Being the 6-year-old daughter of Mark Krotov, the publisher and one of the editors of the literary magazine n+1, is an all-access pass to New York City’s foreign films and contemporary art.
“She’s always very, very receptive to stuff,” he said of his daughter, Daria Krotov-Clarke, whom he and his wife, Chantal Clarke, a writer, are raising in Queens. “If I had to do a lot of persuading, I don’t think we would be leading the active life that we do.”
“The goal on weekends is always to leave the house in the morning and not come back until the late afternoon,” said Krotov, 39, who has been n+1’s publisher since 2016.
The magazine and arts organization, which publishes political commentary, essays, criticism and fiction, celebrated its 20th anniversary earlier this year. The name comes from the algebraic expression, a nod to the idea that there is always something vital to be added to a conversation.
It’s a philosophy that Krotov, who was born in Moscow and moved with his family to Atlanta in 1991, tries to adopt in his own life. He makes an effort to see the films, exhibitions and performances that come up in the pieces he edits.
“Whenever I can watch or read alongside a writer, that’s really helpful,” he said.
Krotov chronicled his cultural diet during a week in February that culminated with the launch party for n+1’s winter issue. These are edited excerpts from phone and email interviews.
Saturday: Cartoon Afternoon
Weekends are for entertaining and being entertained by my daughter, Daria — an effort aided by the Blast Off newsletter, the most important email I receive every week. Blast Off arrives on Wednesday mornings full of brilliant recommendations for kid-friendly things to do around the city, including, this week, a family program assembling paper skyscrapers at the Center for Architecture.
Before the cardboard and the glue guns, we managed to sneak in another Valentine’s Day–themed outing: “Lots of ‘Love,’” a program of 16-millimeter cartoons at Metrograph. “Romeeow,” featuring a lovelorn but laser-focused Felix the Cat, was the screening’s big winner. Afterward, Daria wanted to go look at Walter De Maria’s “Earth Room,” to which she has been dragged many times before, and I wasn’t going to say no. Since we were in the neighborhood we also walked over to De Maria’s “Broken Kilometer.”
Sunday: ‘Pasolini’ and Paper Lanterns
When it comes to crafting, it’s hard to beat the Noguchi Museum’s Art for Families program. Daria and some friends and I all happily dedicated ourselves to making lanterns out of bamboo and mulberry paper.
Afterward, we caught two Soviet films at Lincoln Center I found out about thanks to the other essential newsletter in my life, Screen Slate: Sergei Parajanov’s debut, “Andriesh,” a magical realist fable Daria loved, and the Ukrainian director Yurii Illienko’s “The Eve Before Ivan Kupala,” which she gamely tolerated.
On a typical week in culture, two movies in one day are enough. But on a typical week in culture, Abel Ferrara’s brooding “Pasolini” isn’t playing at Anthology Film Archives. I went with my friend, the writer and film editor Blair McClendon, whom I hope I successfully persuaded to close-read Drake’s lawsuit against Universal Music Group for the magazine.
Monday: The Nonprofit Life
I grab lunch with my friend Matt Shen Goodman to check in on his piece — currently in progress — about the trope of the New Yorker learning to drive late-ish in life, but other than that it’s emails, emails and more emails. Plus a handful of spreadsheets, in anticipation of a monthly meeting with our bookkeeper. It’s grounding to see the entirety of the magazine’s varied activities reduced to income and expense lines on a profit and loss statement.
Tuesday: Making a Magazine
Tuesdays are for meetings: an issue meeting in the morning and a web meeting in the afternoon. Between those meetings, our managing editor, Tess Edmonson, and I cram in another meeting — this one about our next book, Victoria Lomasko’s beautiful and unfortunately timely collection of graphic reportage, “The Last Soviet Artist,” which we’re publishing in April.
Wednesday: Cheese Curds and Cinema
I’m trying to finish a review of the Paul Rudolph show at the Met for the New York Review of Architecture. The review is late, in part because I’m also writing a piece for our website about widespread institutional collapse. I make some progress on the latter between school drop-off and the start of the workday.
The nearly complete Frederick Wiseman retrospective at Lincoln Center is a huge event, and I’m thrilled to be seeing the monumental “Public Housing,” from 1997, with my friends Ken Chen, a writer and critic, and Mariana Mogilevich, the editor of the website Urban Omnibus and the author of a forthcoming review for us of Wiseman’s government films. Ken and I meet at Blondie’s, on West 79th Street, before the movie for Buffalo wings, fried onions and cheese curds. Blondie’s! An American institution, like Frederick Wiseman.
Thursday: Celebrate
Our issue launch party is this evening in the office, and before that, there’s a lot of rearranging, sweeping and beer purchasing to do.
At the party, Lisa Borst and our senior editor Colin Vanderburg read from their piece on Fredric Jameson, with Colin voicing Jameson in a low, stentorian rumble, while Mina Tavakoli reads from her piece on puppets with the assistance of an actual puppet. People hang out long after the readings are over and drink most of our beer.
Friday: Documentary Date Night
I’ve been reading Helen Garner’s “This House of Grief” for my book club and listening to the Clash’s “Combat Rock” for my sanity.
On Tess’s recommendation I go see “41 Floors,” a show of Cheyenne Julien’s sly and lovely paintings at Chapter NY, the day before it closes. The title of the show refers to Tracey Towers, the Bronx housing project where Julien grew up and Paul Rudolph’s only major commission in the city. Rudolph is everywhere, if you’re looking for Rudolph.
I meet my wife, Chantal Clarke, for dinner at Congee Village — yet another American institution, where we had our wedding lunch just under a decade ago. We then walk over to Anthology for the opening-night screening of the Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar’s “Notes on Displacement,” an extraordinary documentary about refugees making their way from Syria to Western Europe.
I emerge onto East 2nd Street grateful as ever for art that tries to confront life rather than shying away from it, as grim as that life often is.