Uncertainty #4: Mo, Bo, & Me
Suffused with art and guilt, Vanessa reflects on voting, the hardship of finding good information, the limits of storytelling, and The Ending of It All.
Hello again! Welcome to the fourth edition of the Uncertainty newsletter. Vanessa here, stealing the pen again from Adaam this week.
Taking some cues from our last guest, I’m pursuing a grab-bag approach: with the midterms now upon us, I confess my history of political malfeasance; in response to Adaam’s last newsletter, I share my pick for the only piece of art that (I think) truly captured 2020; and, because I saw it yesterday, I share my thoughts on Straight Line Crazy, a play where Ralph Fiennes plays the man we urbanists love to hate, the power-broker himself, Robert Moses. Four-ward!
My Voting Confession
I consider myself to be a pretty good citizen. I consider the needs of others. I think policy can shape our world for the better. And yet. Very often, I just don’t vote.
Why? Primarily because I hate doing or saying anything without feeling fully informed (it’s a terribly unAmerican character trait that occasionally keeps me more quiet than I should be in Uncertain Things interviews).
If I haven’t researched the candidates sufficiently (which, given my busy schedule, often happens) I will do one of three shady things: (1) have my husband, who hopefully has done the research, tell me who to vote for; (2) vote along party lines (Democrat, despite the fact that I would vote for a Republican if the candidate were worthy); or (3 — the most frequent) not vote at all.
Last week, we spoke with comedian and host of the Political Orphanage, Andrew Heaton, in preparation for the midterms. Heaton’s one of those rare independents that will criticize both sides; plus, he’s incredibly informed about our political past and present. I shared my concern with him that voters, with inflation (understandably) top of mind, will vote Republican in the midterms — despite the fact that, in my opinion, neither Republicans nor Democrats will likely make any difference on that score. Yet if abortion rights matter to voters, now is the time to vote Democrats into office. As Heaton explained in an excellent episode of The Political Orphanage on Roe vs. Wade, in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson, abortion is no longer in the hands of the judicial branch — and both Republicans and Democrats will very likely soon pass abortion-related legislation. Here’s that clip.
Heaton made the excellent point that, even if my premise is true, he doesn’t trust the Democrats to pass meaningful legislation around abortion rights — after all, they had opportunities in the past to do just that and didn’t. He believes they like to keep abortion open as a hot-button issue to drive voters (like me) to the polls.
This of course brings me to the second reason I (and I’m sure many others don’t vote): the sense of futility. Particularly as a Democrat in a Blue state, there’s not much motivation to get to the polls. Even if my vote did “matter” in my state, would politicians — even the ones who wear my colors — affect the change I’m hoping to see?
That said, I attempt to ignore this feeling when voting season comes around. I remind myself that it is a privilege to exercise my right to vote. That if everyone gets swept up with this same sense of hopelessness, democracy dies. If everyone, like me, votes their conscience, despite their misgivings, our democracy becomes a truer reflection of its citizens.
And yet. I woke up early this morning with the intention of doing my due diligence and researching the candidates and proposals on my ballot so I wouldn’t have the excuse to not vote. And let me tell you — I barely found any useful information at all. Here I am, a journalist used to digging around the internet, a Democrat skeptical of Democrat talking-points, a person inflexible on certain issues but willing to be convinced on others, and I couldn’t find any local journalism that gave me a good, balanced take on what the heck I should be voting for. This is what happens when national politics (colluding with big media outlets and tech platforms) literally steal the attention and resources away from the local media. Voters like me, who want to do the right thing and choose the right people for the job (no matter their political affiliation), get stymied. Democracy gets stuck.
The Ending of it All
In our last newsletter, “Cancel Vultures,” Adaam applied Peter Turchin’s theory of elite overproduction to help explain why cancel culture has become such a thing — it’s a fascinating read and well worth your time. Adaam also briefly mentioned a piece of art that I think deserves further rumination and reflection: Bo Burnham’s “That Funny Feeling.”
As readers/listeners may know, we started Uncertain Things back in 2020, when everything felt apocalyptic. We invited intellectuals on the show who could help us make sense of the madness — offer clarity on the issues at hand, theories worth contemplating, insight into historical parallels. We wanted to invite artists on, too, but we were struck by how few creatives were meaningfully capturing the uncertainty, discomfort, and doominess of 2020.
But Bo Burnhams’ INSIDE — a film that “documents” Burnham’s isolation and mental fragility as he creates and performs various musical satires — did. Brilliantly, in my estimation. And the song that has stuck with me most is “That Funny Feeling.”
Unlike “Welcome to the Internet,” which is very intentionally over-the-top with psychedelic lighting, zany sound effects, and rapid-fire edits, “That Funny Feeling” is quiet and, oddly for Burnham, sincere? Burnham sets up one shot, plays some nature sounds, sings simply with a guitar, and projects trees on the wall, simulating an intimate campfire setting
Lyrically, the song is an impressionistic collage, snapshots of the lunacy, hypocrisy, superficiality, and anxiety of our current moment. Burnham observes people and trends wryly, but doesn’t resolve them. There’s the infiltration of consumerism into our lives and politics (“In honor of the revolution it’s half off at the Gap”); the inanity and division of our discourse (“The backlash to the backlash to the thing that’s just begun / “Easy answers, civil war”); the irony of our using technology like meditation apps and search engines to try and heal ourselves of what technology has wrought. (“Full agoraphobic, losing focus” / “Total disassociation fully out your mind, googling derealization, hating what you find.”)
But more than anything, to me, the song is an ode to that funny feeling of impending doom. Yes, Burnham points to climate change (“The whole world at your fingertips, the ocean at your door”), but the feeling is less about the planet dying than our society imploding. This is the line that gets me, every time: “That unapparent summer air in early fall / The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all.” More than any of the intellectually satisfying conversations we’ve had on Uncertain Things, that line sums up the feeling of 2020.
Burnham ends the song with dark lyrics sung in a light, poppy refrain — “Hey what can you say, we were overdue, but it will be over soon, just wait, ba da da da ba da da!” — the musical equivalent of a shrug and a smile. If he really were singing at a campfire, this is the moment when everyone would join in and sing along. Whether we’re marching toward apocalypse or a better world, or both, at least we can go together. What else can we do?
Moses the Monster
As our resident urbanist, I felt obligated to drag my husband to see David Hare’s play about Robert Moses, Straight Line Crazy. If you know Robert Moses at all, you likely know him as the planner antagonist to plucky urbanist hero Jane Jacobs, the author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, who helped save Washington Square Park from one of Moses’ many highways. (Check out the clip below — from our interview with Vishaan Chakrabarti — for the Passover version of the story.)
Straight Line Crazy is split into two acts. The first takes place in 1926, when Moses (fresh off of ten impotent years in the civil service) is desperate to go from planning to doing, to build a system of parks and roads — no matter the enemies he makes. This is Moses at the nascence of his power, laying the groundwork for his mind-boggling success. The second act takes place in 1955, when Moses is at the zenith of his power — miles and miles of roads built, dozens of parks established, and nowhere for his reputation to go but down. This act tells the story of his conflict with Jacobs and her compatriots at Washington Square Park, it shows Moses’ legacy catching up with him in unfavorable ways, and his rigid belief in the reason of his plans.
Surprisingly to me, I found the first act the more compelling of the two — for three reasons. First, it gave me insight into an era of Moses’ life I knew less about. This Moses rings of Howard Yoark. He’s a brilliant Yale-educated non-elite who believes in the rightness of his visions — and isn’t afraid of pissing off aristocrats to accomplish them (he cuts down a wealthy family’s trees for one of his highways, even though he could easily have avoided them by shifting the route a matter of yards). For Moses, “consultation” is a dirty word. Because “unreason” is wired into the human brain, people don’t see his plans for their obvious, logical merits; instead, they panic at the sight of what is new. Once the thing is built, however, the people can’t imagine it never having been so. We must, says Moses, “enhance their fortunes without respect for their opinions.”
Reason number two: Governor Al Smith, brilliantly played by the Shakespearean actor Danny Webb, steals the show with his scenes. Smith was a beloved Democrat, a working class Joe with a filthy mouth who won four gubernatorial elections — despite being Catholic. The push-pull repartee between Smith and Moses is mesmerizing. The way the unlikable Moses pulls the likable Smith into his orbit, over rounds of illicit Bourbon, of course, is masterful. Right before he leaves the stage, Smith gives Moses one last condition for his support: he must build trains to Jones Beach, not just a highway. Moses pretends to kowtow, but, as we all know, ultimately ignores Smith’s prescient order. If he hadn’t, how different might his legacy have been — would we have been more forgiving of the means of Moses’ trespasses, if the ends had been more in line with what we want for our cities today?
Finally, the second act — where the most dramatic tension, and my own interests, should lie — failed to live up to my expectations. As listeners may know, I have another podcast that explores the urban history of people of color — I’m very familiar with the damage Moses’ highways inflicted on Black communities in New York City and the unfortunate precedent he set for cities across the U.S. In this act, we are introduced to Mariah Heller (played by Alisha Bailey), an idealistic student straight out of school who joins Moses’ office, hoping to change it from within (Heller, who is Black, has family members who were displaced by the Cross Bronx Expressway). She, more than Jacobs, is Moses’ foil. The narrative makes it clear: Mariah is the angel, Moses, the monster.
Moses wasn’t a warm person; in the play, he himself admits he’d rather be “right and alone than soft and with people.” And when we look at the historical facts, it’s hard to deny that Moses committed monstrosities that destroyed lives, all in the name of progress. However, I can’t help but feel that this play took complicated personalities, and equally complicated questions of policy and democracy, and compressed them to fit into a neater narrative of morality.
I wish this play had done more to lay bare the complexities and the questions we all must continue to ask ourselves when it comes to making great cities: who benefits — and suffers — from planning and development? How much consultation is enough? When the needs are so urgent (say, for housing) should we bias action over inaction? What sacrifices, if any, are we willing to make? When does safeguarding architecture come at the expense of progress? Can we increase access to nature without sacrificing nature itself? Do democratic methods create the most democratic outcomes? These are all genuine questions with no clear solutions — and I wish the play had dwelled in their crazy complexities, rather than clearly draw straight lines between good and evil. Indeed, that’s exactly what we try to do with Uncertain Things — I leave it to you, dear reader, to decide how well we accomplish that goal.
Things Worth Your Time ⏰
📺 If you’re looking for the opposite of Robert Moses’ intellectual coldness, may I suggest my new favorite show: Netflix’s Heartstopper. This British teen dramedy follows the crush-prone, awkward, adorable Charlie Spring as he falls in love with the captain of the rugby team and navigates friends and bullies. I binged it all in a weekend.
🎧💲Since we started making Uncertain Things, I’ve become more aware about the intolerance of many of the people on my side to dissenting views. With the return to physical interactions, I’m navigating in-person social dynamics with liberal strangers for the first time. In an episode for our paid subscribers, I rant about a particularly awkward series of interactions, and ask Adaam: is our podcast making things worse?
🎧 In our next episode (see below), we get into Israel’s recent elections. If you, like me, are pretty ignorant to Israel’s current political landscape, I highly recommend Bibi’s Back, Baby — this 34-minute explainer, which Adaam produced for The Dispatch, clearly sets up the context for the red wave (and its charismatic leaders) that recently swept Israeli parliament.
What We’re Working On ⏭
We recently sat down with journalist and podcaster Eli Lake (who also recently produced an episode on the Israeli elections). While our conversation ranged the gamut, I most enjoyed our discussion on art and artists — and when the sins of the artist should (if ever) impact our enjoyment or support of the art? Not only did we have a great debate, I learned quite a bit about Ye — and why Eli’s opinion of him (that he’s a genius) isn’t changing.
One Last Certain Thing…
There’s no greater betrayal than mango.