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SATURDAy, MARCH 7, 2020. SECTION C EZ REBY MICHAEL CAVNAPixar studios has never shied away from
death, with the early marriage-to-mourning
sequence from “Up” standing as perhaps
animation’s greatest montage ever on mortal-
ity. Yet after a quarter-century of feature
films, the studio is increasingly peeling back
the curtain on what might lie beyond.
The oscar-winning “Coco” was a first foray
in 2017, as a boy guitarist crossed a marigold
bridge to the afterlife. now, Pixar is deliver-
ing two new movies — “onward” (which
arrived Friday) and “soul” (June 19) — that
look toward the eternal and ethereal.
so just what is moving the studio’s anima-
tors to let their imaginations roam beyond
the finite now?
“The films have matured because the
people who made them are maturing, too,”Pixar’s look
past the finite
The studio known for asking big questions about life, death
and beyond does it again in the deeply personal ‘Onward’
DISNEY/PIXAR“onward” is the story of b rothers ian and barley and their quest to meet the deceased
father they never got to know. director dan Scanlon’s father died when he was 1 year old.says Kelsey Mann, h ead of story on “ onward,”
while in Washington last week to share
behind-the-scenes footage.
“You could look at Pete Docter’s work and
how he’s grown in what he deals with, as he
moves from next film to next film,” adds
Mann, who previously worked with “on-
ward” director Dan scanlon on “Monsters
University.” “And Dan’s the same way.”
Docter, Pixar’s chief creative officer, joined
the company right out of CalArts three
decades ago, immediately contributing to the
studio’s breakthrough first feature film, “Toy
story” — a franchise that has poignantly
dealt with loss and the passage of time.
Docter has asked ever bigger questions as he
has directed “Up,” “Inside out” and now
“soul,” in which a middle school jazz musi-
cian voiced by Jamie Foxx ends up in another
see pixAr on c2BY RON CHARLESAs the highly contagious coro-
navirus spreads around the
world, highly questionable
books about the disease are
spreading around Amazon.com.
on Tuesday, more than 100
titles related to the coronavirus
were for sale on the online
bookseller’s site. You can buy the
“survival guide,” the “complete
guide” and even the “ultimate
guide.” Many of these books
claim to offer information about
the source of the disease, meth-
ods of transmission, ways to
avoid it and steps to reduce its
symptoms. And don’t worry
about how much this epidemic
might cost you; there’s a book
called “surviving Coronavirus
on Any Budget.” About half of
these books are shorter than 50
pages, and the most common
price is $2.99.
(Amazon Ceo Jeff Bezos owns
The Washington Post.)
Many of these books appear to
be self-published, which raises
new challenges for sick or wor-
ried readers. even as consumers
are learning to be skeptical of
information on social media,
books still retain an aura of
authority, a sense that whatever
appears between the covers — or
e-covers — must have been re-
searched, considered, confirmed
and edited. That u nfounded f aith
provides an opportunity for
quick, entrepreneurial authors
who post titles for sale the mo-
ment major news stories break.
self-publishing platforms are
easy and inexpensive to use, and
books can be offered without
passing through any indepen-
dent review for accuracy or reli-
ability. D espite dramatic s cientif-
ic breakthroughs, the Internet
has re-created the kind of caveat
emptor culture for medical ad-
vice that existed in the 19th
century.
some of the current coronavi-
rus books for sale immediately
raise red flags, such as Rexter
Marqueses’s “Let’s stay Away
From Virus” ($1.99) Its Amazon
page asks, Ta rzan-like, “What is
virus??? How can you stay away
from them???” The title listed for
Jacqueline Watson’s book con-
tains two typos: “Coronavirus:
The Birth o f the V irus, It’s e xpen-
tion Around the World and How
to Avoid Being Infected.”
But even the savviest consum-
ers confront a confusing range of
dubious publications.
For instance, Dr. sanjay Gupta
currently has two virus-related
e-books for sale on Amazon:
see booK world on c2
BOOK WORLD
Dubious
info spreads
like a virus
on Amazon
BY CHRIS RICHARDSI only caught McCoy Ty ner
once in real life. It was sweet,
then awkward, then startling in a
way that made me wonder if life
ever really ends.
This was back in the autumn
of 2008, and the heroic jazz
pianist — w ho died Friday at 8 1 —
was giving an evening talk pre-
sented by the new York Public
Library followed by a casual
mini-recital. Ty ner opened the
chat telling cute stories about
how he used to stalk his child-
hood hero, pianist Bud Powell,
up and down the sidewalks of his
native West Philadelphia. After
that, the line between adoles-
cence and jazz eminence went
blurry. At 21, Ty ner had joined
saxophonist John Coltrane, bass-
ist Jimmy Garrison and drum-
mer elvin Jones in the hardest-
questing group jazz would ever
know. “I didn’t have time to be
intimidated,” Tyner said.
After a Q&A, the maestro was
invited to play a song or two. The
piano was on the opposite side of
the stage, and once Ty ner raised
himself from his seat, the request
seemed inconsiderate. Ty ner was
only 69 years old at the time, but
he moved like someone two de-
cades older. As he limped the
length of the stage, the audience
grimaced in silence.
Then came the music. It was
too loud to hear the collective
gasp, but the moment Tyner’s
fingertips slammed down on
those keys, I swear I felt half the
room’s oxygen vanish. suddenly,
this seemingly frail man was
generating a brazen, beautiful,
colossal sound, the heels of his
shoes kicking a beat into the floor
like he might dent the hardwood.
see AppreciATion on c4APPRECIATIONA sound as
hard and
bright as
diamonds
ROBERT ATANASOVSKI/
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGESJazz great Mccoy Tyner h ad a
big-bang theory of creativity.BY SARAH L. KAUFMANIn its 94th season — an aston-
ishing figure — the Martha Gra-
ham Dance Company is the na-
tion’s oldest dance group, more
senior t han the ballet companies.
somehow that fact feels even
more surprising, and if I ask
myself why, my mind starts cir-
cling around the nature of ballet
as fundamentally conservative
and deep rooted. By contrast, the
whole idea of Graham, the tower-
ing modern-dance pioneer, still
rings with defiance and daring.
“The eVe Project,” the title of
the Graham company’s series at
the Kennedy Center, which
opened Thursday, capitalizes on
the idea of Graham, who died in
1991, as a visionary. But it errs in
narrowing the focus to Graham
as a feminist icon.
The program marks the cen-
tennial of the 19th Amendment,
which gave women the right to
vote, and it’s designed to make
“bold statements about female
power,” according to the official
description, with all-female cho-
see dAnce reView on c2DANCE REVIEWA mixed bag for Martha Graham
The empowerment-themed ‘EVE Project’ should have focused on the choreographer
BRIAN POLLOCK/KENNEDY CENTER
charlotte landreau, lorenzo pagano, lloyd Knight and Anne o’donnell in the program’s centerpiece,
“Untitled (Souvenir),” which features a building, satisfying sense of disparate parts slipping into place.