The Swarmatron, in the center of the room, had a pitch ribbon and a swarm ribbon, and an array of unlabelled knobs and switches, which Brian began manipulating in a way that produced something that your own first cousin once removed might recognize as music. Hanging from the walls were four “wall gins”—synthesizers, housed in various clocklike cases, that had been programmed to make random sounds at random intervals.
—Nick Paumgarten, “Swarm,” (January 24, 2011)
***
—Nick Paumgarten, “Interesting,” (February 7, 2011)
***
The marriage proposal was not wholly a surprise. The subject had been discussed the previous summer. “He asked me, ‘If I were to ask you to marry me, would you say yes?’ And I said, ‘Of course,’ ” she said. “So then Hef’s secretaries measured my ring finger.” Coming after the departure of Hefner’s other two girlfriends, the identical twins Karissa and Kristina Shannon, the announcement elicited an additional line of speculation: Was Hugh Hefner in a monogamous relationship?”
—Abby Aguirre, “Something Old, Something New,” (February 28, 2011)
***
For five or ten minutes, a serendipitous stroller could engage the essayist Cécile Guilbert in a discussion of the history of wigs, or the potential fashionableness of gray hair, or why anyone would be attracted to hair-printed underwear, then wander across the room to hear Justin E. H. Smith, a professor of philosophy, wax (or not) upon primate hairlessness (or hairiness) as an outward sign of the possession or lack of the faculty of reason. Upstairs, Sophie Wahnich, a historian, earnestly addressed the postwar shaving of the heads of French women who were known to have consorted with German soldiers or Vichy collaborators.
—Mark Singer, “Hair Fair,” (March 14, 2011)
***
Michael Stipe added, “Once, a duck she was cooking caught fire, and she threw it in the pool.”
—Lizzie Widdicombe, “Gwyneth’s World,” (April 25, 2011)
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—Reeves Wiedeman, “Big Ted, Little Ted,” (June 6, 2011)
***
Certain authors are touchstones for [Jeff] Nunokawa: Eliot (“She is probably my most stable and enriching relationship”); Gerard Manley Hopkins (“Just that incredible yearning to be heard as he grows more and more impossible to understand”); Henry James (“There is so much compassion there, and he doesn’t even know it”). Each note is accompanied by an image—a painting, an iPhone snapshot, a photograph of Fernando Torres, the soccer player. “He really does function for me in the classical form of the Muse,” Nunokawa said. “What is that line of Roethke: ‘Did Beatrice deny what Dante saw? / All lovers live by longing and endure: / Summon a vision and declare it pure.’”
—Rebecca Mead, “Earnest,” (July 4, 2011)
***
—Ben McGrath, “Personal Collection,” (October 24, 2011)
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—Ryan Lizza, “Those Huntsman Girls,” (November 14, 2011)
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[Alexandra] Janelli calls herself a “WiFi detective,” stalking the fragmentary consciousness of the city. “People are taking it to the next level in terms of being able to be really cryptic and send a message,” she said. Her site is a treasury of passive-aggressive messages to neighbors (Stop Cooking Indian!!!), self-promotion (FutureLawyersofCharlieSheen), flirtation (**cOuGaRviLLe**), and frustration (We can hear you having sex).
—Lauren Collins, “The Tao of WiFi,” (December 5, 2011)
***
[Richard] Rabinowitz, who wore his long hair in a ponytail and had glasses with checkered frames, noted the coincidence of the Stamp Act’s arrival in the birthplace of the Occupy Wall Street movement: “Back in 2006, when we started this project, there was no hint of revolution around the country, but now that it is opening we have these Occupy movements.” Like the monolith that arrives at key moments of technological transition in the Stanley Kubrick film “2001,” perhaps the Act had arrived just in time for a decisive political transition.
—John Seabrook, “The Act is Back,” (December 5, 2011)
***
“We’ve been good friends ever since,” she said.
“Well, you came with a half gallon of rosé, with my daughter-in-law Julie and another gal,” Leonard said. “And we had a nice time.”
“The thing was he understood the point,” Taubman said. “He wasn’t nostalgic about it all.”
“I wanted to be part of it. This is a big, big book, and it’s going to be successful.”
“But you didn’t know it was going to weigh seven pounds.”
“Six-point-six. You know how many books of mine it would take to make that weight? Five.”
—Nick Paumgarten, “Detroit Valentine,” (December 12, 2011)
Top illustration by Jim Stoten. All other illustrations by Tom Bachtell.
Read more from The New Yorker’s 2011: The Year in Review, at News Desk and at Culture Desk.
