ALL THE NEWS

Early in the pandemic my favored news source was Trevor Noah on The Daily Show. His lightning-quick insight and boyish energy are the perfect antidote to mounting fears. And his stable of comedian correspondents – particularly Dulcé Sloan – add high notes of anger and absurdity.

Then, as we moved into the 2020 election, I turned to Jake Tapper on CNN. A former White House journalist who’s known for being prepared, persistent, and a pain-in-the-neck, he has become the face of genteel outrage. He’s handsome, old enough to project anchorman gravitas and young enough to inspire daydreams. His resting face is a perpetual frown so magnificent that he seems, already, before he even opens his mouth, displeased. When he is very displeased he tilts his head to one side, squints, and holds it there for a few beats, as if trying to understand an abstract sculpture. His face alone expresses quiet outrage on behalf of an audience too tired to be outright outraged at a time when there are fresh sources of outrage every day.

The last time I watched the news this fervently was in 2007, when Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination. It was the talk on MSNBC that attracted me then, particularly the nerdy punditry from Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow, whose long-winded soliloquies vented curiosity, cynicism and joy. Each Friday Olbermann announced the The Worst Person in the World, shaming a notorious political figure from that week’s news cycle. It was an innocent time, when bad behavior was outstanding.

What does it say now that audiences – both conservative and liberal – turn to media for emotional assurance in addition to news? We’ve had four years of national political news so brazen and so base that it needs no commentary; it serves beautifully as its own satire. We already know the news, what we want is an icon.

TAKE ME HOME

Countryside: The Future, on view now at the Guggenheim, doesn’t feel like an exhibition. It feels like a textbook projected onto the museum’s iconic curving surfaces.

Working with graphic designer Irma Bloom, curators AMO, Rem Koolhaas and Samir Bantal  Bantal have taken many bytes of research, analysis and opinion, and printed it on curtains hanging along the museum’s outer wall, and, directly, in vinyl text running along its ceiling and guardrails. It’s a whole lot of data and a whole lot of Helvetica.

Typically visiting the gallery on a Friday evening is the perfect dinner party pre-game; the scene is chic, poised, knowing. Last week the crowd, diminished by pandemic restrictions, was listless, reading wall texts dutifully, but ultimately, as they reached the top, worn out. They wanted a show and got a lecture.

True confession: I didn’t read everything, I didn’t even look at everything. But what was apparent was a nostalgia for the pre-digital and pre-technological. The first wall text, at the base of the ramp, juxtaposes a photo of three rosy-cheeked teenage Russian farm girls from 1905, standing and offering plates of food, with another of contemporary workers inside an industrial hothouse. It reads: The countryside is a stable environment where everyone—man, woman, child—knows their place. There is a pride in costume and products… The sentiment is comically retrograde. One of the last images of the show, at the top of the ramp, is a poster of Koolhaas standing with group of men and women in dark suits, surveying an enormous spread of farmland, possibly pitching ideas. It’s a tired image of the modern architect as cultural savior, particularly sad because Koolhas began his career in sly opposition to it.

The strongest shows at the Guggenheim engage the sculptural drama of the architecture. Giacometti’s figures, Frank Gehry’s architectural models, and Maurizio Cattelan’s sculpture all shone within the gallery’s curving walls and tilted floors. At Countryside there are some small objects on stands along the ramp but almost all the material is, both literally and metaphorically flat; it doesn’t provoke. There are some small objects (a drone, a satellite, and bale of hay) hung in a single cable above the ground floor pool, but they’re swallowed by the monumental space. If Rem Koolhaas wants to turn back to a world that is more primal and richly physical, why didn’t he give us an exhibit that is?

Photograph © AMO

STATEMENT DRESSING

It started even before she took the stage in Wilmington to accept the nomination for Vice President. A fellow desi texted, I hope she wears a sari for the inauguration! Female politicians are scrutinized cruelly for their looks and clothing but Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, in addition to representing all of womankind, must also represent Black America and India. And all the aunties are watching.

When I look at Harris I see an accomplished and ambitious professional woman who is impeccably poised and groomed. She’s a beauty who doesn’t seem overly identified with, or worried about, her looks. I was doubtful about her preference for pantsuits over dresses, but bowled over by her campaign uniform. Bounding down the steps of a Biden-Harris jet in white t-shirt, capri pants, suit jacket, and Converse Chuck Taylors, she seemed cool, pragmatic and progressive. (The campaign’s best tweet, from @jezebel: I am worried about Kamala Harris’s arch support) To inspect wildfire damage in October with California Governor Gavin Newsom she switched it up with Timberlands and an army-inspired olive jacket, surrendering none of her glamor or authority.

A sari is a different thing. It’s a flattering garment that complements any figure, and Harris will look ravishing in one. But, like stilettos, wearing one with ease requires years of experience. I’d prefer if she referenced India, and her fellow desis, more indirectly. She can wear something shiny, drapey, or crazy-colored, accessorizing with piles of gold jewelry. Or she can turn to the magnificent example of Michele Obama, who wore a strapless ankle-length embroidered gold sheath by Naeem Khan to welcome the Indian Prime Minister to the White House in 2009.

Harris is now herself a world leader and, in a better world, it wouldn’t matter what she wears. But each time she steps out she looks fantastic, and each time it inspires.

Kamala Aunty by Hanifa Abdul Hameed, 2020. © Hanifa Abdul Hameed, Colors of Honey

THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SONG

What is the soundtrack of impending apocalypse?