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class="ContentHearHedAccredatnWrapper-GFiQf cDNVlV"><div data-ttid="ContentHearTleBlockWrapper" class="ContentHearTleBlockWrapper-cjmSKp jbzVNV"><div data-ttid="ContentHearRubric" class="ContentHearRubricBlock-LmpbT kkDiIx"><div data-ttid="ContentHearRubricDateBlock" class="ContentHearRubricDateBlock-kAQcZP fTFWxD"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX dZhWBL bric ContentHearRubricContaer-eTudtt iRsSlw"><a class="RubricLk-gRWSOU fgWnkQ bric__lk" href="/magaze/onward-and-upward-wh-the-arts"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Onward and Upward wh the Arts</span></a></div></div></div><h1 data-ttid="ContentHearHed" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ContentHearHed-NCyCC iUEiRd NbxED hpJvIc">Adrianne Lenker’s Radil Honty</h1></div><div class="ContentHearAccredatn-lfctVB etVsnJ ntent-hear__accredatn" data-ttid="ContentHearAccredatn"><div class="ContentHearDek-bIqFFZ Mtme">In her folk-rock songwrg and teractns wh her Big Thief bandmat, the mician’s raw openns creat strange and thrillg effects.</div><div class="ContentHearByle-kmPyCa gvUmxJ"><div class="ContentHearByleContent-dpPmNn DRFq"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl ContentHearByl-cZqgyJ bHLeKI"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH ivtvgj byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span><a class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM ByleLk-gEnFiw iUEiRd ggMZaT cXqSTL eErqIx byle__name-lk button" href="/ntributors/amanda-petsich">Amanda Petsich</a></span></span></p></div><time data-ttid="ContentHearPublishDate" dateTime="2020-10-12T06:00:00-04:00" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ContentHearPublishDate-eIBicG iUEiRd kYZrFA iINaCX">October 12, 2020</time></div></div></div></div><div class="ContentHearLeadAsset-hGbumP fEknXh lead-asset ContentHearLeadAssetWrapper-hfXHEc Grck lead-asset--width-fullbleed" data-ttid="ContentHearLeadAsset"><figure class="ContentHearLeadAssetContent-kOfYSG dRGWbI"><div class="ContentHearLeadAssetContentMedia-bLEIpi jjhWdS lead-asset__ntent__photo"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW jvZaPI rponsive-asset ContentHearRponsiveAsset-bREgIb hONbnm"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz gNlRer"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa ContentHearRponsiveAsset-bREgIb hONbnm rponsive-image"><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w, 1920w, 2240w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Lenker layg down." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></picture></div></div></span></div></figure></div><div class="ContentHearLeadContentFullWidth-cvJzX hHaBOT"><figure class="ContentHearLeadContentCaptnCred-hSIIqJ kQVfzg"><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn ContentHearLeadAssetCaptn-hPWmSN kuCzGS"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">Virtuosy don’t ronate for Lenker as much as vulnerabily do. In her work wh Big Thief and on her solo rerds, she has always been most terted makg emotnal nnectns.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Photograph by Collier Schorr for The New Yorker</span></div></figure></div></div></hear></div><div data-attribute-verso-pattern="article-body" class="ArticlePageContentBackGround-cNiFNN kbAoLA article-body__ntent"><div class="ActnBarWrapperContent-lasBkU cAHp"><div class="ActnBarWrapperComponent-cjwxLS bEeSLb"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="ActnBarWrapper-dhxmQh kNjTbQ viewport-monor-anchor"><button id="bookmark" aria-label="Save this story" class="ActnBarButton-dyFOZU hQrwCF bookmark large-screen"><span class="ActnBarSendaryButtonPrimaryIn-isbvyN cAwccV bookmark-button-in"><svg class="in in-bookmark" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Save this story</tle><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M20 23.9508L12.5 19.7312L5 23.9508V2.95081H14V3.93211H6V22.1845L12.5 18.5536L19 22.1845V8.83866H20V23.9508Z"></path><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M23 3H20V0H19V3H16V4H19V7H20V4H23V3Z"></path></svg></span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ActnBarButtonText-bYXYuh iUEiRd bkefvo gkccfO">Save this story</span></button></div><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="ActnBarWrapper-dhxmQh kAEsuD viewport-monor-anchor"><button id="bookmark" aria-label="Save this story" class="ActnBarButton-dyFOZU cjjxgx bookmark mobile"><span class="ActnBarSendaryButtonPrimaryIn-isbvyN cAwccV bookmark-button-in"><svg class="in in-bookmark" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Save this story</tle><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M20 23.9508L12.5 19.7312L5 23.9508V2.95081H14V3.93211H6V22.1845L12.5 18.5536L19 22.1845V8.83866H20V23.9508Z"></path><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M23 3H20V0H19V3H16V4H19V7H20V4H23V3Z"></path></svg></span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ActnBarButtonText-bYXYuh iUEiRd bkefvo gkccfO">Save this story</span></button></div></div></div><div class="LightboxWrapper-dxsWBV hhylRt"><div class="ArticlePageChunksContent-etcMtP bwyLBj"><div data-ttid="ArticlePageChunks" class="ArticlePageChunks-fLyCVG Uozmo"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><figure data-ttid="IameEmbed" class="IameEmbedWrapper-sc-dRedg cjyRVU iame-embed"><div data-ttid="IameEmbedContaer" class="IameEmbedContaer-hptgUZ fXVBaX"><div class="IameEmbedAspectRatWrapper-hFVJps BKpgQ"><iame class="IameEmbedContent-cMdiev csnuAY IameEmbedContent lazyload" height="90" width="100%" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-orig allow-popups" tle="Embedd Frame" data-src=" allowfullscreen="" allow="toplay *; encrypted-media *; clipboard-wre; toplay; fullscreen; picture--picture"></iame></div></div></figure><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">In late Augt, the sger, songwrer, and guarist Adrianne Lenker stood bi a creek upstate New York, watchg the water move. The day before, Lenker, who is twenty-ne, had packed up the Brooklyn apartment she’d been sharg wh two roommat. She was preparg to hl a vtage mpg trailer across the untry to Topanga Canyon, on the wt si of Los Angel, where her band, <a href=">Big Thief</a>, was planng to meet up. For the next uple of months, at least, the trailer would be home.</p><p class="paywall">Movg n be disorientg—all that sortg and boxg and tossg out forc a kd of self-reckong—and for Lenker the experience was only tensified by the ongog anxiety of the ronavis panmic, which ma imagg any sort of future feel optimistic, if not naïve. The exhstn and sorrow of the sprg had left everyone feelg prer. The sun reacted agast the surface of the creek until the water turned black. Our nversatn drifted toward the Zen ia of impermanence. “Is too early for this?” Lenker joked. “Nice to meet you—let’s talk about ath.”</p><div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--article-mid-ntent" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--article-mid-ntent nsumer-marketg-un__slot---ntent"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><p class="paywall">Lenker had spent the past few weeks rerdg wh Big Thief at a home stud the Catskill Mountas, n by the micians Sam Owens and Hannah Cohen. The rt of the band—the guarist Buck Meek, the bassist Max Oleartchik, and the dmmer Jam Krivchenia—had sce left, but Lenker stuck around to renovate the trailer. She had jt orred a tw mattrs, a portable woodstove, and new lens.</p><p class="paywall">This month, Lenker will release two solo albums: “Songs,” a llectn of tenr, harmonilly plex folk tun, and “Instmentals,” which is posed of a pair of slowly unfoldg guar piec. She ma the rerds simultaneoly, at a remote b New England, the early, panicked days of both the panmic and a breakup. Lenker is a quick and stctive wrer, and even unr normal circumstanc her songs are raw and unfsy— n feel as if they were dug up whole, like a rrot om the garn. She sometim speaks about wrg as a kd of njurg. “She giv a lot of signifince to that moment where she’s holdg the guar,” Oleartchik told me. “I never really thk of her, like, fuckg around and playg riffs or somethg. It’s always this stment of wchcraft. It’s always holy. She wr mic om this place that’s very tuive and fearls, and she has nfince that there’s some kd of spir or force that she n listen to.”</p><p class="paywall">Before Lenker vated her apartment New York, she had to pat over an illtratn that her ex-girliend had drawn on the bedroom wall. Lenker took some solace om the ia that the image wouldn’t be erased, exactly— remaed, even if she uldn’t see anymore. Lenker has been romantic relatnships wh men and wh women, and don’t feel any particular obligatn to outle her sexualy precise terms, though she is fortable beg lled queer. “The fact that there’s still people agast that kd of stuff mak the words necsary,” she told me. “But hopefully we move to a place where ’s, like, You’re what? Why are you sayg what you are?”</p><p class="paywall">The wounds om the breakup were still pretty tenr. “There’s a fullns that happens when someone is focsed on you,” Lenker said. “For me, if I’m beg fully looked at and paid attentn to and seen, I’m filled up by that.” She ntued, “Now there isn’t anyone to text; there are no love msag g through. I feel so empty. There’s a song on the new rerd, ‘Zombie Girl,’ and the rea is ‘Empts / Tell me about your nature.’ That’s a real qutn. I want to unrstand—what is this feelg of empts? Is that me? Am I jt hollow and empty? Or is empts actually somethg betiful?”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-1 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">As we talked, Lenker teared up. I hadn’t yet had to idly watch someone cry om six feet away. As she wiped her cheeks, I crammed my hands my pockets and mumbled somethg about how the worst and sadst thg about heartbreak is that always ends.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Big Thief formed Brooklyn 2015, and quickly beme one of the most acclaimed new bands of recent years, part bee of Lenker’s emotnal transparency, and part bee of how her voice, which is lite and craggy, plements the group’s bold e of dissonance and volume. In 2019, Big Thief was nomated for a Grammy Award for Bt Alternative Mic Album, but s work is more monly scribed as folk rock, a characterizatn that, although accurate—the band is as bted to visnary sger-songwrers such as <a href=">Jue Sill</a> and Vashti Bunyan as is to <a href=">Sonic Youth</a> and <a href=">Neil Young</a>—feels too tame. Big Thief’s bt songs beg quietly, and expand until seems as though a major artery were about to burst. The rults n be strange and thrillg. “Adrianne has that disorientg qualy all real-al typ have, where she at her songs so siways that subverts the form,” <a href=">Jeff Tweedy</a>, the ont man for Wil, told me. “Sometim you would swear ’s a mistake or misunrstandg of her own song—‘Why’d she start sgg there?’—but ’s not, ’s a precise angle that only she seems to posss.”</p><p class="paywall">The band grew out of a partnership between Lenker and Meek. They met at a show Boston, where they had both been unrgraduat, and then ran to each other at a boga on the day Lenker moved to Brooklyn. “I was movg to a warehoe Bhwick wh ten other artists,” Lenker said. “I’m pretty sure was illegal—there were beams separatg the rooms, no wdows, a cement floor.” She and Meek soon began performg as a duo.</p><p class="paywall">“When we first started playg, we would jt s together,” Meek told me. “She had the really wild fgerpickg patterns that she had veloped, and she would tune the guar to so many different open tungs. I had this very synpated, rhythmic stcture—hers was much more liquid. And, somehow, the different rhythmic landsp created somethg.”</p><div class="Contaer-bkChBi byNLHx"></div><p class="paywall">Lenker got a job as a back waer at a rtrant on the Upper Wt Si. “Five days a week, at one the morng, I was bikg all the way to Bhwick om Seventy-send and Columb,” she relled. “I was savg up for guar amps, savg up for a guar, savg up for a van.”</p><p class="paywall">Meek and Lenker burned CDs of their mic, wrapped them paper bags, and wrote the track listgs by hand. “Buck and I played ffee shops and back-yard barbecu and dive bars and birthday parti and shows for nobody for a uple of years,” Lenker said. In time, they fell love, and, when she was twenty-four and Meek was twenty-eight, they got married.</p><p class="paywall">There is footage of them bkg Washgton Square Park 2014, playg an early versn of “Pl,” which eventually appeared on Big Thief’s début album, “Masterpiece.” The dience—a middle-aged man billowg khakis and sunglass, a tall guy talkg on his cell phone—is gently unterted a New York Cy sort of way. Lenker and Meek share a microphone. “Pl” is a song about havg a hard time lovg another person. “I realized there was no one who uld kiss away my sh,” Lenker sgs, her voice rigned. Yet the sire to be fixed—to fd relief through love—remas. “I’ve been burng for you, baby, sce the moment I left,” she adms. The chos is a mmeric sh:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>I’ll be your morng bright, good night, shadow mache<br/>I’ll be your rerd player, baby, if you know what I mean<br/>I’ll be a real tough okie wh the whiskey breath<br/>I’ll be a killer and a thriller and the e of our ath</p></div></blockquote><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">In the Catskills, between rerdg ssns, Lenker and her bandmat sometim hiked to the woods to work on a tepeelike stcture they had taken to llg a fort. There was no trail, and gettg to required climbg up the face of a small mounta, mostly by grabbg the tnks of saplgs—a strategy any reasonable outdoorsperson would scribe as advisable—and scramblg to fd holds large rocks. One afternoon, Lenker and I ma our way there to s on a boulr and talk. She darted uphill gracefully.</p><p class="paywall">Lenker was born Indianapolis 1991, and brought up mostly and around Mnota. She has a younger sister, Zoë, and a younger brother, Noah. When Lenker was five, she was h on the head by a railroad spike that fell out of a tree hoe her fay’s ont yard. “Mythologil Bety,” a song om Big Thief’s send rerd, “Capacy,” is addrsed to her terrified mother:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>Blood ghg om my head<br/>You held me the back seat wh a dishrag, soakg up blood wh your ey<br/>I was jt five and you were twenty-seven<br/>Prayg, “Don’t let my baby die”</p></div></blockquote><p class="paywall">Lenker’s parents married young, and joed a ge relig sect before Lenker was born. She remembers the group as havg “born-aga-Christian, kd of cult vib—a closed muny. We lived an apartment plex where the surroundg people were part of the same thg. There were a lot of l. Hontly, I remember there beg a lot of shame. My sister’s name was evil, bee wasn’t the Bible. Certa shap were evil, too, like the star. When we prayed, the Bible uldn’t touch the floor, and we prayed unr blankets.” Her mother relled that sometim the group provid a chaperon if the fay travelled out of state. (Lenker’s father disput some of the tails.)</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-2 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Her parents left the sect when she was four, and for a short while they lived out of a van. “We were still que relig until I was about eight or ne,” Lenker said. “Then I watched my parents take a dramatic turn and disrd all relign.” She found the shift bewilrg. “I jt remember feelg, like, I’m not gog to go along for this ri.” (Her father has sce rennected wh his fah, and scrib his time away om as hedonistic.)</p><p class="paywall">Lenker has spent much of her adulthood tryg to unpack the experience, and is now quick to regnize troublg rhythms om her youth when they reëmerge her adult relatnships. “I sometim equate timacy wh turbulence, which is faiar,” she said. “The journey that I’m currently on is jt: how do I transmute some of the patterns of vlence?”</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><asi class="PersistentAsiWrapper-VGrR daRVRt persistent-asi" style="posn:absolute;top:to;height:to" data-ttid="PersistentAsiWrapper"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="2q23i"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></asi></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="l5no"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Her ias of home are nstantly changg. “I don’t really thk of Mnota when I thk of home,” she said. “I thk of as part of who I am. The thg that I e back to is that ’s my loved on, and Earth. I feel really at home here, this spot the fort,” she said, lookg around. “And don’t feel like ’s anyone’s.”</p><p class="paywall">Eventually, we climbed back down the mounta. Owens and Cohen had built a stone dam the stream that snak across their property, creatg a ltle bas for swimmg. The stream ns to the Esop Creek, a sixty-five-e tributary of the Hudson River which wds through the eastern Catskills and fills the Ashokan Rervoir. We walked barefoot over mossy blutone. The water was clear and bracg. Lenker disrobed and dunked, lettg out an ecstatic yelp.</p><p class="paywall">While Lenker and the rt of Big Thief were workg, they veloped a hab of leapg to the water between tak. There’s somethg curative about a igid plunge, the way forc the old air om your lungs. “You e out screamg,” Oleartchik said. In 1702, Sir John Floyer published a treatise on the benefs of ld bathg, a practice that was then still mostly unknown to the English. “Cold baths act much on the Spirs, and prerve them om Evaporatn, and renr them Strong and Vigoro,” he wrote. It’s fortg to thk that, even our bleakt moments, there might still be a way to protect our Spirs om dissipatg entirely.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">As far back as Lenker n remember, she has liked to sg. Her voice is soft but substantial, and ntas an airy tremble that sometim rembl birdsong. On ocsn, she lets stretch and acture. On “Not,” a ep and tumultuo song om Big Thief’s fourth album, “Two Hands,” Lenker sounds nearly feral: “Not the room / Not begng / Not the crowd / Not wng,” she gnts. When the band performs the song ncert, she might start to scream.</p><p class="paywall">Lenker began playg guar when she was six, and disvered an affy for the stment. Her father started givg her lsons. “He’d be, like, Whoa—how do you already know that?” she said. “I was jt eatg up.”</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="A climber one hand to wre an email on their phone and the other to hold on to their iend who is danglg om a..." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“Jt need to send one quick e-mail, then I’m all yours.”</span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtoon__cred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptn__cred">Cartoon by Benjam Schwartz</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" 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19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">When Lenker was thirteen, her parents divorced. She dropped out of school and moved wh her father Mneapolis. He was tent on managg—and, to a gree, moizg—her nascent mic reer. “I thk he wanted me to be famo, wanted me to be the bt, wanted me to <em>w that sh</em>,” she said. Lenker did not share his exact ambns. She ma some rerdgs but felt disnnected om them. “The very first mic I listened to, and then ntued to listen to throughout that whole time, was by Pat Metheny and Michael Hedg—the guar guys my dad loved,” she said. When she was fifteen, a boyiend troduced her to Elltt Smh, whose tense and immediate folk songs provid a unterpot to the more polished mic her father had enuraged. “I was, like, Oh, my God, this is so good,” she relled. “This is all I want to do. I don’t want to create the elaborate, pop-soundg productns.”</p><p class="paywall">At sixteen, Lenker cut her hair short and briefly ran away om home. She got her G.E.D., and enrolled a five-week summer program at the Berklee College of Mic, Boston. Toward the end of the summer, she ma an appotment wh Damien Bracken, the an of admissns. “I went to his office and I said, ‘I don’t know any of this mic theory, any of this stuff that is on your curriculum, but n I play you a song?’ ” She performed an origal piece lled “Far om Where I Started.” Wh the an’s support, she applied for and received a full scholarship to Berklee, offered by the blu guarist <a href=">San Teschi</a>. “I’ll never fet the image of, like, twenty-five boys shreddg on guars the hallway, preparg for their dns and exams,” she said. “I felt self-nsc that I didn’t know those thgs.” Lenker was still figurg out how to do ordary chor, such as buyg lndry tergent. “I hadn’t gone to high school. I left Mnota, I left home, I was on my own,” she relled. “I was seventeen.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-3 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Dpe the tensy of her trag, virtuosy don’t ronate for Lenker as much as vulnerabily do; she has always been more terted makg emotnal nnectns. The pop sger <a href=">Carly Rae Jepsen</a> told me that she has been able to fd enormo fort the way that Lenker sgs about her life. “I me across ‘Pl’ while I was Italy for a solo adventure trip,” Jepsen said. “The lyrics spoke to me like a journal entry would. She’s brilliantly nfsnal.”</p><p class="paywall">In addn to the rerdgs that Lenker ma as a teen-ager, her work wh Meek, and the four rerds she has done wh Big Thief, she has also released two solo albums: “Hours Were the Birds,” 2014, and “Abysskiss,” 2018. Lenker is cur about the mechanics of creative work—the sprg om which songs appear—but fds that the procs self is more visceral and perceptive. “How do a song e to beg at all? How do form and anize self to the pattern?” she said. “I never thk, Oh, I want to make somethg that sounds like this. It’s jt reachg for elements. I see the visual of translucent ribbons flowg a riverlike way—they’re multilored. And maybe there’s one specific lor that I want to braid , and they’re all flowg by, and maybe ’ll go by for a while wh nothg of that lor, and then, ‘Ah, there.’ ”</p><p class="paywall">When I asked Meek to scribe Lenker’s songwrg, he psed for forty-five sends to gather his thoughts. “It’s as if she remov her nsc md om the room,” he said fally. “She’ll hold her guar, and she’ll start to speak abstractns, or speak plete nonsense—jt sounds and shap. Then she emerg om that space, and slowly the words start to form to syllabl, and to the English language, and bee a story, or a character, or a reflectn of her own experience. But has this really clear element of . . .” He thought about . “Grace.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">One eveng early September, Lenker and I sat on oppose sis of Owens and Cohen’s kchen table, snackg on figs and chee. It was rag, and Lenker l some ndl. Her sister, Zoë, who was visg for the week, was readg a bedroom upstairs. Lenker showed me the room where she was stayg, and the notebook where she had wrten most of the lyrics for “Songs.” There was a waterlor of a small b and a yellow sky propped up agast a mirror, and a photograph of her grandmother by her bedsi. Recently, she had acquired an electric pencil sharpener, which she monstrated: “Isn’t that satisfyg?” She picked up the atic Mart guar she plays on the new albums. “I’ve had this sce I was fourteen,” she said, stmmg a chord.</p><p class="paywall">Big Thief was on tour Europe when <a href="><em class="small">COVID</em>-19</a> s began to spike there. Mut before the band was to take the stage Copenhagen, the Danish ernment announced a ban on gathergs of more than a hundred people. The venue was already full. “We went out the street and played some atic stuff, jt four or five songs. Then we all had to make a snap cisn about where we were gog,” Lenker said.</p><p class="paywall">“Sudnly, we’re all this lobby of this hotel that’s basilly empty, and the du at receptn is wearg black glov, and there’s no more mic,” Oleartchik relled wistfully.</p><p class="paywall">Lenker flew back to New York Cy and then head north, to a b the foothills of the Berkshir, wtern Massachetts. She was entranced by the sound of the space, which she scribed as “like the si of an atic guar.” She asked Philip Werobe, an engeer and the owner of Rivgton 66, a rerdg stud on the Lower East Si, to help her make an album there. He agreed, and Lenker head back to the cy. “She left at, like, 5 <em class="small">A.M.</em> to e pick me up Brooklyn,” Werobe relled. “The whole thg was stctured around the space, which was very small, wh exposed woon beams. We uld hear the bugs, we uld hear the wd the tre. The ia was to really lean super hard to that physil atmosphere, and to create a rerd that tried to mimic . As soon as I got there, everythg started to shift: my sense of time, my sense of self, the way I breathed the air.” He add, “There’s no plumbg the b. You poop a bucket.”</p><p class="paywall">They ed a bral microphone to pture the sound of the room. “You really feel like you’re stg ont of Adrianne sgg,” Werobe said. “You n hear the birds go by, and you hear the squeak of the fgerboard, and the sound bouncg off the walls.”</p><p class="paywall">Lenker’s lyrics often allu to nature, and she toggl between straightforward narrativ and more imagistic l. Her language remds me, at tim, of <a href=">Joanna Newsom</a> or <a href=">Louise Erdrich</a>—’s mystil yet highly ground the physil world. On “Ingydar,” a new track, she sgs:</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="ma4x5e"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>His ey are blueberri, vio screens<br/>Mneapolis schem and the dried flowers<br/>From books half read<br/>The juice of dark cherri ver his ch<br/>The dog walks and the crow li his<br/>Jaw like lead</p></div></blockquote><p class="paywall">Werobe’s grandmother died while they were rerdg, which meant that he and Lenker were both sufferg a loss. “I wrote ne of those songs once we started the ssn,” Lenker said. “We would rerd them the same day that I wrote them. I was surprised at how much I was wrg, bee I was so much pa. I was not the part of the pa where I was jt reflectg on .” She add, “I feel as if my psyche was puttg as many thgs together as I uld om my relatnship, as many betiful thgs as I uld, to prerve to eterny.” One of the stmental piec, “Mic for Indigo,” was origally wrten as a kd of offerg—somethg for her former partner to listen to as she fell asleep at night.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Two years ago, California, Lenker bought a ed Toyota Land Ciser wh a multone pat job and a manual transmissn. She drove back East and began fixg up, sandg down the exterr and refishg a bright, hopeful blue. (The first time I met Lenker, she was the midst of expertly backg the tck down a wdg driveway and across a narrow wood-plank bridge.) Wh some help om an uncle, she outfted the back of the tck wh a foldable sleepg pad, a oler, and woon drawers for tools, cloth, and suppli. It has enormo tir—“It n go up any kd of mounta road,” she said proudly—and a bead medalln hangg om the rearview mirror. It would pull her trailer across the untry.</p><p class="paywall">Lenker and Meek divorced 2018. They are now what Lenker scrib as “ep iends.” They didn’t hi their marriage and s dissolutn om the prs, exactly, but they also didn’t speak about publicly. “I feel like ma stronger and closer,” Lenker said, of the breakup. “I feel like we sg together better now, and we wre together more. A lot of our love is funnelled to the mic, which is maybe the form was always meant to have.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-4 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Krivchenia joed the band shortly after Meek and Lenker got engaged. “I was sudnly plopped to observg the timacy, the bety, and the shortgs of a relatnship, 24/7,” he said. “It’s been amazg to see evolve.” He add, “They broke up, and was a whole huge year of a specific kd of strs for them, and for the band. We did some tours whout Buck, when they jt need to not be together for a while.” Though ls dramatic fissur have undone other bands, playg together seemed only to accelerate the healg procs. “Adrianne is always wrg about whatever’s gog on her life, and so when they were gettg divorced she was wrg about ,” Krivchenia said. “Buck was procsg that real time, onstage. Some nights I’d look over and be, like, ‘Oof, that’s a rough one to hear, man.’ But he was really supportive of .”</p><p class="paywall">After their separatn, Meek moved to California and wrote a rerd, “Two Savrs,” which he will release January. It’s got more twang and air than Big Thief’s albums—Meek is om Texas, and his solo work is fed wh the pathos and mischief of Town Van Zandt and Waylon Jenngs. “I played a huge amount of shows on my own, learned to surf. And she did her own thg,” he said. “When we fally did e back together, we jumped right to a tour. The mic felt more important than . It felt like somethg we had to serve and set asi our fears for.”</p><p class="paywall">Meek had been visg his partner the Netherlands, where the ernment had lifted ronavis travel rtrictns for people mted relatnships. A uple of weeks after we first spoke, he sent me a voice memo. “I thk we sacrificed all for the mic,” he said, of his marriage to Lenker. “It was a vsel for our love and iendship. And then our love and iendship beme a vsel for the mic.” It was too hard, the end, to nurture a new marriage and also be a band. “We didn’t actually have a home for maybe four or five years,” he said. “There was no privacy whatsoever, bee we were always on tour. There was a plete lack of personal time or space. And part of knew this—we were aware that was takg a toll on our relatnship.”</p><p class="paywall">In nversatn, I found Lenker attentive and kd, and there were moments durg our time together when the emotnal matury of the Big Thief universe—how patient and evolved the tra-band negotiatns are; how reful the members are to preëmptively diffe volatile suatns; how they have even adopted the phrase “everythg is optnal” to avoid promisg their tegry—felt almost timidatg. Anyone who has survived an experience via the reful supprsn or partmentalizatn of emotn is likely to fd Big Thief’s system of munitn astoundg. “If you don’t talk, you know, you’re gonna get to Kansas and you’re still gonna have feelgs om Baltimore,” Oleartchik told me. The end rult of all that talkg, he said, was the sentimental (yet still radil) disvery that “’s actually acceptable to be who you are to your iends.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Kyle Jaster and Misha Handschumacher live down the road om the stud, on Attic Farm, where they grow flowers and anic vegetabl, and tend to a passel of ee-range herage pigs. They offered to let Lenker park her trailer their driveway while she worked on , and before long they beme part of the renovatn team. When I arrived there one afternoon, Jaster’s brother, Wyatt, was measurg and stallg new plywood subfloors. The trailer was small, alumum, and om 1966. The terr was pated cherry red, but Lenker had jt picked out a new lor, a mellow cream lled Honeyed Whe. We began primg and repatg the bets, drawers, and trim. “I’m cur how this trip is gog to feel,” Lenker said. “I’m exced about the eedom, but I haven’t really felt full of relief. I’ve found almost burnsome: I don’t know where home is. I don’t know who I belong wh.”</p><p class="paywall">When grew too dark to pat, we retreated to a fire p the back yard. Jaster and Handschumacher prepared supper—okra and rrots grilled over the fire, chicken legs, blackberri, homema ice cream—as their two dogs sprted figure eights around our lawn chairs. At dk, a large owl swooped along the tree le. Owens and Cohen me by wh beer. At some pot, Lenker end up wh a Cuban cigar. “This was my fantasy when I was a kid,” she said, takg a tentative puff and lghg. “I wore knee-length jean shorts, plaid shirts, and a backward baseball p, and all I wanted to do was eat beef jerky, drive a tractor, and smoke cigars.” An outdoor speaker played Michael Hurley, <a href=">Arthur Rsell</a>, Moondog, <a href=">Lucda Williams</a>, Bill Callahan. Lenker talked about movg to Vermont this fall—maybe buildg a ltle b a rner of some land that her sister was buyg there.</p><p class="paywall">I left shortly after midnight. On the drive home, I rolled the wdows down and let my hair blow around. I played “Dragon Ey,” the penultimate track on “Songs.” It’s milly spare, wh atic guar and jt a b of bshed percsn. The fal verse implor:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>Stars bloom<br/>On a warm summer night<br/>They have a clear view<br/>Whout the bedroom light<br/>I jt want a place wh you<br/>I jt want a place</p></div></blockquote><p class="paywall">A few weeks later, I returned to the farm to toast the renovatn of the trailer. It was a brisk mid-September eveng, and leav were startg to accumulate rners. Jaster and Handschumacher set out platters of gumbo, rn bread, and suctash on a long piic table the back yard. We kept our ats on as we ate. After supper, Lenker stood the door of the trailer, holdg up a glass of bourbon, and offered scere thanks to everyone who had helped her fix up. The terr was plete—new hardwood floors, len curtas hung on silver wire, a small dg table ma om a maple tree on the farm. Lenker showed me the blue enamel ffee mug she’d placed the cupboard (“Unbreakable!”), the books she’d led up on a small shelf near her bed, the sgle st-iron sserole dish she uld e to ok the woodstove. She still need to buy a tire jack and some roadsi flar, jt se. She was leavg two days.</p><p class="paywall">In “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Letters on Cézanne</a>,” Rilke scrib tumn as “ntag pth wh self, darkns, somethg of the grave almost.” Lenker wr often about time and loss—how to clg to what we need and let go of everythg else. For her, songwrg is a way of externalizg specific experienc or memori and png them place, like a butterfly unr glass. “I like my songs to be remrs of certa thgs that I don’t want to fet,” she told me. Once they’re ptured, then a sense she is ee. ♦</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="j9s1b"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 PaywallInleBarrierWhWrapperGrid-fyrGfS kLQIUk grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="body body__le-barrier article__body"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div 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class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 720w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 480w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Steve Mart and Jerry Sefeld on Why Irrabily Mak a Good Comedian" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k summary-em__k--isCneVio">The legendary standups talk about what’s need for succs edy.</div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff ewgXAt summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm kdEfwY" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Cartoons About Therapy om the Past Century (Well, Almost)" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl bcywvc summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Cartoon Dk</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Cartoons About Therapy om the Past Century (Well, Almost)</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Cartoons About Therapy om the Past Century (Well, Almost)" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">Selectns om the magaze’s ep archive of drawn nros.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>The New Yorker</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff ewgXAt summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm kdEfwY" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Why Sarah Jsi Parker Keeps Playg Carrie Bradshaw" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl bcywvc summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Profil</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Why Sarah Jsi Parker Keeps Playg Carrie Bradshaw</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Why Sarah Jsi Parker Keeps Playg Carrie Bradshaw" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">In all of her profsnal enavors, cludg the “Sex and the Cy” anchise, Parker nsirs herself a “bter enr.”</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Rachel Syme</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff ewgXAt summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm kdEfwY" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg 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class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">The Weekend Essay</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">The Lows of the High Life</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="The Lows of the High Life" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">I had never had money, and then I did. For three days New York, I learned how not to e .</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Andre Dub III</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm kdEfwY ad ad--read-more"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--read-more" data-no-id="bzamms"></div></div></div><div class="SummaryCollectnGridToActnWrapper-gnReGN eGayfk"></div></div></div></div></div></div><div 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effects.</div><div class="ContentHearByle-kmPyCa gvUmxJ"><div class="ContentHearByleContent-dpPmNn DRFq"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl ContentHearByl-cZqgyJ bHLeKI"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH ivtvgj byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span><a class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM ByleLk-gEnFiw iUEiRd ggMZaT cXqSTL eErqIx byle__name-lk button" href="/ntributors/amanda-petsich">Amanda Petsich</a></span></span></p></div><time data-ttid="ContentHearPublishDate" dateTime="2020-10-12T06:00:00-04:00" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ContentHearPublishDate-eIBicG iUEiRd kYZrFA iINaCX">October 12, 2020</time></div></div></div></div><div class="ContentHearLeadAsset-hGbumP fEknXh lead-asset ContentHearLeadAssetWrapper-hfXHEc Grck lead-asset--width-fullbleed" data-ttid="ContentHearLeadAsset"><figure class="ContentHearLeadAssetContent-kOfYSG dRGWbI"><div class="ContentHearLeadAssetContentMedia-bLEIpi jjhWdS lead-asset__ntent__photo"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW jvZaPI rponsive-asset ContentHearRponsiveAsset-bREgIb hONbnm"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz gNlRer"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa ContentHearRponsiveAsset-bREgIb hONbnm rponsive-image"><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w, 1920w, 2240w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Lenker layg down." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></picture></div></div></span></div></figure></div><div class="ContentHearLeadContentFullWidth-cvJzX hHaBOT"><figure class="ContentHearLeadContentCaptnCred-hSIIqJ kQVfzg"><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn ContentHearLeadAssetCaptn-hPWmSN kuCzGS"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">Virtuosy don’t ronate for Lenker as much as vulnerabily do. In her work wh Big Thief and on her solo rerds, she has always been most terted makg emotnal nnectns.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Photograph by Collier Schorr for The New Yorker</span></div></figure></div></div></hear></div><div data-attribute-verso-pattern="article-body" class="ArticlePageContentBackGround-cNiFNN kbAoLA article-body__ntent"><div class="ActnBarWrapperContent-lasBkU cAHp"><div class="ActnBarWrapperComponent-cjwxLS bEeSLb"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="ActnBarWrapper-dhxmQh kNjTbQ viewport-monor-anchor"><button id="bookmark" aria-label="Save this story" class="ActnBarButton-dyFOZU hQrwCF bookmark large-screen"><span class="ActnBarSendaryButtonPrimaryIn-isbvyN cAwccV bookmark-button-in"><svg class="in in-bookmark" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Save this story</tle><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M20 23.9508L12.5 19.7312L5 23.9508V2.95081H14V3.93211H6V22.1845L12.5 18.5536L19 22.1845V8.83866H20V23.9508Z"></path><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M23 3H20V0H19V3H16V4H19V7H20V4H23V3Z"></path></svg></span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ActnBarButtonText-bYXYuh iUEiRd bkefvo gkccfO">Save this story</span></button></div><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="ActnBarWrapper-dhxmQh kAEsuD viewport-monor-anchor"><button id="bookmark" aria-label="Save this story" class="ActnBarButton-dyFOZU cjjxgx bookmark mobile"><span class="ActnBarSendaryButtonPrimaryIn-isbvyN cAwccV bookmark-button-in"><svg class="in in-bookmark" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Save this story</tle><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M20 23.9508L12.5 19.7312L5 23.9508V2.95081H14V3.93211H6V22.1845L12.5 18.5536L19 22.1845V8.83866H20V23.9508Z"></path><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M23 3H20V0H19V3H16V4H19V7H20V4H23V3Z"></path></svg></span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ActnBarButtonText-bYXYuh iUEiRd bkefvo gkccfO">Save this story</span></button></div></div></div><div class="LightboxWrapper-dxsWBV hhylRt"><div class="ArticlePageChunksContent-etcMtP bwyLBj"><div data-ttid="ArticlePageChunks" class="ArticlePageChunks-fLyCVG Uozmo"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><figure data-ttid="IameEmbed" class="IameEmbedWrapper-sc-dRedg cjyRVU iame-embed"><div data-ttid="IameEmbedContaer" class="IameEmbedContaer-hptgUZ fXVBaX"><div class="IameEmbedAspectRatWrapper-hFVJps BKpgQ"><iame class="IameEmbedContent-cMdiev csnuAY IameEmbedContent lazyload" height="90" width="100%" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-orig allow-popups" tle="Embedd Frame" data-src=" allowfullscreen="" allow="toplay *; encrypted-media *; clipboard-wre; toplay; fullscreen; picture--picture"></iame></div></div></figure><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">In late Augt, the sger, songwrer, and guarist Adrianne Lenker stood bi a creek upstate New York, watchg the water move. The day before, Lenker, who is twenty-ne, had packed up the Brooklyn apartment she’d been sharg wh two roommat. She was preparg to hl a vtage mpg trailer across the untry to Topanga Canyon, on the wt si of Los Angel, where her band, <a href=">Big Thief</a>, was planng to meet up. For the next uple of months, at least, the trailer would be home.</p><p class="paywall">Movg n be disorientg—all that sortg and boxg and tossg out forc a kd of self-reckong—and for Lenker the experience was only tensified by the ongog anxiety of the ronavis panmic, which ma imagg any sort of future feel optimistic, if not naïve. The exhstn and sorrow of the sprg had left everyone feelg prer. The sun reacted agast the surface of the creek until the water turned black. Our nversatn drifted toward the Zen ia of impermanence. “Is too early for this?” Lenker joked. “Nice to meet you—let’s talk about ath.”</p><div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--article-mid-ntent" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--article-mid-ntent nsumer-marketg-un__slot---ntent"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><p class="paywall">Lenker had spent the past few weeks rerdg wh Big Thief at a home stud the Catskill Mountas, n by the micians Sam Owens and Hannah Cohen. The rt of the band—the guarist Buck Meek, the bassist Max Oleartchik, and the dmmer Jam Krivchenia—had sce left, but Lenker stuck around to renovate the trailer. She had jt orred a tw mattrs, a portable woodstove, and new lens.</p><p class="paywall">This month, Lenker will release two solo albums: “Songs,” a llectn of tenr, harmonilly plex folk tun, and “Instmentals,” which is posed of a pair of slowly unfoldg guar piec. She ma the rerds simultaneoly, at a remote b New England, the early, panicked days of both the panmic and a breakup. Lenker is a quick and stctive wrer, and even unr normal circumstanc her songs are raw and unfsy— n feel as if they were dug up whole, like a rrot om the garn. She sometim speaks about wrg as a kd of njurg. “She giv a lot of signifince to that moment where she’s holdg the guar,” Oleartchik told me. “I never really thk of her, like, fuckg around and playg riffs or somethg. It’s always this stment of wchcraft. It’s always holy. She wr mic om this place that’s very tuive and fearls, and she has nfince that there’s some kd of spir or force that she n listen to.”</p><p class="paywall">Before Lenker vated her apartment New York, she had to pat over an illtratn that her ex-girliend had drawn on the bedroom wall. Lenker took some solace om the ia that the image wouldn’t be erased, exactly— remaed, even if she uldn’t see anymore. Lenker has been romantic relatnships wh men and wh women, and don’t feel any particular obligatn to outle her sexualy precise terms, though she is fortable beg lled queer. “The fact that there’s still people agast that kd of stuff mak the words necsary,” she told me. “But hopefully we move to a place where ’s, like, You’re what? Why are you sayg what you are?”</p><p class="paywall">The wounds om the breakup were still pretty tenr. “There’s a fullns that happens when someone is focsed on you,” Lenker said. “For me, if I’m beg fully looked at and paid attentn to and seen, I’m filled up by that.” She ntued, “Now there isn’t anyone to text; there are no love msag g through. I feel so empty. There’s a song on the new rerd, ‘Zombie Girl,’ and the rea is ‘Empts / Tell me about your nature.’ That’s a real qutn. I want to unrstand—what is this feelg of empts? Is that me? Am I jt hollow and empty? Or is empts actually somethg betiful?”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-1 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">As we talked, Lenker teared up. I hadn’t yet had to idly watch someone cry om six feet away. As she wiped her cheeks, I crammed my hands my pockets and mumbled somethg about how the worst and sadst thg about heartbreak is that always ends.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Big Thief formed Brooklyn 2015, and quickly beme one of the most acclaimed new bands of recent years, part bee of Lenker’s emotnal transparency, and part bee of how her voice, which is lite and craggy, plements the group’s bold e of dissonance and volume. In 2019, Big Thief was nomated for a Grammy Award for Bt Alternative Mic Album, but s work is more monly scribed as folk rock, a characterizatn that, although accurate—the band is as bted to visnary sger-songwrers such as <a href=">Jue Sill</a> and Vashti Bunyan as is to <a href=">Sonic Youth</a> and <a href=">Neil Young</a>—feels too tame. Big Thief’s bt songs beg quietly, and expand until seems as though a major artery were about to burst. The rults n be strange and thrillg. “Adrianne has that disorientg qualy all real-al typ have, where she at her songs so siways that subverts the form,” <a href=">Jeff Tweedy</a>, the ont man for Wil, told me. “Sometim you would swear ’s a mistake or misunrstandg of her own song—‘Why’d she start sgg there?’—but ’s not, ’s a precise angle that only she seems to posss.”</p><p class="paywall">The band grew out of a partnership between Lenker and Meek. They met at a show Boston, where they had both been unrgraduat, and then ran to each other at a boga on the day Lenker moved to Brooklyn. “I was movg to a warehoe Bhwick wh ten other artists,” Lenker said. “I’m pretty sure was illegal—there were beams separatg the rooms, no wdows, a cement floor.” She and Meek soon began performg as a duo.</p><p class="paywall">“When we first started playg, we would jt s together,” Meek told me. “She had the really wild fgerpickg patterns that she had veloped, and she would tune the guar to so many different open tungs. I had this very synpated, rhythmic stcture—hers was much more liquid. And, somehow, the different rhythmic landsp created somethg.”</p><div class="Contaer-bkChBi byNLHx"></div><p class="paywall">Lenker got a job as a back waer at a rtrant on the Upper Wt Si. “Five days a week, at one the morng, I was bikg all the way to Bhwick om Seventy-send and Columb,” she relled. “I was savg up for guar amps, savg up for a guar, savg up for a van.”</p><p class="paywall">Meek and Lenker burned CDs of their mic, wrapped them paper bags, and wrote the track listgs by hand. “Buck and I played ffee shops and back-yard barbecu and dive bars and birthday parti and shows for nobody for a uple of years,” Lenker said. In time, they fell love, and, when she was twenty-four and Meek was twenty-eight, they got married.</p><p class="paywall">There is footage of them bkg Washgton Square Park 2014, playg an early versn of “Pl,” which eventually appeared on Big Thief’s début album, “Masterpiece.” The dience—a middle-aged man billowg khakis and sunglass, a tall guy talkg on his cell phone—is gently unterted a New York Cy sort of way. Lenker and Meek share a microphone. “Pl” is a song about havg a hard time lovg another person. “I realized there was no one who uld kiss away my sh,” Lenker sgs, her voice rigned. Yet the sire to be fixed—to fd relief through love—remas. “I’ve been burng for you, baby, sce the moment I left,” she adms. The chos is a mmeric sh:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>I’ll be your morng bright, good night, shadow mache<br/>I’ll be your rerd player, baby, if you know what I mean<br/>I’ll be a real tough okie wh the whiskey breath<br/>I’ll be a killer and a thriller and the e of our ath</p></div></blockquote><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">In the Catskills, between rerdg ssns, Lenker and her bandmat sometim hiked to the woods to work on a tepeelike stcture they had taken to llg a fort. There was no trail, and gettg to required climbg up the face of a small mounta, mostly by grabbg the tnks of saplgs—a strategy any reasonable outdoorsperson would scribe as advisable—and scramblg to fd holds large rocks. One afternoon, Lenker and I ma our way there to s on a boulr and talk. She darted uphill gracefully.</p><p class="paywall">Lenker was born Indianapolis 1991, and brought up mostly and around Mnota. She has a younger sister, Zoë, and a younger brother, Noah. When Lenker was five, she was h on the head by a railroad spike that fell out of a tree hoe her fay’s ont yard. “Mythologil Bety,” a song om Big Thief’s send rerd, “Capacy,” is addrsed to her terrified mother:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>Blood ghg om my head<br/>You held me the back seat wh a dishrag, soakg up blood wh your ey<br/>I was jt five and you were twenty-seven<br/>Prayg, “Don’t let my baby die”</p></div></blockquote><p class="paywall">Lenker’s parents married young, and joed a ge relig sect before Lenker was born. She remembers the group as havg “born-aga-Christian, kd of cult vib—a closed muny. We lived an apartment plex where the surroundg people were part of the same thg. There were a lot of l. Hontly, I remember there beg a lot of shame. My sister’s name was evil, bee wasn’t the Bible. Certa shap were evil, too, like the star. When we prayed, the Bible uldn’t touch the floor, and we prayed unr blankets.” Her mother relled that sometim the group provid a chaperon if the fay travelled out of state. (Lenker’s father disput some of the tails.)</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-2 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Her parents left the sect when she was four, and for a short while they lived out of a van. “We were still que relig until I was about eight or ne,” Lenker said. “Then I watched my parents take a dramatic turn and disrd all relign.” She found the shift bewilrg. “I jt remember feelg, like, I’m not gog to go along for this ri.” (Her father has sce rennected wh his fah, and scrib his time away om as hedonistic.)</p><p class="paywall">Lenker has spent much of her adulthood tryg to unpack the experience, and is now quick to regnize troublg rhythms om her youth when they reëmerge her adult relatnships. “I sometim equate timacy wh turbulence, which is faiar,” she said. “The journey that I’m currently on is jt: how do I transmute some of the patterns of vlence?”</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><asi class="PersistentAsiWrapper-VGrR daRVRt persistent-asi" style="posn:absolute;top:to;height:to" data-ttid="PersistentAsiWrapper"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="2q23i"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></asi></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="l5no"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Her ias of home are nstantly changg. “I don’t really thk of Mnota when I thk of home,” she said. “I thk of as part of who I am. The thg that I e back to is that ’s my loved on, and Earth. I feel really at home here, this spot the fort,” she said, lookg around. “And don’t feel like ’s anyone’s.”</p><p class="paywall">Eventually, we climbed back down the mounta. Owens and Cohen had built a stone dam the stream that snak across their property, creatg a ltle bas for swimmg. The stream ns to the Esop Creek, a sixty-five-e tributary of the Hudson River which wds through the eastern Catskills and fills the Ashokan Rervoir. We walked barefoot over mossy blutone. The water was clear and bracg. Lenker disrobed and dunked, lettg out an ecstatic yelp.</p><p class="paywall">While Lenker and the rt of Big Thief were workg, they veloped a hab of leapg to the water between tak. There’s somethg curative about a igid plunge, the way forc the old air om your lungs. “You e out screamg,” Oleartchik said. In 1702, Sir John Floyer published a treatise on the benefs of ld bathg, a practice that was then still mostly unknown to the English. “Cold baths act much on the Spirs, and prerve them om Evaporatn, and renr them Strong and Vigoro,” he wrote. It’s fortg to thk that, even our bleakt moments, there might still be a way to protect our Spirs om dissipatg entirely.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">As far back as Lenker n remember, she has liked to sg. Her voice is soft but substantial, and ntas an airy tremble that sometim rembl birdsong. On ocsn, she lets stretch and acture. On “Not,” a ep and tumultuo song om Big Thief’s fourth album, “Two Hands,” Lenker sounds nearly feral: “Not the room / Not begng / Not the crowd / Not wng,” she gnts. When the band performs the song ncert, she might start to scream.</p><p class="paywall">Lenker began playg guar when she was six, and disvered an affy for the stment. Her father started givg her lsons. “He’d be, like, Whoa—how do you already know that?” she said. “I was jt eatg up.”</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="A climber one hand to wre an email on their phone and the other to hold on to their iend who is danglg om a..." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“Jt need to send one quick e-mail, then I’m all yours.”</span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtoon__cred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptn__cred">Cartoon by Benjam Schwartz</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" 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She dropped out of school and moved wh her father Mneapolis. He was tent on managg—and, to a gree, moizg—her nascent mic reer. “I thk he wanted me to be famo, wanted me to be the bt, wanted me to <em>w that sh</em>,” she said. Lenker did not share his exact ambns. She ma some rerdgs but felt disnnected om them. “The very first mic I listened to, and then ntued to listen to throughout that whole time, was by Pat Metheny and Michael Hedg—the guar guys my dad loved,” she said. When she was fifteen, a boyiend troduced her to Elltt Smh, whose tense and immediate folk songs provid a unterpot to the more polished mic her father had enuraged. “I was, like, Oh, my God, this is so good,” she relled. “This is all I want to do. I don’t want to create the elaborate, pop-soundg productns.”</p><p class="paywall">At sixteen, Lenker cut her hair short and briefly ran away om home. She got her G.E.D., and enrolled a five-week summer program at the Berklee College of Mic, Boston. Toward the end of the summer, she ma an appotment wh Damien Bracken, the an of admissns. “I went to his office and I said, ‘I don’t know any of this mic theory, any of this stuff that is on your curriculum, but n I play you a song?’ ” She performed an origal piece lled “Far om Where I Started.” Wh the an’s support, she applied for and received a full scholarship to Berklee, offered by the blu guarist <a href=">San Teschi</a>. “I’ll never fet the image of, like, twenty-five boys shreddg on guars the hallway, preparg for their dns and exams,” she said. “I felt self-nsc that I didn’t know those thgs.” Lenker was still figurg out how to do ordary chor, such as buyg lndry tergent. “I hadn’t gone to high school. I left Mnota, I left home, I was on my own,” she relled. “I was seventeen.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-3 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Dpe the tensy of her trag, virtuosy don’t ronate for Lenker as much as vulnerabily do; she has always been more terted makg emotnal nnectns. The pop sger <a href=">Carly Rae Jepsen</a> told me that she has been able to fd enormo fort the way that Lenker sgs about her life. “I me across ‘Pl’ while I was Italy for a solo adventure trip,” Jepsen said. “The lyrics spoke to me like a journal entry would. She’s brilliantly nfsnal.”</p><p class="paywall">In addn to the rerdgs that Lenker ma as a teen-ager, her work wh Meek, and the four rerds she has done wh Big Thief, she has also released two solo albums: “Hours Were the Birds,” 2014, and “Abysskiss,” 2018. Lenker is cur about the mechanics of creative work—the sprg om which songs appear—but fds that the procs self is more visceral and perceptive. “How do a song e to beg at all? How do form and anize self to the pattern?” she said. “I never thk, Oh, I want to make somethg that sounds like this. It’s jt reachg for elements. I see the visual of translucent ribbons flowg a riverlike way—they’re multilored. And maybe there’s one specific lor that I want to braid , and they’re all flowg by, and maybe ’ll go by for a while wh nothg of that lor, and then, ‘Ah, there.’ ”</p><p class="paywall">When I asked Meek to scribe Lenker’s songwrg, he psed for forty-five sends to gather his thoughts. “It’s as if she remov her nsc md om the room,” he said fally. “She’ll hold her guar, and she’ll start to speak abstractns, or speak plete nonsense—jt sounds and shap. Then she emerg om that space, and slowly the words start to form to syllabl, and to the English language, and bee a story, or a character, or a reflectn of her own experience. But has this really clear element of . . .” He thought about . “Grace.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">One eveng early September, Lenker and I sat on oppose sis of Owens and Cohen’s kchen table, snackg on figs and chee. It was rag, and Lenker l some ndl. Her sister, Zoë, who was visg for the week, was readg a bedroom upstairs. Lenker showed me the room where she was stayg, and the notebook where she had wrten most of the lyrics for “Songs.” There was a waterlor of a small b and a yellow sky propped up agast a mirror, and a photograph of her grandmother by her bedsi. Recently, she had acquired an electric pencil sharpener, which she monstrated: “Isn’t that satisfyg?” She picked up the atic Mart guar she plays on the new albums. “I’ve had this sce I was fourteen,” she said, stmmg a chord.</p><p class="paywall">Big Thief was on tour Europe when <a href="><em class="small">COVID</em>-19</a> s began to spike there. Mut before the band was to take the stage Copenhagen, the Danish ernment announced a ban on gathergs of more than a hundred people. The venue was already full. “We went out the street and played some atic stuff, jt four or five songs. Then we all had to make a snap cisn about where we were gog,” Lenker said.</p><p class="paywall">“Sudnly, we’re all this lobby of this hotel that’s basilly empty, and the du at receptn is wearg black glov, and there’s no more mic,” Oleartchik relled wistfully.</p><p class="paywall">Lenker flew back to New York Cy and then head north, to a b the foothills of the Berkshir, wtern Massachetts. She was entranced by the sound of the space, which she scribed as “like the si of an atic guar.” She asked Philip Werobe, an engeer and the owner of Rivgton 66, a rerdg stud on the Lower East Si, to help her make an album there. He agreed, and Lenker head back to the cy. “She left at, like, 5 <em class="small">A.M.</em> to e pick me up Brooklyn,” Werobe relled. “The whole thg was stctured around the space, which was very small, wh exposed woon beams. We uld hear the bugs, we uld hear the wd the tre. The ia was to really lean super hard to that physil atmosphere, and to create a rerd that tried to mimic . As soon as I got there, everythg started to shift: my sense of time, my sense of self, the way I breathed the air.” He add, “There’s no plumbg the b. You poop a bucket.”</p><p class="paywall">They ed a bral microphone to pture the sound of the room. “You really feel like you’re stg ont of Adrianne sgg,” Werobe said. “You n hear the birds go by, and you hear the squeak of the fgerboard, and the sound bouncg off the walls.”</p><p class="paywall">Lenker’s lyrics often allu to nature, and she toggl between straightforward narrativ and more imagistic l. Her language remds me, at tim, of <a href=">Joanna Newsom</a> or <a href=">Louise Erdrich</a>—’s mystil yet highly ground the physil world. On “Ingydar,” a new track, she sgs:</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="ma4x5e"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>His ey are blueberri, vio screens<br/>Mneapolis schem and the dried flowers<br/>From books half read<br/>The juice of dark cherri ver his ch<br/>The dog walks and the crow li his<br/>Jaw like lead</p></div></blockquote><p class="paywall">Werobe’s grandmother died while they were rerdg, which meant that he and Lenker were both sufferg a loss. “I wrote ne of those songs once we started the ssn,” Lenker said. “We would rerd them the same day that I wrote them. I was surprised at how much I was wrg, bee I was so much pa. I was not the part of the pa where I was jt reflectg on .” She add, “I feel as if my psyche was puttg as many thgs together as I uld om my relatnship, as many betiful thgs as I uld, to prerve to eterny.” One of the stmental piec, “Mic for Indigo,” was origally wrten as a kd of offerg—somethg for her former partner to listen to as she fell asleep at night.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Two years ago, California, Lenker bought a ed Toyota Land Ciser wh a multone pat job and a manual transmissn. She drove back East and began fixg up, sandg down the exterr and refishg a bright, hopeful blue. (The first time I met Lenker, she was the midst of expertly backg the tck down a wdg driveway and across a narrow wood-plank bridge.) Wh some help om an uncle, she outfted the back of the tck wh a foldable sleepg pad, a oler, and woon drawers for tools, cloth, and suppli. It has enormo tir—“It n go up any kd of mounta road,” she said proudly—and a bead medalln hangg om the rearview mirror. It would pull her trailer across the untry.</p><p class="paywall">Lenker and Meek divorced 2018. They are now what Lenker scrib as “ep iends.” They didn’t hi their marriage and s dissolutn om the prs, exactly, but they also didn’t speak about publicly. “I feel like ma stronger and closer,” Lenker said, of the breakup. “I feel like we sg together better now, and we wre together more. A lot of our love is funnelled to the mic, which is maybe the form was always meant to have.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-4 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Krivchenia joed the band shortly after Meek and Lenker got engaged. “I was sudnly plopped to observg the timacy, the bety, and the shortgs of a relatnship, 24/7,” he said. “It’s been amazg to see evolve.” He add, “They broke up, and was a whole huge year of a specific kd of strs for them, and for the band. We did some tours whout Buck, when they jt need to not be together for a while.” Though ls dramatic fissur have undone other bands, playg together seemed only to accelerate the healg procs. “Adrianne is always wrg about whatever’s gog on her life, and so when they were gettg divorced she was wrg about ,” Krivchenia said. “Buck was procsg that real time, onstage. Some nights I’d look over and be, like, ‘Oof, that’s a rough one to hear, man.’ But he was really supportive of .”</p><p class="paywall">After their separatn, Meek moved to California and wrote a rerd, “Two Savrs,” which he will release January. It’s got more twang and air than Big Thief’s albums—Meek is om Texas, and his solo work is fed wh the pathos and mischief of Town Van Zandt and Waylon Jenngs. “I played a huge amount of shows on my own, learned to surf. And she did her own thg,” he said. “When we fally did e back together, we jumped right to a tour. The mic felt more important than . It felt like somethg we had to serve and set asi our fears for.”</p><p class="paywall">Meek had been visg his partner the Netherlands, where the ernment had lifted ronavis travel rtrictns for people mted relatnships. A uple of weeks after we first spoke, he sent me a voice memo. “I thk we sacrificed all for the mic,” he said, of his marriage to Lenker. “It was a vsel for our love and iendship. And then our love and iendship beme a vsel for the mic.” It was too hard, the end, to nurture a new marriage and also be a band. “We didn’t actually have a home for maybe four or five years,” he said. “There was no privacy whatsoever, bee we were always on tour. There was a plete lack of personal time or space. And part of knew this—we were aware that was takg a toll on our relatnship.”</p><p class="paywall">In nversatn, I found Lenker attentive and kd, and there were moments durg our time together when the emotnal matury of the Big Thief universe—how patient and evolved the tra-band negotiatns are; how reful the members are to preëmptively diffe volatile suatns; how they have even adopted the phrase “everythg is optnal” to avoid promisg their tegry—felt almost timidatg. Anyone who has survived an experience via the reful supprsn or partmentalizatn of emotn is likely to fd Big Thief’s system of munitn astoundg. “If you don’t talk, you know, you’re gonna get to Kansas and you’re still gonna have feelgs om Baltimore,” Oleartchik told me. The end rult of all that talkg, he said, was the sentimental (yet still radil) disvery that “’s actually acceptable to be who you are to your iends.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Kyle Jaster and Misha Handschumacher live down the road om the stud, on Attic Farm, where they grow flowers and anic vegetabl, and tend to a passel of ee-range herage pigs. They offered to let Lenker park her trailer their driveway while she worked on , and before long they beme part of the renovatn team. When I arrived there one afternoon, Jaster’s brother, Wyatt, was measurg and stallg new plywood subfloors. The trailer was small, alumum, and om 1966. The terr was pated cherry red, but Lenker had jt picked out a new lor, a mellow cream lled Honeyed Whe. We began primg and repatg the bets, drawers, and trim. “I’m cur how this trip is gog to feel,” Lenker said. “I’m exced about the eedom, but I haven’t really felt full of relief. I’ve found almost burnsome: I don’t know where home is. I don’t know who I belong wh.”</p><p class="paywall">When grew too dark to pat, we retreated to a fire p the back yard. Jaster and Handschumacher prepared supper—okra and rrots grilled over the fire, chicken legs, blackberri, homema ice cream—as their two dogs sprted figure eights around our lawn chairs. At dk, a large owl swooped along the tree le. Owens and Cohen me by wh beer. At some pot, Lenker end up wh a Cuban cigar. “This was my fantasy when I was a kid,” she said, takg a tentative puff and lghg. “I wore knee-length jean shorts, plaid shirts, and a backward baseball p, and all I wanted to do was eat beef jerky, drive a tractor, and smoke cigars.” An outdoor speaker played Michael Hurley, <a href=">Arthur Rsell</a>, Moondog, <a href=">Lucda Williams</a>, Bill Callahan. Lenker talked about movg to Vermont this fall—maybe buildg a ltle b a rner of some land that her sister was buyg there.</p><p class="paywall">I left shortly after midnight. On the drive home, I rolled the wdows down and let my hair blow around. I played “Dragon Ey,” the penultimate track on “Songs.” It’s milly spare, wh atic guar and jt a b of bshed percsn. The fal verse implor:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>Stars bloom<br/>On a warm summer night<br/>They have a clear view<br/>Whout the bedroom light<br/>I jt want a place wh you<br/>I jt want a place</p></div></blockquote><p class="paywall">A few weeks later, I returned to the farm to toast the renovatn of the trailer. It was a brisk mid-September eveng, and leav were startg to accumulate rners. Jaster and Handschumacher set out platters of gumbo, rn bread, and suctash on a long piic table the back yard. We kept our ats on as we ate. After supper, Lenker stood the door of the trailer, holdg up a glass of bourbon, and offered scere thanks to everyone who had helped her fix up. The terr was plete—new hardwood floors, len curtas hung on silver wire, a small dg table ma om a maple tree on the farm. Lenker showed me the blue enamel ffee mug she’d placed the cupboard (“Unbreakable!”), the books she’d led up on a small shelf near her bed, the sgle st-iron sserole dish she uld e to ok the woodstove. She still need to buy a tire jack and some roadsi flar, jt se. She was leavg two days.</p><p class="paywall">In “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Letters on Cézanne</a>,” Rilke scrib tumn as “ntag pth wh self, darkns, somethg of the grave almost.” Lenker wr often about time and loss—how to clg to what we need and let go of everythg else. For her, songwrg is a way of externalizg specific experienc or memori and png them place, like a butterfly unr glass. “I like my songs to be remrs of certa thgs that I don’t want to fet,” she told me. Once they’re ptured, then a sense she is ee. ♦</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="j9s1b"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 PaywallInleBarrierWhWrapperGrid-fyrGfS kLQIUk grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="body body__le-barrier article__body"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div 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summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm kdEfwY" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Cartoons About Therapy om the Past Century (Well, Almost)" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl bcywvc summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Cartoon Dk</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Cartoons About Therapy om the Past Century (Well, Almost)</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Cartoons About Therapy om the Past Century (Well, Almost)" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">Selectns om the magaze’s ep archive of drawn nros.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>The New Yorker</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff ewgXAt summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm kdEfwY" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Why Sarah Jsi Parker Keeps Playg Carrie Bradshaw" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl bcywvc summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Profil</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Why Sarah Jsi Parker Keeps Playg Carrie Bradshaw</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Why Sarah Jsi Parker Keeps Playg Carrie Bradshaw" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">In all of her profsnal enavors, cludg the “Sex and the Cy” anchise, Parker nsirs herself a “bter enr.”</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc 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