CAROLYN HAX
the Pta hosts a barbecue
to honor teachers, but one
spouse is steamed. C8KIDSPOST
alex ovechkin skates into
the record book as his
team slips and slides. C8BOOK WORLD
a father and son’s
delightful look at science
fiction’s evolution. C2
TAVIS SMILEY
the former PBs talk-show
host loses his court battle
with the network. C3
regular who makes creator Larry David ap-
pear, by comparison, exultant and balanced.
At age 72, three days David’s senior (and born
in the same Brooklyn hospital), Lewis is
perpetually dialed to doomed, his innards
worn on his sleeve. He is Le Miserable.
But he might not be as miserable as he
appears.
Lewis and David have known each other
since age 12 at a summer camp in Cornwall-on-
Hudson (on the grounds of new York Military
Academy, attended by one Donald Trump.
Lewis: “I pray I didn’t sleep in his bunk.”)
“We hated each other. He was an annoying,
lanky, obnoxious basketball player,” Lewis
see lewIs on c2BY KAREN HELLERHow does Richard Lewis feel? Lousy. As if
anyone needs to ask.
T he self-anointed “Prince of Pain” is in
physical pain, recovering from two surgeries,
back and rotator cuff. Pain is his muse. He
branded his tours, through his half-century on
the comedy circuit, “I’m in Pain,” “I’m ex-
hausted” and — why not? — “Magical Misery
To ur.” His 2008 memoir, a well of angst, is
titled “The other Great Depression.”
“ nothing is funnier than unhappiness,”
samuel Beckett wrote. “It’s the most comical
thing in the world.” Lewis made bank on
anguish. He’s the “Curb Your enthusiasm”KLMNO
Style
THURSDAy, MARCH 5 , 2020. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/STyLE eZ sU C
BY JADA YUANESSEX JUNCTION, VT. — They
came in their Carhartt overalls
and tie-dye Crocs. They came
with their unruly beards and
blond dreadlocks. They came
with their rain jackets tied
around their waists, in enough
fleece vests to circle the moon a
couple of times. They came with
their outrage at the status quo,
their willingness to “fight for
someone you don’t know.” More
than 3,500 came, turning a two-
lane street into a sea of brake
lights and “Feel the Bern” b umper
stickers. They came to cheer.
“Ber-nie! Ber-nie! Ber-nie!”
never mind that over the past
two days, the moderate wing of
the Democratic Party had been
amassing s upport behind former
vice president Joe Biden to block
Vermont’s own sen. Bernie sand-
ers from becoming the party’s
presidential nominee. (Then
Mike Bloomberg piled on by
dropping out and endorsing
Biden.) All of a sudden, sanders’s
2020 was looking a lot like sand-
ers’s 2016, when his supporters
accused the Democratic estab-
lishment of working its d ark arts
to derail his outsider candidacy.
on the giant Cnn screen at the
front of this exhibition hall, the
numbers were looking far worse
than expected. By 8:17 p.m., Biden
had taken the lead in Alabama,
north Carolina and Virginia, and
sanders could only declare his
home state in his column and
even that win was underwhelm-
ing. Headlines were coming soon
that would declare: “A wild super
Tuesday boosts Biden and brings
new challenges for sanders” and“Biden sweeps the south, wiping
out sanders’s delegate lead.”
In this room, on Planet Bernie,
optimism reigned — at least on
the surface. A very anti-establish-
ment form of optimism, where
always getting screwed over by
the Man is the norm, so any
particular instance of getting
screwed over can’t get you down
and getting screwed over just a
little less than you thought you
would is cause for celebration.
“Things change from day to
day, a nd I’m not really f azed by it. I
see all of these young people here
and they really want change,” said
Rachel Wilson, a 36-year-old mas-
sage therapist, racial justice activ-
ist and aerobics instructor with
about nine piercings in her face
and a Bernie bumper sticker on
the back of her jean jacket.
see sAnders on c3A wild ride on Planet Bernie
On Super Tuesday, out-of-this-world optimism reigns — at least on the surface
BY MAURA JUDKIS
AND AVI SELKAmerica this week began to
consider t he e xistential threat o f a
doorknob. The horror of a touch-
screen in the self-checkout lane.
The inescapable doom that ac-
companies any trip on public
transportation. The realization of
how much, exactly, we all touch
our f aces each day: constantly.
Last w eek, you pressed e levator
buttons with abandon. You
weren’t afraid of the free weights
in the gym. You washed your
hands for barely enough time to
say “Happy Birthday” once, let
alone sing i t twice.
How bold are y ou n ow?
The coronavirus that c auses the
disease covid-19, w hich originated
in China and recently arrived in
the United states, has already
transformed our personal worlds.
A subway pole is now a memento
mori. An itchy eye is a trap. A
cough is a harbinger.
And in new York City, which
acknowledged its first case of
covid-19 on sunday (and has since
confirmed several more), every-
one is coughing. At least, that’s
how it seems to ezra Butler. The
38-year-old consultant the other
night found himself surrounded
by sneezing people in a Broadway
theater. He sees people coughing
on the street and sniffling on the
subway.
“I will hold my breath, and the
second we get to the station I’ll go
and s witch cars,” h e says.
symptom of coronavirus:
shortness of breath.
symptom of coronavirus anxi-
ety: holding of b reath.
Butler has seen unexpected
breathing disruptions, too, though
not because of any virus. He says
that thinking about all the possi-
ble ways he could catch coronavi-
rus while out and about has given
him several “micro panic attacks.”
“I can’t think. I’m freezing up. I
can’t focus. My breathing chang-
es,” h e says. “A nd my w hole body is
basically telling me, ‘ Get o ut.’ ”
As i f there weren’t enough to be
anxious about.
“This may be, for some individ-
uals, the stressor that tips them
over the edge,” said Lynn Bufka, a
clinical psychologist and the se-
nior director of practice, research
and policy for the American Psy-
chological Association. “To the
public, it’s very new. We don’t
know a lot about it. Information
about it keeps c hanging.... T hat’s
what causes us stress: things that
are novel b ut u ncertain.”
Coronavirus anxiety has out-
paced the virus itself. Conve-
nience-store shelves have been
raided of hand sanitizer. Ditto sur-
gical masks. Health officials have
see coronAVIrus on c3Covid-19’s
Catch-22:
Stress can
kill you, too
BY PHILIP KENNICOTTof all the arcane relics of an
ugly, patriarchal past that haunt
the arts world, the persistent im-
pulse to name things for influen-
tial or wealthy people is a bizarre
survivor.
Until this week, the Washing-
ton national opera’s training pro-
gram was c alled the Domingo-Caf-
ritz Young Artist Program, named
after f ormer W no artistic director
Plácido Domingo and program
supporters Morris and Gwendo-
lyn Cafritz. Domingo’s name was
originally put there when he
founded the program in 2002, be-
cause it was golden in the opera
world, and sure to attract young
singers, pianists and coaches to
audition. But removing it was al-
most inevitable, and for many
overdue, after allegations of sexu-
al harassment and misbehavior
against Domingo were confirmed
in an investigation by a union
representing much of the art
world.
Timothy o’Leary, g eneral direc-
tor of the Washington national
opera, said the decision came af-
ter a regular board meeting last
week, and a special one this week.
“I think t he fact that a due process
had been completed was an im-
portant and helpful part of a very
thoughtful discussion,” h e said.
The decision was a small, clear
step in the larger reassessment of
Domingo’s behavior. Last week,
Domingo, who served as the head
of both the Washington national
opera and the Los Angeles opera,
muddied things himself, issuing
and then retracting the substance
of an apology after the American
Guild of Musical Artists issued its
report. A vice president of AGMA
also resigned on Monday, alleging
that the union h ad brokered a deal
between the tenor in which he
would pay a $500,000 fine in ex-
change for the union withholding
details of w hat it had discovered in
its i nvestigation.
But if the details are murky, the
moral import is clear at l east when
it comes to the peril of naming
things for important people,
whether that’s a star tenor or a
wealthy donor. The removal of Do-
mingo’s name comes at a time
when other institutions are strug-
gling with the burden of being
branded with the name of the
sackler family, whose wealth was
built in part on the sale of addic-
tive opioids, or the late David H.
Koch, w ho h as given generously to
arts and cultural organizations in
new York while he and his brother
Charles have played a major role
in resisting efforts to address the
threat of climate change.
see notebooK on c4
CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK
The most
appealing
arts donor?
Anonymous.
Why is this
man smiling?
Comedian and ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ actor Richard Lewis
i s not as miserable as he appears. But he’s still pretty miserable.emIly Berl for tHe wasHIngton Postsalwan georges/tHe wasHIngton Post
bernie sanders with his wife, Jane sanders, on super tuesday. bernie die-hards gathered by the
thousands in the candidate’s home state of Vermont, which he clinched during the contests.richard lewis says: “I’m not a very happy man. I’m thrilled to be alive. I’m grateful for
who’s i n my life. I’ve got great friends, a great wife, a dog, and I have a great career, but.. .”