The Future Looks Dark, but Familiar, in Gary Shteyngart's New Book
One reason Gary Shteyngart's shtick has worn so well is that he's an insistent self-satirist. A few years after publishing his manic-impressive first novel, 'The Russian Debutante's Handbook' (2002), he lampooned it in 'Absurdistan,' his second. The novel, written by 'Jerry Shteynfarb,' is referred to as 'The Russian Arriviste's Hand Job.' It's not a subtle joke, but people can become fond of artists who are aware enough to stay two beats ahead of their detractors.
Shteyngart's new novel, 'Vera, or Faith,' offers us another of his many stand-ins. His name is Igor Shmulkin. He's a writer and magazine editor in Manhattan who might put you in mind of David Remnick — if Remnick were Russian, grievously depressed, flatulent and rumpled, carried hipster satchels and smoked a lot of pot. He's like Shteyngart in that he's a martini super-enthusiast and an online 'manfluencer' in the world of expensive pens, the way Shteyngart is for flashy watches.
The best thing about Shmulkin — for the reader, at any rate — is that he's a bookshelf spy and a bookshelf fraud. At other people's homes, he orders his kids to surveil the host's copy of Robert Caro's 'The Power Broker' to see if the spine is broken. Before his own parties, he pays them to rearrange his books so that those by women and people of color are at eye level, to better polish his injustice-righting credentials.
We're not allowed to get too close to Shmulkin, perhaps for good reason. This slight, only semi-involving novel is one of Shteyngart's darkest. It offers us a futuristic, dystopian version of America. The unthinkable has become the inevitable. Yet dystopias have become the pre-chewed meat at the end of every novelist's fork.
This story is owned instead by Shmulkin's 10-year-old daughter, Vera. She's a handful — bright, anxious, lonely, working to keep her splintering family together. One of her closest companions is a chess simulator, Kaspie, named after her hero, the Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov.
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Yahoo
14 minutes ago
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People Are Sharing The Things From The '90s And '00s That No One Born After 2005 Will Understand
Recently, we asked the BuzzFeed Community, "What's something from the 90s/early 2000s that someone born after 2005 would never understand?" Here are 50 of their most nostalgic responses: Some responses are from this post as well. 1."The joy of going to the video rental store on Friday nights!" —ellie4me 2."The stressfulness, rage, and sheer insanity of being a parent to a Tamagotchi." —smartgoose16 3."Freaking out that you might get arrested for downloading Limewire and/or Frostwire." —smartgoose16 4."The Motorola RAZR was a huge deal stylistically and technologically. The fact that the pink ones were exclusive to one phone carrier — I had to buy one from overseas, where carrier-locked phones aren't a thing, and it was a different shade of pink than was available in the US. It was tiny, sleek, and internet-capable (but for the love of all things holy, don't go on the internet, think of the bill)." —tiktokism 5."The hype of the BlackBerry Curve phone." —jadewright 6."Having to watch the news to see if your school is canceled for a snow day." —myneishac 7."Phones with cords! Why, I ask, why?!" —penguinlover720 8."Calling collect and yelling your message to the person you're calling at the point you were supposed to say your name, then hanging up before anyone was charged." —slickninja 9."Netflix being a DVD-mailing service." —sleepingbubble74 10."Watching High School Musical, not on DVD. It was never really about the movie; it was all in the lead-up. The premiere of those movies was a social event and a cultural phenomenon for us growing up. I didn't have cable TV, so I had to arrange watching at my neighbor's house, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world. There was a bunch of buildup in the programming beforehand, and a countdown clock, and you'd be sitting with your eyes plastered to the TV sometimes days ahead of time so you wouldn't miss any of the exclusive trailers or bonus crossovers or promotional materials. Back then, there was still a lot of sprinting to use the bathroom between short commercial breaks. The hype didn't die down just because the movie had aired, oh no. There were High School Musical-themed birthday parties, posters, t-shirts, etc.. It was everywhere, and everyone loved it. I still do!" —tacobaco 11."I was talking to my dad today about this. I'm pretty sure kids today have probably never seen snowy/bad reception on a TV or static from the radio." —kevinhicks77 12."The Tinkerbell Pixie Hollow computer game." —Anonymous 13."Junk food vending machines at school." —almanmark720 14."We were watching regular TV the other day, and my kid asked us to pause the show. I had to explain that it doesn't work that way when you're not streaming." —francesjoys 15."Hit Clips… I miss Hit Clips." —morgandemkey 16."There was a great show on the WB network called Grosse Pointe that was a satire of Beverly Hills, 90210 and Dawson's Creek. It was only something like 12 episodes before it was cancelled. Supposedly, it hit Aaron Spelling too close to home." —janes4c411b247 17."The 2002 limited edition wild berry Spider-Man Pop-Tarts. To this day, I have not found a Pop-Tart that even comes close to how yummy (and exciting, because Spider-Man had just come out) those Pop-Tarts were. SMH, good things never last." —haleeraeevans 18."The scene era." —smartgoose16 19."Not having a computer in the home, and if you did have one, not having the internet. I didn't have a computer until I was in college, and in the summers when I was home, I was without internet unless I wanted to pay by the minute for it. We also didn't use computers much in school unless it was a business class, like typing or programming. We would write research papers by hand, and then we'd have a few days before they were due when the whole English class would go to the computer lab to type them up for submission. Even those computers didn't have internet, so much of our research was done at the library." —matchwolf 20."Having to wait until Saturday mornings to watch cartoons all morning, and you didn't have a way to custom choose the schedule for which cartoons to watch. You watched what was available on broadcast TV or cable." —jealouskitten151 21."If you lived in a small town, you had to go to the restaurant to get your food. There was no food delivery service, not even from Chinese restaurants, just the occasional pizza joint." —jealouskitten151 22."I recently found out TV Guide is still a thing when I got an actual mailer for it a couple of weeks ago." —jgcromwell 23."Walt Disney World used to send out VHS tapes with little features on the parks as a way to encourage people to visit. My sister and I used to watch them over and over again because we lived in PA, and we weren't a vacation-style family. Eventually, though, my parents did feel guilty and took us to Disney World. I do feel bad because one of my only memories of that trip is me being such a small child that when I sat on the toilet, I folded in half and fell in." —monikap6 24."Don't even get me started on having to memorize your friends' phone numbers because there were no smartphones to store them. Simpler times!" —trendycake45 25."Disney Channel used to play movies every night at 8 p.m. I still sometimes hear, 'Let's watch a Disney Channel movie.' It's not like streaming was around, so you had to be ready with a VHS tape if you wanted to ever rewatch it. The Thirteenth Year was a favorite at our household." —monikap6 26."Burning a CD. I asked my daughter what she thought it meant, and she guessed I was destroying something. Quite the opposite. Those custom CDs were romantic gifts, the soundtrack to rolling through town/backroads, and even a way to celebrate without a DJ. Now, the idea of a playlist capped at 16 songs sounds foreign." —acidictooth778 27."Trying to burn the perfect mix CD from LimeWire without crashing your computer or downloading a virus… now that was a skill." —trendycake45 28."Salsa Fries from Andy Capp." —Anonymous, 36, MN 29."Senior from 1994 here. Someone born after 2005 would never understand why, in the '90s, if you were in a hurry or had a set time to be somewhere, you did not drive the main street of your town on a Friday or Saturday night. You drove on the outskirts of town to get through faster. (Because all the teens were driving in circles or drag racing.)" —abourque 30."Waiting until after 8 pm to call long distance. Or, getting your first cellphone and having only 60 minutes of 'talk time' per month. If you went over, you had to pay per minute. Same with texting when it became more common." —laurachytka 31."Being told to come home when the street lights turn on." —slickninja 32."'Playing' the demo version of arcade games in the laundromat." —smartgoose16 33."Writing a text using only numbers. I was trying to explain this to my daughter the other day — to write out 'hey,' you had to press 4 twice, 3 twice, and 9 three times." —hovingkaitlin 34."Having to buy film for your camera. Having to be selective over what photos you take because you only get 24-36 frames. Forgetting to get the film developed for months or years." —lesliepl0310 35."Plug-in CD players. You would put a tape into the 'tape player' and the plug into the cigarette lighter, and you would be able to listen to CDs." —jgcromwell 36."On Nickelodeon, that chimp with three eyes that used to say, 'Hi, I'm Paul!' during commercial breaks and wave!" —Anonymous, 30, Niagara Falls, NY 37."Waiting for the radio station to play your new favorite pop song by Britney or *NSYNC so you can record it with a cassette tape!" —dazzlingmagician324 38."Making plans with friends to meet at the mall with no guarantee that they would show up and no way to contact them to see if they were on the way." —myneishac 39."Having a large cellular phone that came in a black leather-like bag for only your car. One of the early cell phones was hooked to your vehicle's battery." —marvelousfan911 40."Having to stop a random person to ask what time it is." —slickninja 41."Riding your bike to a friend's house and knocking on their door to see if they could come out. Or calling someone's house phone and having to interact with their family member before getting them on the phone." —slickninja 42."Being on the Internet, probably playing a flash game, and your mom telling you to get off the internet because she has to make a phone call, and then waiting around for her to finish." —hobbitgirl96 43."Buying disposable cameras for big events, and then the anticipation of getting them all developed." —bravechinchilla277 44."Pagers and payphones being the only means of communication. In fact, in high school, you were considered cool if you had a pager." —angelamastin82 45."There was a show on Disney Channel called Naturally, Sadie about a girl who loved nature. I remembered its existence, but I swear I thought it lasted a season, maybe, because I can only somewhat recall one episode (she notices that there are no baby pictures of her older brother but tons of her, and at the end, her mom reveals that they had a housefire before she was born or something), but according to Wikipedia, there were three seasons!?!" —rachelo4ef37e40d 46."Phone companies charging PER text message." —amandav4218e9747 47."Kissing Fruit lip gloss." —Anonymous, 18, Houston, TX 48."Buying a 'phone card' so you could make long-distance calls home from camp on a landline or payphone and have the cost covered in advance. There was always a stupidly long string of numbers to punch in, and you had to do it at the right time in the right order, or you would have to hang up and start all over. You bought the cards in increments of time (20 min, 45 min, 1 hr, etc). I remember having thoughts like, 'There's a dance on Friday, and I know I'll want to talk about it for a long time, so I should probably keep Monday's convo under five minutes!' Different times, man." —melc40e454224 49."The electronic pocket dictionary things. They were about the size of a calculator, and they can't have been expensive because I think I had one." —gettysburgdressmaker finally: "'You have died of dysentery.'" —kimmiethiel What's something you miss from the '90s or early '00s? Tell us all about it in the comments or in the anonymous comments box below! Note: Some responses have been edited for length/clarity.
CBS News
16 minutes ago
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Bridget Everett on how she ended up as "Somebody Somewhere"
Bridget Everett will try to tell you she's not a celebrity in Manhattan, Kansas, but don't believe her. She did grow up here, one of six kids, so there's that. "I just love that it still feels like small-town America," she said. "I come back quite a bit and I visit the same spots." But it was when her HBO show "Somebody Somewhere" was set here in Manhattan, that Everett became a bon fide local legend. The show follows Sam Miller (played by Everett), who moves back to her hometown in her 40s, trying to figure out herself, and life, after the death of her sister. Everett was a writer, producer, and lead actor in the semi-autobiographical series. "I was like, 'Is anybody going to watch this? This is not a cool show!'" she said. "You know, like, it's about friendship. I'm not a top model, you know? I don't want to speak for anybody else in the cast! But I think that's exactly kind of why it works." Unlike her character on the show, who returns home to Manhattan, Kansas, Everett stayed in Manhattan, New York, for years, working mostly as a waitress and using, believe or not, karaoke as her main creative outlet. "My way of connecting with people is through singing," she said. "It kind of always has been, and it's easier for me to unlock and kind of be who I really want to be when I'm singing. Those karaoke performances led to her own, now-legendary cabaret shows at the famed Joe's Pub in New York. Everett's performances are sort of unlike anything you've seen, and so risqué we can't show you much of it here on "Sunday Morning." Everett said, "What's interesting to me is, like, learning about people, and why am I up there with no bra and a low-cut thing with everything flying around? It's part of who I am, and I also kind of do it to understand myself, honestly. I like to talk about my family in this way because my family and I don't talk about it. I don't see a mental health care professional!" And that's the amazing part: Everett's cabaret shows somehow end up being, in part anyway, a meditation on life and grief, including saying goodbye to her father, as well as the loss of her mother, sister, and her beloved dog, Poppy, whom she called the love of her life. "For a while I felt a little bit of shame saying that, because romantic love is kind of what most people aspire to," Everett said. "My life is driven in a different way. She just taught me how to love, and she just cracked my heart open in a way that, like, no other person could." In fact, it was this side of Everett that HBO and the show's creators wanted to highlight – the way we can feel both strong and broken, hopeless and hopeful, all in the same moment. Everett, who writes and performs multiple original songs on the show, says she got her love of music from her mother, Freddie. She also got her sense of humor from her mom, as well as her siblings, including Brock, Brian and Brad, who had given Bridget a piece of feedback: that her acting was improving. "I was being honest," Brad said. "Her acting, especially towards the end, I thought, was authentic. I even teared up on some of that, which is difficult to do when you know your sibling [is] acting. So, you need to separate who you know, and then see her in a character. And have it move you? I think it's a great compliment to her." "Thank you," said Bridget. "You could have just said that in a text." The HBO show features a number of Everett's actual friends and collaborators from New York, including Murray Hill, Mary Catherine Garrison, and, in a star turn, the just Emmy-nominated Jeff Hiller as her best friend, Joel. Though HBO chose not to renew "Somebody Somewhere" for a fourth season, it did win a prestigious Peabody Award, and also picked up an Emmy nomination this season for writing for a comedy series. Everett says the whole thing feels a little surreal: the journey from being somebody somewhere, to somebody who is right where she's supposed to be. "Nothing will ever match this, and it couldn't, but that's okay," she said. "A lot of people don't get the opportunity to have a TV show, to live a life beyond their wildest dreams. And then to get to do it with the people I love? It's why it's taken so long for me to move on and kind of let go. But now I'm just trying to celebrate that I got to do it at all." For more info: Story produced by Aria Shavelson. Editor: Lauren Barnello.
CBS News
16 minutes ago
- CBS News
Restaurateur Keith McNally on why he regrets "almost everything"
Restaurateur Keith McNally hates New Year's Eve – he doesn't like being told to have a good time. "I don't like to be forced to enjoy myself," he said. The "least hospitable man in hospitality," as he calls himself, is not a big smiler, either. "Inside," he explained. It doesn't seem to have hurt. Over 40 years, he's opened some of New York City's most popular restaurants, among them The Odeon, Balthazar, and Pastis – institutions almost as well-known as some of the bold-face names that frequent them. But McNally himself has never been much of a publicity hound, even less so after suffering a stroke in 2016. "Naturally I'm a bit embarrassed to be on TV talking like this—who wouldn't be?" he said. "But it's good for me to do it, because it gets me free of my embarrassment. Actually, I'm embarrassed talking about embarrassment!" But the British-born McNally has largely overcome his embarrassment in a new memoir, "I Regret Almost Everything." "The drawback for me with most memoirs [is], if you're not embarrassed by what you write, you've probably not spoken the truth," he said. "If you don't cringe over every word, it's not the truth." The hardest part to write, he said, was about his suicide attempt, "because my kids. I didn't want to leave them at all." That suicide attempt was two years after his stroke. He was found by his younger son, George. "He was supposed to not find me," McNally said. "Like most teenagers he would sleep until noon. But that day he woke up early, at 8:00 o'clock." "You expected him to be sleeping later, he woke up early, he saw you?" I asked. "Yeah, the bastard just woke up early and saved my life!" he laughed. McNally might joke about it now, but the father of five was suffering with an immobile right arm (he was right-handed), back pain, and aphasia (which causes his slurred speech), and his second marriage was falling apart. But as he writes, some sobering words from a doctor made him reflect: "He said that children who lose a parent to suicide were far more likely to kill themselves than the children of parents who don't. That stopped me in my tracks." Because he had such trouble communicating verbally after his stroke, McNally began using social media. "I was so embarrassed by my speech and the way I looked, I didn't go to my restaurants for one year," he said. "I was ashamed. But eventually I realized, nothing to be ashamed about. So, not only did I admit it wasn't a bad thing, but I went in on Instagram." McNally went viral in 2022 with a post criticizing former late-night host James Corden for allegedly being rude to the waitstaff at Balthazar. But now, McNally confesses in his book he isn't so sure calling out Corden was fair. He wrote: "For someone who's hyperconscious of humiliation since suffering a stroke, it now seems monstrous that I didn't consider the humiliation I was subjecting Corden to. I felt like I'd hit the jackpot of a slot machine and thousands of gold coins were spilling out in front of me. That night I ended up with over 90,000 followers. I was intoxicated with self-righteousness." "Uh-huh, it's true," McNally said. "But afterwards, I felt really bad." Corden later apologized. But the 73-year-old McNally has continued creating a stir online. Take this recent post he wrote about his friend, ABC News' Diane Sawyer, describing a weeklong affair the two had in the 1970s. The story made news … except that it was completely made up. I said, "Some people say, 'Listen, Keith, you know, it's really not cool for you to be sharing this.' And so, did you enjoy that back-and-forth with them?" "Yes. Yeah, I'm afraid, I did, yeah," he laughed. "And I wonder, do you think that the stroke – I don't know, is that, does that …" "Say what you think," said McNally. "Well, is it that you feel a little trapped inside of yourself?" "No," he replied. "I've always been a little like this inside. But since my stroke, and now on the outside." McNally grew up in the East End of London, one of four children born to Jack, a dockworker, and Joyce, a house and office cleaner. The family had little money. "I got angry inside at my parents," he said, "because we had no books in the house, no pictures on the walls. But they couldn't help it. They were working class who grew up with nothing." McNally says he didn't eat in a restaurant until he was 17. "Most of the time, when we were on a holiday, we would go to the restaurant, they would look the prices outside, and then she'd go, 'Not for us.'" And yet, when McNally moved to New York City in 1975 as an aspiring filmmaker, he made ends meet by working in restaurants. "I didn't eat asparagus until I came here," he said. "And the next day, I went to the doctor because the smell of my …" "That was so pungent from eating the asparagus?" I asked. "Yeah, I thought I was sick! So, I went to the doctor. He said, 'What'd you eat last night?'" McNally laughed. "You know what? You gotta put that in the paperback," I said. In 1980, McNally opened his own restaurant, The Odeon, in the neighborhood of Tribeca, in what had been a no-man's land. An immediate sensation, it established certain McNally "musts," such as the importance of having a hamburger on the menu. "I don't like hamburgers much myself," he said. "But it's a sign of snobbery not to have a hamburgers." McNally prides himself on putting his staff above even his diners. Some of his employees have been with him for over 30 years. And ever since returning to work post-stroke, McNally has come to appreciate how they feel about him. "I had to talk to my staff and was really nervous," he said. "They were really kind. In the end, kindness is really essential." I asked, "The stroke lifted the veil on what they thought of you?" "Yeah, yeah," McNally laughed. "They made me feel good." READ AN EXCERPT: "I Regret Almost Everything: A Memoir" by Keith McNally If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or a suicidal crisis, you can reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988. You can also chat with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline here. For more information about mental health care resources and support, The National Alliance on Mental Illness HelpLine can be reached Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.–10 p.m. ET, at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or email info@ For more info: Story produced by Kay Lim. Editor: Carol Ross.
