July 9 & 16, 2018 Issue

Four excellent “Talk of the Town” stories in this week’s issue: Nicolas Niarchos’s “Cartography”; Anna Russell’s “Leafy Greens”; Betsy Morais’ “Debrief”; and Lauren Collins’s “Invitation.”

Nicolas Niarchos’s “Cartography” is about a guy named David Goren who’s obsessed with pirate radio stations. Niarchos immediately snares my attention with the sort of found detail I relish: 

With one hand, he tuned an FM dial connected to a directional antenna. With the other, he jotted frequencies onto a notepad advertising Ortho Tri-Cyclen. (“That’s my wife’s,” he said. “She’s a nurse-practitioner.”)

Only certain writers notice stuff like that. It may not be much, just a notepad advertising a contraceptive, but it catches Niarchos’s eye. He must’ve asked Goren about it, or Goren noticed him noticing it – hence Goren’s explanation in parenthesis.

The notepad isn’t mentioned again. Niarchos goes on to describe Goren tuning in various pirate radio stations. We listen in as a Caribbean religious pirate hails a man in Toronto: “ ‘Good evening, Mr. Junior,’ a man’s voice said, addressing a listener. ‘Mr. Junior up there in Toronto, Canada.’ ”

In Anna Russell’s “Leafy Greens,” chef Alex Guarnaschelli visits Farm.One, Manhattan’s largest hydroponic farm, located “deep underground beneath the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary and the Michelin-starred restaurant Atera.” Guided by the farm’s creator, Rob Laing, Guarnaschelli tastes some of the plants – anise hyssop, micro-dill, mizuna, mint flower, bronze-fennel fronds. My favourite passage is a description of her encounter with a row of marigolds:

A row of marigolds caught her eye. “The taste of a marigold is one I deeply associate with my first tomato,” she said. She recalled how her grandmother would plant marigolds next to tomatoes because they keep the bugs away.

Laing was collecting a sample from a top shelf. “We’ve seen more people using it for desserts,” he said. “Like with chocolate, even.”

“Oh, that’s so fucking Swedish,” Guarnaschelli said. 

That last line made me laugh, although it’s hard to say why – maybe the emphasis on “Swedish,” maybe its profane gusto. Whatever the reason, it’s a terrific line. Russell captures it perfectly. She has a great ear. 

In Betsy Morais’ “Debrief,” Eugene Thacker, a philosopher who teaches a course on pessimism, meets up with a few of his former students at a Williamsburg bookstore. Morais writes,

A sign on the front door said, “Come on in,” but the store’s grate was pulled down. “Uh-oh,” said Aaron Newman, who recently completed his master’s degree in liberal studies. It had been raining, and there was still mist in the air. Rachelle Rahmé, another recent graduate, said, “I love this kind of weather.” Soon, the sun peeked out, the shopkeeper arrived, and the group was ushered into a pleasant back yard. Thacker, who is from the Seattle area, told them that he takes comfort in a gloomy sky: “It’s contemplative.”

I like the easy-going atmosphere of this piece. For a bunch of pessimists, Thacker and his group seem almost cheerful. Morais catches this paradoxically positive vibe in her final paragraph:

If pessimism is about futility, what’s the point of writing about it? Thacker’s not sure, but he thinks that there’s something interesting about “undertaking the practice anyway.” He added, “Maybe it means next time around, the only students who get A’s are the ones who don’t turn in a paper.” The alums laughed. Humor can be helpful to pessimists. “I went through a phase of watching a lot of standup comedy,” Thacker said. “I love George Carlin. He takes no political side. Everyone deserves our spite.”

Lauren Collins is the veteran in this quartet, with a number of Talk classics to her credit, including, “Sideline” (June 19, 2017), “Dog’s Dinner” (February 8 & 15, 2016), and “Bird’s-Eye View” (July 6, 2015). Her “Invitation,” in this week’s issue, tells the story of a French count who tracked down descendants of an American army doctor who bivouacked at his family’s estate in 1944. The count’s name is Aymeric de Rougé, “the proprietor of Baronville—a twenty-four-hundred-acre estate, an hour southwest of Paris”; the army doctor’s name is Frank Inserra, who “had been particularly kind to de Rougé’s father, Bertrand.” Inserra died in 1990. The nub of this absorbing piece is a Skype conversation between de Rouge and Inserra’s son, Francis, in Rockville, Maryland, and Inserra's daughter, Donna, in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Collins writes,

On a recent Wednesday, Aymeric de Rougé was at Baronville, where he manages ventures related to the estate, including a line of champagne. He sat in front of a laptop in the dining room, beneath a huge chandelier.

“O.K., I have you blasted through the speakers,” he said to Francis and his sister Donna. De Rougé had invited them to visit Baronville, but for now they were Skyping.

My favourite part of “Invitation” is the conclusion, when de Rouge uses his computer to show Francis and Donna the room he’s in:

Toward the end of the conversation, Donna, tearing up, said that it had made her feel as if her father were a little closer. Then Francis addressed the Count. “I have to tell you,” he said, “I’m looking at your house—”

“ ‘House’ doesn’t seem like the right word,” Donna said.

De Rougé lifted his laptop so that the Inserras could get a better look at the room’s pistachio-colored moldings. Then he turned around so they could see all the way down the gallery—a two-hundred-and-thirty-foot view.

“Oh, my heavens,” Donna said. “Can you imagine what that would’ve been like for Dad?”

It’s an inspired ending to a touching story, which Collins beautifully tells in a mere 933 well-chosen words.