A Remarkable Coincidence

This is just a quick note on a strange literary coincidence that happened today. This morning, in preparation for posting my first note in my new series “3 Great Thematic Travelogues,” I was rereading chapter 10 of Robert Macfarlane’s brilliant The Old Ways (2012), one of the three books that I’ll be studying in the series. The chapter, titled “Limestone,” is an account of two hikes that Macfarlane takes with his friend Raja Shehadeh in the Ramallah region of Palestine. After I finished reading the chapter, I opened my laptop and visited The New York Times website, as I do most mornings, to see what's going on in the world. Scanning the headlines, I encountered this: “Raja Shehadeh Believes Israelis and Palestinians Can Still Find Peace.” My eyes narrowed. Could this be the same Raja Shehadeh that I’d just read about in Macfarlane’s book? I opened the piece and read it. Yes! It’s the same fascinating man. I see more than ever why Macfarlane admires him. The writer of the piece, David Marchese, describes Shehadeh as “a thinker with a long and stubbornly optimistic view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Marchese notes that Shehadeh is also a major writer: “Shehadeh’s 2007 book, Palestinian Walks: Forays Into a Vanishing Landscape, won Britain’s Orwell Prize for political writing. Here in the United States, his book We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I was a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award.” The Times piece deepens my appreciation of Shehadeh's character and my understanding of Macfarlane’s account of his Palestinian walks with him.

Credit: The above portrait of Raja Shehadeh, by Philip Montgomery, is from The New York Times.  

Best of 2022: Photos

Mila Teshaieva, Bridge Over Irpin River (2022)

Here are my favorite New Yorker photos of 2022:

1. Mila Teshaieva's photo for Keith Gessen's "How the War in Ukraine Might End," September 29, 2022 (see above);

2. Dina Litovsky's photo for Helen Rosner's "We Watch the News and We're Crying" (March 8, 2022);

3. James Nachtwey's photo for his "A Harrowed Land" (May 9, 2022);

4. Mark Neville's photo for his "Days of War" (March 7, 2022);

5. Peter Fisher's photo for "Goings On About Town" (August 8, 2022);

6. Jérôme Sessini's photo for Masha Gessen's "The Devastation of Kharkiv" (March 22, 2022);

7. Philip Montgomery's photo for his "Blade Runners" (November 28, 2022);

8. Paul S. Amundsen's photo for Rebecca Mead's "Norwegian Wood" (April 25 & May 2, 2022);

9. Daniel Berehulak's photo for Luke Mogelson's "Everyone Is a Target" (August 1, 2022);

10. Eric Helgas's photo for Shauna Lyon's "Tables For Two: El Quijote" (June 6, 2022).

Best of 2016: Photos

Photo by Pari Dukovic

Here are my favorite New Yorker photos of 2016:

1. Pari Dukovic’s “Yuja Wang,” for Janet Malcolm’s “The Performance Artist,” September 5, 2016 (see above). I knew from the moment I first saw this photo that it would be my #1. The arresting keyboard-level angle, the piano’s sleek black curve, the greenish-blue tint, Yang’s spread, tense hand, her tight, glitzy dress, her closed eyes, open mouth, messed hair – wow! It magnetizes my eyes, makes me smile. Interestingly, Malcolm’s superb piece ends with a description of Dukovic taking this very photo.

2. Simon Norfolk’s “Camp on the Chhota Shigri Glacier,” for Dexter Filkins’s “The End of Ice,” April 4, 2016. Green sky, streaked with pink tracer-like star trails; harsh, sharp-edged, black-and-white rock; and in the lower left corner a blue-roofed tent softly illuminated from within – this is a memorable shot, evoking the cold, star-lit, rock-strewn, Himalayan terrain that Filkins traverses in his excellent piece.

Photo by Simon Norfolk

3. Edward Burtynsky’s “Saw Mills #1, Lagos, Nigeria 2016,” for Raffi Khatchadourian’s “The Long View,” December 19 & 26, 2016. Rafts of floating logs seen from high overhead are like textured fans of bone or bamboo stitched on a ragged, shredded brown, black, and tan patchwork textile that is actually boats, sheds, bark, sawdust, among other interesting elements, that constitute the sawmills of Lagos, Nigeria. In his absorbing piece, Khatchadourian says Burtynsky explores “the tension between realism and abstraction in manufactured environments.” “Saw Mills #1” exemplifies this tension perfectly.

Photo by Edward Burtynsky

4. Isabel Magowan’s “Emma Kline,” for James Wood’s “Making the Cut,” June 6 & 13, 2016. Cool, ravishing, painterly colors of white, lime and aquamarine. Cline seems frozen in place like a mannequin, her pensive blue-green eyes fixed on something beyond the photo’s realm. She has the look of a seer. In his piece, one of the year’s best reviews, Wood writes about Cline’s “ability to look again, like a painter, and see (or sense) things better than most of us do.” These are the words The New Yorker uses as a caption for Magowan’s portrait. They match magnificently.

Photo by Isabel Magowan

5. Katie Orlinsky’s “Chasing Winter,” for Tom Kizzia’s “The New Harpoon,” September 12, 2016. Reader, I have lived this photo. Caribou skins drying on a wooden rack, snow littered with bones, weather-beaten bungalow on piles (boat and motor parked out front, waiting for spring thaw), snow streets and snow roads, wind-polished ivory skies, on and on – I know (and love) these things. For almost ten years, they were part of my life. Orlinsky’s wonderful photo, a piece of Inuit reality, brings it all back to me.

Photo by Katie Orlinsky

6. William Mebane, “Babu Ji,” for Silvia Killingsworth’s “Tables For Two: Babu Ji,” January 11, 2016. I’m a Mebane fan. His “School of Rock” was on my “Best of 2015” list. He could’ve had two or three shots on this year’s list. I’ve chosen “Babu Ji” for its delicious colors and riveting composition.

Photo by William Mebane

7. Meredith Jenks’s “”MIMI,” for Shauna Lyon’s “Tables ForTwo: MIMI,” September 5, 2016. This is an inspired image. It has the look of a found composition. But someone had to be there to recognize the pictorial potential of that jazzy multi-hued stairway and wait for (or arrange for) a server carrying a delectable dish to ascend. That person was Jenks, a photographer with a Matisse-ian eye for texture, pattern, and color.

Photo by Meredith Jenks

8. Jeremy Liebman’s “Yemen Café,” for Nicolas Niarchos’s “Tables For Two: Yemen Café,” November 21, 2016. I devour this image: still life with pots, skillets, flame burners, and magenta stove knobs. It exudes a keen awareness of life and art – kitchen reality and the beauty of kitchen reality – simultaneously.

Photo by Jeremy Liebman

9.  Benjamin Lowy’s “Gustu,” for Carolyn Kormann’s “The Tasting-Menu Initiative,” April 4, 2016. The focal point of this great kitchen shot is Kamilla Seidler, chef of Gustu, “the most ambitious restaurant in La Paz, Bolivia.” Seidler figures centrally in Kormann’s wonderful piece. Lowy shows her working in the restaurant’s glassed-in service kitchen. The dining room is visible through the windows in the background. The dominant colors are brown and tan with accents of white (jackets worn by Seidler and two helpers), orange and red (lantern hanging in the dining room), and silver (stainless steel cookware). It’s a stunning shot containing several details mentioned by Kormann.

Photo by Benjamin Lowy

10. Philip Montgomery’s “Michel Martelly,” for Jon Lee Anderson’s “Aftershocks,” February 1, 2016. I admire clear, well-lit, sharp-focus photos immensely. This one, a portrait of Haiti’s President, Michel Martelly, is extraordinary.

Photo by Philip Montgomery

Honorable Mention: Cait Oppermann’s “El Sabroso,” for Becky Cooper’s “Tables For Two: Lunch à la Mode,” September 19, 2016.

Photo by Cait Oppermann

October 5, 2015 Issue

The pieces in this week’s issue I enjoyed most are Silvia Killingsworth’s "Tables For Two: Superiority Burger" (“A slip of flavorless iceberg lettuce is pure signifier”), Colin Stokes’s "Bar Tab: Covenhoven" (“Cavernous fridges illuminate the slim space, as well as the faces of customers poring over the panoply of alcohol therein”), Nick Paumgarten’s "Amerks" (“Dutton, eighty-two, had a brush cut, a firm jawline, and teeth that looked suspiciously like replacements for a set scattered on a frozen pond”), Scaachi Koul’s "The Dad Restaurant" (“Served the way it’s supposed to be: near-frozen, sure to give you severe brain freeze halfway through, as it always does, and mostly foam”), John Updike’s "Coming Into New York" (“And then like Death it comes upon us: / the plain of steaming trash, the tinge of brown / that colors now the trees and grass as though / exposed to rays sent from the core of heat – / these are the signs we see in retrospect”), William Finnegan’s "The Man Who Wouldn't Sit Down" (“Ramos, standing alone, seemed to fold into himself. His expulsion had been tense, uncomfortable, heart-pounding stuff. Everyone involved was surely agitated. But Ramos seemed calm, as if his pulse had slowed”), and Alexandra Schwartz’s "The Unforgotten" (“Turning to invention to get at deeper realities of experience is fiction’s righteous mission, and ‘Honeymoon’ performs it beautifully. But truthfulness isn’t the same as the truth”). A special shout-out to Philip Montgomery for his striking portrait of Jorge Ramos, illustrating “The Man Who Wouldn’t Sit Down.”