Harper's Magazine July 2021

growing up bank street

“Thanks to Florio, as the Village continues to face gentrifification, like many neighborhoods across America, we will never forget Bank Street. A charming stroll down Memory Lane and a tribute to a vanishing culture.”—KIRKUS REVIEWS“Florio charms in her debut memoir about a life well-lived on Greenwich Village’s Bank Street. This sentimental memoir will uplift any reader, no matter where they may call home.”—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY“[A] vibrant, heartfelt memoir…Florio combines historical context with personal experiences in her kaleidoscopic account… Her decades on Bank Street gave her access to ‘every social, cultural, and economic layer of American life.’ ”—FOREWORD REVIEWS“An absolutely delightful book about one of New York’s storied city blocks.”—GRAYDON CARTER…

letters

The Tangled Web As a journalist who has spent seven years reporting on war and conflict in the field, I have often butted heads with Washington-based analysts and editors who never seem to leave their offices. In his recent feature [“Sign of the Times,” Report, May], James Harkin touches on the idea that we should be wary of information that comes from those who have never reported from the regions they describe. This should be shouted from the rooftops. For policymakers and journalists alike, the dissonance between on-the-ground and online reporting is of genuine and abiding concern. War is a deeply confusing, brutally real, but also unreal place in which to find yourself gathering information. Alertness in such circumstances is anything but straightforward; as a result, reporters tend to get details wrong…

easy chair

We live, we are told, in distracted times. The internet has destroyed our ability to concentrate, condemning us to a future of agitated doomscrolling. Our alienated children stare at their screens, poking at buttons like lab rats, barely able to comprehend the polychrome sewage flashing before their red-rimmed eyes. Our attention, once a tool of exquisite interiority, has been shattered by the excessive stimulation of the modern world, leaving us prey to manias and phantoms. We’re like disaster victims, burned out and disoriented. “We are on the verge of losing our capacity as a society for deep, sustained focus,” as one typical commentator has put it. “We are slipping toward a new dark age.” This crisis of attention seems like a profoundly contemporary malaise, and questions about the quality of our…

harper’s index

Percentage increase last year in UFO sightings nationwide : 16 Maximum percentage by which satellite traffic has been observed to brighten the night sky : 10 Number of states in which a majority of residents support daylight saving time : 0 Minimum number of complaints the BBC received for excessive coverage of Prince Philip’s death : 110,000 Rank of that coverage among the most complained-about programming in BBC history : 1 Percentage of regular videoconference attendees who report experiencing Zoom fatigue : 53 Percentage of women with Zoom fatigue who ascribe it partly to an increased focus on their own image : 57 Of men with Zoom fatigue who do so : 35 Portion of emoji users who wish they had more options to reflect their personal appearance and identity : 3/5 Who think emojis are an important tool…

breaking points

I have only ever had one friend as crazy as I am. Once, we painted a giant fireplace onto a wall in her apartment as decoration for a dinner party we were hosting. Later, toward the end of the party, she led our guests onto the roof, bringing with her a boom box playing Strauss. I climbed up the fire escape in a ball gown. I held out my hand. We waltzed with speed and gusto. Our friends and professors looked on, terrified: there was no railing. I haven’t done as much dancing in the seventeen years since I ended that relationship. The breakup happened like this: we had planned an elaborate outing in Sonoma County. The picnic supplies took days to gather. We left early, got home late, and as…

song of despair

In recent days, attacks on my ideas and my poetry have multiplied. Within and outside of Chile, more than one professional Anti-Nerudist has appeared. As concerns my poetry, no debate is possible. It came from the damp woodlands of Temuco to sing like the rain on the roofs in Cautín. Let it defend itself with its song alone. If they beat it with a club, if they spit in its eyes, if they drag it through the filthy street by its hair—let it sing, and let the neighbors come out on their balconies to hear the voice of my song of rain and struggle, of people and plants, of salads and onions. I will never be seen taking to the streets or the broadsheets to defend my poetry. I will…