This Pulitzer winner's sentences are beautiful. Her thinking can be confused.
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Atlantic
5 hours ago
- Atlantic
A Novel That Skewers Meritocracy
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Welcome back to The Daily's Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer or editor reveals what's keeping them entertained. Today's special guest is Isaac Stanley-Becker, a staff writer who has reported on Steve Witkoff's role as President Donald Trump's 'shadow secretary of state,' the early tenure of Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, and the dire situation at the Federal Aviation Administration. Isaac has crowned 'Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' as the greatest song of all time, enjoys rereading old email exchanges with friends, and is transfixed by the ambiguous nature of Mark Rothko's paintings. The Culture Survey: Isaac Stanley-Becker A good recommendation I recently received: A German politician recently recommended Michael Young's satirical 1958 novel The Rise of the Meritocracy to me. The book popularized the term meritocracy, but Young, a sociologist who helped develop Britain's postwar welfare state, meant it as a pejorative. His story envisions a dystopian future society stratified by educational achievement rather than social class, concluding with a wave of protests in which a group called the 'populists' rebel against the meritocratic elite. My favorite way of wasting time on my phone: Rereading old emails with friends. I've always been drawn to letters (I recommend the published correspondence between the poets Nelly Sachs and Paul Celan, with a terrific translation by Christopher Clark), and email is an approximation of that experience. I enjoy returning to the little asides and evasions and expressions of affection. The television show I'm most enjoying right now: The Bear is a perfect TV show, and I'm savoring the fourth season at the moment. I tell everyone who gets overwhelmed by the chaos of the first season to wait because good things are in store. The show is a tender study of people struggling to do right by themselves and others. It's also a paean to Chicago, my hometown, a city about which Nelson Algren wrote: 'Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real.' Something delightful introduced to me by a kid in my life: A friend recently soothed her baby with a West African lullaby called ' Mami wata,' by Issa Dakuyo. A quiet song that I love, and a loud song that I love: 'Slow Show,' by the National, and '40-16 Building,' by Nas. An online creator whom I'm a fan of: I'm not sure how Melvyn Bragg would feel about the designation of 'online creator,' but I'm a fan of his show on BBC Radio 4, In Our Time, in which he convenes several experts on a given topic and peppers them with questions for about an hour. There's something for everyone: hypnosis, Bauhaus, the Haymarket Affair. One of my favorite episodes is on W. H. Auden —it's fitting for the 2020s, our own ' low dishonest decade.' The last museum or gallery show that I loved: I recently took a tour through five centuries of the Middle Ages in a single room at the Palazzo Citterio, in Milan. Objects as disparate as northern-Italian mosaics and Gothic marble heads recorded the eclectic interests of Lamberto Vitali, a 20th-century critic and collector who believed that art was able to dissolve geographical and temporal boundaries. An author I will read anything by: For fiction, Péter Nádas. For nonfiction, Kathryn Schulz. For commentary, I'm a devoted reader of Adam Tooze's Substack and articles in the Financial Times. A painting, sculpture, or other piece of visual art that I cherish: I'm very fond of Mark Rothko's paintings, and some of the best are on view in the National Gallery of Art's East Building, including No. 1 (1961). When I'm face-to-face with these hovering blocks of color, I can't tell whether I'm looking at something natural or unnatural, human or inhuman. Rothko's own words lend this ambiguity a sense of high drama. As part of the 'Paintings on Paper' exhibition from about a year ago, the National Gallery displayed his haunting statement: 'You think my paintings are calm, like windows in some cathedral? You should LOOK AGAIN. I'm the most violent of all the American painters. Behind those colors there hides the final cataclysm.' A musical artist who means a lot to me: Bob Dylan. I think 'Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' is the greatest song of all time. A favorite story I've read in The Atlantic: I loved Jennifer Senior's recent story on insomnia. But everything Jennifer writes is completely captivating. The last thing that made me cry: I cried during I'm Still Here, a film about the military dictatorship in Brazil and the disappearance of the dissident politician Rubens Paiva. What got me, in particular, was the moment when a photographer visited the Paiva family home and told them to look sad for the camera, but they insisted on smiling and laughing. I was overcome by this simple fortitude. The last thing that made me snort with laughter: I laughed out loud reading my friend Johannes Lichtman's novel Such Good Work, about a recovering addict whose quest for moral purpose takes him to Sweden amid the international refugee crisis. It's a sweet and very insightful bildungsroman that captures the absurdities of life in the first quarter of the 21st century. A poem, or line of poetry, that I return to: Patience doesn't come easily to me, but I try to listen to the admonition that begins Galway Kinnell's 'Wait': Wait, for now. Distrust everything if you have to. But trust the hours. Haven't they carried you everywhere, up to now? Here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic: The Week Ahead Rehab: An American Scandal, a book by the Pulitzer finalist Shoshana Walter on true stories about the opioid crisis, and the dark side of the rehab industry (out Tuesday) Americana, a new movie about a Lakota ghost shirt that sets off violence in a small South Dakota town (in theaters Friday Love Is Like, a new album by the pop-rock band Maroon 5 (out Friday) Essay Captain Ron's Guide to Fearless Flying I'd experienced 21 years of unmemorable flights before my own fear of flying took hold. In May 2015, I was traveling from my home state of Iowa to New York City for a summer internship. I was already nervous about moving, and then, somewhere above Illinois, the plane hit a patch of turbulence and dropped what felt like a thousand feet. Several people screamed. For the first time in my life, I began to experience what I would later understand to be panic: My face and neck went clammy, and black spots filled my vision. At one point, an overhead bin popped open and a few unbuckled passengers smacked their head on the ceiling. They were all okay, and, physically, so was I. But I had unlocked a new fear. More in Culture What's really behind the cult of Labubu Mrs. Dalloway's midlife crisis The tech novel's warning for a screen-addled age Six books that explain how flying really works Catch Up on The Atlantic Does the stock market know something we don't? How Democrats tied their own hands on redistricting Annie Lowrey: Children's health care is in danger. Photo Album This week, NASA marked the 13th anniversary of its Curiosity rover landing on Mars. Curiosity has now traveled more than 22 miles over the course of 4,620 Martian days, making numerous discoveries across this planet. Rafaela Jinich contributed to this newsletter
USA Today
20 hours ago
- USA Today
Why 'White Lotus' creator Mike White is returning to 'Survivor'
When "Survivor" host Jeff Probst decided to bring back contestant Mike White for the reality competition's 50th season, he knew White would be showing his hand. White, a one-time participant on the show, has since become the famed mastermind behind "White Lotus," the popular resort-based drama on HBO. "The thing that's most interesting about Mike playing for the second time is there is no hiding that he is the biggest writer, director, show creator in the world right now, and he wanted to come back and play 'Survivor,'" Probst told the Hollywood Reporter in an interview published Aug. 7. "So I can understand why people had a reaction." 'White Lotus' creator Mike White's next tropical island is return to 'Survivor' The long-running competition show features a group of "castaways" facing off in challenges on a remote island for the chance to take home $1 million. Among the first crop of reality shows to make it big when the format burst onto the scene in the early 2000s, it requires a mix of physical strength and personal cunning to forge alliances and read other contestants. While Probst, the show's longtime host, acknowledges the oddity of an Emmy-winning director opting to return to the dusty isles of survivordom, he thinks people aren't asking the right questions. "I'm surprised people aren't asking, 'Why is one of the greatest writers in the history of Hollywood so interested in 'Survivor?'" he told THR. "What is it that Mike is learning about humans and behavior and situational ethics that he applies to his craft? Because I think that's part of why he does it — he's out there in a real incubator of human behavior where you never know what's going to happen, but what you do know is that if you show up to play 'Survivor', you can study it." 'Survivor' Season 50 cast: Which returning players are playing for $1 million? White first appeared on the "Survivor's" 37th season in 2018, landing in the runner-up spot and gaining a cult popularity among the show's fanbase along the way. His biggest hit, "White Lotus," which channels the darker side of the human spirit and the downfalls of excess, works in tandem with his experience on the show. "When you watch 'White Lotus,' what are you watching? You're watching human behavior all day," Probst continued. "I think that's part of the reason Mike is back, and if you don't understand that, maybe you're asking the wrong question." White, a celebrated screenwriter, also penned and starred in "School of Rock" and "Chuck & Buck." "He wanted to come back and step away from his Hollywood career for a moment and play this game that he loves to see how it will go," Probst added, explaining that he thinks White is interested to see how his own newfound fame will factor into his standing among fellow contestants. "He's arguably the single best storyteller we've ever had on 'Survivor,'" he told THR. "I'm grateful to consider him a friend, because I learn from Mike every day. You're talking (about) one of the best of all time, and the fact that he said yes to 'Survivor' still brings a smile on my face.' When is 'Survivor' Season 50 airing? No official premiere date has been released, but the show's 50th season is expected to begin airing on CBS in spring 2026.
a day ago
Tom Hanks pays tribute to Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell
"God speed you, on this next voyage, Jim Lovell.' 0:39 Tom Hanks took to Instagram to remember Jim Lovell, the astronaut he portrayed in the 1995 Ron Howard–directed film "Apollo 13." Lovell, best known for commanding the near-disastrous Apollo 13 mission, died Thursday, Aug. 7, at age 97. In a statement posted to Instagram, the Oscar-winning actor reflected on Lovell's extraordinary life. "There are people who dare, who dream, and who lead others to the places we would not go on our own," Hanks wrote. "Jim Lovell, who for a long while had gone farther into space and for longer than any other person of our planet, was that kind of guy." Hanks praised Lovell's dedication to exploration, noting that his missions were not motivated by fame or fortune but by "the challenges that fuel the course of being alive." The actor closed his tribute with a nod to the timing of Lovell's passing: "On this night of a full moon, he passes on -- to the heavens, to the cosmos, to the stars. God speed you, on this next voyage, Jim Lovell." Howard also praised the late astronaut, saying "simply knowing" the astronaut was an honor. Sharing archival images and side-by-side comparisons from the film, the filmmaker called Lovell "one of the most remarkable individuals I've ever met." "His combination of intellect, courage and commitment to duty made him extraordinary," Howard wrote. "His support of our movie-making efforts inspired authenticity and elevated our process in so many ways. Thank you, sir, for your service to our country and to humankind." Lovell's career spanned decades of groundbreaking achievements in space exploration, including flights on Gemini 7, Gemini 12, Apollo 8 -- the first mission to orbit the moon --and Apollo 13.
