We are meant to think of the masks, comic and tragic, that were worn by the actors in ancient Greek drama. Over the next couple of hours, those two moods will be welded together, until we can’t tell the light from the dark.
Arthur is a clown, and a would-be comic, but he’s really not funny at all. So badly does he bomb at a comedy club that footage of his set is replayed on television. That’s the joke. He lives in Gotham City, which, as everybody knows, equals New York City minus the peace and the pastoral bliss. The year, by my reckoning, is 1981, since “Blow Out” and “Zorro: The Gay Blade” are advertised on cinema marquees. Other highlights include a garbage strike. Arthur works for a clown agency, and one of his jobs is to stand on the street in a red nose and a green wig, holding a promotional sign for a local store. When some kids grab the sign, he gives chase, his enormous shoes clomping on the sidewalk. Another clown lends him a gun, for safety’s sake, but it drops out of Arthur’s costume, clattering to the floor, while he’s entertaining children in a hospital ward and singing “If You’re Happy and You Know It.” A tough gig for Arthur, who says, “I haven’t been happy one minute of my entire fucking life.”
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة October 7, 2019 من The New Yorker.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة October 7, 2019 من The New Yorker.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
A Campus in Crisis
Dissent and defiance at Columbia's pro-Palestine protests.
Consolation
Five years before my mother died, we had a violent argument—a thing that had never happened before.
THE INSTIGATOR
How Miranda July starts again.
A CRITIC AT LARGE - OFF THE LEASH
The wacky and wonderful world of the Westminster Dog Show.
LOADED
We used to think the rich had a social function. What are they good for now?
BLAME GAME
“Baby Reindeer” and Under the Bridge.”
OUT OF THE DARKNESS
Zemlinsky, Schulhoff; and other neglected Jewish composers of Central Europe.
BOOKS - FORGET IT
A neuropsychologist says that we're thinking about memory all wrong.
A REPORTER AT LARGE - CONVICTION
Lucy Letby, the most notorious nurse in Britain, was found guilty of killing seven babies. Did she do it?
PERSONAL HISTORY - TABULA RASA
THE WORDLE PHILOSOPHY