u201d The piece\u00a0echoed\u00a0certain of my own inarticulate apprehensions about\u00a0the current moment, if only because liberal culture has long\u00a0trafficked in the notion that patriarchy could in fact be dismantled neatly, and with minimal fuss, like a piece of IKEA furniture. Even those who understood this prospect to be illusive were not immune, at times, to the charms of its logic, to the analgesic allure of a feminism that promised men it\u00a0had come in peace. Of course, recent events have made clear that it\u00a0did\u00a0not, and couldn\u2019t have. \u201cMust history have losers?\u201d asks Tortorici. The evidence points to yes. Although I read the essay some weeks ago, I was reminded of it while watching the Golden Globes: not one of the male winners mentioned the #MeToo or Time\u2019s Up initiatives. Striking though the contrast was, it remains difficult to imagine\u00a0how far we should expect\u00a0expressions of solidarity,\u00a0should\u00a0they ever occur, to extend beyond the gestural. To\u00a0ask that a man work for gender equality is to\u00a0invite him to collaborate, to one degree or another, in\u00a0his own dethronement. If men are not\u00a0taught to lose power, as Tortorici writes, what happens when it is taken from them?\u00a0That our current upheaval is long overdue does not make it any easier to know how to brace for\u00a0its aftermath: \u201cCombine male fragility with white fragility and the perennial fear of falling,\u201d Tortorici writes, \u201cand you end up with something lethal.\u201d \u2014Spencer Bokat-Lindell<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The Song of the Lark<\/em>,\u00a0<\/em>Jules Breton, 1884.<\/p><\/div>\n

I read My <\/i>\u00c1<\/i>ntonia<\/i><\/a> for the first time five years ago. I had forgotten many of the novel\u2019s smaller moments, but the openness of the Nebraskan plains and skies that fill Willa Cather\u2019s prose had stuck in my mind. So last weekend, as I wrapped myself in my blanket, looked out at the \u201cbomb cyclone,\u201d and decided against leaving my room, I knew of a sometimes-snowy, more often bright, and always wide-open place I could escape back into. Cather\u2019s novel follows Jim Burden, the narrator, from his childhood on the plains of Nebraska, through his adolescence in town, to his adulthood in the city. Most precious, to a chilly reader, are the golden-lit moments of Jim\u2019s childhood, as he and his friend \u00c1ntonia eat melons, read books, and face snakes in the grass. \u201cI was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins,\u201d Jim says, \u201cand I did not want to be anything more.\u201d That is what I wanted to be, too, while the cold wind blew past my window. Perhaps what makes Cather\u2019s novel most soothing during these winter days is its ultimate return to the full trees, golden light, and open skies of summertime. Jim makes his way back to warmer weather, and so will we. \u2014Claire Benoit<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Katherine Faw. Photo: Don Morris<\/p><\/div>\n

I’ll admit it: Ultraluminous<\/a><\/em>, by Katherine Faw, is a book I enjoyed far more after\u00a0I\u2019d slipped off the glossy dust jacket. The cover\u2014a photograph of a nearly naked woman\u2019s lower half, her red-painted nails holding a small gun\u2014makes the book\u00a0seem like a queasy\u00a0faux-feminist thriller. But when stripped of that image, the book\u2019s\u00a0fierce sexual power is not so simple a\u00a0clich\u00e9. K, a high-end escort recently returned to New York from Dubai, has a clientele exclusively composed of\u00a0Wall Street\u00a0bankers and junk-bond traders. Her contempt for them, and for their belief that their wealth renders them superior, is radiant. There\u00a0are well-worn tropes\u2014heroine and high-end\u00a0lingerie\u2014but\u00a0there is also a portrait of New York City\u2019s decadence rendered in lacerating high definition.\u00a0In\u00a0the end, the\u00a0book is almost less\u00a0about sex than it is about the ravages of rampant capitalism. The rage\u00a0is disturbing and propulsive:\u00a0it\u2019s rare\u00a0to read\u00a0female anger rendered so unapologetically. \u2014Nadja Spiegelman<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been ingesting a healthy dose of social realism and British colonial history by reading J. G. Farrell\u2019s The Singapore Grip<\/a><\/em>. Part of Farrell\u2019s Empire Trilogy (which includes his Booker Prize\u2013winning The\u00a0<\/em>Siege of Krishnapur<\/em>), Grip<\/em> centers on a small group of British capitalist elites, but mostly on the Blackett family, whose shipping and rubber enterprises thrive under British rule\u2014which has it fixed in their favor. But it\u2019s the eve of World War II, the locals have already begun to resist, and Communism\u2019s influence is on the rise. Matthew Webb, the estranged son of the recently deceased founding partner of Blackett and Webb, has different ideas when he steps into his father\u2019s vacant position. Yet the younger Webb is paralyzed by his intellectual angst and ridiculed by \u201cproper\u201d men of action. The reader quickly understands that the only thing backward about Singapore is the Blacketts and their lot as they haplessly try to preserve their antiquated lifestyle, businesses, and power. What exactly is the Singapore grip? A rattling cough? A secret handshake? The protagonists of the book don\u2019t seem to know. Their apparent ignorance of this euphemism for a\u00a0particular sex act hints at why they find themselves friendless and hopeless as war and change inch closer to their door. \u2014Jeffery Gleaves<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Installation view of \u201cFictions\u201d at the Studio Museum. Courtesy of the Studio Museum.<\/p><\/div>\n

Some things are worth weathering the harsh New York cold, and an exhibition as exciting as \u201cFictions<\/a>\u201d\u00a0at the Studio Museum in Harlem is one of them. Last Saturday, I made my way to 125th Street (conveniently located just off the A, B, C, and D lines), where an enormous show is packed into a small space. The room hums with sharp wit and thoughtful complexity, but it never overwhelms. This is the fifth in an annual series of exhibitions, all put on by the Studio Museum, showcasing nineteen emerging artists of African descent. While the diversity of media, inspiration, and styles is broad, it all weaves together, creating a cohesive experience centered around interrogating the harsh divides between fact and fiction, memory, reality, and imagination. Stephanie Williams\u2019s surreal and unsettling stop-motion piece plays on a television hung next to a bright, effusive painting by Devan Shimoyama (whose work always stuns with luminous pathos). Texas Isaiah\u2019s five photographs are quietly brilliant. They are unassuming on first impression, but to stop with them for a moment is to be enraptured. Genevieve Gaignard\u2019s and Allison Janae Hamilton\u2019s installations are immersive in their own ways; Hamilton presents an eerie scene of a forest and Gaignard a living room adorned with subversively feminine objects. It is exhilarating to see such impactful work from artists who are beginning their careers; I found myself revisiting pieces again and again and thinking about the show for days after I\u2019d left. (NB: The Studio Museum is hosting a full schedule of events<\/a>\u00a0over the long weekend\u00a0to mark the closing of all three of their current exhibitions.) \u2014Lauren Kane<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  I never expected to like Netflix\u2019s The End of the F***ing World, but it needed only a few minutes of my attention to have me laughing out loud. Though the description might be off-putting\u2014\u201cBored with killing animals, seventeen-year-old James is busy plotting his first real murder when brash new girl Alyssa catches him off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[438],"tags":[32495,7589,32486,32492,10308,32484,32491,32494,32487,23079,32489,10261,6773,208,18980,32493,6408,32485,32483,32490,32488,6409,7557,2021],"class_list":["post-120169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-weeks-reading","tag-allison-janae-hamilton","tag-barack-obama","tag-dayna-tortorici","tag-devan-shimoyama","tag-dia","tag-exit-west","tag-fictions","tag-genevieve-gaignard","tag-golden-globes","tag-j-g-farrell","tag-katherine-faw","tag-mohsin-hamid","tag-my-antonia","tag-n1","tag-studio-museum","tag-texas-isaiah","tag-the-broken-kilometer","tag-the-end-of-the-fing-world","tag-the-new-york-earth-room","tag-the-singapore-grip","tag-ultraluminous","tag-walter-de-maria","tag-willa-cather","tag-world-war-ii"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStaff Picks: Obama, Netflix, and Escorts by The Paris Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This week, the staff of \u2018The Paris Review\u2019 visits \u2018The Earth Room,\u2019 watches Netflix, and takes a reading recommendation from Obama.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/12\/staff-picks-obama-netflix-escorts\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Staff Picks: Obama, Netflix, and Escorts by The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"January 12, 2018 \u2013   I never expected to like Netflix\u2019s The End of the F***ing World, but it needed only a few minutes of my attention to have me laughing out loud.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/12\/staff-picks-obama-netflix-escorts\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-01-12T18:00:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/the_end_of_the_fucking_world_title-1-e1515707814195.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"567\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/12\/staff-picks-obama-netflix-escorts\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/12\/staff-picks-obama-netflix-escorts\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4a14f739935c82f100675b84e220252e\"},\"headline\":\"Staff Picks: Obama, Netflix, and Escorts\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-01-12T18:00:37+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/12\/staff-picks-obama-netflix-escorts\/\"},\"wordCount\":1823,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/12\/staff-picks-obama-netflix-escorts\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/the_end_of_the_fucking_world_title-1-e1515707814195.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Allison Janae Hamilton\",\"Barack Obama\",\"Dayna Tortorici\",\"Devan Shimoyama\",\"Dia\",\"Exit West\",\"Fictions\",\"Genevieve Gaignard\",\"Golden Globes\",\"J.G. 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