December 16, 2023
The Best
of
The
News
from
Abroad
No. 231
Weekend
Edition
Saturdays

at 6:00 AM
In This Week’s Issue
SHOOTING THE MOON

While riding high off his Purple Rain superstardom, Prince decided to swap his guitar for a director’s chair. The result, Under the Cherry Moon, was panned by the press, perhaps unfairly …

NO JOKE

Jews have often turned to comedy in the face of persecution. But the Israel-Hamas war is beyond any realm of humor, says a former Saturday Night Live writer …

LARVAL TRUMP

Charles Leerhsen was Donald Trump’s ghostwriter in the 1980s. He dishes on the frustrating, unyielding, and surprisingly pitiable man he used to work for …

FATES AND FURIES

Though their marriage was a happy one, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter had one squabble that almost ruined everything. Peter Osnos explains …

PAY-STUB CLUB

Dana Brown investigates Casa Cruz, the most recent of New York City’s secretive and shiny membership-only clubs, where some have shelled out hundreds of thousands for access …

REELPOLITIK

Rich Cohen explains what we can learn from—and what we should have predicted because of—the favorite films of U.S. presidents: Bill Clinton, J.F.K., and Richard Nixon among them …

ARIGATO, MAFIOSO

Establishing contacts in the Japanese yakuza underworld is no simple task, but Jake Adelstein did just that in order to write his newest book. Now changes to Japanese law could put informants in danger …

BUT, WAIT, THERE’S MORE!…

Fergie stops by a chat show … investigating the blooming business of private-chef placement … celebrations abound for Caspar David Friedrich … the best new mystery books for the holiday season … in memory of Mad-magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee … a new Apple feature can replicate your speaking voice … Anne Fulenwider reveals her favorite things … Cast your vote in this week’s Attention-Whore Index! …

But First …
Issue No. 231

The View from Here A veteran comedy writer is suddenly rendered speechless

By Alan Zweibel
Read On
Barry Blitt’s Sketchbook
The Making Of

Phases of the Moon Under the Cherry Moon, Prince’s directorial debut—a black-and-white passion project set on the glistening Côte d’Azur and starring Kristin Scott Thomas—bombed when it premiered in 1986. Did the critics miss the point?

By Nancy Jo Sales
Read On
Gift Guide

Our Interiors Gift Guide Is Here!

Missy Robbins’s home-cooking essentials, Laila Gohar’s dinner-party tips, the antiquers’ guide to Europe, and more!
Read On
Tales from Trumpland

I Was a Trump Ghostwriter Back in the 1990s, when Donald Trump was still in his larval stage, it was almost possible to feel sorry for him

By Charles Leerhsen
Read On
Nightlife

Inside Casa Cruz Only the décor is loud at New York’s latest overpriced and occasionally underpopulated members’ club

By Dana Brown
Read On
Air Supply

Gifts for the Homebody

As winter sweeps the Northern Hemisphere, who wouldn’t relish receiving a timeless treasure for the home? Best of all: these gracious gifts can be kept in the family for the years—and generations—to come
Shop
Photo: Impéria/Photofest (Seberg and Belmondo)
Marriage, Washington–Style

Jimmy Carter The former president and his wife, Rosalynn, had a perfect marriage—then it almost collapsed when they collaborated on a book

By Peter Osnos
Read On
Landing Gear

Speak for Yourself Software that can synthesize your voice in the event that you lose it! A water fountain for your feline friends! The sleekest space heater around! And more …

By Jonathan Margolis
Read On
T.G.I.S.

The Attention-Whore Index Can a weeping Kim Jong Un defeat a cheering Shohei Ohtani? Not if Elon Musk and his conspiracies have anything to do with it. Plus, bizarre news from around the world

Read On
Small Talk

Drawing a Blank Fergie guest-hosts the ill-fated British chat show This Morning, offering underwhelming relationship advice and struggling to read the teleprompter

as told by
Craig Brown
Read On
Listen

25 Lunches Later … As the first season of Table for Two comes to a close, host Bruce Bozzi invites you to a veritable all-you-can-eat buffet of his favorite moments from the show’s past 25 episodes. Enjoy, and remember to save room for Season Two!

Read On
Best
Carry Métier x Fernando Jorge Traveling in smart style is nothing short of an art form—and one that Métier’s Melissa Morris… Sip Brooklands Bar London has many things, but few of its rooms have views. (Min Jiang, the Chinese restaurant overlooking Kensington Gardens… Dry Crown Affair I’m typically averse to giving beauty and grooming products as gifts. Too often I worry, however preposterously… Pamper T. Anthony The men in our lives are always the hardest to shop for. I’ve found that a foolproof recipe is replacing an item that they… Wear Loro Piana It’s been scientifically proven that snow-plowing down the bunny slope doesn’t have to be embarrassing… Write Gramercy Typewriter Co. Each holiday season I ask myself what gifts could possibly appease my design-loving friends… Carry Métier x Fernando Jorge Traveling in smart style is nothing short of an art form—and one that Métier’s Melissa Morris… Sip Brooklands Bar London has many things, but few of its rooms have views. (Min Jiang, the Chinese restaurant overlooking Kensington Gardens… Dry Crown Affair I’m typically averse to giving beauty and grooming products as gifts. Too often I worry, however preposterously… Pamper T. Anthony The men in our lives are always the hardest to shop for. I’ve found that a foolproof recipe is replacing an item that they… Wear Loro Piana It’s been scientifically proven that snow-plowing down the bunny slope doesn’t have to be embarrassing… Write Gramercy Typewriter Co. Each holiday season I ask myself what gifts could possibly appease my design-loving friends…
Small Talk
“Sometimes I question his priorities.”
“Sometimes I question his priorities.”
Hocus POTUS

Popcorn Presidents The movies watched in the White House provide fascinating insights into the mindset—angry, affable, aggrieved—of its inhabitants

By Rich Cohen
Read On
Inside Story

Confessions of a Yakuza Boss The Tokyo Vice author, whose new book, The Last Yakuza, is out now, details how he won—and kept—the trust of Japan’s Mafia

By Jake Adelstein
Read On
The Food World

Dishy! With $300,000 salaries, first-class travel, and endless opportunities to work with caviar, it’s boom times for private chefs

By Alexandra Wolfe
Read On
Open Book

AIR MAIL’s Best Coffee-Table Books of 2023 Dazzling volumes on Karl Lagerfeld’s homes, vintage cars, and an artists’ amusement park, plus photography collections from Mary Ellen Mark, Lee Miller, and Nick Waplington, and a cookbook or two

By Julia Vitale
8
Clockwise from top left: Antoni Miralda: No-Flash Fashion—Miralda & Elle 1964–1971; The Christmas Book, by Phaidon; Karl Lagerfeld: A Life in Houses, by Patrick Mauriès and Marie Kalt; Picasso: Friends and Family—Photographs by Edward Quinn.
Clockwise from left: The Atlas of Car Design: The World’s Most Iconic Cars, by Jason Barlow; Easy Rider Road Book: A Tour Through the Wild and Inspiring Side of Bicycle Culture, by Hatje Cantz; Chloe Sherman: Renegades—San Francisco, the 1990s.
Clockwise from top: The English Gardener’s Garden, by Phaidon; Let’s Become Fungal!: Mycelium Teachings and the Arts, by Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez; More than Cake: 100 Baking Recipes Built for Pleasure and Community, by Natasha Pickowicz; Bob Dylan: Mixing Up the Medicine, by Mark Davidson and Parker Fishel.
Clockwise from top left: Havana Modern: Critical Readings in Cuban Architecture, by Rubén Gallo; Nick Waplington: Comprehensive; Luna Luna: The Art Amusement Park, by André Heller; Falkland Road: Prostitutes of Bombay, by Mary Ellen Mark.
Clockwise from top left: Dacha: The Soviet Country Cottage, by Anna Benn and Fyodor Savintsev; Sea Pools: 66 Saltwater Sanctuaries from Around the World, by Chris Romer-Lee; Glass Houses, by Phaidon; Lee Miller: Photographs, edited by Antony Penrose.
Clockwise from left: The Book of Rhyme & Reason: Hip-Hop 1994–1997, by Peter Spirer; La Cucina Futurista, by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Fillìa; Mr & Mrs Clark: Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell—Fashion and Prints, by Federico Poletti; The Pleasure of Seeing, by Joel Meyerowitz and Lorenzo Braca.
Clockwise from top left: Shaping Surf History: Tom Curren and Al Merrick, California 1980–1983, by Jimmy Metyko; Icons, by Oscar Abolafia; The Strokes: The First Ten Years, by Cody Smith, Claude R. Franques, and Mick Rock; Seafood Simple, by Eric Ripert.
Clockwise from left: The Outsiders: Rare and Unseen, by David Burnett; Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?, by William Klein; The Rolling Stones: Icons, by ACC Art Books; Picturing Joy: Stories of Connection, by George Lange.
Read On
Small Talk
“You dog, you.”
“You dog, you.”
Listen

Tales of a Trump Ghostwriter from the 90s On this week’s podcast, Charles Leerhsen has tales from the crypt

Read On
Books
Joanne Kaufman On

Vintage Crime: A Short History of Wine Fraud

by Rebecca Gibb
Read On
Sarah Watling On

The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary

by Sarah Ogilvie
Read On

Murder, They Wrote

by Lisa Henricksson
Read On
Highlight
Among the works on view in Kunsthalle’s Caspar David Friedrich exhibition is Chalk Cliffs on Rügen, 1818.

The Old Romantic

A bareheaded man stands dramatically on a rocky outcrop, supported by a walking stick and staring into an alarming vista of jagged crags, scrubby trees, and mountaintops hidden in menacing fog. Painted around 1818, Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog is nothing less than a Wertherian statement of communion with the divine as well as a passionate veneration of the natural world and the spiritual awe it inspires. READ ON

Among the works on view in Kunsthalle’s Caspar David Friedrich exhibition is Chalk Cliffs on Rügen, 1818. Read On
Close-up

Lilli Elias With her homeware brand, Autumn Sonata, the 28-year-old is using her archival-studies degree to turn antique prints into new textiles

By Elena Clavarino
Read On
Food and Wine

Nouveau Appeal Maxim’s, in Paris, has never been known for its food. But now, under new ownership, it just may manage to re-create its sexy scene

By Alexander Lobrano
Read On
Great Lives

Al Jaffee The ingenious Mad-magazine cartoonist was as quick-witted and irreverent in person as he was on paper

By John Ficarra
Read On
Small Talk
“Crap. I overslept.”
“Crap. I overslept.”
View With a Room

Lonely Planet At EcoCamp Patagonia, in Chile, there’s little more than minimally appointed tents, nearly empty hiking trails, and the occasional guanaco. And it’s someone’s idea of heaven

By Kirsty Lang
Read On
Small Talk
The Perfect Ending

Anne Fulenwider

The former Marie Claire editor and a co-founder of digital health platform Alloy answers 54 of life’s most pressing questions
Read On
Cathy Graham’s Sketchbook
Angel-food cake and other heavenly holiday treats.
Is Edited By

Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley

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Angela Panichi

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Ashley Baker Ash Carter Chris Garrett Nathan King Julia Vitale

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Associate Editors

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Columnists

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Jonathan Margolis Linda Wells James Wolcott

Writers at Large

Lili Anolik Johanna Berkman Joseph Bullmore Vassi Chamberlain William D. Cohan Rich Cohen Michael Hainey Stuart Heritage George Kalogerakis Sam Kashner James Kirchick Alexander Lobrano Alexandra Marshall Daphne Merkin Sam Wasson

Contributing Artists

Monica Ahanonu Barry Blitt André Carrilho Paul Davis David Downton Andrea Ferolla Josh Gosfield Cathy Graham Eric Hanson Angelica Hicks Pip Johnson Hilary Knight Danielle Kosann Michael Lindsay-Hogg Ross MacDonald Joe McKendry James McMullan Donald Robertson Charles Dare Scheips Grant Shaffer Ed Sorel Ralph Steadman

Contributing Photographers

Jonathan Becker Justin Bishop Alex Board James Emmerman Marcos Fecchino Daniel Paik Art Streiber Sharon Suh Justin Weiner

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Basil Walter

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Rachel LeSage

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Bob Mankoff

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Randall Poster

Technology

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OUR CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER AND CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER ARE

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Lilly Schoenbaum

In Memoriam

Peter Bogdanovich Duncan Hannah Douglas McGrath Richard David Story André Leon Talley

Issue No. 231
December 16, 2023
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Issue No. 231
December 16, 2023
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