December 2019

by Wes Enzinna,

[Letter from Belleville]

Body Language

by Alex Marzano-Lesnevich,

Harper’s Magazine welcomes reader response.

Email us about articles in the magazine.

[Harper’s Index]

Portion of Americans who say they’d give up sex for life if they never had to do any more chores : 1/5

[Harper’s Index]

Number of new Christmas films that will debut on Hallmark channels this year : 40

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of the world’s internet traffic that is attributable to Netflix : 12

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage increase since 1996 in the average price of a movie ticket in the United States : 106

[Harper’s Index]

In the average price of a concert ticket : 256

[Harper’s Index]

Estimated annual amount that U.S. book publishers lose to piracy : $315,000,000

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of people downloading pirated e-books who make $100,000 or more a year : 29

[Harper’s Index]

Number of requests Google has received since 2014 to delete search results based on the E.U.’s “right to be forgotten” law : 3,300,000

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of those requests Google has granted : 45

[Harper’s Index]

Factor by which the U.S. public trusts law enforcement more than advertisers to use facial-recognition technology “responsibly” : 3

[Harper’s Index]

Amount that the Florida D.M.V. earned selling personal data in 2017 : $77,865,737

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of American women aged 30 and older who receive financial help from their parents : 49

[Harper’s Index]

Of American men aged 30 and older : 62

[Harper’s Index]

Median percentage of student-loan debt owed by white borrowers twenty years after enrolling in college : 6

[Harper’s Index]

Of student-loan debt owed by black borrowers : 95

[Harper’s Index]

Minimum number of laws in San Francisco penalizing homelessness : 24

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage change in calls to 9-1-1 about homeless people in San Francisco from 2013 to 2017 : +78

[Harper’s Index]

Number of months for which Japanese men are legally guaranteed paid paternity leave : 12

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of images in U.S. online media that feature people aged 50 or older : 15

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of Americans who are older than 50 : 46

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage by which people who nap once or twice a week are less likely than non-nappers to face serious heart illnesses : 48

[Harper’s Index]

Factor by which non-white Americans are more likely than white Americans to be vegetarians : 3

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage by which U.S. sales of plant-based meat substitutes increased this year : 10

[Harper’s Index]

Number of states with laws prohibiting the use of the words “meat,” “burger,” or “steak” on labels for non-animal products : 7

[Harper’s Index]

Rank of “well done” among the ways that Americans prefer their steaks to be cooked : 1

[Harper’s Index]

Chance that an American avoids drinking tap water at home because of safety concerns : 1 in 3

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of bottled water sold in the United States that is filtered tap water : 64

[Harper’s Index]

Estimated amount that Americans spent on bottled water last year : $31,000,000,000

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of the U.S. automobile market that is composed of S.U.V.s and pickup trucks : 66

[Harper’s Index]

Of sedans : 22

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of Americans who believe electric cars require gasoline to run : 42

[Harper’s Index]

Number of Nobel laureates in physics who have been named John : 8

[Harper’s Index]

Who have been named Wolfgang : 3

[Harper’s Index]

Who have been women : 3

[Harper’s Index]

Factor by which a public restroom floor hosts more bacteria than a toilet seat : 40,000

[Harper’s Index]

By which a kitchen sponge hosts more bacteria than a toilet seat : 17,700,000,000

[Harper’s Index]

Rank of kitchen cleaning among Americans’ least favorite chores : 1

[Harper’s Index]

Portion of Americans who say they’d give up sex for life if they never had to do any more chores : 1/5

[Harper’s Index]

Number of new Christmas films that will debut on Hallmark channels this year : 40

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of the world’s internet traffic that is attributable to Netflix : 12

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage increase since 1996 in the average price of a movie ticket in the United States : 106

[Harper’s Index]

In the average price of a concert ticket : 256

[Harper’s Index]

Estimated annual amount that U.S. book publishers lose to piracy : $315,000,000

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of people downloading pirated e-books who make $100,000 or more a year : 29

[Harper’s Index]

Number of requests Google has received since 2014 to delete search results based on the E.U.’s “right to be forgotten” law : 3,300,000

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of those requests Google has granted : 45

[Harper’s Index]

Factor by which the U.S. public trusts law enforcement more than advertisers to use facial-recognition technology “responsibly” : 3

[Harper’s Index]

Amount that the Florida D.M.V. earned selling personal data in 2017 : $77,865,737

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of American women aged 30 and older who receive financial help from their parents : 49

[Harper’s Index]

Of American men aged 30 and older : 62

[Harper’s Index]

Median percentage of student-loan debt owed by white borrowers twenty years after enrolling in college : 6

[Harper’s Index]

Of student-loan debt owed by black borrowers : 95

[Harper’s Index]

Minimum number of laws in San Francisco penalizing homelessness : 24

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage change in calls to 9-1-1 about homeless people in San Francisco from 2013 to 2017 : +78

[Harper’s Index]

Number of months for which Japanese men are legally guaranteed paid paternity leave : 12

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of Japanese fathers who take some advantage of the policy : 6

[Harper’s Index]

Who take all twelve months : 0.1

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of U.S. adults over 55 who did freelance work this year : 29

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of images in U.S. online media that feature people aged 50 or older : 15

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of Americans who are older than 50 : 46

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage by which people who nap once or twice a week are less likely than non-nappers to face serious heart illnesses : 48

[Harper’s Index]

Factor by which non-white Americans are more likely than white Americans to be vegetarians : 3

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage by which U.S. sales of plant-based meat substitutes increased this year : 10

[Harper’s Index]

Number of states with laws prohibiting the use of the words “meat,” “burger,” or “steak” on labels for non-animal products : 7

[Harper’s Index]

Rank of “well done” among the ways that Americans prefer their steaks to be cooked : 1

[Harper’s Index]

Chance that an American avoids drinking tap water at home because of safety concerns : 1 in 3

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of bottled water sold in the United States that is filtered tap water : 64

[Harper’s Index]

Estimated amount that Americans spent on bottled water last year : $31,000,000,000

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of the U.S. automobile market that is composed of S.U.V.s and pickup trucks : 66

[Harper’s Index]

Of sedans : 22

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of Americans who believe electric cars require gasoline to run : 42

[Harper’s Index]

Number of Nobel laureates in physics who have been named John : 8

[Harper’s Index]

Who have been named Wolfgang : 3

[Harper’s Index]

Who have been women : 3

[Harper’s Index]

Factor by which a public restroom floor hosts more bacteria than a toilet seat : 40,000

[Harper’s Index]

By which a kitchen sponge hosts more bacteria than a toilet seat : 17,700,000,000

[Harper’s Index]

Rank of kitchen cleaning among Americans’ least favorite chores : 1

[Harper’s Index]

Portion of Americans who say they’d give up sex for life if they never had to do any more chores : 1/5

Readings

[Essay]

I Follow the Sunlight Around the Lawn

by Alli Warren,

[Reflection]

Single Blood

by Mario Santiago Papasquiaro,Translated by Cole Heinowitz,

[Fiction]

Protocol or: A Contribution on the Renaissance as Compiled Jointly with My Uncle Josef

by Bohumil Hrabal,Translated by David Short,

[Complaints]

Photographs by Stephen Gill from The Pillar, a monograph published this year by Nobody Books. Gill photographed a pillar and the birds it attracted on his property in Skåne, Sweden, from 2015 to 2019.

“Composition with Painted Cutouts,” a photograph by Nico Krijno, whose work was on view in June at Elizabeth Houston Gallery, in New York City.

Courtesy the artist and Elizabeth Houston Gallery, New York City

Our Town, a painting by Amy Bennett, whose work was on view in August at Miles McEnery Gallery, in New York City.

Courtesy the artist and Miles Mcenery Gallery, New York City

The Sleepwalkers and Rope-a-Dope, mixed-media artworks by Deborah Roberts, whose work was on view in July at Stephen Friedman Gallery, in London.

Courtesy the artist and The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City

Workbench with Underwood, a painting by Dickon Drury, whose work was on view in August at Koppe Astner, in Glasgow, Scotland.

Courtesy the artist; Koppe Astner, Glasgow, Scotland; and Galerie Opdahl, Stavanger, Norway

“Composition with Painted Cutouts,” a photograph by Nico Krijno, whose work was on view in June at Elizabeth Houston Gallery, in New York City.

Courtesy the artist and Elizabeth Houston Gallery, New York City

Our Town, a painting by Amy Bennett, whose work was on view in August at Miles McEnery Gallery, in New York City.

Courtesy the artist and Miles Mcenery Gallery, New York City

The Sleepwalkers and Rope-a-Dope, mixed-media artworks by Deborah Roberts, whose work was on view in July at Stephen Friedman Gallery, in London.

Courtesy the artist and The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City

Workbench with Underwood, a painting by Dickon Drury, whose work was on view in August at Koppe Astner, in Glasgow, Scotland.

Courtesy the artist; Koppe Astner, Glasgow, Scotland; and Galerie Opdahl, Stavanger, Norway

[Letters]

Letters

[Easy Chair]

Lefty Lingo

by Lionel Shriver,

[Harper’s Index]

Harper’s Index

[Harper’s Index]

Harper’s Index

[Letter from California]

Gimme Shelter

The cost of living in the Bay Area

by Wes Enzinna,

[From the Archive]

San Francisco Blues

by Lillian Symes,

[Essay]

Body Language

How to tell a genderqueer story

by Alex Marzano-Lesnevich,

[Letter from Belleville]

Trash, Rock, Destroy

Is Virginie Despentes the French writer America needs?

by Lauren Elkin,

[Photo Essay]

Make Way for Tomorrow

Photographs from a city displaced

by Rose Marie Cromwell, Sol Lauría,Translated by Paula Kupfer,

[Story]

The Red Dot

by David Means,

[Reviews]

New Books

by Julian Lucas,

[Reviews]

Autobiography of an Ex-Black Man

Thomas Chatterton Williams loses his race

by Emily Bernard,

[Reviews]

Burning Down the House

A gothic life of Frank Lloyd Wright

by Christopher Benfey,

[Puzzle]

Present Tense

by Richard E. Maltby Jr.,

[Findings]

Findings

by Rafil Kroll-Zaidi,

[Findings]

A skull previously thought to belong to Cleopatra’s sister was found to be that of an Italian boy with a deformed jaw.

[Findings]

The collapse of the Qing Dynasty was driven by the quadrupling of its population and consequent rural impoverishment, an overabundance of qualified applicants for elite academic degrees, rising costs and trade deficits, and falling productivity, which were variously associated with internal unrest, opium imports, and the depletion of silver reserves.

[Findings]

Men can rate the facial attractiveness of women without paying attention, but women cannot do the same for men; gay men find the faces of purportedly fertile women and men more attractive; adolescents and adults both rate the faces of children younger than 4.6 years old as more appealing than those of older children; and body odors associated with fear quicken the visual processing of others’ facial expressions of fear.

[Findings]

The collapse of the Qing Dynasty was driven by the quadrupling of its population and consequent rural impoverishment, an overabundance of qualified applicants for elite academic degrees, rising costs and trade deficits, and falling productivity, which were variously associated with internal unrest, opium imports, and the depletion of silver reserves.

[Findings]

Men can rate the facial attractiveness of women without paying attention, but women cannot do the same for men; gay men find the faces of purportedly fertile women and men more attractive; adolescents and adults both rate the faces of children younger than 4.6 years old as more appealing than those of older children; and body odors associated with fear quicken the visual processing of others’ facial expressions of fear.

Illuminated tents erected by artist-activist Suzi Garner and members of the #WhereDoWeGoBerk movement at a homeless encampment alongside Interstate 80 near Berkeley, California. Photograph by Mark Leong for Harper’s Magazine © The artist Microfiche

December 2019

Gimme Shelter

The cost of living in the Bay Area

Trash, Rock, Destroy

Body Language

Number of new Christmas films that will debut on Hallmark channels this year : 40

Readings

Being in Nothingness

Clear History

The Beast in Me

I Follow the Sunlight Around the Lawn

Song of My Shelf

Roy Meets World

Single Blood

Protocol or: A Contribution on the Renaissance as Compiled Jointly with My Uncle Josef

Faulty Towers

Letters

Lefty Lingo

Harper’s Index

Harper’s Index

Gimme Shelter

The cost of living in the Bay Area

San Francisco Blues

Body Language

How to tell a genderqueer story

Trash, Rock, Destroy

Is Virginie Des­pentes the French writer America needs?

Make Way for Tomorrow

Photographs from a city displaced

The Red Dot

New Books

Autobiography of an Ex-Black Man

Thomas Chatterton Williams loses his race

Burning Down the House

A gothic life of Frank Lloyd Wright

Present Tense

Findings

A skull previously thought to belong to Cleopatra’s sister was found to be that of an Italian boy with a deformed jaw.

Is Virginie Despentes the French writer America needs?