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      in Movies

      John Nichols, Author of ‘The Milagro Beanfield War,’ Dies at 83

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      After decamping from New York to New Mexico, he wrote what was, for a time, among the most widely read novels about Latinos.John Nichols, a New York City transplant to New Mexico whose exuberant novels, notably “The Milagro Beanfield War,” transformed him from an urban gringo into a local idol, died on Monday at his home in Taos. He was 83.The cause was heart failure, said his daughter, Tania Harris.Imbued with a heady pedigree and a peripatetic upbringing, Mr. Nichols evolved instinctively from a cosmopolitan New Yorker and world traveler to a Western writer of the purple sage.He was best known for “The Milagro Beanfield War” (1974), a 445-page political allegory that tells the story of farmers in the fictional town of Milagro Valley who are denied the right to irrigate their farms because water is being diverted to a huge development.“The Milagro Beanfield War” became a crowd pleaser on college campuses, was venerated in his adopted state, and for a while was considered among the most widely read novels about Latinos. In 1988 it was adapted into a film, directed by Robert Redford and starring Rubén Blades, Christopher Walken and Melanie Griffith.“A lot of his work might be characterized as a long slow-motion valentine to the mountains, mesas, high desert, sky and especially people of New Mexico,” said Stephen Hull, director of University of New Mexico Press, which published Mr. Nichols’s memoir “I Got Mine: Confessions of a Midlist Writer” last year.“He was a comic writer who used tropes of absurdism and excess to depict essential injustices,” Mr. Hull said in an email. “He was deeply affected by a period of time he spent in Guatemala in ‘64-’65, and by the poverty, authenticity, even nobility of his neighbors in northern New Mexico.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      in Theater

      A Wood-Carved Protagonist, Enduring the Brutality of War

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      Mid-morning on Tuesday at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, a puppet named Michael K had just grabbed a mug when the director Lara Foot called a pause to the action onstage.“Let’s stop here,” she said, and he did so instantly.Still clasping the mug in his right hand, he gazed at her with black, glass-bead eyes like someone who had been taken by surprise. Even frozen mid-gesture, he was subtle, human, uncanny — a striking alchemy of art and imagination.In “Life & Times of Michael K,” based on the 1983 novel of the same name by the South African-born Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee, this puppet is the sinewy, carved-wood star, designed and created by Adrian Kohler of Handspring Puppet Company. At two-thirds the size of an average adult human, Michael is operated bunraku-style by a team of three puppeteers. Craig Leo, the show’s puppet master, is in charge of Michael’s head and right arm.The puppeteers Markus Schabbing and Carlo Daniels with Michael K. The story is set amid a fictional civil war, whose Kafkaesque landscape Michael navigates with his ailing mother, Anna.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesManipulation is not the job, though. To Leo, it’s more a matter of following the puppet’s lead.“There’s something strange that happens,” he said in an interview in the lobby of St. Ann’s, game to chat despite feeling under the weather. “You have these moments — and you kind of aim for them, and you hope that you can do it as much as possible — where he just comes alive. It’s when the synchronicity really clicks in between the three puppeteers, and then all of a sudden you’re holding him and he becomes incredibly light. And he’s suddenly almost moving on his own.”Coetzee’s Booker Prize-winning novel is set amid a fictional South African civil war, whose Kafkaesque landscape Michael navigates as he attempts to take his old and ailing mother, Anna, on the long journey from Cape Town back to the countryside she loved as a girl.Foot, the artistic director of the Baxter Theater Centre at the University of Cape Town, adapted the novel in collaboration with Handspring. Kohler and Basil Jones, a fellow Handspring founder, directed the production’s puppetry. At the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August, the show impressed critics, with The New York Times calling it “stylish” and a “standout.”The puppeteers Faniswa Yisa and Roshina Ratnam with Michael K’s mother, Anna.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesA young Michael K, with the puppeteers Markus Schabbing and Andrew Buckland.Amir Hamja/The New York Times“Puppets hold philosophy in them, and poetry,” Foot said in a separate interview. “Coetzee’s work, some of his work, lends itself to that because there’s a lot of thought-provoking narrative.”Having long wanted to work with Handspring, she thought a puppet would be perfect to embody Coetzee’s Michael — a gardener whose cleft lip makes people think him inferior — as a kind of everyman confronting existential questions.“When I sent ‘Michael K’ to Basil and Adrian,” she said, “Adrian had already read it and it was one of his favorite novels. We agreed that it would just be Michael, his mother, the children and the animals that would be puppets. And the rest of the world would be the context of the war.”So the company also includes five actors. One of its four puppeteers, Leo, arrived in New York this week from Mexico. That was the terminus of his nearly three-month tour across North America with the giant child refugee puppet Little Amal, who along with the horses of “War Horse” — another show on Leo’s résumé — is among Handspring’s most famous creations.“If you look at his left side of his face and his right side of his face, there are different expressions,” said Craig Leo, the show’s puppet master.Amir Hamja/The New York Times“He has kind of a tortured look on the one side,” Leo said. “From the other side, he’s actually very beautiful. In the light, his expression changes all the time.”Amir Hamja/The New York TimesAfter stilt walking to operate Amal from the inside, unable to see what her face was doing, Leo was palpably pleased to be reunited with Michael, a puppet he has worked with on and off for more than two years, and one he could keep his eye on from the outside.“If you look at his left side of his face and his right side of his face, there are different expressions,” he said. “He has kind of a tortured look on the one side; I don’t know how else to describe it. From the other side, he’s actually very beautiful. He’s a really handsome man. In the light, his expression changes all the time. It catches all those carved lines in the wood.”“He holds the pathos,” Craig Leo, the show’s puppet master, said of Michael K. “He holds it even when he’s hanging on his puppet rack.”Amir Hamja/The New York TimesOf the dozen-plus puppets in the play, there are four Michaels: a baby, glimpsed only briefly yet made, Foot said, with legs fully capable of kicking; a child; a miniature adult; and the main adult, with a head carved from Malaysian jelutong, legs of carbon fiber and ribs of Indonesian cane.“The joints are very finely made,” Leo said. “It breaks fingers because they’re so delicate. We just glue them back on. But as a whole, the puppet has never broken.”Which is lucky, because there is only one of him, no backup.“I’ve thought about that often, actually,” Leo said. “Should we be locking him up at nights? It’s a work of art, you know.”To him, Michael is also a magnet for empathy, as puppets are generally — and a portal into the story in a way that a human actor would not be.“He holds the pathos,” Leo said. “He holds it even when he’s hanging on his puppet rack.” More

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      in Television

      Interview: Rick Riordan, the Man Behind ‘Percy Jackson’

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      What books are on your night stand?I usually have three books going at a time: one in Italian to improve my fluency, a novel in English and a nonfiction work in English. Right now it’s “Il Metodo del Coccodrillo,” a thriller by Maurizio de Giovanni, “Chain-Gang All-Stars,” a near-future dystopian novel by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, and “The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s” by Piers Brendon.How do you organize your books?“Organize” might be too kind a word. I try to group books loosely by subject matter. Celtic studies and books in Irish take up two shelves. Another two shelves are for books in Italian. Not surprisingly, Greek and Roman mythology takes up about four shelves. The rest is a scattered assortment of novels, nonfiction, poetry and graphic novels.What’s the last great book you read?“How to Live: Or, A Life of Montaigne,” by Sarah Bakewell. I was not well versed in Montaigne’s work, but I admire any biography that can bring its subject to life in such a vivid and relatable way.Are there any classics that you only recently read for the first time?“La Divina Commedia.” I had only read portions of the “Inferno” in English, but my Italian finally got to the level that I could tackle the “Commedia” in the original. It was quite a challenge and took me about a year, but it was well worth the effort to appreciate the poetry in its original form. What struck me was how topical and regional Dante’s references were. For such a timeless poem, it is deeply rooted in the personal dramas and “pop culture” of 13th-century Tuscany.Which writers — novelists, playwrights, critics, journalists, poets — working today do you admire most?So many. N.K. Jemisin has a brilliant iconoclastic imagination that has reframed fantasy and science fiction for me many times over. Madeline Miller has breathed new life into ancient Greek stories. China Miéville is a genius of speculative fiction whose quirky world-building always delights me. I also love the Irish-language poetry of Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).I am lucky enough to have a home office with a large window looking over the Charles River in Boston. During the winter evenings, when the trees are bare and the view is wide open, the sunset on the water is spectacular. With the fireplace going and a bit of soft instrumental music playing … I can’t imagine a better place for enjoying a good book.What kind of reader were you as a child?Reluctant. I rarely read assigned texts in school, and reading for pleasure wasn’t something that would have occurred to me. That changed when I discovered “The Lord of the Rings,” which was my gateway into fantasy, and from there into mythology and the wider world of literature. I like to say that my karmic punishment for never reading an English text in school was becoming an English teacher.What book should everybody read before the age of 21?I don’t really believe in a canon of must-read texts for everyone. My gateway books were J.R.R. Tolkien’s. Would I recommend them to most 12-year-old kids today to get them interested in reading? Probably not. The most formative books I had read by age 21 were probably Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying” and “The Habit of Being,” a collection of letters by Flannery O’Connor. Great books, but again, I am not sure I would make them blanket recommendations for every young adult today.What is the best writing advice you have ever gotten?To avoid the cycle of dissatisfaction. Before I was published, I took a class from a mystery novelist who warned me that writing could turn into a succession of moving goal posts. It can be easy to lose sight of why a writer writes — because you have an internal need to turn your thoughts into words.What do you write when you sign books for fans?I usually sign 1,000-5,000 books at a time, in advance of each event, so alas, I don’t get to personalize many books anymore. My signature has become an illegible scrawl. On those rare occasions when I get to have a one-on-one interaction with a fan, I try to add a few vowels and consonants to my scrawl, and perhaps sketch a lightning bolt underneath.Do you count any books as guilty pleasures?Any time I relax and enjoy a book rather than working, or cleaning the house, or running errands, I consider that a guilty pleasure. The type of book doesn’t matter.Which subjects do you wish more authors would write about?This is a complex ask, but I would personally love to read more anthologies of Indigenous folklore and mythology from around the world. When my family and I were traveling through the Pacific Northwest last summer, through the lands of the Tlingit, Haida and Chugach, we heard such wonderful stories. I’d love to learn more. Perhaps those books are out there and I’ve simply been unsuccessful finding them, or perhaps the books are not getting the coverage and attention they deserve. It’s also possible some Indigenous writers are wary of popularizing their sacred stories for a mass-market audience, which is totally fair. You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?I don’t do dinner parties, so I would probably invite the most introverted writers I could think of — perhaps Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson — because none of them would show up. Then we could enjoy a quiet evening at home by ourselves, reading by the fire. More

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      in Music

      36 Hours in Melbourne, Australia: Things to Do and See

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      12 p.m.
      Explore a lane that’s gone from rags to riches
      Flinders Lane was the center of Melbourne’s rag trade, as its textile industry was known, until production moved offshore starting in the 1960s. Today, it’s home to a number of gorgeous shops and restaurants. The city’s most beautiful retail space must belong to Alpha60, a local brother-sister fashion label (think boxy shirts and breezy culottes), whose store inside the Chapter House building occupies a cathedral-like space with lofty, vaulted ceilings, pointed-arch windows and a baby grand piano. Across the road, Craft Victoria, a subterranean gallery and store, features experimental Australian ceramics and textile art. After your shopping, drop into Gimlet at Cavendish House, a glamorous restaurant where crisply dressed waiters sail by with caviar and lobster roasted in a wood-fired oven, but you don’t have to go all out: Squeeze in at the bar right after the doors open at noon for an expertly made gin martini (29 dollars) before the lunch rush. More

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      in Television

      Two New Books Consider Comedy and the Culture Wars

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      The authors of “Comedy Book” and “Outrageous” argue that culture-war worries about what’s a laughing matter have been overplayed.COMEDY BOOK: How Comedy Conquered Culture — and the Magic That Makes It Work, by Jesse David FoxOUTRAGEOUS: A History of Showbiz and the Culture Wars, by Kliph NesteroffDid you hear the one about cancel culture?Of course you did, several times over, if you’ve paid any attention to modern comedy and its purveyors, many of whom have groused about how hard it is to be funny in today’s climate. But two new books share an exasperation with the common sentiment that there’s never been a worse time to express oneself than the present. Taking them, well, seriously can liberate us from repeating the past.Kliph Nesteroff’s fact-packed “Outrageous: A History of Showbiz and the Culture Wars” finds American entertainers in a perpetual state of despair over the censorious climate of their day — whatever day it happens to be. Steve Allen, the original host of “The Tonight Show,” complained about the “very touchy times” in 1955; in 2015, Jerry Seinfeld said he’d been warned away from playing colleges because of students’ sensitivities.Social media “gives the impression that people are more irrational, humorless and overly sensitive than in the past,” Nesteroff writes, but vintage letters to the editor contain “remarkably similar” sentiments.To Jesse David Fox, the author of “Comedy Book,” the risk of backlash is part of the point. Fox, a senior editor at New York magazine’s Vulture and a podcaster who regularly interviews comedians, puts it this way: “Does political correctness make comedy harder to do? Sure, in the sense that it would be easier to run for a touchdown if you didn’t have to worry about holding the ball, but that’s the game. It’s what makes it more exciting than watching a bunch of men sprinting with helmets on.” This is just one example of Fox’s keen insight in his energetic and wise book, which focuses on the ’90s and beyond, when, the author reckons, comedy became an “ever-present, important, valued societal force.” (Fox points out that before “Seinfeld” premiered in 1989, no comedian had ever headlined a show at Madison Square Garden’s arena, yet by the time he wrote his book, 18 had.) Within broadly named chapters (“Truth,” “Context,” “Audience”), he crams vivid examples; his “Timing” section, which explores 9/11 jokes and the notion of “too soon,” is particularly adept at illustrating the use of humor in the face of tragedy.Like many of his subjects, Fox knows his way around a pointed one-liner. “A roast might sound mean, but it’s another way of saying ‘I see you’” is one. “If you are saying supposedly offensive things and the audience is instantly all onboard, it is not a comedy show, it’s a rally” is another. That such rigorous thinking should at one point lead him to defend an Adam Sandler poop joke is a great gag in itself.Fox is allergic to the kind of snobbery directed at broad comedy, maintaining that “if it’s funny to anyone, it’s funny.” Still, he’s interested in parameters — how “8:46,” Dave Chappelle’s Netflix monologue inspired by the murder of George Floyd, functions as “a piece of work in conversation with the history of comedy,” and why the same comedian’s jokes targeting queer people fall short.Comedy, Fox writes, is fundamentally play, and in his deft hands, the analysis of comedy can be playful, too. Fox knows that grand pronouncements on what makes funny things funny is dicey territory: “The sense of what is funny is so subjective — so completely built into your person — that it feels objective,” he writes.His own life experiences and tastes are integral to his reporting. The first and last chapters of the book recount the deaths of immediate family members, which, he says, comedy helped him process. “Comedy Book” is not the definitive history of the past three-plus decades. It’s Fox’s history, and better for it.“Outrageous,” the product of herculean research, has a wider purview than just comedy. Nesteroff touches on rock ’n’ roll, talk radio, the initial blowback received by early critics of Hitler and more.However, what does and doesn’t, should and shouldn’t, make us laugh does take up a lot of space (Nesteroff’s 2015 “The Comedians” is a full-fledged history of the form). Sometimes the laughs are inadvertent, as in a 1959 complaint from a viewer of the TV series “Lassie” who compared its portrayal of a litter of puppies to a sex show.In no-frills prose, Nesteroff races through some two centuries of expression and backlash — from blackface minstrelsy (criticized early on by Frederick Douglass) to the (formerly Dixie) Chicks (the country music trio whose titanic profile shrank several sizes after its lead singer publicly criticized President George W. Bush) — rarely pausing for analysis and sometimes breezing by useful context. The book tends to home in on the moment when each brouhaha reached a fever pitch, which can give a distorted picture of the controversies and their ensuing fallouts.“Outrageous” is nonetheless a useful compendium. Placing so many outrages next to one another exposes a call-and-response pattern, in which both sides of the political divide have tried to dictate acceptable speech for all. We may be partial to the intentions of one side, but the mechanics often look identical.Unsurprisingly, it’s those already in power who often succeed. If there is a main character in Nesteroff’s sea of stories, it’s Paul Weyrich, a John Birch Society alum who helped build “an elaborate Culture War infrastructure” with corporate cash and evangelical muscle, eventually cofounding the Heritage Foundation and the Moral Majority.In sometimes clandestine ways, those groups have had a major impact in seeding American culture with conservative ideology, raging against what Weyrich called “the Cultural Marxism of an elite few to dictate words, language and opinions” while, Nesteroff writes, doing precisely that.“Outrageous” portrays a country divided; there’s no shortage of strife in Fox’s book, but he believes fundamentally in the unifying power of comedy, which “smooths conflicts and unites disparate groups.” His faith is contagious. Comedy is not stifled, he argues, but has “enmeshed itself in how millennials and now Gen Z communicate.” Superstars like Chappelle and Amy Schumer are endowed with the kind of trusted status once reserved for those in the purported truth business, like journalists, public intellectuals and politicians.“Can comedy make everything all better?” Fox asks in conclusion. “Of course not. But it makes it easier.”COMEDY BOOK: How Comedy Conquered Culture — and the Magic That Makes It Work | More

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      in Movies

      Suleika Jaouad Revisits Bone Marrow Transplant in “American Symphony”

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      This month, writer Suleika Jaouad revisits her second bone marrow transplant in the documentary “American Symphony.”In the months following her second bone marrow transplant, Suleika Jaouad’s TikTok algorithm started serving her videos of bearded dragons shedding their skin. For a writer whose work deals in ambiguities, that metaphor was tidier than she’d have preferred.Ms. Jaouad quotes Joan Didion and Emily Dickinson in casual conversation. She is the author of “Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of Life Interrupted,” a best seller which documents her first bone marrow transplant and its aftermath. Diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in 2011, Ms. Jaouad recorded the experience in real time for a column in this paper.“Why am I drawn to these?” Ms. Jaouad, now 35, wondered of the reptilian videos. She posed the question while settling into the crook of her couch at her home in Brooklyn, with a lunch spread laid out over a low table in front of her. Her dog River ogled some baba ganoush from his perch near her feet.More than time-tested sonnets and snippets of Buddhist wisdom, it was molting bearded dragons that seemed to tell the truth about what Ms. Jaouad called, “the experience of forced renewal.” She too had molted — twice now. And like the lizards, she had no choice but to be vulnerable. “I was so stripped bare, I felt larval,” said Ms. Jaouad.Diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in 2011, Ms. Jaouad recorded the experience in real time for a column in The New York Times.via Penguin Random HouseThis month, Ms. Jaouad will revisit the raw period of her cancer recurrence and second transplant when the feature documentary “American Symphony” premieres on Netflix in collaboration with Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground. The work follows Ms. Jaouad and her husband, the musician Jon Batiste, as the couple faces what Ms. Jaouad has called their “life of contrasts.” Both Ms. Jaouad and Mr. Batiste serve as executive producers.Just how stark are the contrasts? In November 2021, Ms. Jaouad learned her cancer had returned. That same week, Mr. Batiste earned 11 Grammy nominations — the most of any artist. The night before Ms. Jaouad checked into the hospital for her transplant, the two — who met as middle schoolers at band camp and later reconnected — married at home and swapped twist-tie rings.Meanwhile, Mr. Batiste continued both to serve as bandleader on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and to compose a one-time performance at Carnegie Hall in New York (also called “American Symphony”) that would distill the whole of American history into sound. In her sterile room, Ms. Jaouad started to paint and papered her walls in vibrant, sometimes gruesome watercolor.None of this was supposed to happen.As in the lead-up to her initial diagnosis, Ms. Jaouad had been negotiating persistent fatigue for months when she went to see her doctors for tests.It had been over a decade since Ms. Jaouad’s first bone marrow transplant. Her own medical team was so convinced of her durable health that the biopsy she insisted on was deemed a kind of indulgence. Minutes before the procedure, a nurse told her she didn’t have to do it. “I felt embarrassed,” Ms. Jaouad said. “I felt like I was being a hysterical, melodramatic hypochondriac.” She almost backed out, but the writer Elizabeth Gilbert — a friend and mentor — had driven her to the appointment. She didn’t want Ms. Gilbert to feel she had wasted her time.“I was right to push for the biopsy,” said Ms. Jaouad. “I wish I hadn’t been.”Netflix“She’s able to transform darkness, alchemize darkness, and transmutate darkness into light,” Mr. Batiste said of his wife.NetflixDoctors ground into Ms. Jaouad’s spine to extract a sample of her marrow. Ms. Gilbert stood watch, calling the ordeal “grisly as hell.” The relapse “simply wasn’t supposed to happen,” she wrote in an email. “There was no template for it, which was why nobody was looking for it.”“I was right to push for the biopsy,” said Ms. Jaouad. “I wish I hadn’t been.”The filmmaker Matthew Heineman had already started production on what would become “American Symphony” when Ms. Jaouad’s results came in. Mr. Heineman, who directed “Cartel Land” and “A Private War,” had been interested in shadowing Mr. Batiste as he devised the Carnegie Hall piece. Ms. Jaouad’s recurrence necessitated — as Mr. Heineman put it — a “pivot.”Ms. Jaouad was not sure she wanted to function as a plot twist.“I never want to be flattened into ‘the sick girl,’” Ms. Jaouad said of her deliberations. “I said to Matt outright, ‘I don’t want to be the dramatic counterpoint to Jon’s meteoric success.’” Mr. Heineman insisted he too was uninterested in the tropes of the illness plot. In “American Symphony” no one feels an errant lump. Ms. Jaouad doesn’t have a dramatic phone call with her oncologist. Viewers discover she has cancer in the middle of a fierce snowball fight in which Ms. Jaouad — struck and faux-outraged — protests: No hitting the girl with leukemia.Ms. Jaouad came around on the project as she did on “Between Two Kingdoms.” Then too, she had been hesitant. Ms. Jaouad recalled an encounter with the writer Cheryl Strayed not long after her first transplant. She told Ms. Strayed she wanted to write a book, but not one about illness. Ms. Strayed told her she had once been determined to avoid writing about the death of her mother. Then she turned in the manuscript for “Wild: Lost and Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.”“It’s about the hike, but it’s all about her dead mother,” Ms. Jaouad said with a smile.Ms. Jaouad’s book, and to some extent, “The Isolation Journals,” a popular newsletter she launched at the outset of the pandemic, explores how to re-enter the world after devastation. “American Symphony” follows up: How to keep going when there’s no straightforward “after.”So when it came time to watch an initial cut of the film (drawn from 1,500 hours of footage), Ms. Jaouad queued it up alone. “I feel a bit desensitized to it now,” she said. “That specific time is not representative of how I live or who I am.” But she has “no qualms” about her depiction or the decision to let Mr. Heineman film the crucial appointment three months post-transplant in which she would learn if her transplant worked. Mr. Heineman thus found out at the same time she and Mr. Batiste did that the procedure had been a success — and that Ms. Jaouad would have to be in treatment to outwit her cancer for the rest of her life.Lately, Ms. Jaouad is forcing herself to make plans. She sees it as an act of, “necessary optimism,” that she has committed to write two more books. Dana Golan for The New York Times“To describe it as a roller coaster would be an insult to roller coasters,” Ms. Jaouad said of her emotional whiplash. “The idea of indefinite treatment thrust me into a whole different kind of in-between place, and it’s one that I’m still learning to swim in.”“She’s able to transform darkness, alchemize darkness, and transmutate darkness into light,” Mr. Batiste said in a phone interview. (He called hours after still more Grammy nominations. This year, he earned six, including one for “Butterfly” — the song that plays in the “American Symphony” trailer and which he wrote for Ms. Jaouad.) “She’s able to look into what she’s facing and see not only how she can find God and find healing through it, but also provide that insight to hundreds of thousands and millions of other people out there whom she’s never met.”Necessary OptimismAfter the film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, Ms. Jaouad recalled that someone in the crowd approached her and said how relieved she was: “You’re still here.”“When it comes to illness stories, we tell them from the vantage point of having survived,” Ms. Jaouad said. In that sense, “American Symphony,” which stops short of a white-text-black-screen epilogue and offers no update on Ms. Jaouad’s health, is a corrective. “It wasn’t clear that I was going to survive the shooting period of this,” she said. The credits roll, but there is no neat ending for Ms. Jaouad and Mr. Batiste.“None of us know if we’re going to exist in the future, but I have a heightened fear of not existing in the future,” Ms. Jaouad said.In “Between Two Kingdoms” Ms. Jaouad writes about her exchanges with a man named Quintin Jones. Mr. Jones, who introduces himself to her as “Lil GQ,” read her columns while on death row. He’d written from a place of recognition — one trapped person to another. After her transplant, she visited him in prison. But the week her book was released, he was given an execution date. Ms. Jaouad was devastated. She threw herself into the movement to get his death sentence converted into a life sentence. It didn’t work.On the morning of his execution, Mr. Jones was granted four hours of phone calls. He spent them with Mr. Batiste and Ms. Jaouad. “It was unbelievable because we were talking in the future tense, knowing that the future wasn’t going to come to pass,” Ms. Jaouad said. “He talked about coming to visit us, hanging out in our garden. We were all just choosing to live in that space.” She tried to explain the suspension. Their conscious decision to be outside of time.Lately, Ms. Jaouad is forcing herself to make plans. She sees it as an act of, “necessary optimism,” that she has committed to write two more books. One will be a work of painting and prose that Ms. Jaouad has titled “Drowning Practice.” The second will be a book about journaling, incorporating writing prompts. She will show her work at the art center ArtYard next summer.A few weeks ago, Ms. Jaouad traveled to Seattle and was walking outside, suddenly under a torrential rain. Someone rushed to offer her an umbrella. “I was like, ‘No, I’m good,’” Ms. Jaouad remembered. She wanted to feel the rain on her face. Back in New York, she let herself fantasize. Not about prizes or red carpets, but about some unspecial rainstorm a decade from now. How incredible it would be not to feel new, she said. “If I’m around, I’ll want the umbrella.” More

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      in Movies

      Your Next 10 Steps After Watching the New ‘Napoleon’ Film

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      If you want to read his biography, or even see his horse, you can.With the new Ridley Scott film “Napoleon,” starring Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby, hitting theaters this week, General Bonaparte is having a cultural moment.Another one.As historical figures go, Napoleon maintains a ubiquity 200 years after his death that far exceeds influential contemporaries like James Madison, Emperor Kokaku or Czar Alexander I. That’s in part because of his historic importance and military feats. But maybe also it’s that hat. (One just sold for $2 million.)Here are 10 more ways to immerse yourself in Napoleana before, after or in lieu of seeing the film.1. Read a biography“Napoleon: A Life,” an “epically scaled” biography.Napoleon has fascinated biographers for two centuries. Andrew Roberts’s “Napoleon: A Life” (2014) is a comprehensive look at the rise and fall of a man who made it from Corsica to the Palace of Versailles to (nearly) mastery of all of Europe.In The New York Times Book Review, Duncan Kelly called it “epically scaled” and said, “Roberts brilliantly conveys the sheer energy and presence of Napoleon the organizational and military whirlwind.” At 900-plus pages, it will admittedly take you longer to read than watching the 157-minute film.2. Listen to a podcastOn “Noble Blood,” the host Dana Schwartz takes a closer look at royals of all stripes. One episode, “Dumas and Napoleon,” reveals an unexpected link with Thomas-Alexandre Dumas (the father of the “Three Musketeers” author Alexandre), a Creole general who served under, but also clashed with, Napoleon.3. Go to a museumThe final resting place of Napoleon in Paris. The skeleton above is a modern work of art depicting one of his horses.Stephane De Sakutin/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe Musée de l’Armée at Les Invalides in Paris has room after room of Napoleonic banners, uniforms and memorabilia, enough to overload the most ardent fan.Somewhat more ghoulishly, you can see the bed in which Napoleon died in exile on the island of St. Helena. And then there’s his horse, Vizir, and his dog, both stuffed and on display.Afterward, head to Napoleon’s tomb under the Dôme des Invalides.4. See a painting“Le Sacre de Napoléon” by Jacques-Louis David, at the Louvre.Martin Bureau/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSince you’re already in Paris to see that horse, stop by the Louvre for one of Jacques-Louis David’s masterworks: “Le Sacre de Napoléon” (1807).At a massive 33 by 20 feet, and packed with historical characters, the painting depicts the moment in 1804 when Napoleon, in the presence of the Pope, crowned himself emperor at Notre Dame.5. Read a novelIn Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece “War and Peace,” Napoleon not only preoccupies the minds of the Russian characters as his Grande Armée bears down on Moscow, but he also appears as a major character himself. Far from a stock figure, he is a fully realized person in the novel, displaying egotism, anger and a liking for snuff.Don’t be put off that upon its release in 1886, The Times panned it.If that famously thick book is too much, there are several film versions. Herbert Lom plays Napoleon in a 1956 Hollywood film starring Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda. And Prokofiev wrote an opera that was last seen at the Met in 2008, but is readily available on streaming services.Napoleon’s towering influence on his era means he looms over many other novels, including William Thackeray’s “Vanity Fair” and Stendhal’s “Le Rouge et le Noir.” And it is no coincidence that the pig who becomes a dictator in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” is named Napoleon.6. See a silent filmWorking on the reconstruction of the Napoleon movie of 1927.Stephane De Sakutin/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThere are many other films based on Napoleon’s life, but one of the classics was made 10 years before Ridley Scott was born. Of his 1927 silent epic “Napoléon,” the director Abel Gance boasted: “I have made a tangible effort toward a somewhat richer and more elevated form of cinema.”The film has innovations to spare: Wide-screen formatting, quick editing and hand-held camerawork all took big steps forward with its release. It can be found for viewing at home, but it also pops up in revival houses from time to time.7. Have a laughNapoleon, played by Terry Camilleri, struggled with bowling in “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.”AlamyNapoleon, with his distinctive (and usually ahistorical) mannerisms, turns up as a supporting character, or easy joke, in a wide range of films. Marlon Brando plays him in “Désirée” (1954) and Rod Steiger in “Waterloo” (1970).His appearance in the time-travel comedy “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” (1989) is a lot lighter: Terry Camilleri’s Napoleon, collected from a battlefield and thrust into 1980s Southern California, bowls, devours ice cream and enjoys a waterslide at a park called (what else?) Waterloo.8. Play a gameHistory buffs can reshape the world in the long-running computer game Civilization. (“There may not be a game franchise I have enjoyed more consistently over the last two decades than Civilization,” the Times reviewer Seth Schiesel wrote in 2010.)Napoleon appears only as a general in the latest iteration, Civilization VI, but in Civilization V, he leads the French forces. Here’s a chance to finally win the Battle of Waterloo and maybe conquer the world.9. Watch a cartoonIn the Bugs Bunny short “Napoleon Bunny-Part” (1956), Bugs encounters Napoleon and quickly infuriates the easily infuriated caricature, as only Bugs Bunny can, while narrowly eluding the guillotine. A highlight is when he disguises himself as Josephine and rather easily fools the little general. “What’s up, Nappy?”10. Eat dessertA mille-feuille at the West Village restaurant Noortwyck.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesAfter all the tomes, films and traveling, reward yourself. You could make a delicious mille-feuille, the puff pastry with cream, using the New York Times recipe. Or just buy one at the namesake pâtisserie Mille-Feuille on LaGuardia Place in Greenwich Village.Oh, yes — the mille-feuille is commonly known as a Napoleon. Bon appétit, mon général. More

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      Black Thought of the Roots Is Here for ‘The Gilded Age’ and ’1883’

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      Tariq Trotter, the Roots frontman and author of the new book “The Upcycled Self,” loves a period drama when it’s done right.Despite earning worldwide acclaim as the frontman of the Roots and achieving a degree of ubiquity when they became the house band for “The Tonight Show,” Tariq Trotter, also known as Black Thought, is an introvert and a bit of an enigma. There’s a good chance that fans who know every Roots verse still know little about the man behind them.That could change with the release this month of his memoir, “The Upcycled Self.” In it, Trotter, 50, reflects on growing up in Philadelphia during the 1970s and ’80s, zeroing in on how experiences like losing both parents by the age of 16 hardened him, and how his passion for the arts gave him much-needed direction. “The final frontier was to delve deeper into myself and become more introspective,” he said during a phone interview.Looking back, even to revisit his most painful memories, helped Trotter to move forward. He shared a few sources of creative inspiration, favorite works of art and timeless fashion pieces. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1DocumentariesThere’s a historical aspect to whatever story I’m telling, whether it’s my own or I’m talking about the world. My inspiration often comes from documentaries. Anything that Ken Burns touches — I just appreciate that style of storytelling. I’ll get a nugget from something in there that will spark the bar that leads to the song or whatever the composition evolves from. I recently watched “The American Buffalo,” and it makes you think about how much of the history of this country meets at that intersection.2‘The Source of Self-Regard’ by Toni Morrison“The Source of Self-Regard” is one of my go-tos. It really helped me get through the pandemic when the world shut down. It’s one of the first books that I took off the shelf, and in it, Toni Morrison said something about the role of the artist during turbulent times. It really put a battery in my back.3My Mom’s MusicGeorge Benson; Earth, Wind & Fire; Marvin Gaye. If I hear any of that stuff, or funk music like Parliament, Rick James, Teena Marie — anything post-disco through the ’80s is the music that really impacted me. The same stuff that I listen to when I’m making a meal, we’re having guests over or during a long drive, the sonic safe space for me is the music my mom used to play.4Stevie Wonder AlbumsIt’s definitely “Songs in the Key of Life” as an adult. But the Stevie album I heard the most growing up was probably “Hotter Than July.” Then, sometimes, you have to take a deep dive and do “Fulfillingness’ First Finale.” But in just talking about these three compositions, I appreciate the fact that there was space within the artist for all three to exist. The fact that that much range could exist within one person gives me hope as an artist and compels me to create more.5FunkI’m going to gravitate more toward Sly and the Family Stone and then maybe more toward Ohio Players. Midwest funk? Yeah. I think there’s something avant-garde; it’s almost like organized chaos. It feels very improvised and scattered sonically in a way that might seem all over the place to the untrained ear. But when you’re able to recognize those elements and tap all the way into them, it’s the ultimate liberty.6Historical Drama, When Done RightI really rock with shows like “The Gilded Age” or even some of the Westerns that are coming out. I’m not a huge “Yellowstone” fan, but I am a huge fan of both “1883” and “1923.” Because they’re done right, I feel like I’m transported to a place that I may have never seen.7Spike Lee JointsSometimes, I feel like “Mo’ Better Blues” is my favorite Spike joint. That, “Malcolm X,” “Do the Right Thing” and “Jungle Fever” are probably my favorites from him. You know how people say, “in no particular order”? If you asked me tomorrow, I might give you that exact same list in a different order.8Scorsese Movies Starring De NiroIf you’re talking about Martin Scorsese, strangely enough, “Cape Fear” is one of my favorites, if not the favorite. I’m also a huge Robert De Niro fan, and I feel he’s often underutilized. “Cape Fear” was a rare instance of us seeing De Niro moving in a different way. It was a much-needed curveball.9HeadwearI have a bunch of fedoras that were made by a brother named Isaac Larose who used to have a company called Larose Paris. The tan fedora that people see me wearing on that Funkmaster Flex freestyle? I have multiple versions.10Vintage ShirtsI’ve got this olive green military Gucci shirt with epaulets on the shoulders. It’s hand-painted with butterflies, flowers and all types of leaves. I’ve had it since 2000 and still rock it to this day. My wife does not like it, but I love it and feel like it’s never going out of style. More