NAOMI: [00:00:00] This is Critics at Large, a podcast from The New Yorker. I'm Nomi Fry. 
VINSON: I'm Vinson Cunningham. 
ALEXANDRA: And I'm Alex Schwartz. Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture and how we got here. So, this past weekend, the three of us had the enormous pleasure of being on stage together. 
VINSON: Yeah.
NAOMI: Yeah, indeed. It was the 27th annual New Yorker Festival. Can you believe it? 27th. Yeah. Okay. 
VINSON: Happy birthday. 
NAOMI: Happy birthday. Okay. We look forward to this event every year, and this time we were thinking, "What should we do to make it feel special?" And we landed on taking our advice series, I Need a Critic, that you guys all know and love, and actually trying it for the first time in front of a live audience.
VINSON: Yeah, and it was great. I mean, we, we love doing these episodes, even more so doing it live. But now, just because, you know, everybody can't make it to The New Yorker Festival, 27th edition [00:01:00] notwithstanding, so we wanna make sure even, that people who weren't there get to kinda be there, too. So yeah, so enjoy it, 'cause we definitely did, too.
Hi, everyone. How you doing? Hello. Good to see you. Over the past few weeks, you, you in the room, you in the larger listen-o-sphere, um, have been sending us your questions, and we're gonna start by hearing some of those. And then we promised that you in the room would be a part of this, so we're gonna turn the mics over to you, our live audience, to get your own cultural questions in the mix.
So I wanted to start out with you, my fellow co-hosts- Us? ... before, you know, before... Yeah, you. 
ALEXANDRA: Us two? 
VINSON: You two. 
ALEXANDRA: Yeah. I just love that we're all wearing black and white. I already said this backstage, but it's so cute. 
VINSON: It's 
ALEXANDRA: very- It's accidental and so cute. 
VINSON: It's very children's choir. I love it. 
ALEXANDRA: That's where this comes 
VINSON: from in my mind.
Um- 
ALEXANDRA: We're democratizing the tuxedo. Exactly. I already feel like we're so in sync and ready to go. Yeah, sorry, Vinson. Please. No, 
VINSON: no, no, no. So I was looking back at our first time that we did this on the [00:03:00] podcast, and it was actually two years ago, the first time we did one of these episodes. So over these years, these many episodes, have you developed any guiding principles for yourself about just the art of advice giving?
What do we know? Some things, not everything. 
NAOMI: Not 
ALEXANDRA: everything. That's the thing with advice. 
NAOMI: Yes. 
It's, we all know just so little about the world. That said, we do know some things. 
ALEXANDRA: Yeah, we can't, we can't go shifting the balance- 
NAOMI: Yes ... 
ALEXANDRA: so that no one trusts us. 
NAOMI: No, it's true. We do know some things. Yeah, we do. Yes. 
VINSON: It has to be a free gift. Advice is like a gift. It's gotta be like an alley-oop. You just throw it up. I don't care what it- I don't know what you do with it. That's whatever. But if you later on you're like, "How about that advice I gave you? Did you do it?" It's ruined. 
VINSON: Can I ask you guys, do you have favorite advice givers? I'm thinking of people that we've talked about somet- like Esther Perel, Dan Savage. L- you know, w- people in our culture who are sort of implicitly or explicitly dispensers of ad- advice.
Do you have favorites? 
for me, it's like my sister, you know, or like my, my friend Heather Juette, who, like, gives great advice, you know. And, and I think one of, one of the things that for me are imperative in making these people good ad- advice givers is that they probably don't know everything.
They admit their own, um, issues and problems, but then they turn around and they give the most amazing advice. Yeah. But it's like I trust them more because I know they've walked through the fire, so to speak. Yeah. Um, they've experienced things, and so they, they give the advice from a place of knowledge and suffering 
VINSON: Yeah, yeah
NAOMI: in a way. Yeah. Yeah. 
ALEXANDRA: I'm [00:07:00] not sure if I do at the moment. I mean, I've, I've loved all those people at different points in my life, and often I listen to them to hear the questions even more than the advice, like especially Savage Love or something like that. And Esther Perel, I, I find wise too, but I'm not going to them for advice.
I mean, I am opening up Sunday Styles to look at social cues and just be outraged every week by both the questions- ... and the answers, which it's like which is more misguided is often the way I approach that. Sorry, Philip. Um, but 
VINSON: Yeah. Yeah. [00:08:00] I like advice that works in every situation. My, my late father gave me this one. I still use it. Usually a- accompanied by a tug on the ear, "Don't be stupid."
I think about it every day. That's beautiful. I, and I never do it e- either, but I still like it. So with that as punctuation. 
VINSON: Let's get to the questions we have not heard. These voicemails, we have not heard them yet. 
NAOMI: Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. 
VINSON: We have a sense of their theme, and we are going to enact for you, this audience, the, the art of advice giving. Let's hear the first voicemail. 
VOICEMAIL: Hello, critics. My name is Christie, [00:09:00] and I'm a primary school teacher here in the UK teaching year six, so 10 to 11 year olds.
And every Friday this year to end our week, we've been doing a bite-sized film lesson before the register. About 15 minutes or so to watch a clip or two from a film and discuss. I really want them to see there's magic in the movies. So far, we've looked at some classic movie musicals, Singing in the Rain, Mary Poppins, and The Sound of Music.
My question to you guys is what films would you recommend me explore with my class of 10 to 11 year olds, and what full-length films do you think would work with this format? They were completely obsessed with the dancing in Singing in the Rain, which obviously means they all have perfect taste. Thank you so much in advance.
I love listening to the show 
VINSON: Okay. Clips from movies or full movies that, like, good for young children and show the magic, the magic of movies. 
NAOMI: But not super young children. [00:10:00] Like 10, 11, kinda tween- 
VINSON: Yeah ... 
NAOMI: tween. 
VINSON: Well, see, this is the crux of the question is, like, what is age-appropriate? Mm. Because movie magic does, like, dance, music, um, big crowds.
I'm thinking of, age-appropriately, like, one of some of those big establishing shots from Gangs of New York by Martin Scorsese. 
ALEXANDRA: I don't know about 
VINSON: that. But just, I- I mean, it's about, it's about learning. How did they create this period? Gangs of New York 
ALEXANDRA: is your answer here? 
VINSON: It's, it's, I'm just trying to define the magic of cinema.
How about 
Goodfellas? 
NAOMI: Yeah. Goodfellas next. 
VINSON: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me know. But, but this is the crux of my problem, because I do think that kids like fighting, and I think that maybe a clip, like, a, a sort of early, like, 20 minutes in first fight scene from a Bruce Lee movie might be awesome. 'Cause, like- ... it- it- it's got choreography, it's got a sort of tantalizing amount of violence, but nothing that you have to, like, you know, write a note home about.
I do think that fights belong in the, the genre of, "Here, children, is the magic of cinema." 
NAOMI: Well, how about then West [00:11:00] Side Story, if we're talking about fighting, but kind of stylized fighting, right? Right. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay? That's better. And some song and dance- Yeah ... stuff. Yeah. You know? Some beautiful- Yeah
you know, Lenny Bernstein music and, yeah, I mean, that's- Not 
VINSON: just, not terrifying displays of kung fu. 
NAOMI: No. Well, yeah. Song and dance. 
ALEXANDRA: I think kung fu is totally legit. I mean, if you wanna go in that direction, you could definitely do clips from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which is classic movie magic.
Beautiful, soaring, leaping. Don't have to understand anything about the story to access it in short form. I think the fighting is a, is a good idea. I think they're ready. Like, I was gonna say, just hit them with Casablanca and some, like, anti-fascist stuff. Like, you're- Like, do that. And then as a double anti-fascist pairing, you could also do Raiders of the Lost Ark.
And there you have a great movie that, yes, has some Orientalist problems, which hopefully would be addressed pedagogically by the lovely teacher we just heard from. Yes. But it's a great anti-fascist double feature. [00:12:00] Also, like, Jacques Tati could be really fun. Mm. Um, Play Time by Jacques Tati would be great.
I'd recommend that. Duck Soup. 15 minutes of Duck Soup would be wonderful. 
NAOMI: I did love the, the, the Marx Brothers when I was that, around that age. And, and you know, you mentioned Raiders of the Lost Ark. I mean, how about E.T.? Like, a beautiful movie 
ALEXANDRA: Mm-hmm. Yeah. 
NAOMI: Is that too- Which part? Heartbreaking ... is that too...
Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's very, very sad. Let 
ALEXANDRA: them weep. Let them feel. 
NAOMI: Let them weep. 
VINSON: Yeah. Well, what, which p- well, is it, like, imprisoned E.T.? Or, like, you know, E.T., like, you know, bicycling very close, perilously close, honestly, to the moon? 
NAOMI: I would- Well, how about the whole movie? How about the whole movie? How about the 
ALEXANDRA: whole movie?
Okay. The whole movie. How 
NAOMI: about the- How about we 
ALEXANDRA: lengthen the attention spans? 
NAOMI: The whole shebang. Okay. And another thing is we, a couple years ago, had a Miyazaki episode, a full episode that we did about Miyazaki movies. Absolutely wonderful movies for, for children. 
VINSON: Very beautiful. 
NAOMI: Animation. We haven't mentioned [00:13:00] animation yet.
VINSON: You know what I think children also need? While we're at it, what children need? 
NAOMI: Tell us. 
VINSON: They're still happening, but they aren't emphasized in our culture enough, the music video. Just the music video as a genre. So, like Thriller? Michael Jackson's Remember the Time. 
NAOMI: Oh, Remember the Time. 
VINSON: Or, or, or seasonally appropriate Thriller.
VINSON: A lot of great cinematic art has been placed in that medium, and I think it's kind of lost to time. These, we could make some cool kids. 
ALEXANDRA: I think we've answered it. 
VINSON: We did it. 
NAOMI: I'm ready for the next one. 
VINSON: Kristy, thank you so much. 
NAOMI: Thank you, Kristy, from the UK.
VINSON: Let's hear another one. 
VOICEMAIL: Hi, critics. I'm a young data scientist, and I noticed recently that I've increasingly approached my inner life the way I approach a spreadsheet: optimizing habits, curating taste, tracking growth, trying to become a more interesting and [00:14:00] fulfilled person through intentionality. But I've been wondering whether all this optimization is actually making me less porous to experience, less capable of surprise, and m- maybe even less capable of genuine taste.
So my question is, what art or artist or cultural work would you recommend to someone who wants to recover a less managerial relationship to living? Thank you so much. 
VINSON: First of all, I saw more than more than one person, like, grasp their heart in- ... in, in sorrow. Um, first, before we get into culture and art, I would just say, if you think you're too in control of your life, you should really try having a child.
J- I'm just saying. It, it'll, it'll break that up pretty quickly. But if it has to be art, what say you? 
NAOMI: I would say, I mean, I do [00:15:00] not know where Dennis lives, but as a New Yorker speaking from New York, when I feel this way, I go to the Met or to another muse- But, but, you know, the Met is a good ... I think that's the kind of, you know, gold standard of just, like, having no plan and getting lost and seeing things that you don't
You know, it's so enormous, you don't remember exactly what's going on, and I always sort of get lost. And it's just, like, a great way to remember all the things that humans are able to do. And if Dennis does not live in New York, which he might not, just go to the local museum without planning anything. Mm.
That's, that's a good way to sort of combat that managerial mindset. That would be my suggestion. 
ALEXANDRA: I think that's such a wonderful idea, um, to really encourage you [00:16:00] to live in the moment of what you're experiencing and seeing. I think that's great. Dennis, everyone in this room is rooting for your liberation, like- You should 
VINSON: see it, yeah.
ALEXANDRA: You got many people here who really think it could be better for you. And I totally agree. It could be so much better. And here's what I'm gonna suggest. I think you should go to the least optimized people to ever live, the Russian aristocrats. Oh. And I think you should read something that's gonna take a really long and non-practical amount of time, like War and Peace.
And then you should read some Chekhov plays and just watch them kind of sighing their lives away, and it's beautiful and moving and, and fantastic, and the, all the grain of human experience is there. And they have, quite literally, nowhere to be and nothing to do. And look at the drama that they manufacture.
So, you know, Oblomov, he did [00:17:00] nothing. Even Anna Karenina, which is comparatively, like, brisk. Uh, what are they ... They're going to, you know, the, the race, and then they're going to the dinner. And just read them and relax a little bit and let it take you a while. That's my advice. 
NAOMI: I love that. 
VINSON: Similarly, I think one great unruly art form that if you are really into it, you can't really optimize your time, is opera.
Equally aristocratic, equally inconvenient. Going to the opera is a way to say, "You know what? The day is over."
Maybe even the, "I'll see you on Monday." Um, I, I, like three years ago, I was like sort of in a, like a, you know, wandering sort of dark time in my life, and I went and I sat in like one of the side boxes at the Met Opera. And, um, it was just me and this wonderful woman I'll never forget, and she was a member of [00:18:00] the Wagner Society.
And I was like, wow, what a great mix of, like usefulness and total non-useful. It's like, like you... There is, there is... I'm probably sure they have a spreadsheet. But it's all so they can just, like come here and wear their slippers. It was great. 
Yeah. Dennis, shout out to you. May you be released. We are all rooting for you. 
NAOMI: You got this. Thank you, Dennis. 
VINSON: Now let's have Judith. 
VOICEMAIL: Hey, critics. My name's Judith. I live in Portland, Oregon, and I could use your help. I am a memoirist. I've been working on a book for nearly a decade, and I'm at the point of writing this book that is no longer glamorous in any way, shape, or form, and I just need to do the work.
So I would love advice on how you've gotten through a process of, uh, writing where you just wanted to claw [00:19:00] your eyes out but knew, like what you needed to do and got it done, or possible, uh, media that might be inspiring to me at this, uh, what I call my last six miles of a marathon that is getting this memoir ready to send out to agents, et cetera. Thank you. 
NAOMI: Well, Vinson is the only one of the three of us who has actually completed and published a book. So do you wanna s- start us off, Vinson, with your suggestions to how, how you got it done? 
VINSON: Yeah. The, the question makes me wanna, uh, die on stage because- ... it's just not fun. Here's the thing. If there's nothing, n- it, it, no work of art has, in my mind, really touched on the agonies of this except for perhaps the, um, the Bradley Cooper joint, Limitless, where he takes a bunch of Adderall.
Well, he takes a, a, a drug that's obviously just [00:20:00] Adderall, and then all of a sudden he's like, you know, Beautiful Mind. He's 
NAOMI: limitless. 
VINSON: He's limitless. All of a sudden he can just, you go, go, go, go, go. Um, that's like, you know, one day out of the whole process. Um, the true answer, at least in my experience, is however you've been writing the book, write it in a different way.
Like, and I don't mean, uh, stylistically or intellectually, but literally if you've been writing it into some sort of Word document, now is the time to go longhand or vice versa. Like, you just need to radically change the relationship between your mind, the medium of writing, and your materials. I'm yet again trying to finish a book right now, and it also happens to be a memoir.
And so it's just like, "Oh yeah, this is the worst thing." I just, like, remember again like, "Oh, no. Why did I do it?" So- sorry. So that's actually... You really do scream that a little bit. You cl- you make claw marks on the walls. You know, you curse the day you were born and the people who are responsible for it, and then you, uh, you black out.
And then- [00:21:00] Um, and then there appears... And then you have a great big pile, which by the way, isn't even good enough yet. So it's not fun. That's what I have to say. Um, uh, Judith, I'm sorry. I apologize. But so I say that, and, and that was very kind of you to say, Nomi, but I've known you guys long enough that, like, every time one of us finishes even a long New Yorker piece, like, just finishing something is a kind of agony.
So I would love to hear. 
NAOMI: It's agonizing. I have some tricks up my sleeve that I've used for many years now, and they're not always useful, but sometimes they're, you know, a little bit...
You know, they ameliorate the, the suffering a [00:22:00] little bit. I work online with friends. We do this thing where we're like, we text, and we're like, "Okay, we're just gonna... Now we're gonna work for 45 minutes without, like, going online. Here, 10:30 to 11:15. Let's do it." And then we just sit and we do it. And then we're like, "Should we go again?"
You know. And even doing a couple of those a day is probably more than you would do on your own with just, like, fucking around online all day. So you know, it, it... That's just kind of, like, a useful trick for me. 
ALEXANDRA: Yeah, I was gonna say, there used to be a Facebook group called Units that Nomi belonged to. 
NAOMI: Yes.
ALEXANDRA: And I'm no longer on Facebook, but when I was- Right. Me 
NAOMI: either, 
ALEXANDRA: but I- I would see Nomi saying like, "Does anyone want to do a unit?" And it was basically an accountability group of doing this 45 minute 
NAOMI: unit. Yeah. Now I just do it over text with friends. 
ALEXANDRA: Yeah. Yes. So find an accountability partner. I think you also need, like, a Rocky theme song. You just find the song that's working for you in that moment, and you play it on a loop a million times.I've done that. 
NAOMI: It works if you work it. 
VINSON: There you go.
ALEXANDRA: I Need a Critic Live at The New Yorker Festival will be right back
::MIDROLL::
Let's hear another one. 
VOICEMAIL: Hi, critics. Uh, I absolutely love the show. And, uh- One of the things I really love about the show is [00:24:00] that the three of you often will have different opinions about whatever the topic is that you're discussing. I think I've got a two-part question. The first is how much does the, the disagreement continue off mic?
Uh, and then the second question is about doing this type of program. What has taught you about how to, uh, disagree with others, um, and approach disagreement with curiosity? Because it seems like the three of you have, um, really excelled in that. So very curious to hear. Thanks for doing the show. 
ALEXANDRA: Well, it frequently comes to blows. 
NAOMI: This is why your ankles are all messed up. I often punch, I punch Alex. 
ALEXANDRA: It frequently continues into a bloody melee. Um, I don't think it ever actually continues outside the thing really, although what does continue is I will continue thinking about what you guys [00:25:00] have said, especially if we disagree. Like right now I'm like Was "Digger" the worst movie I've ever seen, or was it the best movie I've ever seen? I'm going to have to reevaluate now. I'd much rather we disagree than agree. Uh, although it's... Both are fun, but, you know, Vinson coming in and hating "You Can See Everything," just like, it, feeling a- 
NAOMI: I loved that
ALEXANDRA: feeling a visceral disgust when Noemie and I had eaten up every minute of it, yeah. I 
VINSON: hate it, I hate it worse now than I did then, by the way. 
NAOMI: Wow. 
ALEXANDRA: He's only gotten more heated. Yeah. Um, and how to respectfully disagree, I think disagreement is m- so interesting and wonderful. You just, you know, it's, that's the basis of all respect.
Agreement is not the basis of respect at all. So that's why I really look forward to disagreeing and arguing out a case and trying to make a point. It makes us sharper, I think, to try to articulate what did or didn't work in, for, for us about something we're discussing. 
NAOMI: Yeah. Yeah, I'm, in real life, I'm not very good with [00:26:00] disagreement, in real life.
Whatever you wanna call it. Just off mic, let's say. I'm not good with disagreement. I, I mean, I have strong opinions, I guess, but I feel immediately like I'm in the wrong or something when someone whose ideas I, I respect tells me that something is, you know, my husband or wh- whoever. You know, it's like, I'm like, "Oh, I, I must have, like, misunderstood it." But somehow in our little circle, I find my voice. 
ALEXANDRA: Beautiful. 
NAOMI: I don't know why that is. 
ALEXANDRA: Um- 'Cause you're so comfortable. But it's not that you're not comfortable in other situations. No, 
NAOMI: it's true. I don't know. 
VINSON: Well, I think, not to get too, like, behind the scenes on how we make our podcast, but I think we practice disagreement by how we arrive on what to talk about. We have a, a separate call every week to talk about what we're gonna talk about. We decide, and we often, you know, somebody gives an idea and we're like, "Yeah, but blah, blah, blah," and we kind of, I think, through that process really have learned to [00:27:00] disagree with one another in a way that still, like, leaves the respect as a given. You know, a kind of, like, precondition for even having the, the talk. So I think there's a, we get a lot of practice in that way. 
ALEXANDRA: Yeah. Try, if you need to disagree with someone, try respectfully disagreeing once a day and see where it gets you. You know? Just on a gentle thing. 
VINSON: Yeah. 
ALEXANDRA: And work, work on that, I would advise.
VINSON: That's so sweet. That's really good. Thank you, Matt. Lets here another one.
VOICEMAIL: Hey, Dear Critics. This is Nathan calling in. So I'm a composer, and most of my experience has been in writing instrumental music, but more recently I've been diving into textual music, writing for choir and some songwriting as sort of a clearer, more direct way of communicating to an audience through music.
I'm always fascinated by where choral composers find the text for their music, which is usually not at least completely original. So I was wondering, are there [00:28:00] any stories or mediums or pieces of writing from poetry, literature, or any less kind of traditional mediums that seem to you like they are begging to be performed as music?
NAOMI: I know Vinson has an answer. I, I would- I know. I feel like this one should go to Vinson, at least to start with. I don't know that I have- 
VINSON: Yeah. The great tradition for me is choral music set to poems. That's where it really happens. I remember lots of, for instance, Robert Frost, because when I was in high school, this is why I made that, like, choir joke earlier, because I know whereof I speak.
We sang, I believe it was James Purcell's, um, renditions of Robert Frost. "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood," he's like... This- Wow ... and it, it, it's such a great memory device for poems. If you wanna member- remember poems, find great choral settings of those poems. And I would say that, I'll, I'll break it up.
Contemporary poets who I think this would be [00:29:00] great with. The poet Joy Priest. She's a very songful poet. If you don't know her work, check it out. She's got a new book coming out right now. It's called The Black Outside, and I think her poems would be great set to music. I also think that, um, the poet Jameson Fitzpatrick, who has been published at least once in The New Yorker magazine.
You may have heard of it. She's very good. Um, I think that a, a sort of critic of yore, of last century, sadly deceased, whose work would be really great is... Does anybody love, like, James Schuyler? His work, uh, would just be majestic, I think, 'cause it's all about these, like, quotidian, it's, like, about looking out the window.
It's like I, I just feel like it would, the sort of our hunger for reality, our sort of non-fictional present would be really well represented by a poet that likes to look out the window, but then also tell you about going to the bathroom and stuff like that. So there you go. What do you guys think? 
NAOMI: I don't know that I have.
I'm, [00:30:00] as, as usual, I'm bad with poetry, and I'm bad with music 
ALEXANDRA: It could be anything. It could be anything. 
NAOMI: Hmm. 
ALEXANDRA: Like a story you think should be set to music. 
NAOMI: A story set to music. 
ALEXANDRA: Your talking about poetry made me think about someone doing an opera of The Dolphin Letters, 
VINSON: Are you talking about Robert Lowell? 
ALEXANDRA: Yeah, Robert Lowell. that could be fun. Mm-hmm. Like, a little bit of a p- poetry plus incredible marital drama, betrayal, secrets happening.
I feel like that could be a very good opera- Mm-hmm ... subject. 
VINSON: Uh, yeah. Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, similar vibe. 
ALEXANDRA: Yeah. 
NAOMI: This puts me in mind of I, we, we just watched, with our daughter, we just watched Mommie Dearest ... [00:31:00] last week, and that is, you know, talking about opera, you know, that's a crazy... And, and I also have the book, and I pulled it out of the shelf.
I mean, just no wire hangers. That- ... in and of itself could be just an aria- Yeah ... to end all arias. 
ALEXANDRA: I definitely think no wire hangers could be great. 
VINSON: Nathan, this is great. I, I, I'm sure we could come up with many more. I'm glad that people are s- thinking in this way. Make your oratorio, man. You can do it. 
VOICEMAIL: Get it.
VINSON: Okay, we got time for a couple more. Let's hear one more. Mm-hmm 
VOICEMAIL: Hi, critics. My name is Nina, and I'm a Swedish listener living in Stockholm. This fall, I'm on a bit of an inner journey to find my way back to my feminist roots. Over the past few years, feminist issues have taken something of a backseat, both in my personal life and from what I can tell in the society more broadly.
So [00:32:00] critics, I'm looking for your recommendations. I want to get back to the basics. Think Barbie the movie, think, uh, Chaka Khan's I'm Every Woman, things that will make me feel something I just wanna get back to my feminist spark through cultural experience. Thank you. 
NAOMI: I love this. I think things have really gone too far in us forgetting feminism. I really identify with this. I think as you grow older, as a woman, you become more and more cynical.
I mean, of course you are aware of all the injustices and, you know, it lives within you, but you also need to kinda get along in the world, and you become [00:33:00] inured. You know? You, you become kinda... Your sensitivities become kinda sanded down, and you do need something to kind of, like, reawaken your, your passion, your, what Nina, our listener, called the spark.
I think music is always a great general way to reignite spark. I would say just go back to, like, the, the, the greats, like the '90s. Go back to, like, Hole's Live Through This, you know, the, from 1994. You'll, you'll remember. It'll, it'll come back to you. Just, like, the, the combination of the lyrics and the music and, and Courtney Love's, like, absolute, like, incandescent anger will certainly remind you of why feminism is important, and why it's meaningful, and why it's also, like, cool and, and fun, not a chore.
Yeah, that would be my suggestion. 
ALEXANDRA: Love it. You're deferring to me, [00:34:00] Vinson? How- 
VINSON: For 
ALEXANDRA: no 
VINSON: reason at all. As a 
NAOMI: woman. Nevermind. 
Okay. So right, so what I'm getting from the question is, like, a popular work.
Like, you don't want essays or analysis, which I think totally, I, I get you, Nina. Um, okay. So I'm always recommending Miriam Toews on the podcast 'cause she's a genius. Uh, so I'll recommend her book, Women Talking, and I'll also recommend the Sarah Polley movie, Women Talking, which is an adaptation of Miriam Toews' book, Women Talking. And The story is about a Mennonite colony essentially in present day in South America, and very removed from the world, very isolated. And the women of the colony have discovered that after a [00:35:00] few years of waking up battered and injured in the morning, not sure what's happened, bleeding, teeth missing, they realize that they've been tranquilized by many of the men of the colony and raped at night.
And they have ... The men have gone because various perpetrators have been found. They've been taken to the local authorities, but they're coming back and the question for the women is what they do about this. Do they stay and fight the men for more power and equality, or do they leave the colony behind?
And Mennonites are a peace-loving people, so this is a very significant question. And what they do is they sit in a barn for two days, women but also girls, and there's one important male figure who records the conversation, and they discuss this. And it is happening in a very specific community, but it has a, it's highly relevant for women and men everywhere.
And it's a beautiful, wonderful, fabulous book. Uh, and the movie, I think, was lovely as well. And the second thing along this [00:36:00] note, also in a very specific community but with universal implications, is the memoir How to Say Babylon by a Safiya Sinclair, who's a Jamaican writer who writes about growing up in a very strict patriarchal Rastafarian family and needing to break away.
And it's very ... You know, these are stories of very oppressive patriarchal upbringings, the Mennonite upbringing, this Rastafarian upbringing, and the spark for liberty that, that lives within women who, who wanna be free to be themselves. And also, again, the universal root in the specific, and she's a beautiful writer.
So those are the two/three things I would really recommend. I think anyone who reads them or watches that film will love them. 
VINSON: I'll just add a film that's like, it's recent, but in my mind it has aged very well. I wanna see it again. I liked it when it first came out, and now I think it's almost prophetic about the way, um, we view...
We talked about optimization before, like the sort of this hint of, um, strange optimization that sort of [00:37:00] governs the way we apprehend women's bodies, which is The Substance. I wanna see The Substance again. With Demi Moore. It's a film about a substance that allows us, by sort of adopting a sort of second persona, played by, in this movie, Margaret Qualley- Mm-hmm
could sort of reverse or, I don't know, vampirize or Eventually destroy, I guess, all evidence of our aging, especially women's aging. And I think, I don't know, I thought that was- I loved The Substance ... I, I, I really liked it, but I, our sort of the, what's the culture in the intervening years, you know, looks maxing and peptides and sort of, at least in the sort of short-term future, it feels very prophetic to me.
So I'll check that out again. 
ALEXANDRA: When we're back we open up the mics to the audience. It's I Need a [00:38:00] Critic Live at The New Yorker Festival. Don't go away
::MIDROLL::
VINSON: It’s time For... 
NAOMI: Yikes. 
VINSON: A gasp in the audience. It is time for us to make the switch. We're gonna move from our brilliantly offered and, um, curated voicemails to our surely brilliant questions from the audience. Um- 
NAOMI: We're gonna try for you. Yeah. We're gonna try, yeah. 
We're going in blind, people I... 
ALEXANDRA: And I think, I think we're gonna ask people to come to the mics that are set up in the front. Okay. They're rushing, they're rushing the mics. 
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello, I'm over here. [00:39:00] 
ALEXANDRA: Yes. Okay. 
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Okay. I have a question. First of all, I'm a huge fan. Thank you so much for all the work you do.
Um- Thank you. Thank you ... I really love the Tom Cruise episode in particular. Yeah. Um, Digger also, wow, what a, what a strange movie. but yeah, I'm, I'm asking on behalf of my wife. Um, she is looking for a book recommendation, and she teaches at the University of Michigan. She's doing, like, 101 Intro to Gay Studies. Um, but she also just in general studies, like, Black feminism and, um, I think wants something a little funnier but, like, enjoys TLC, like, Sister Wives. Um, the last book that made her laugh was Priestdaddy by, uh, Patricia Lockwood. So I don't know if you have anything in that vein, but thank you so much for your thoughts.
ALEXANDRA: Big Swiss. 
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Okay. [00:40:00] 
ALEXANDRA: Big Swiss. 
NAOMI: Oh, yeah. The J- um, 
ALEXANDRA: Jen Breen Jen, Jen Breen. 
NAOMI: Yeah, that's a 
ALEXANDRA: good book. Big Swiss by Jen Breen. Lesbians, check. 
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Huge. 
ALEXANDRA: Psychoanalysis, check. Um, Hudson, New York, weirdest place in the world, check. It's extremely funny, and if you're on the Patricia Lockwood wavelength, Big Swiss. 
VINSON: You ever heard of the the novel, it's pretty... It's, it's like, it was, it's from the '60s. Oreo by Fran Ross. It's the story of this sort of, um, young mixed race woman who... It's this kind of picaresque comedy. It's the funniest novel. It's the, the novel that has given me the actual most laughs that I've ever gotten out of a novel. Oreo, Fran Ross. This woman, she's amazing.
She, she was, like, very briefly, like a minute, a writer on the f- the first Richard Pryor show. Just a really funny, kind of didn't fit in anywhere, uh, but just left behind this, uh, to me, [00:41:00] amazing comic artifact. Might work too. 
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. 
NAOMI: I just read a really good memoir. The memoir is from 2001, but the woman who wrote it, Elaine Dundy, is, she, she wrote a couple of novels in the '50s and '60s.
The Dud Avocado i- is, is one of them. That's probably the most famous one. It was reissued a few years ago by The New York Review of Books imprint, and uh, she just lived, like, a crazy life. A crazy life. Like, she was b- uh, born in the '20s even, I believe. Like, you know, or the th- early '30s, uh, in New York to a Jewish family.
Her older sister was Shirley Clarke, the experimental filmmaker, and she just lived like a crazy bohemian. She was married to Kenneth Tynan, who was, um, you know, she moved to London. He was, like, a kind of flamboyant, um, theater critic. She just had a million lovers, [00:42:00] you know? And it just, like, it's a really a kind of proto-feminist, uh, uh, kind of like unapologetic, just like balls to the wall story of a, of a life lived with, with kind of no regrets.
It's called Life Itself! With a exclamation mark. Life Itself by Elen- Elaine Dundy. Yeah, I would recommend that. 
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Fabulous. Thank you so much. 
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. Um, hi. Hello. First of all, I'm a huge fan of the podcast. Um, yeah, this... I think what I'm looking forward to today, or maybe looking for in my life right now, is art about the ethics of community buildin, how you understand yourself as an individual who's in community with other people. And so I think I'm looking for something that can speak to these kinds of questions. One book, a classic that I loved recently, was Middlemarch, of course, which I think does such a good job at dramatizing what feels like super relevant social situations. So yeah, I guess I'm wondering if there's a work that maybe updates this for modern social norms, or maybe, maybe a classic that still feels resonant today.
Um, but yeah, thank you. 
VINSON: There's a play and it's called, I'm gonna find out. I'm gonna find it for you. It's by this great small, uh, company. It's about a middle school that's going through a panic about vaccination. [00:44:00] Eureka Day. Parents... Eureka Day. Mm. There we go. I love this. Thank you so much.
It was, it's a great play that I think, I think the, by now the script has probably been published. It's a fantastic play about just, like, how we get along as people. Now, we have eight and a half minutes, and I really wanna get through this line. Yeah. Is it okay if we sort of just do, like, a little bit- Yeah
more rapid fire? 
ALEXANDRA: I'm gonna, I'm gonna let you rest on that. That sounded perfect. 
VINSON: Cool. We even had a person who knew what the heck I was talking about. This is great. 
ALEXANDRA: Awesome. 
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi, Critics. I had a question on behalf of my dad. I hope he doesn't mind me asking. Um, he has recently retired, and so he's kind of just going through that process of kind of rediscovering himself, figuring out what he kinda wants to do with this next, like, chunk of his life. And so I was wondering if you guys [00:45:00] had any kind of pieces of media or literature that either touched on retirement itself or just kind of the themes that come up with that.
ALEXANDRA: I'll tell you what he should do. My dad, who's here, will agree with this. He should join a men's book group. That's what my... Right? Yeah. My dad's like, "Yeah." That's what my retired dad has done. Um, and they're reading all... I don't have a specific thing that deals with this quandary, but they're, they're serious men in this group, and they now have serious time to devote to their reading, 'cause they're retired. So they read a book a month, and they, it runs the gamut from contemporary to classic literature. And I think book groups are really often associated with women. They're, women read more. Women get together more socially. And often, I'm s- it's true, men in the course of their professional lives, they're not gathering in groups and hanging out and doing this kind of thing. So I would suggest that he start or find a book group with guys like him and get into it. 
VINSON: Beautiful. Thank 
ALEXANDRA: you. I love [00:46:00] that. 
VINSON: So good. 
ALEXANDRA: And my dad agrees. 
VINSON: Thank you so much. 
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. The question I've been meaning to ask you for a long time and haven't gathered the nerve, and somehow I do now, is to...If you can recommend a novel besides Little Women about the dynamic among sisters. I'm the oldest of three, and my mother set us against each other- Mm ... pitted us against each other. I think you had a podcast about how great sisters get along. What about something about the difficulties of being sisters?
ALEXANDRA: Great question. 
NAOMI: Oh. Well, Middle March. Uh, there's, you know, there's, like, troublesome sisters there. I mean, Pride and Prejudice is, uh, I mean- But 
ALEXANDRA: they still kind of get along. I hear your question. Oh. It's about a fractious relationship. Yeah. Yes. I may need to think about this one. I 
NAOMI: need to think for a sec. Well, I just, I just read... This is not [00:47:00] about, the sister thing isn't the main thing of this novel, but I just read Judith Rossner's Looking for Mr. Goodbar, which is much more known as the movie with Diane Keaton, and it's a, it's a really, it's a really good novel, and it has a very difficult sister relationship, which is not the central theme of it, but it has the kind of, like, pretty sister who's the dad's favorite- Yes
uh, and then the protagonist who feels unloved and neglected. So that's a, a theme in, in the book. Okay. 
VINSON: And also, just quickly, there's, uh, the, the recent novel by Brit Bennett called The Vanishing Half, which takes like a sister spin on the classic, uh, sort of, uh, early 20th century passing novel. One sister decides to go white and the other doesn't.
Mm. And then they come back and it's very, like... It's, like, a real [00:48:00] confrontation over race and presentation and all this other cool stuff. 
ALEXANDRA: Okay, thank you. 
VINSON: Thank you. 
ALEXANDRA: Thank you. 
VINSON: We got to the end. 
AUDIENCE MEMBER: All right. Yes. So, uh, I'm a math nerd that's somewhat intimidated by people who are New Yorker, uh, critics. So, uh, all right, I'm gonna- We 
VINSON: do what we do because we can't do what you do.
ALEXANDRA: Yeah, we're intimidated by math. 
AUDIENCE MEMBER: School 
VINSON: told us, "
AUDIENCE MEMBER: You better learn how to write." But the, the, the thing that I really wanted to ask is what about contemporary stories, movies, fiction, and books or whatever it is, about a real genuine male straight hero who's not a hobbit or a wizard? 
ALEXANDRA: You're holding out for a hero.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah. 
ALEXANDRA: Yeah. I hear you. 
VINSON: Well, you know what? He's a straight male who's got even hero in the title. Have you ever seen the HBO show, early Os- Do you like Oscar Isaac? 
AUDIENCE MEMBER: He's- Oscar Isaac, I don't even know who he is. 
VINSON: He's, he's a, he's a handsome devil, that guy. Um- Oh, okay ... he, um, he's got, he's got a show that's called Show Me a Hero. It's, like, the first time I saw [00:49:00] Oscar Isaac on, uh, on my screen, and it's about the mayor of Mount Vernon, and he's in this, like, pitched battle over public housing and, like, how to beautify the public housing in the town. It's, like, this very... I was thinking about this in, in answer to the very great question we had about sort of people organizing themselves and getting it together.
Mm-hmm. It's a great example of that. But he's a man and he's straight and he's not that bad. All right. Okay. 
ALEXANDRA: What do you think, Nomi? 
NAOMI: I mean, there are many- Yeah ... there are many men. 
ALEXANDRA: What about Ryan Gosling in space? Project Hail- Project Hail Mary ... Project Hail Mary. 
NAOMI: Hail Mary. 
ALEXANDRA: Alex, was he a hero? What 
NAOMI: about, what about Brad Pitt and the 
ALEXANDRA: dog?
NAOMI: Yeah. Brad Pitt and the dog. 
ALEXANDRA: What about Brad Pitt and the dog? See that. See Heart of the Beast. 
NAOMI: I mean, honestly, it wasn't that great. 
ALEXANDRA: It doesn't matter. It's Brad Pitt, a dog, and they have to make it back through Alaska. I think 
NAOMI: the s- And only one of them makes it back. 
ALEXANDRA: Ah. 
VINSON: I think, yeah, I think the straight male hero does turn out to be the, the dog.
Um... 
ALEXANDRA: So you get two bites at the 
VINSON: apple. You know what's got a lot of [00:50:00] straight male non-hobbit heroes? 
ALEXANDRA: What? 
VINSON: Rap music. Just turn... I mean, whatever. 
ALEXANDRA: Rap music. 
VINSON: The Notorious BIG, nothing but straight male heroes. All right. Yeah. Yeah. 
ALEXANDRA: Yeah. E- going a little farther back, I mean, Ocean's 11 with Danny Ocean.
Yeah, 
AUDIENCE MEMBER: but these guys are criminals. 
ALEXANDRA: Oh, you want an upstanding citizen hero? Then I think you need to watch Heart of the Beast, unfortunately. 
NAOMI: Yeah, I guess that's it. It's Brad Pitt and the dog for you. Yeah. 
VINSON: Yeah. Y- you know who's a straight male hero? We're hosed. You know who's a straight male hero as far as I know?
You. Oh. For being our last questioner, thank you so much. And thank you everybody for being here. That's, that's all we have time for. Thank you so much for being here. From all of us at The New Yorker, we hope you have a great night. Thank you. 
NAOMI: Thank you.
ALEXANDRA: This has been Critics at Large. A huge thanks this week to everyone at The New Yorker Festival for getting our [00:51:00] event and so many others off the ground. Our episode today was produced by Nora Ritchie. Rhiannon Corby is our senior producer. Our executive producer is Steven Valentino. Our show is mixed by Mike Kutchman, and we had engineering help today from Fran Bandy, with music by Alexis Cuadrado.
And you can find all of our episodes at newyorker.com/critics