{"id":252949,"date":"2022-10-27T15:18:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-27T15:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=252767"},"modified":"2022-10-27T15:18:00","modified_gmt":"2022-10-27T15:18:00","slug":"the-new-yorkers-art-critic-on-the-art-of-dying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2022\/10\/27\/the-new-yorkers-art-critic-on-the-art-of-dying\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Yorker’s art critic on the art of dying"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Note<\/strong>: This is a version of my personal newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can\u00a0see other issues\u00a0and sign up here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Schjeldahl, a poet who was also the longtime art critic for the New Yorker, died recently at the age of 80. He wrote a piece called “The Art of Dying” in 2019<\/a>, after he was diagnosed with lung cancer. “Why me? Why not me?,” he wrote. “Dying is my turn to survey life from its far\u2014now near\u2014shore. Like a camera situated nowhere and taking in every last detail of the pulsating world. God creeps in. Human minds are the universe\u2019s only instruments for reflecting on itself. The fact of our existence suggests a cosmic approval of it. We may be accidents of matter and energy, but we can\u2019t help circling back to the sense of a meaning that is unaccountable by the application of what we know.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

She’s the only woman working in a remote oil-drilling camp. This is her story<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When Cindy Marchello walks onto an all-male oilfield fracking site, if you don\u2019t notice her, you\u2019ll likely hear her voice. \u201cWhat are you looking at?\u201d she\u2019ll yell at a male worker if he stares at her for longer than she likes, \u201cI\u2019m old enough to be your mom!\u201d If that doesn\u2019t work, she\u2019ll ask, \u201cWhat\u2019s your wife\u2019s name?\u201d while hacking up a wad of saliva and spitting it at him. If the man keeps looking, she\u2019ll threaten to throw rocks. Marchello is a short, 56-year-old grandmother with wispy blond and gray hair<\/a>, pale skin with rosy cheeks, and a curvy figure. She once visited a dusty well-drilling site surrounded by cornfields and heard a man\u2019s voice hollering over the loudspeaker: \u201cWoman on location, woman on location.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Refugees share the things they brought to remind them of home<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you had to leave the country where you were born and raised, what would you bring with you as you begin a new life in a strange place? Perhaps there is something that is not essential and yet in a way is just that, something to help you remember your roots and keep a touch of home in your new dwelling place<\/a>. It could be a physical object, or perhaps something intangible that you carry in your heart and soul. The photojournalists of NPR’s The Everyday Projects interviewed and photographed eight refugees from different parts of the globe. Here are their stories \u2014 and the stories of the cherished objects they chose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After surviving a high-school shooting, he was “an empty shell”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Keegan Gregory loved his first high school diving practice so much that choosing a swimsuit for the next one took on outsized importance, like picking an outfit for the first day of school. This is what I\u2019ll wear. This is who I\u2019ll be<\/em>. He stuffed all three of his Speedos into his backpack, along with his laptop and school supplies and a winter coat he borrowed from his mom, and decided he would choose a swimsuit before practice later.<\/a> Later never came. Keegan had texted his family to let them know he had survived. But when he came home that afternoon, his parents looked into his eyes and still didn\u2019t see him. Meghan says her boy was \u201can empty shell.\u201d Chad says he was \u201cstone. Absolute stone. There was no emotion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Here’s how \u2013 and why \u2013 cities developed playgrounds for children<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Metropolitan Public Garden, Boulevard and Playground Association started promoting and creating children\u2019s public gymnasiums in London in the 1880s. The group created a number of children\u2019s gardens, equipped with gymnastic apparatus, in an effort to encourage children to take part in physical exercise<\/a> and to interact with plants and flowers. However, its activities were motivated less by an innate concern for children\u2019s needs and more by the perceived impact of urban life on the strength and vigour of the working classes. It was thought that providing facilities for physical exercise would ensure that poor children developed into strong adults who could serve the British Empire as workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Temple raiding was a big business even in ancient Egypt<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We often think of tomb raiders as being relatively modern Indiana Jones types, but an expert in ancient Egypt writes that temple robbing was widespread not long after the temples were built<\/a>: “In the raid-based economy that coalesced in the reign of Ramses IX, thieves and their accomplices had the most tradable goods, while the go-betweens (traders, shopkeepers, and traveling salesmen) profited from inflated prices placed on items purchased with stolen goods,” she writes. “The black market became a feature of daily life, where booty was bartered for basic needs, like food, clothes, and parties replete with honeyed wine, but also, ironically, for the equipment people desired for their own burials.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Success isn’t linear, by Yoann Bourgeois<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n

Some real life stuff here.
"Success isn't linear" by Yoann Bourgeois pic.twitter.com\/GQJj4ztXWM<\/a><\/p>— Marshall Long (@OGBTC) October 23, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote>