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Rough Justice Next month, the Supreme Court will hear the

biggest abortion case in decades — and consider whether laws

designed for the ‘‘protection’’ of women actually harm them.

The Imagination Gap Do technological advances determine

the health of our economy? Maybe — but what matters most is

how they change us.

Contemplation Therapy A new study suggests there’s some

science behind the claims made for mindfulness meditation.

 XpresSpa  A place to recover from the T.S.A. experience.

Speaking Up for a Pet Pig. If the pig is hungry, feed it.

A New California Cuisine Roasted yams get the West

Coast treatment.

Unorderly Conduct The treacherous process of learning

to recycle in Switzerland.

 Jon Taffer The host of ‘‘Bar Rescue’’ sees Shakespeare

in reality TV.

 By Taff  y Brodesser-Akner 

 By Kwame Anthony Appiah

 By Sam Sifton

 Katharina Heinrich

 As told to Laura Bauerlein

 Interview by Ana Marie Cox

hind the Cover: Jessica Lustig, deputy editor: “Christopher Anderson photographed Edwin

ymond on a drive to East Flatbush, Brooklyn, where Raymond grew up, capturing the isolation

black offi  cer who has joined a lawsuit against the New York Police Department.” Photograph

Christopher Anderson/Magnum, for Te New York Times.

 By Emily Bazelon

 By Adam Davidson

 By Gretchen Reynolds

First Words

On Money

Well

Talk 

The Ethicist

Eat

Lives

Letter ofRecommendation

00 00

8  Contributors

10  The Thread

20  Poem

25  Tip

26 Judge J

Hodgma

74  Puzzles

76  Puzzles

(Puzzle answers

ruary 21, 2016

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‘Palauans are a very proud people. The whole thing wasa tragedy and a really embarrassing one.’

PAGE 40

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Woman

vs. Machine

Double Deal

Sea Sweepers

The Education

of Edwin Raymond

Dana Spiotta’s quietly subversive American fictions.

A documentary reveals the tangled role of paid informants

in F.B.I. terrorism investigations.

The 18 marine police officers of the island nation Palau are

fighting poachers in the Pacific Ocean. How they do it may help

the rest of the world save all of the oceans.

He thought he could change the New York City Police

Department from the inside. He wound up the lead plaintiff

in a lawsuit brought by 12 minority officers.

 By Susan Burton

 By Mattathias Schwartz 

 By Ian Urbina

 By Saki Knafo

Copyright © 201 6 The New Yo

ruary 21, 2016

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ery week the magazine publishes the resultsa study conducted online in July and August5 by The New York Times’s research-and-

alytics department, reflecting the opinions of87 subscribers who chose to participate.

s week’s question: Do you still read physicalks, or do you read them on electronic devices? 

ear Reader: Real Books

E-books?

  Editor in Chief  JAK E SI LVER ST

  Deputy Editors  JESSICA LUSTIG

  BILL WASIK 

  Managing Editor  ERIKA SOMMER

  Design Director  GAIL BICHLER

  Director of Photography  KATHY RYAN

  Features Editor  ILENA SILVERM

  Digital Deputy Editor  CHARLES HOM

  Story Editors  NITSUH ABEBE

  MICHAEL BENO

  SHEILA GLASERCLAIRE GUTIER

  LUKE MITCHEL

  DEAN ROBINSO

  WILLY STALEY,

  SASHA WEISS

  Associate Editors  JE AN NI E CH OI,

 JAZ MIN E HU GH

 Chief National Correspondent  MARK LEIBOVI

  Staff Writers SAM ANDERSO

EMILY BAZELON

SUSAN DOMINU

MAUREEN DOW

  NIKOLE HANNA

WESLEY MORR

 JE NN A W OR TH

  Writers at Large  C. J. CHIVERS,

  JIM RUTENBER

  Art Director  MATT WILLEY

  Deputy Art Director  JASON SFETKO

  Designers  FRANK AUGUG

BEN GRANDGE

  Digital Designer  LINSEY FIELDS

Associate Photo Editors  STACEY BAKER

AMY KELLNER,

DAVID LA SPINA

  CHRISTINE WA

  Virtual-Reality Editor  JENNA PIROG

  Photo Assistant  KAREN HANLEY

  Copy Chief  ROB HOERBURG

  Copy Editors  HARVEY DICKS

DANIEL FROMS

  MARGARET PRE

ANDREW WILL

Head of Research  NANDI RODRIG

  Research Editors  NANA ASFOUR,

  RENÉE MICHAE

LIA MILLER,

  MARK VAN DE W

  Production Chief   ANICK PLEVEN

  Production Editors  PATTY RUSH,

HILARY SHANA  Editorial Assistant   LIZ GERECITAN

ntributors

Taffy Brodesser-Akner is a contributing writer for

the magazine. She last wrote about the late

Roderick Toombs, known as Rowdy Roddy Piper.

Susan Burton is a writer based in Brooklyn. Sheis working on a memoir, ‘‘The Invention of the

Teenage Girl,’’ to be published by Random House.

Ian Urbina is an investigative reporter who has beenon the staff at The New York Times since 2003.

Mattathias Schwartz is a contributing writer

for the magazine. His last feature was about

investors who buy shares in other people’slitigation proceedings.

tographed by Kathy Ryan atTe New York Times on Jan. 5,6, at 12:25 p.m.

Saki Knafo is a reporting fellow with theInvestigative Fund at the Nation Institute. He

has written for New York Magazine, GQ

and Travel and Leisure. When he first interviewedEdwin Raymond, a transit officer who joined a

class-action lawsuit against the N.Y.P.D., Raymond

immediately began quoting lines and citing factsfrom ‘‘The New Jim Crow,’’ by Michelle Alexander,

and other influential books about criminal justice

and race. ‘‘By that point I’d interviewed other copsabout the pressures they were experiencing

at work, but I’d never heard any of them connect

those problems to the larger societal issues in such

a compelling way,’’ Knafo said. ‘‘I knew right thenthat if I was going to write a story about quotas,

I would be spending a lot of time with Raymond.’’

 Letter of Recommendation, Page 24

‘‘Woman vs. Machine,’’  Page 32

‘‘Double Deal,’’  Page 36 

‘‘Sea Sweepers,’’  Page 40

‘‘ Te Educationof Edwin Raymond,’’ 

 Page 50

san Burton

fy Brodesser-Akner

Urbina

ttathias Schwartz

Saki Knafo

isher: ANDY WRIGHT Associate Publisher: DOUG LATINO Advertising Directors: JACQUELYN L. CAMERON (Advocacy) ⬤  SHARI KAPLAN (Live Entertainment and Books) ⬤ NANCY KARPF (Fine Arts) ⬤

LICK (Automotive, Technology and Telecom) ⬤ SCOTT M. KUNZ  (International Fashion) ⬤ SHERRY MAHER (Department Stores, Beauty and American Fashion) ⬤  STEFANIE PALETZ (Studios) ⬤ JASON RHYN

HN RIGGIO (Legal Branding) ⬤  JOSH SCHANEN (Media and Travel) ⬤  SARAH THORPE (Corporate and Health Care, Education, Liquor and Packaged Goods) ⬤ BRENDAN WALSH (Finance and Real Estate

s Office Advertising Directors: JACQUELYN L. CAMERON (Washington) ⬤ LAUREN FUNKE (Florida/Southeast)  ⬤ DOUG LATINO (Detroit) ⬤  STEFANIE PALETZ (Los Angeles/Southwest) ⬤ CHRISTOPHER

cisco/Northwest) ⬤  JEAN ROBERTS (Boston/Northeast)  ⬤ JIMMY SAUNDERS (Chicago/Midwest) ⬤ SUSAN G. STEINBREDER (Atlanta/Southeast)  ⬤  KAREN FARINA (Magazine Director) ⬤ LAURA BOURGE

ctor, Advertising) ⬤ MICHAEL ANTHONY VILLASEÑOR (Creative Director, Advertising) ⬤ MARILYN MCCAULEY (Managing Director, Specialty Printing) ⬤  THOMAS GILLESPIE (Manager, Magazine Layout) ⬤ C

isher’s Assistant). To advertise, email karen.farina@nytimes.com.

38% Only read

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4% Only read books onelectronic devices

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BIONIC EXOSKELETONS CAN BE FOUND

IN COMIC BOOKS,

HOLLYWOOD MOVIES, AND NOW

 AT MOUNT SINAI.

 A man, paralyzed from the chest down in a terrible accident,

using futuristic technology to do incredible things. It’s

not the latest blockbuster. It’s the real story of Robert Woo,

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2.21.16 Illustrations by Tom Gauld

e Thread

he Ethicist was  right on with hissponse; but I would have come downrder on the duplicitous daughters. Itas their moral and ethical obligation,hen their mother asked what wasong with her, simply to say, ‘‘You havencer.’’ She could then at least havedicated how much more she wantedknow. In decades of volunteer workth hospice and other end-of-life orga-zations, I never met a dying personho benefited from being lied to. Con-

rsely, I knew many who, facing life’sd with understanding and compas-n, were able to have rich and mean-

gful exchanges with those they loved,d to maintain a level of control overeir final days. Both should be everydividual’s human right.an Moreland Johns, San Francisco

agree that the patient’s daughtersould have at least attempted to answerr question honestly about what wasppening to her, but the framing of thatvery important. Hospice workers and

hers are experts in this field and cer-nly can be of great assistance in theseffi cult conversations. (I served as a hos-ce chaplain for over 16 years.)The remarks about contrition and dam-tion, however, are stereotypical andite a shortchanging of the end-of-life

view and to Catholic beliefs in particular.

‘‘Thursday Night Football’’ — let year-round games?). With footbalis definitely more.

The Membership should bewagetting what they ask from their missioner as they choke the gooslays their golden eggs.Steve McConnell, Windsor, Conn.

Mark Leibovich went easy on the N.

he didn’t even mention ‘‘antitrust’’! the root of the N.F.L. hubris — it anto nobody but its billionaire benefic

If Senator Claire McCaskill ofsouri and other senators and rsentatives want to correct the Ndisregard of society, communitie‘‘honest’’ business, she could leaantitrust-based movement to prUnited States taxpayers from subing billionaires in sports while throaway taxpayer-paid incentives (ums, roads etc.).

Or a single season-ticket holderLouis could file a federal suit that meventually make the N.F.L. answthe wider society that it currentlylike it owns.W. Edward Wendover, Cadillac, Mich

‘That’s the

root of theN.F.L. hubris— it answersto nobody butits billionairebeneficiaries.’

aders respond to the 2.7.2016 issue.

: THE ETHICIST

wame Anthony Appiah discussed a querym a reader wondering if he should have

formed his mother-in-law about herpending death. Te letter-writer’s wife ,ng with her sisters, never explained theerity of the situation to their mother, whod memory problems.

THE COVER,

ON TWITTER

This cover is just so great/

vertigo-inducing.@kayelbee

 

Catholicism believes that Christ ispresent in the sacraments, and one ofthe traditional seven sacraments is theanointing of the sick. It was never offi -cially seen as essential for salvation or‘‘to avoid damnation,’’ however. Moviesand novels emphasized the ‘‘deathbedconversion,’’ containing confession,anointing and the Eucharist, rather thanthe consolation of God’s presence in

mercy for strengthening in illness and,perhaps, in facing one’s death. Appiahconflates these notions and adds thesense of the fear of damnation if this isnot received. This was never the intentof this sacrament.

 David E. Pasinski, Fayetteville, N.Y.

RE: N.F.L.

 Mark Leibovich wrote about how RogerGoodell, the N.F.L.’s commissioner, and thebillionaire owners known as the Membership have weathered a year of controversy over con-cussions, Deflategate and excessive salaries.

While admiring Mark Leibovich’srestraint as a Pats fan (like me), he onlyscratched the surface of the core issuethat threatens ‘‘the Shield.’’

On Deflategate and other disciplinaryfailures, no one disputes that the col-lective-bargaining agreement gives thecommissioner full authority to meteout justice. As in any contract, how-ever, this assumes that he acts in goodfaith. Goodell’s Deflategate debacle isthe poster child of bad-faith dealings

— which he could not have conductedwithout the full support of the majorityof the Membership. That same short-sightedness among the Membershipis driving toward an expansion thatwill harm players and be of no interestto fans (does anyone even care about

CORRECTIONS:

Te Diagnosis column on Feb. 14 misidethe school Francis Graziano, the first rto arrive at the correct diagnosis, atteis Georgetown University School of Menot George Washington University.

Te Talk column on Feb. 7, featurinrestaurateur Danny Meyer, misstat

 aspect of the new compensation modelrestaurant group. Waiters will share restaurant’s revenue, not its profits.

Send your thoughts to magazine@nytime

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st Words

Next month, the Supreme Court will hear the bi  g est abortion case in decades — and cohether laws designed for the ‘protection’  of women actually harm them. By Emily Ba

n September 1905, a laundress named Emma Gotcher reported Muller, the owner of Portland Grand Laundry, for making her wmore than 10 hours — the state’s legal limit for women — on, of all d

abor Day. Gotcher was a labor activist, married to a leader o

hirtwaist and Laundry Workers’ Union. The court found Muller gf violating Oregon law and fined him $. He refused to pay, anppeal to the Supreme Court, his lawyer drew national attentio

making a feminist argument: Limits on women’s work hours actiscriminate against them. Two years earlier, in the well-known ochner v. New York, the Supreme Court struck down a statehat restricted bakers, most of them men, to the same 10-hour he bakers were ‘‘in no sense wards of the state,’’ the court said. W

Muller’s lawyer asked, should women be treated diff erently? ¶ustices found a reason. A woman, like a child, ‘‘has been looked uphe courts as needing especial care,’’ the Supreme Court pronounn 1908, unanimously upholding Oregon’s 10-hour restriction in M

Over Bearing

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st Words

Four anti-abortiondoctors testifiedon the sideof Texas,portrayingwomen asvulnerableto a lurkingthreat.

Oregon. ‘‘She is properly placed in a classherself, and legislation designed for her

otection may be sustained.’’After the court’s decision, states all overcountry passed employment rules that

ofessed to protect women by settingecial health and safety requirements orring them from working at night or tak-jobs like bartending. ‘‘The court said

t whereas male workers should have

freedom to contract for themselves,men could be denied that freedom,’’

ys Alice Kessler-Harris, a historian atlumbia University who writes aboutor and gender. ‘‘They justified the lackfreedom as ‘protection.’ That languagemes up again and again. It’s really aphemism for the public welfare: Wom-s purpose is to become healthy motherso produce healthy children. Their bod-should not be weakened, and the valuesthe home shouldn’t be undermined bycoarse workplace.’’

Feminists objected. If night work wasgainst nature,’’ the lawyer Blanche Cro-r said dryly in 1933, then starvations even more so. In 2008, on the 100thniversary of Muller v. Oregon, Justiceth Bader Ginsburg said in a speech,aving grown up in years when women,law or custom, were protected fromange of occupations, including law-ring, and from serving on juries, I amtinctively suspicious of women-only

otective legislation.’’By then, thanks in no small part tonsburg’s eff orts, the Supreme Court had

ped to undo Muller, recognizing thatuality for women meant giving them

same right that men had to fend formselves. In 1973, the court ruled 8 to 1

favor of a female Air Force offi cer whoallenged a law that gave her husbands access to benefits than the wives ofle service members. In his opinion,tice William Brennan disavowed the

urt’s previous ‘‘ ‘romantic paternalism’ich, in practical eff ect, put women nota pedestal, but in a cage.’’In light of this history, it’s telling thatday’s abortion opponents have dusted

the word ‘‘protection’’ to justify regula-ns that are shutting down clinics acrosse country. The anti-abortion group

mericans United for Life, which draftsdel legislation for states, has what itls a Women’s Protection Project, witht-of-the-box bills called the Women’salth Protection Act and the Women’s

Health Defense Act. After decades of bat-tling for the life of the unborn child, abor-

tion opponents have started arguing thatfor the sake of women seeking abortions— to protect their  health and safety — thestate must impose strict new regulationson clinics. In 2013, the Texas Legislaturepassed a bevy of new rules (the epilogueto State Senator Wendy Davis’s filibus-ter in her pink tennis shoes). The newlaw requires clinics to employ a doctorwho has privileges to admit patients ata nearby hospital and to meet the con-struction and equipment standards foran ‘‘ambulatory surgical center,’’ whichinclude temperature controls, hallways

wide enough for a gurney and specialventilation units. The estimated costof renovating an existing clinic is $1.5million to $3 million.

On March 2, the Supreme Court willhear a challenge to the Texas law. Whole

 Woman’s Health, which operates fourclinics in the state, has brought the suit,

arguing that Texas’ stated goal of pring women is a cover for closing c

and that the law has no real medicapose. Instead, it imposes an ‘‘undueden’’ — the Supreme Court’s constitutest — on women’s right to reproducare. If the Texas restrictions are allto go fully into eff ect, the number oftion clinics in the state is projected toto eight or nine, from 44 three yearacross nearly 270,000 square miles. than 20 states have enacted lawssome or all of the Texas restrictions

In July 2014, I visited a clinic in Arun by Whole Woman’s Health, wwomen recovering from abortions

ed in reclining chairs, drinking teafleece blankets over their laps. Suchforts have been off ered by abortionics since they were founded (mainfeminists) in the 1970s. Tea and blaaren’t allowed, however, in the sterenvironment of a surgical center. Thtin clinic closed a couple of weeks aft

Illustration by Javier Jaén

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There’sno phrasefor menequivalentto ‘damselin distress’and no suchthing as

‘protective’legislationfor men.

Kessler-Harris, who submitted a brief inthe Texas case, along with 15 other his-torians. (Colonoscopies have a mortalityrate more than 30 times as high as therate for abortion.) ‘‘Abortion is one of thesafest medical procedures performed inthe United States,’’ states another brief bythe American College of Obstetricians andGynecologists and the American Medical

 Association. The major medical groupswere exceptionally blunt in disputing

the protective rationale for the Texas law,saying there is ‘‘no medical purpose’’ forrequiring abortion clinics to meet the stan-dards for a surgical center. The admitting-privileges requirement for doctors ‘‘like-wise does nothing to improve the healthand safety of women.’’

The brief from the medical groupsargues damningly that far from protect-ing women, the Texas law endangersthem. By causing clinics to close, and thusforcing women to travel longer distancesto have abortions, the law ‘‘has delayed,and in some cases blocked,’’ women’s

access to the procedure. ‘‘Both outcojeopardize women’s health.’’

The main audience for these briethe court’s single swing voter on abortJustice Anthony M. Kennedy. He uphthe core of Roe v. Wade in 1992, butlatest opinion on abortion, in 2007, hinof old-school paternalism. ‘‘Some womcome to regret’’ their choice of abortKennedy wrote then. ‘‘In a decisionfraught with emotional consequen

some doctors may prefer not to discprecise details of the means that wiused.’’ In other words, to spare womfrom hearing about a type of late-tprocedure, Kennedy permitted Cgress to ban it. Contrast that to his ring endorsement of liberty and equin proclaiming a constitutional righsame-sex marriage last summer. Forcouples, Kennedy championed the ‘‘auomy’’ to make ‘‘profound choices.’’ Heyet to express the same faith in womIt’s not hard to see, though, that Tex‘‘protecting’’ women at their peril.  

t, anticipating the high cost of comply-with the new regulations.

Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedthe biggest abortion case the Supremeurt has heard in a quarter-century. Attrial in Austin, four anti-abortion doc-s testified on the side of Texas, por-ying women as vulnerable to a lurkingeat. Calling the state’s law ‘‘protectivepatients,’’ James Anderson, the headVirginia Physicians for Life, said it was

essary to address ‘‘cracks in the healthtem,’’ claiming that the complicatione for abortion is ‘‘underreported.’’ Aftermilar trial in Alabama, the judge dis-dited Anderson’s testimony, express-‘‘concerns about his judgment or

nesty’’ because he submitted a report,hout verifying its content, written by

ncent Rue, who has a Ph.D. in homeonomics and whose testimony wasown out in two past abortion caseslack of scientific rigor.

The language of fear has been eveniner in the recent push by conserva-

e Republicans to deny Planned Par-hood government funding. ‘‘Plannedenthood is not a safe place for vulner-e women,’’ the president of the con-vative group Concerned Women for

merica said on Fox News last summer,ming that the group ‘‘coerces women

o abortion’’ and ‘‘sells their baby parts.’’These claims are not backed by evi-nce. But still the alarms ring, playing into

usual assumptions that the impulse tootect is benevolent and, perhaps, thatmen are especially deserving of solic-de. The association between ‘‘protec-n’’ and women is deeply embeddedculture. The image of the domestic-lence victim who receives a protectiveer is female, though men have the same

ht to go to court. Shakespeare describedd’s protection of the king, but over the

nturies, writers from E. M. Forster torman Mailer to Jonathan Franzen havepsodized about the male impulse tolter women. Once in a while, a female

aracter voices vexation. ‘‘I won’t betected,’’ Lucy protests to her irritatingor in Forster’s ‘‘A Room With a View.’’ ‘‘Il choose for myself what is ladylike andht. To shield me is an insult.’’There’s no phrase for men equivalent‘damsel in distress’’ and no such thing‘protective’’ legislation for men. ‘‘No

e says anything about sending men togical centers for colonoscopies,’’ says

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Money By Adam Davidson

Do technological advances determinehe health of our economy? Maybe

— but what matters most is how they

hange us.

One day in 1980, when I was my great-grandmother’s livand poured out questions abouwas like for her as a girl in Belashe was still sharp and could aquestions. But she didn’t betrayemotion I hoped for. Born in 18village powered by horses and manner hardly changed from

ancient Rome, she grew up to winvention of the airplane and thof electricity and the telephonher to join me in marveling at thworld-changing transformatiI knew were beyond anythinhood self could have imagineanswered my questions calml‘‘No, I don’t remember the firssaw.’’ ‘‘No, I don’t remember thson I called on a telephone.’’

 A key question in economiDoes technological advancemeimprovement in average peoplconditions that it creates, continat a steady rate? Or has it alreaIt’s no small question. If we haanything, it is that peace, demoues and even self-reported hapclosely connected with economEconomies that are stagnant leflict; if the pie isn’t getting biggthe only way to improve your losomeone else’s slice. It’s tellingthe current presidential campaithis lens. Bernie Sanders is arthis stagnant-pie-stealing has b

on for some time, while Donsays that he can keep outsidersour desserts altogether. In a napolitics have long been characindefatigable optimism — in rhin reality — it’s striking that no pcandidate in 2016 is off ering anoptimistic vision of the future.

In articulating such a visiodidates will find little help Gordon’s ‘‘The Rise and Fall ofGrowth.’’ Published by Princetoty Press last month, the book is

equivalent to Thomas Piketty’sthe 21st Century’’: an essential economists, who are unanimouby its boldness and scope even iagree with its conclusions. Throful study of the entire history otechnological advancement, Gcludes that despite all the uphepast 200 years, there have reallya handful of fundamental step

2.21.16 Illustration by Andrew Rae

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17/79

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Money

ctricity, the telephone, the combustiongine, mass production, indoor plumb-g, the conquest of infectious diseasesd the computer. He argues that every-ng else, including the Internet and theartphone, is simply a variation on these

mes — and that for all our 21st-centuryk of ‘‘innovation,’’ the pace of real trans-mative innovation has radically slowedring the past half-century.We can see this, he argues, in the

minishing impact on productivity in American work force. Productivity

owth, at its simplest, means that peoplen achieve more in a given amount of

me than they used to be able to. It’s the

The strongest backlash againhas come from techno-optimicon Valley, who assure us

wonders are coming soon. Tout that even the things we alrabout — robots, drones, artifigence, smart devices — will bto significantly improve pronce they have been fully uBetter still, they argue, therbe new, radical inventions theven predict yet.

I, too, am more optimistic thbut for reasons that have littlefuture technological advances. acknowledges, there is gener

gap between a new technologtion and its wide impact on prPrimitive steam engines beganin the 17th century, and the telepatented in 1876. Yet we didnhuge spike in productivity unt

That’s because productivitlives in general, improve not at tof invention but when society conditions to allow new ideas

Adam Davidson

is a founder of NPR’s‘‘Planet Money’’ and

 a contributing writer for the magazine.

Illustration by Andrew Rae

only way that human beings, as a group,can become better off . There was an enor-mous upward shift in productivity between1920 and 1970, a rate of growth unseen atany other time in human history. But after1970, that growth slowed. Then there wasanother, lesser blip upward during theyears surrounding 2000, as computerswent mainstream and became married tocommunication, in the form of the Inter-net. If we exclude that blip, though, the past50 years have seen roughly half the rate of

productivity growth as the 50 that preced-ed them. Gordon argues that this relativelyslow growth in productivity, together withrising inequality, helps explain not just thestagnation in American wages but the gen-eral feeling of anger and despair. Worse,he argues that this post-1970 sluggishnessis with us to stay, because the remarkableseries of inventions of the previous 100years is unlikely to be repeated.

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Threshold of the Oblivious Blossoming By Larry Levis

  When I said one blossom desires the air, Another the shadows, I was freeOf desires. Beyond the doorsill the café tables

 Were empty because it was raining.The rain was empty as well, & there was no poignancy

Left in it when I looked up at it falling, & went onSitting inside & waiting for my dealer to show up so I coulTwo grams of crystal methedrine from her, talk for a mom

 And finish my coff ee.

 When I thought of the petals of the magnolia blossomFlattened by passing traffi c to the pavement & the gradualDiscoloration of them, their white like that of communion

Becoming gray & a darker gray moment by moment,

 When I knew I wanted them to mean nothing

 And suggest everything, desire rushed back into things,But not into the blossoms & not into the air.

egrated into our daily lives. The basichnological conditions for the expansive

oductivity growth of the 1950s and 1960ssted in 1900 and, arguably, long beforet. But society had to do a lot of workt. There had to be new schools (only

out 10 percent of Americans attendedh school in 1900, and far fewer went tolege) so that people had the education

use the new inventions. Unions and thedern corporation matured to help allo-e labor. A new political system evolvedfit an economy that operated nationally,t just as far as a mule could walk.It was, of course, a messy, often ugly,nlinear process. The single hardest tasks internal: Americans had to changew they thought about themselves. Noty did some of the iconic jobs of the 20th

ntury not exist in the 19th century; theyren’t conceivable. There weren’t manyge corporations, so there was less ofradition of specialized jobs with nar-w tasks. People had to learn to think ofional markets, huge firms, accredited

ofessions, new forms of urban identity.hile writing this column, I was emailingh a friend, a woman who does brandrketing for a credit-card company. It

curred to me that literally every noun inr job title would have made no sense tor great-grandmother, or to mine.The very evidence Gordon cites forssimism — persistent inequality, lowoductivity growth, lack of major innova-ns — can also be read as signs of oppor-

ity. In the last century, the main way arson’s productivity rose was by going tork at a large company and doing whatboss said. Today, lots of people are find-ways to improve their own lot — and

erall productivity — on their own. Theyl crafts on Etsy, get funding on Kick-rter, build toys with 3-D printers. Theyrn through online classes and proveir skills on sites like Topcoder.Right now, the benefits of this dig-, shared, distributed economy are

cruing only to a tiny group of people

d, even more, to the companies thatve them. But it’s at least conceivablet digital technology could help build

w models of education, new ways forrkers to collectively bargain, new toolsallow more people to identify and sellir skills and ideas to those who wantm. There could be financial productst make it easier to withstand increas- volatility and insecurity. There could

Natasha Trethewey served as the poet laureate of the United States from 2012 to 2014. Larry Lthe author of five poetry collections when he died in 1996. ‘‘ Te Darkening Trapeze: Last Poems’’ waslast month by Graywolf Press.

Poem Selected by Natasha Trethewey

‘‘A poem should not mean/But be,’’ wrote the American poet Archibald MacL poem by Larry Levis, the movement from ideas about blossoms to concrete ima petals of the magnolia blossom/Flattened by passing traffi  c’’ — reflects a transin the mind of the speaker. From that precise seeing, something ineff  able arriv

be an easier path to entrepreneurship,so more people with good ideas couldpresent them to the market.

I called Gordon and described thisvision to him. He replied, with a kindchuckle: ‘‘You are in a dream world. Yourlist of needed improvements in institu-tions and society are a wish list that isn’thappening now and is very unlikely to hap-

pen in the future.’’ And maybe he’s right.

The language of the current pcampaign — when it’s cohereis of taxes and regulation, imand carpet-bombing. It is the lzero-sum stagnancy, not expangrowth. But it’s worth being cleindeed doomed to a generatigrowth, it’s a lapse in our colleination, not in technological i

that is holding us back.  

It occurred tome that literallyevery nounin her job titlewould havemade no senseto her great-

grandmother,or to mine.

Money

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22/792.21.16 Illustration by Anna Parini

e benefits of  mindfulness meditation,reasingly popular in recent years, are

pposed to be many: reduced stressd risk for various diseases, improvedll-being, a rewired brain. But the exper-ental bases to support these claims haveen few. Supporters of the practice haveied on very small samples of unrepre-ntative subjects, like isolated Buddhistnks who spend hours meditating every

y, or on studies that generally were notndomized and did not include placebo-ntrol groups. This month, however, ady published in Biological Psychiatryngs scientific thoroughness to mind-ness meditation and for the first timeows that, unlike a placebo, it can change

brains of ordinary people and poten-ly improve their health.To meditate mindfully demands ‘‘anen and receptive, nonjudgmentalareness of your present-moment expe-nce,’’ says J. David Creswell, who ledstudy and is an associate professor of

ychology and the director of the Health

d Human Performance Laboratory atrnegie Mellon University. One diffi cul-of investigating meditation has beenplacebo problem. In rigorous studies,

me participants receive treatment whileers get a placebo: They believe they areting the same treatment when they aret. But people can usually tell if they areditating. Creswell, working with scien-s from a number of other universities,naged to fake mindfulness.First they recruited 35 unemployedn and women who were seeking work

d experiencing considerable stress.ood was drawn and brain scans wereen. Half the subjects were then taughtmal mindfulness meditation at a resi-ntial retreat center; the rest completedind of sham mindfulness meditationt was focused on relaxation and dis-cting oneself from worries and stress.

We had everyone do stretching exer-es, for instance,’’ Creswell says. The

new study suggests there’s some scienceehind the claims made for mindfulness meditation.

ell By Gretchen Reynolds

Contemplation Therapy

mindfulness group paid close attentionto bodily sensations, including unpleasantones. The relaxation group was encour-aged to chatter and ignore their bodies,while their leader cracked jokes. At the

end of three days, the participants all toldthe researchers that they felt refreshedand better able to withstand the stressof unemployment. Yet follow-up brainscans showed diff erences in only thosewho underwent mindfulness meditation.There was more activity, or communica-tion, among the portions of their brainsthat process stress-related reactions andother areas related to focus and calm. Four

months later, those who hadmindfulness showed much loin their blood of a marker ofinflammation than the relaxateven though few were still me

Creswell and his colleagues bthe changes in the brain contribsubsequent reduction in inflaalthough precisely how remain Also unclear is whether you neethree uninterrupted days of conto reap the benefits. When it commuch mindfulness is needed thealth, Creswell says, ‘‘we still habout the ideal dose.’’  

Follow-up brainscans showeddifferencesin only those

who underwentmindfulnessmeditation.

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tter of Recommendation

tting permission to travel by air shouldt be as degrading as it is. As a mattercourse, you — with your wide eyes and

nuine smile and clear conscience andid identification — are bombarded byisible rays that reveal explicit details

your anatomy. You are made to endurewanted touching, particularly if, like me,scanning of your body invariably leads

follow-up searches of the tip of yourad and the seat of your pants. Every singlee. Then, the blue latex gloves come out,

d even if you have the presence of mind

to ask that they put on a new pair to combthrough your hair and conduct somethingthat is not not  a rectal exam — no pene-

tration, not exactly, and yet — they will beresentful. And though they will acquiesce,they will punish you for your request bygoing extra rough on both your tenderhead and your poor, weary rear.

I bring this up only because a post-security-line mind-set is important tounderstanding the allure of XpresSpa. Ispent several years ignoring the incongru-ous Zen glow that emanated from those

XpresSpaTaffy Brodesser-Akner

The airport spa

offers the perfect

counterpoint to the

poking and prodding

of the securitycheckpoint, restoring

 your dignity to

baseline levels.

stalls — tucked among the CCheeburgers and the Hudson with their women in chinos and

polo shirts, cracking their knureadiness. I would recover froma of the T.S.A. line-grope byinto myself and avoiding all huaction. Besides, like everythingairport, XpresSpa seemed like you didn’t want to touch.

I’ve never sought out masway, except when I am forcedoccasions: baby-shower gift-

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2.21.16Illustration by Radio

Tip By Malia Wollan

demptions and compulsory ‘‘girls’y’’ sorts of things. It’s not that Iuldn’t use a massage; I spend mostmy waking hours hunched over mymputer, curled into a question mark.

worry some days that I might lose myck entirely as my shoulders pursue armanent engagement with my ears.t I can’t stand the expectation ofndfulness that you find at nonairport

as. Out there in the regular world,y hand you towels and slippers andk that you escape your life amid theirrm oils and groping hands and tinkly

usic. They force you to surrender to at of relaxation that doesn’t exist for. They ask that you leave at the door allur obligations and become a versionyourself that is as pure and unsaddledd malleable as a newborn.My conversion was sudden; it hap-ned last summer, just before a flightRussia. I arrived three hours early — asu must when you know that you willve to use all of your feeling words torgain for an aisle seat, and, if that fails,e a pregnancy — and I had a crick in

y back, a result of having hoisted mygage into an overhead compartmentweek before. In the Turkish Airlines

minal at Kennedy Airport — no powertlets anywhere, no Wi-Fi to be found finally submitted to the glow.

I took my place in a leather Barcaloung-in a line of other Barcaloungers, in fullw of other travelers. A woman in aock stood over me, staring straight

o my eyes. I didn’t tell her about theck, or about how I’d gone to severalropractors and yoga classes to treator about how I also bought a cervicallow, or about how none of this hadde the slightest diff erence. I just satre. She reached behind my back, feltund, found the spot and, locking eyes

th me, manipulated whatever stringsre are in my back until it was released.‘How did you know?’’ I asked her.‘It’s my job,’’ she answered. Only then

d she look away.

If it sounds sexual, I don’t know whatsay. It wasn’t. But it was a special expe-nce shared by two people, and I will

ways treasure her and wonder what herme was. Part of it was the massage,. The other part was a touch of kind-

ss and healing after the blue-latex-ve experience, like a cold plunge inpool after the sauna.

 XpresSpa does not pretend to be apalace of luxury. Before you even enter,it conveys to you its brisk effi ciencythrough its name, with that economicalomission of an initial ‘‘E’’ and a final,redundant ‘‘S.’’ You won’t take off  yourshoes (unless you’re getting the footmassage). You can even continue towork your phone while your service ishappening, for certainly XpresSpa does

not expect you to close your eyes in anairport. There is no implied moral judg-ment against you for continuing to bethe person who got this stressed in thefirst place.

The modern airport has evolved tomimic the world outside of airports, tovarying degrees of success. There’s aKiehl’s at J.F.K. now, around the corner

from a Michael Kors. There ain between selling artisanalcheese experiences, all pedillusion that you would be habsolutely didn’t have to be. Eis receiving an upgrade, excep Airport Experience, which rawful as ever. And this makesan oasis for those whose exphave been wisely lowered. It d

tend it is heaven. Its only job isyour dignity to baseline leveit also knows what’s aheadarcane preboarding exercisetaking up the entire arm resurinated-upon toilet seat. Andthey wish you luck as you leavthey know exactly what you’into: an airport, and then an

Flight-departure

performance at

some of the busiest

airports in the

United States,

according to the

T.S.A.:

Delayed

Newark: 23%

O’Hare: 22%

 J.F.K.: 20%

Boston: 18%

Philadelphia: 19%

Dulles: 18%Honolulu: 8%

Canceled

Newark: 4%

O’Hare: 4%

 J.F.K.: 3%

Boston: 4%

Philadelphia: 3%

Dulles: 3%

Honolulu: 1%

How to Lull aGrown-Up to Sleep

‘‘Don’t do baby talk or have a parentaltone,’’ says Drew Ackerman, a librarian inthe San Francisco Bay Area and the hostof ‘‘Sleep With Me,’’ a podcast designedto help adult listeners fall asleep. Yoursubject matter can be mature, but keepit sedative in nature; avoid topics likereligion, politics, sex, violence and spi-ders. Be careful not to overengage youraudience. ‘‘I’m always asking myself, Do Ineed to make it more boring?’’ Ackerman

says. Your goal is not to get your listenersto stay with you to the finish; it is to losethem along the way.

Choose content that dips into theotherworldly; you want to trigger thatbizarre neurological state at the edgeof sleep. If the outlandish makes youfeel self-conscious, imagine yourself asa character. To lead someone else into

that vulnerable space betweeness and dreams, you need totaneously calm and wildly imor what Ackerman calls ‘‘the of weird but not creepy.’’

Be empathetic; no matter the inability to fall asleep is detling. Tens of thousands of peoload each episode of Ackerma(there are more than 340 of thon feedback from listeners, hethat a third suff er from chr‘‘Your job is not to fix the prosays. ‘‘It is just to be there to t

It is helpful to have an outli

before you begin, whether youining a fairy tale or recountinhis three weekly shows, Ackerrecaps television programs. focusing on plot twists, he mfive minutes describing a painwall of a character’s home (cminutiae ‘‘just melts people’Most episodes run longer thabut Ackerman estimates that of listeners tune in for just ovutes. Even if you begin to heanever ask your audience if the

ing. That question provokes those who are still awake.

Don’t close with ‘‘the endslow down your speech. Finiand then keep going a little lonsaying a few more nonsensicalthe dark. Gently taper to silena parent,’’ Ackerman says, ‘‘waward out of the room of a sleepi

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2.21.16 Illustration by Tomi Um

e Ethicist By Kwame Anthony Appiah

ShouldI Speak UpFor a

Pet Pig?

 I am in a profession where I often go to people’s houses to work with their children. I have one client whom I like verymuch and who has requested my services

 a number of times, but whenever I leavethat client’s house, I find myself troubled.Tis family has a teacup pig, which liveswith them in a medium-size apartment.

 I consider myself an animal lover, and it so happens that I have looked into the fadof teacup pigs. I know that they are really

 piglets of a larger variety, the potbellied pig, which are unintentionally underfed byowners who have been led by dishonest

 sellers to believe that the pigs need to eat

less than they really do. Right now the pig is small, perhaps  to  pounds, but I know it will keep growing and thatthe lowest healthy weight for a full-grown‘‘teacup pig’’ is about  pounds; a

 potbellied pig can easily grow to more than pounds. I asked the family how bigthe pig would get, thinking perhaps theyknew the facts and had some plan. Teytold me that they expect it to remain the sizeit is now.Te worst part?Tey often remarkthat the pig is acting hungry; I imagine they

 feed him the too-small amount they were directed to by the seller. I believe that this

 family loves their pig very much and that I am witnessing an unintentional act of animal cruelty, but I am in a quandary:Should I tell them that they are unwittinglymistreating their beloved pet? I worry that

 I would be overstepping my professionalbounds. People can be very touchy whenit comes to their pets, and I want to maintain

submit a query:

d an email tocist@nytimes

m; or send mailThe Ethicist, Thew York Timesgazine, 620hth Avenue, Newk, N.Y. 10018.lude a daytime

one number.)

Bonus Advice From Judge John Hodgman

Denise writes: We are expecting our first baby, and I wa

her to grow up in a home where people still pay attentio

one another. I’d like to put a friendly sign on our door th

asks guests to use phones in our home only in the even

an emergency. My husband cringes at the thought.

————

A sign would certainly solve the problem, because it wil

make your home look like a school library or a radiology and your friends will never come back. Or you could just sp

to them face to face, as in the old days, and say, ‘‘Would

mind not checking your Kik account right now?’’ Oh, but y

child? Even way back when, that kid wouldn’t pay atten

to you. Whether through TV, comic books or just explori

dangerous caves and well bottoms, kids had ways to ign

their parents long before smartphones.

cordial relations with them for the sake ofmy continued employment. Do I have

 an ethical obligation to tell them the truth about teacup pigs? 

Name Withheld

If you’re right, this pig is suff ering fromhunger and malnourishment, and its own-ers don’t know. Because animals can’t

speak, it’s especially important that wespeak for them. These owners, in yourview, don’t mean to harm their pet. So intheory, they ought to be grateful to youfor bringing the facts to their attention.In reality, as you fear, they might be cha-grined and reluctant to see you again.Much comes down to diplomacy. You cansay that coming to know their pet led youto explore what you had heard about thebreed . . . and then tell them what you’vefound out. When it comes to the treatmentof animals, Jeremy Bentham captured the

essentials more than two centuries ago:‘‘The question is not, Can they reason? nor,Can they talk? but, Can they suff er?’’

 For a research project on a famous ancestor of mine whose father is unknown, I’ve genetically tested (with their full permission) a number of male descendants.(I’m female, so my own DNA won’t giveme the information about the male line.)One of these relatives is an elderly manwho is very proud of this ancestor. But theresults showed that the man he thinks is

 his biological father is not. I haven’t shared

this news with him because I think it might hurt him terribly, but I don’t know him well

enough to know that for sure. He also children who might want to know thei

 actual genetic line. I truly don’t knowright thing to do.

Name Withheld

This issue is  going to come up and more often. Genetic testing maincreasingly clear that fatherhood inv

more faith than motherhood. Studiecome up with figures ranging from cent to 30 percent for rates of nonpnity, though the most likely figure fcontemporary United States is at thlow end of that range.

The combination of expanded getesting with a growing interest in gogy means that people will have to dwhether they care about their biolancestry or their social ancestryhardest cases will involve men leathat their children aren’t biolog

theirs, and children learning the about their fathers.If there were a standard form tha

and your relative filled out togethecould rely on that previous agreeas you proceed. But there isn’t. So have to do your best to take into aca variety of considerations.

To start with, the revelation coupainful to your relative. Not only whe have to think diff erently about hinection to his family’s famous forehe might feel the shame of illegiti Although that stigma has (thankfully)

ly disappeared, he comes from a getion for which it was a more serious m

8/19/2019 Nyt m 20160221

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ame Anthony Appiah teaches philosophyN.Y.U. He is the author of ‘‘Cosmopolitanism’’ ande Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen.’’

Some might invoke the privacy rights ofe mother or the husband. But I wouldn’tve either much weight: Presumably yourative’s parents are long dead. Whatout the medical case for disclosure?

nless there’s something in the data thatggests biological risks that he and hisildren wouldn’t have anticipated (andat they could usefully act on), I doubt thatowing about his mother’s infidelity willof much use. Still, as you say, his children

ay want to know what you found.Finally, you have to ask yourself what

uths about your parents’ or grandpar-ts’ relationships are important enoughat you would want to know them even ifey were painful. Would you resent it ifmeone had such information about youd withheld it? If you think you would,s can be your compass here, howeverffi cult the resulting conversation. A gen-al moral, though: Talk before you test.

ve in a suburb of Minneapolis and haveared a driveway with our neighbors foryears. Some days, I come home fromrk for lunch, and my neighbor’s son (whon high school) is also home. He is

metimes with a girl and sometimes withends. I frequently smell illegal drugsng smoked. Should I let his parents knowat I’ve observed? Or should I keep

y nose out of their business? 

me Withheld

u mention the length but not the depthyour relationship with your neighbors, soassume you’re not close. But as with our

NA tester, it will help to ask yourself whatu would want the other party to do if youruations were reversed. You needn’t agreeth the laws against marijuana (that’s what’re talking about, right?) to think that aung person who smokes in the drivewayaying himself open to trouble. In Min-sota, possession of more than one and af ounces is theoretically punishable byto five years in prison. And there are

her reasons to worry about a high-schoold getting blitzed in the middle of the day.nsider how you would feel — how you

ould be entitled to feel — if your neighborled to pass on similar observations aboutur own children. I’d be guided by that.  

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t By Sam Sifton

Photograph by Grant Cornett

A New California Cuisineoasted yams get the West Coast treatment.

Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Rebecca Bartosh

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Comment: nytimes.com/magazine  2.21.16

Gjelina’s Roasted Yams

Time: 1 hour

    large yams

    tablespoons honey

    tablespoon Espelette peppecrushed red-pepper flakes

    tablespoons extra-virgin oli

  Kosher salt and freshly groublack pepper

  ½  cup Greek-style yogurt

    tablespoons fresh lime juiceapproximately  limes

    scallions, both green and wtrimmed and thinly sliced, f

1. Heat oven to 425. Cut the yams

into 4 wedges per yam. Put them

bowl, and toss them with the hone

tablespoon of the Espelette peppe

red-pepper flakes and 2 tablespo

olive oil. Let it sit for 10 minutes or once or twice to coat, as the oven

2. Transfer the yams to a foil-lined,

baking sheet, season with salt an

pepper and then bake until they a

caramelized around the edges an

when pierced with a fork at their t

part, approximately 30 to 35 minu

3. As the yams roast, combine the

lime juice and remaining tablespo

oil in a small bowl, and whisk to co

then season with salt and pepper

Set aside.

4. When the yams are done, trans

to a serving platter, drizzle the yogu

and garnish with the remaining Es

pepper or red-pepper flakes, the s

some flaky sea salt i f you have any

Serves 3-6. Adapted from ‘‘Gjelina: CooVenice, California.’’   

Travis Lett is a bearded, hippie-chic chef

who runs a trio of popular restaurantsin the beachside community of Venice,Calif. The flagship is Gjelina, a loud, fash-ionable and vegetable-centric neighbor-hood spot as well known for the attrac-tiveness of its clientele as for its pizzasand salads, slathered toasts and smokypastas. The restaurant is an aspirationallifestyle camp, replete with fire pit andsloe-eyed waiters.

Thankfully, little of that scene is docu-mented in ‘‘Gjelina: Cooking From Ven-ice, California,’’ Lett’s excellent cook-book, which came out in the fall. The

restaurant’s dining room and patrons arelargely omitted from its pages. Instead,the food dominates. There are dozens anddozens of recipes set alongside luxuriousportraits of simple ingredients, simplyprepared, though in riots of contrast:sweet against salty; spicy against sour;crunchy against smooth.

I have spent the last few months cook-ing from the book, bringing a little Cal-ifornia warmth and brio into my chillyEast Coast kitchen, along with a lot lessmeat. ‘‘I wanted the restaurant to off ersomething that didn’t demand too much

attention but at the same time had theability to inspire if you paused and trulylooked,’’ Lett writes in the introduction.The same goal animates his recipes.Cooking them carefully can lead a homecook down fascinating paths.

Grilled king oyster mushrooms withtarragon butter could be luscious accom-paniments to a massive steak (indeed,they are). But served on their own, theyare even more singular: steaklike them-selves beneath their gleam of herb-scent-ed butter, perfect with a glass of wineand roasted potatoes. Charred brusselssprouts with dates and bacon? Likewise.You could serve them with pork chops orturkey cutlets. But maybe don’t, and watchas a double batch of the recipe goes downas successfully as a full-throttle meat-and-side dinner. More room for dessert.

Lett has fine instructions for roasted

cauliflower with garlic, parsley and vin-egar; so, too, for pizza with Castelvetra-no olives, a wee bit of guanciale and themild heat of Fresno chiles. Come spring,I’ll grill his jumbo asparagus with saucegribiche and bottarga; in summer, I’llmake the most of ricotta gnocchi witha cherry-tomato pomodoro. Cookingthis way takes on its own satisfactionsand makes the decision to cook a greathaunch of meat all the more special whenwe come to it not as a matter of expecta-tion but as an occasional treat.

 Again and again this winter, I have

made Gjelina’s roasted yams with honey,Espelette pepper and lime yogurt. Theseare a marvelous accompaniment to aroast chicken. They are as good or betteras a platter served alongside a salad ofwinter greens, cheese and nuts. ‘‘Yamsare abundant and cheap in the wintermonths,’’ Lett writes, ‘‘and customersfind them soul-satisfying and delicious.’’ Which is true. But what gets them thereis technique: tossing the tubers in honeybefore roasting them intensifies theircaramelization. That crisp, near-burnedsweetness works beautifully against the

heat of the pepper and the acidic cream-iness of the yogurt you dab onto the dishat the end.

Forty years ago, SkateBoarder mag-azine published a series of articles onthe skate scene along Venice Beach,near where Gjelina now operates, aworld that would later be captured inthe documentary film ‘‘Dogtown andZ-Boys’’ in 2001. The magazines land-ed with force in cities far from Cali-fornia, where they were passed aroundwith reverence, like dispatches from apromised land. The tricks depicted inthe photographs and described in thetext — graceful turns on steep concrete,one hand trailing behind as if throughthe curl of an ocean wave — had animmediate and transformative effecton skateboarding across the nation.

‘‘Gjelina’’ could have some

eff ect on the subset of Ameriested in cooking well and hin laying down beautiful fooaccustomed to a diff erent soris simple cooking. It results meals. You don’t need to go texperience it.

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30/792.21.16 Illustration by Melinda Josie

es

 After I moved to Bern, Switzerland, fromJaibling, Germany, some time ago, I wasvery careful to adapt to Swiss ways, when-ever I could make them out. I paid partic-ular attention to the garbage, dividing itinto various containers to be recycled, aswas required of all citizens. There wereglass, metal, compost, unidentified mixedwaste, cardboard and of course paper. It

was quite simple, except the paper part.I didn’t find any bins, and there were nospecial bags to be bought as for othertypes of trash. So I asked my friend andlandlord how to go about it.

‘‘You simply bundle it,” he said. ‘‘Onlyhemp string is allowed, though, no plasticor wire.’’

‘‘How am I supposed to ‘bundle’ this?”I asked, pointing to my collection of scrappaper and bits of cardboard, every smallpiece of paper material I had gatheredover the past few weeks and put in a box.He glanced at it and chuckled. ‘‘Well, thatyou just throw in with the mixed trash.’’

‘‘Throw it out?’’ I snorted. ‘‘Not in ahundred years!’’ I am a committed envi-ronmentalist, and I had already envisioneda bright new future for my little scraps ofpaper. I was not going to let them wasteaway. I was not going to let these perfectlygood scraps of recycling material suff o-cate amid other unworthy junk!

‘‘Well, they’re not going to collectit with the paper like that,’’ my friendadvised me. ‘‘If you must recycle it, youcan take it to the garbage center.’’

I put that on my long list of things todo. After all, it was paper, not the kind ofsmelly waste I urgently needed to get rid of.

 A few days later, walking through thecourtyard of my building, I finally saw howthe paper was done. At first, it seemed outof place: Everything in Switzerland is soperfect that I had developed the urge tomake things right when they were not inorder — even clearing twigs from the side-walk. But upon closer inspection, I sawthat these were very nicely tied bundles.(Somehow attracted by those neat-looking

bundles, I found some treasures amongthem: original newspapers from 1945 andcentury-old cookbooks.)

Then, a little in the back, I spottedsome brown paper bags, and peeking intothem I saw pieces and shreds of rippedpaper like my own. So there was a way todispose of paper shreds with dignity! Iwas delighted and went home to gener-ate a nice full paper bag myself, which I

then triumphantly set out withsaluting it with satisfaction.

One day about a week lateinto my mailbox, I saw a colorflooking envelope with a red-abear printed on it. I don’t get anymore, but I still have a fewith whom I exchange letterexcited. A little surprised, too

remember giving my addressyet — I had just moved a few weI ripped it open, still stand

hallway. What I found was ana friendly note! ‘‘A fine of 1,0were the first words I read, prily in the center of an otherwempty page. A thousand franstumbled backward to sit dosteps and examined the lettedetail. ‘‘You have been identiauthor of an act of illegal andabandonment of personal was‘‘and are therefore subject tup to 1,000 francs.’’ Me, of I thought: unorderly abandopersonal waste? Truly, I wouldsuch a thing.

Later I found out that thercial task force of “garbage dthat goes around examining wplaced or suspicious-looking tactually go through the stuff , lsomething that will reveal therightful owner, and then educher by way of a hefty fine. I athat those bundles I’d found

the apartment of a 90-year-owho had died, but it’s still nme whether garbage regulatdiff erently to the deceased.

Once I got over the shock ounfairly fined, I decided to aclot of phone calls. Finally onebeing put off  many times, I goto the administrator in charge.it was your trash,’’ he said. ‘‘Youaddress was on some of the iteconceding this, I explained myanything, I pleaded, I had been

in my attempts to recycle. In tlet me off  with a warning.

It turns out that we have a pmy workplace. So now I cycle toa load of pieces of paper stuffbackpack, and although it’s alegal, I make sure there isn’t anymy name on it. As a Swiss friend‘‘If you have to commit a garbdon’t leave any personal trace

Unorderly Conducthe treacherous process ofarning to recycle in Switzerland.

me:

harina Heinrich

e: 36

ation:

n, Switzerland

Heinrich teaches

gardening at a center

for developmentally

challenged adults.

She told her story

in German.

told to Laura Bauerlein

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When one didn’t exist,Dana-Farber

created a pathwayto treat children withrare brain cancers.

Researchers at Dana-Farber have been studying some of the rarest and most dangerous childhood brain cancers, hoping

to develop new, more effective approaches to treatment. Our work with cancers like DIPG, a brain stem glioma that affects

only 200 children each year and AT/RT, a lethal brain tumor that affects 100 annually, is creating a better understanding

of how to attack these diseases. Taking on rare childhood cancers has helped us open new pathways in the study of

many adult cancers as well, including ovarian, breast, colon and possibly pancreatic cancer. While the biology of cancerremains complex, we believe even small steps can lead to giant leaps forward toward a brighter future for our children,

and for everyone.

See videos, whitepapers and more at DiscoverCareBelieve.org/DIPG.

© 2015 Dana-Farb

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W   o   m   a   n

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 Dana Spiotta’squietly subversive

 American fictions.

 When Dana Spiotta was workingon her fourth novel, ‘‘Innocents andOthers,’’ she sat beneath a huge bul-letin board pinned with her stickynotes and research materials: listsof relevant words (passion, trans-formation, intimacy) and ‘‘seeing’’devices (zoetrope, stereoscope,camera obscura), and photographs

of Orson Welles, Jean-Luc Godardand the Maysles brothers. ‘‘It’s likewalking into the book,’’ Spiotta toldme. ‘‘You feel it all around you.’’

 We were standing in the roomwhere she writes at her house in Syr-acuse. She opened a closet, reachingfor something on a low shelf. ‘‘Thisis awesome,’’ she said, ‘‘This is aSwatch phone from the ’80s.’’ Thephone was made of translucent redplastic with orange piping and wasnarrow, like a tie from the same era.‘‘Looking at the things that are dis-

carded tells you something aboutthe present,’’ she said. What part ofus was ignited by this machine, andwhy did we move on from it?

Spiotta writes radiant, concen-trated books that, as she has put it,consider ‘‘the way things external tous shape us: money, technology, art,place, history.’’ Her three previousnovels were critically acclaimed; ‘‘Eatthe Document’’ (2006) was a Nation-al Book Award finalist, cited for itsevocation of ‘‘30 years of Americanlife in a miniature panorama at oncenuanced, culturally authoritative anddevastatingly intimate.’’ But her workisn’t as well known as it should be,and this may have something to dowith its deep and uncategorizableambition: Her books are simultane-ously vast and local, exploring great American themes (self-invention,historical amnesia) within idiosyn-cratic worlds (phone phreaks, ’80sLos Angeles adolescence). She hasbeen compared with Don DeLilloand Joan Didion, but her tone andmood are distinctly her own: She’sfascinated, not alienated.

‘‘Her gaze is very smart and witty,’’George Saunders wrote to me in anemail, ‘‘but doesn’t have any of thatempty, snarky irony you sometimessee in writing about contemporaryculture, that sense that America isrotten, past its prime, capable ofnothing good. On the contrary, Ithink her main stance is that mostdiffi cult one: She who praises.’’

‘‘Innocents and Others,’’ which will

By Susan Burton

Photographs by Erik Madigan Heck 

     M   a   c     h     i   n   e

     V    s  .

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published in March, is in part theory of two women: a documentarymmaker and her subject. Like all of

piotta’s work, it takes up questionsidentity and transformation. Inat the Document,’’ a 1970s radical

oes underground and surfaces as aburban mother. In ‘‘Stone Arabia’’011), an amateur musician docu-

ents his fantasy life as a rock starif it were ‘‘real.’’ In ‘‘Innocents and

thers,’’ a lonely woman in upstateew York pretends to be someonese with the powerful Hollywooden she seduces over the phone. ‘‘Iuld be myself on the phone,’’ sheys. ‘‘The self I really was or oughthave been.’’ Spiotta is drawn to theoment when you realize that theory you’ve told yourself about whou are is false.‘‘Do you want me to show you the

ouse?’’ she asked on a recent morn-

g when I visited her in Syracuse,here she teaches writing alongth Saunders and Mary Karr. She

ves near the university, in a bun-low from the 1930s. ‘‘My spirit

me, aesthetically,’’ she told me. Wealked through the rooms, whichere calm and spare, the heels of ouroots knocking on the wood floors.

Spiotta, who is 50, wears elegant,avy-framed eyeglasses without

hich she is unfamiliar to herself.er voice is rich and low-pitched,d it is exciting to be around her

hen she talks; she has a committedtelligence and a warm, energeticmeanor. Her hands are often inotion. She crashed them togetheren spread them apart, like billiard

alls, describing the structure sheanted for ‘‘Innocents and Oth-s’’: The two strands of the storyeet and then separate. The book’sventiveness is characteristic of

piotta’s novels, incorporatingts, autobiographical essays writ-n by the characters and precisescriptions of both real and imag-

ary films. In Spiotta’s work, con-ctions with movies and music areofound. She writes not only aboutt itself but about the experience of‘‘how you really love a song afteru’ve heard it over and over, how

our body feels almost desperater the next part’’; about the rerunwell as the family room: ‘‘The

usty haze of sun coming in streamsrough the drapes in the midst ofy afternoon solitude.’’

In the kitchen, Spiotta pouredus coff ee from a percolator, whichshe likes because it makes enoughfor two and keeps the coff ee reallyhot. (Spiotta lives with the novelistJonathan Dee and her daughter, Agnes, 12, from whose father she isdivorced.) The percolator also hap-pens to be evocative of the recent

past, which, broadly speaking, is theera in which Spiotta likes to write:‘‘Everything is slightly outdated andoff -kilter and somehow more visible.’’

‘‘Innocents and Others’’ takesplace mostly in the 1980s and ’90s.It’s a compassionate, unsparingbook, full of provocative ideasabout art, ethics and the formationof sensibility. Meadow, the docu-mentary filmmaker, trades on thehuman ‘‘compulsion to confess.’’Jelly, the mysterious woman whocalls powerful men on the phone,

also understands that we all wantto reveal ourselves. She does notseduce with sex; she beguiles bylistening. Eventually, she, too,wants to tell ‘‘a true story that shehad never told anyone before.’’ Thebook’s two strands meet whenMeadow makes a film about Jelly.

Technology, for Spiotta, bothinhibits and invokes emotion: ‘‘Iwould say it creates a distortion ofsome kind,’’ she said. ‘‘The phoneputs one sense in isolation. Once youintroduce a visual element, every-

thing else falls away. What we seeoverrides what we hear.’’ She added:‘‘The primacy of visual informationis what I was interested in exploringin fiction. Which is sort of perverse, Iguess, using prose to describe film.’’

Spiotta is acutely attuned to‘‘what happens in our minds andour bodies’’ when we see or hear.

 While writing the new book, sheplugged old phones into wall jacksand listened to their tones. ‘‘Withthe phone, I really want to talk aboutwhat that feels like when it’s on your

cheek,’’ Spiotta said. ‘‘It has a soundthat it makes. It talks to you. We tendto think of machines as abstractions,but they are actually things.’’ Spiot-ta captures a once-familiar auditoryexperience — those ‘‘long-belledrings to say, ‘Answer,’ rude blasts ofa busy signal to say, ‘No’ ’’ — and sheregisters the emotion we attachedto those noises, too: ‘‘The ring ofanother person’s phone sounded sohopeful, and then it grew lonelier. It

piotta was bor1966 in New JerBy the time she14, she had alrelived in seven

urbs. Her father worked for MOil, but he was not a tycoon: son of Italian immigrants, he gup with little money and workedway up. The frequent moves mSpiotta a perpetual new kid, ater of experimental selves. She

close to her older sister and youer brother, and her favorite bomovies and records sustained These were not just interestspassions. It was ‘‘different tbeing a fan,’’ she wrote to me. ‘‘Itdeeper. It was finding somethworthy of your attention’’ — JaMason, the Beach Boys — ‘then devoting attention to it unyielded things that could nevediscovered by casual engageme

Spiotta’s parents met in collat Hofstra University, playing S

ley and Stella in a production oStreetcar Named Desire,’’ direby a fellow student, Francis FCoppola. In 1979, when Spiotta13, her father left Mobil Oil toCoppola’s studio, Zoetrope. Spta’s Los Angeles adolescence wimprint upon her deeply: Theis a setting in all of her books, film reels through her work, as formal influence and subject. ‘living in a great city after so m

lost possibility, and you could almostsee the sound in an empty house.’’

‘‘There’s a weird aggressivityto listening,’’ Spiotta said as we satwith our coff ee at her dining-roomtable. ‘‘My silence is going to makeyou speak, so that’s interesting to me.I’m also really hard of hearing; I wearhearing aids. So I think that’s why Ifetishize sound so much. When youwear hearing aids, your sounds aren’tin the same relationship they would

be. Sometimes you hear this sound’’— Spiotta rubbed her palm on herpants — ‘‘or a sound over there, andyou have to mentally put them intheir proper place.’’ The hearing aidswere new to Spiotta when she start-ed writing about ‘‘Jelly and sound.

 What she notices, the informationshe gets from paying attention.’’ Sheadded: ‘‘That’s seductive, being paidattention to. That’s almost all youhave to do to win someone over, isjust to see them.’’

Spiotta returned to the idea of

‘‘attending’’ in our talks and emailcorrespondence this winter. Whatshe called ‘‘codas, afterthoughts,parentheticals, digressions, qualifi-cations’’ were often attempts to get atsaying something the exact right way.

‘‘ ‘Attend’ comes from ‘ attende-re,’ which means ‘to stretch,’ ’’ sheemailed one morning. ‘‘That is sointeresting, as if attending meansyou have to stretch your mindtoward another.’’

Spiotta at home in Syracuse, where she teaches writing at the university

S

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years of suburbs transformed meand my sensibility,’’ she wrote to me.‘‘I also felt for the first t ime the senseof a secret history waiting to be readin the architecture and geography.This is not something you feel in thesuburbs. Suburbs are designed forthe opposite: no history to be read,no complications.’’

Spiotta attended the progressive,arty Crossroads School and went onto Columbia University. But at theend of her sophomore year of col-lege, she dropped out. Her parentswere splitting up ‘‘but that was onlypart of the chaos,’’ she wrote to me.‘‘My father, who had left Zoetrope toform his own production company,lost everything,’’ including the fam-ily’s house. ‘‘It gave me the abilityto understand being privileged aswell as being dead broke.’’ Fromage 19, Spiotta supported herself.She made her way to Seattle, ‘‘a citythat seemed very friendly to thelost young person,’’ got a job at arecord store and eventually enrolled

at Evergreen State College, whereshe studied labor history and cre-ative writing. Reading ‘‘The Dead’’in a cafe, she began to weep.

One day she and a friend called anumber on the back cover of the lit-erary journal Quarterly. The phonewas answered by the journal’s edi-tor, Gordon Lish, who invited Spi-otta and her friend to come workfor him in New York. They did, as

t was early on a frigid dayin January. Spiotta and Isat in a diner in Cooper-stown, a road atlas openon the apple-print oil-

cloth. We were about to embark ona trip. ‘‘This map: In all of my books,except ‘Lightning Field,’ stuff  hap-pens right here,’’ Spiotta said. The

Mohawk River, the Erie Canal, andI-90 hung in a triple strand acrossthe open pages. The Erie Canal’svelocity changed the transmissionof goods and ideas; and it ‘‘meantidentity could be changed, too,because you could take off  and goto the next place,’’ Spiotta said, as awaitress refilled our mugs.

Spiotta had circled our destina-tions on the map in ballpoint pen.This region has a multiplicity —off -the-gridders, declining factorytowns, a shrine to the first Native

 American saint — analogous toher books. ‘‘It almost feels as if itworks the way a novel works here,because there are these disparatethings that seem unconnected, butbecause they have the same geog-raphy, they are connected,’’ shesaid. ‘‘You wonder, How did theyall come to be here?’’

Spiotta drove. We were on a roadthat cut through rolling farmland,and even though we were in a val-ley, it felt as if we were up high. We were approaching Stone Ara-bia, the place that gave Spiotta thetitle for her third book. She lovedthe town’s ‘‘solid and exotic’’ nameand the landscape’s austere beauty.

 An Amish man rode behind horseson a wagon. The Amish approachto technology appeals to Spiotta:‘‘They don’t reject; they ‘doubt’ it.’’

My phone was in my lap on topof the atlas. We were using thepaper map as well as GPS, and thetechnology was helping us navigate(sort of). There was something itwas doing to our interaction too.

‘‘I’m going to try it on Waze,’’ I

said. ‘‘It’s smarter.’’‘‘What’s going on with this?’’ Spi-

otta said, looking at her own phone.‘‘Did I turn off  data?’’

‘‘It doesn’t like that address,’’I said, talking to myself. We hadbeen driving in circles looking fora Mohawk community crafts store.‘‘I’m going to copy and paste.’’

The Waze app told us: ‘‘We areall set. Drive safely.’’

managing editors. ‘‘Whatever you’retrying to hide is what you need towrite from,’’ Spiotta recalls him say-ing. ‘‘Whatever you’re trying to hideis what makes you an interestingwriter.’’ Lish introduced Spiotta toDon DeLillo, who became a mentorand a friend.

 While Spiotta was working on

her first novel, ‘‘Lightning Field,’’she supported herself by waitress-ing. The book was published in2001, when she was 35. She wroteher next novel in secret, while work-ing at a restaurant she owned withher former husband in upstate NewYork. ‘‘Eat the Document’’ broughther new attention, and she joinedSaunders and Karr at the highlyregarded creative-writing programat Syracuse. ‘‘As a colleague, sheis a dream,’’ Karr told me. ‘‘Whipsmart and tirelessly generous, but

she doesn’t pander to student egos.She knows how to deliver bad newsto a young writer: ruthlessly butalso with an underpinning of cheerthat’s infectious.’’

Spiotta’s work has been citedin discussions about whether theculture properly values the work offemale novelists, particularly thosewhose books are ‘‘ambitious, polit-ical and engaged with the big worldof ideas,’’ as Katha Pollitt wrote ofSpiotta and others in 2010. ‘‘DonDeLillo with a vagina,’’ one writ-er called Spiotta (it was meant asa compliment); ‘‘a woman’s bookwrapped in a man’s book,’’ suggest-ed a participant in an online discus-sion of ‘‘Stone Arabia.’’ A Booklistreview of ‘‘Innocents and Others’’advises that it is for readers of Jen-nifer Egan, Siri Hustvedt, RachelKushner and Claire Messud. Thesewriters are comparable with Spiottain ways that have nothing to do withgender — Egan, formally inventive;Kushner, influenced by film — andthe list is meant to contextualize thenovel for librarians. But it hints at

a ‘‘smart woman’’ algorithm: If youlike this woman who is ‘‘serious,’’you’ll like Spiotta too. Spiotta flatout rejects this way