Best of 2019: Photos

Ivan Forde's photo for "Goings On About Town"

Here are my favorite New Yorker photos of 2019:

1. Ivan Forde's photo of The Illustrious Blacks for "Goings On About Town," January 7, 2019 (see above).

2. Mauricio Lima's photo for Jon Lee Anderson's "Blood Gold" (November 4, 2019).

3. David Williams’ photo of Ali El Sayed for David Kortava’s “Kabab Café’s ‘Snout to Tail’ Delicacies” (August 23, 2019).

4. Shae Detar’s photo of Anderson .Paak for "Goings On About Town" (February 18 & 25, 2019).

5. Dolly Faibyshev’s photo for Shauna Lyon’s “A Tel Aviv Restaurant Brings Bacchanalia and Technique to Hell’s Kitchen” (June 21, 2019).

6. Pari Dukovic’s photo of Todd Haynes for John Lahr’s “The Director’s Cut” (November 11, 2019).

7. William Mebane’s photo for Hannah Goldfield’s “Hot Pot for the Type-A Personality at O:n°” (April 5, 2019).

8. Katy Grannan’s photo for Ian Frazier’s “Pumper’s Corner” (February 18 & 25, 2019).

9. Joakim Eskildsen’s photo for James Lasdun’s “Glow” (April 29, 2019)

10. Yudi Ela’s photo for Hannah Goldfield’s “Tables For Two: Pilar Cuban Bakery / Win Son Bakery” (November 11, 2019)

"Tables For Two" Photos: 5 Favorites

Zachary Zavislak, "Nur" (2017)

I relish “Tables for Two.” Among its many pleasures – the food descriptions, the evaluative criticism, the piquant details – are the photo illustrations. Many of them are inspired. Here are five of my recent favorites:

1. David Williams, “Van Da” (May 27, 2019)

I love the way the top of that luminous green bottle thrusts up into the shot. Most photographers would remove it before shooting. Williams uses it to jazz his double portrait with a translucent bit of jade.

2. Heami Lee, “Teranga” (May 6, 2019)

The star of this gorgeous shot isn’t the food; it’s the circular yellow-and-black table. What a yellow! Van Gogh would’ve loved it.

3. Dolly Faibyshev, “HaSalon” (July 1, 2019)

The rakish angle, the way the rough edge of the tabletop slashes the composition, the black-framed rectangles of sky and city street – all combine to make this shot impeccably original.

4. William Mebane, “Hanon” (July 22, 2019)

So many great Mebane photos to pick from. I chose this quasi-abstract still life for its elegant simplicity.

5. Zachary Zavislak, “The Fly” (April 1, 2019)

Like Mebane, Zavislak is a master “Tables for Two” photographer. The above still life features no less than twenty artfully arranged items (not counting cutlery). 

Who is the best “Tables for Two” photographer? There are at least seven candidates: David Williams, Dolly Faibyshev, Eric Helga, Krista Schlueter, William Mebane, Amy Lombard, and Zachary Zavislak. But for me it comes down to Mebane v. Zavislak. I give the edge to Mebane on the strength of his striking portraits. This one, for example, from Hannah Goldfield’s “Tables For Two: Sofreh” (September 14, 2018):

Best of 2018: Photos

Lauren Lancaster, "Diana Tandia" (2018)

Here are my favorite New Yorker photographs of 2018:

1. Lauren Lancaster, “Diana Tandia,” for Hannah Goldfield’s “Tables For Two: Berber Street Food” (October 29, 2018).

2. David S. Allee, “Naumburg Orchestral Concerts,” for “Goings On About Town” (July 23, 2018).

3. Davide Monteleone, “Su Xiaolan,” for “Portfolio: A New Silk Road” (January 8, 2018).

4. Dan Winters, “SpaceShip Two,” for Nicholas Schmidle’s “Rocket Man” (August 20, 2018).

5. George Steinmetz, “Rio Grande River,” for Nick Paumgarten’s ”Water and the Wall” (April 23, 2018).

6. Zora J. Murff, “Clarissa Glenn and Ben Baker,” for Jennifer Gonnerman’s “Framed” (May 28, 2018).

 

7. Krista Schlueter, “David Hockney,” for Françoise Mouly’s “David Hockney’s ‘The Road’ ” (newyorker.com, April 16, 2018).

8. William Mebane, “Nasim Alikhani,” for Hannah Goldfield’s “Tables For Two: Sofreh” (September 24, 2018).

9. Gillian Laub, “Alex Katz,” for Calvin Tomkins’ “Painterly Virtues” (August 27, 2018).

10. Dolly Faibyshev, “Le Sia,” for Hannah Goldfield’s “Tables For Two: Le Sia” (June 4 & 11, 2018).

11. Kevin Cooley, "The Woolsey Fire, Near Los Angeles, Seen from the West Hills," for Bill McKibben's "Life on a Shrinking Planet" (November 26, 2018).



12. Cait Opperman, "Habibi," for "Goings On About Town" (January 15, 2018)

Best of 2017: GOAT

Dolly Faibyshev, "Mermaid Spa" (2017)

Here are my favorite New Yorker “Goings On About Town” pieces of 2017 (with a choice quote from each in brackets):

1. Becky Cooper, “Tables For Two: Mermaid Spa,” March 6, 2017 (“The best, though, are the cold appetizers, especially the pickled herring or, if you dare, the salo—raw pig lard, frozen and sliced thin. The procedure is half the fun: Layer it over some brown bread. Salt it. Pick up a raw garlic clove. Salt that. Bite one, then the other. The sharp fire of the raw garlic gives way to the sweetness of the bread, and to the soothing fat as it melts. It’s more bracing than the ice pools”).

2. Matthew Trammell, “Night Life: Past Customs,” July 24, 2017 (“Far from the sustained keys and billowing loops of Brian Eno’s ambient opus “Music for Airports” (1978), Amobi’s transcontinental score has a more explicit take on air travel: buzzy synths swell into prominence like a takeoff, asymmetrical percussion mimics the metallic dance of landing gear unfolding, and talk-box samples evoke the chorus of voices, automated and analog, that echo through terminal halls”).

3. Becky Cooper, “Tables For Two: Sunday in Brooklyn,” January 23, 2017 (“At some point, someone near you will order the pancakes, and you will turn involuntarily to stare at the stack coated in hazelnut-praline-maple syrup and brown butter. Gesture to your waiter for an order of those. The sauce, the texture of butterscotch, slips down the sides like a slow-motion waterfall. It tastes like melted gelato. The pancakes, slightly undercooked, seem almost naughty”).

4. McKenna Stayner, “Bar Tab: Super Power,” February 27, 2017 (“Visiting Super Power, with the gentle glow of a blowfish lamp, the fogged windows dripping hypnotically with condensation, and the humid, coconut-scented air, was exactly like being on a cruise, but everyone was wearing wool”).

5. Richard Brody, “Movies: The Long Day Closes,” April 3, 2017 (“Davies resurrects footfalls and shadows, the pattern and texture of carpets, the sound of his mother’s singing voice—the inner drama of undramatic things that are lodged in memory for a lifetime”).

6. Talia Lavin, “Bar Tab: Highlands,” July 24, 2017 (“A business-casual crowd filled the West Village redoubt, and the music played at a pleasant soft throb. “I need to find another lover,” a man in a lavender shirt sighed; ice clattered in a shaker as another cocktail was poured with luxuriant slowness. The Catholic Guilt left a taste of anise on the tongue. For the less whiskey-inclined, the Wobbly Piper (mezcal, cardamom syrup) and the Royal Mile (vodka, a grapefruity rhubarb pureé) offered their own path to contentment. As the evening deepened, the eyes of the deer heads on the walls glinted in the tawny light, but without malice”).

7. Andrea K. Scott, “Paper Weight,” November 6, 2017 (“The penumbral horse that Georges Seurat let loose with his black Conté crayon in 1882, on view here, might be up for a wild ride with Black Hawk’s ‘Buffalo Dreamers’ ”).

8. Carolyn Kormann, “Bar Tab: The Wooly Public,” August 7 & 14, 2017 (“A woman with a glittery backpack ordered a Woolynesia, tropical punch with gin, lime, chili, cinnamon, and puréed stone fruits, served in a woolly-mammoth-shaped mug. Paintings, prints, and statuary of the extinct beast, a lugubrious mascot, lurk everywhere you look. The woman took a sip, smiled at her man-bunned companion, and said, as far as an amateur lip-reader could tell, either ‘I love you or ‘Elephant juice’ ”).

9. Richard Brody, “Movies: Who’s Crazy?,” March 13, 2017 (“When love creeps in, the doings turn mock-solemn, as a mystical marriage—a threadbare rite of flung-together outfits and tinfoil décor—plays out like a discothèque exorcism”).

10. Andrea K. Scott, “Woman on Wire,” October 9, 2017 (“But such gripes melt away in the presence of an ethereal copper-and-iron-wire concatenation from 1954—seven interconnected orbs, two of which surround smaller spheres like translucent cocoons. It hangs in front of a window overlooking a garden, enmeshing nature and art”).

11. Becky Cooper, “Tables For Two: Augustine,” April 3, 2017 (“Roberta’s mere presence, as she delivers the tarte tatin, a rose of butter-caramel apple slices hugging a hazelnut crust, rescues the experience from the dispassion of the suits—as does François’s wink and pour of gifted Calvados”).

12. Talia Lavin, “Bar Tab: The Penrose,” November 27, 2017 (“The sound of fashionable boots striking the white floor was muted by a staccato prog-rock soundtrack; a young woman in a clinging leather blazer frowned at her companion by the light of a tiny candle and flicked beer foam at his lush red beard”).

Imaginary Interview: On the Making of "Mid-Year Top Ten (2017)"

Dolly Faibyshev, "Mermaid Spa"

This year’s “Mid-Year Top Ten (2017)” is the eighth in a series that began in 2010, the year this blog was launched. All were composed by New Yorker & Me staff writer John MacDougall. We asked him to reflect on his work.

What’s the point of these lists?

They’re a way for me to take stock of my New Yorker reading experience.

What criteria do you use to pick and rank the pieces?

Pleasure is my guide.

Well, what do you look for in a piece of writing? What gives you pleasure?

Are you familiar with James Wood’s definition of “thisness”?

Refresh my memory.

Thisness is any detail that draws abstraction toward itself and seems to kill that abstraction with a puff of palpability, any detail that centers our attention with its concretion. Wood wrote that in his great How Fiction Works. It’s one of my touchstones. It expresses perfectly the quality in writing I most relish. The New Yorker brims with it.

I notice that this year’s “Mid-Year Top Ten” contains a “Goings On About Town” list. That’s a new feature, isn’t it?

Yes, it is. Over the last couple of years, “Goings On About Town” has become my favorite section of the magazine.

Why is that?

I think it has to do with my preference for description over narrative. “Goings On About Town” contains an abundance of great description.

Give me an example.

Well, the one that immediately comes to mind is Becky Cooper’s brilliant “Tables For Two” piece on Mermaid Spa, in which, in detail after sensuous detail, she describes the dining room, the sauna, the steam room, and the food. For me, it’s one of the most memorable pieces of the year so far – right up there with Luke Mogelson’s “The Avengers of Mosul” and John Kinsella’s “Milking the Tiger Snake.”

Your lists are always positive. Have you ever considered including a “worst” or “most disappointing” category?

No. My list is a fan’s list. I like to keep it positive.

Is your list in anyway biased?

Yes, I readily admit I have favorites – Ian Frazier, James Wood, and Peter Schjeldahl, to name three. I relish Robert Sullivan’s writing. Anytime he appears in the magazine, I try to get him on my list.

Who do you think reads these lists? Who’s your target audience?

I’m not sure who reads them. I don’t have a target. I make them for their own sake. They’re my way of paying homage to The New Yorker – to the many writers, editors, and artists who produce it. Also, these lists afford me the pleasure of revisiting the magazine pieces and savoring my favorite passages.

Do you foresee a time when your enthusiasm for The New Yorker will wane and you’ll stop making these lists?

No. I’m totally hooked on The New Yorker. If anything, my addiction is intensifying.