February 24, 2024
The Best
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No. 241
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In This Week’s Issue
THE ERIN BROCKOVICH EFFECT

What started off as one woman’s research project to protect Miami’s reefs turned into a battle against corrupt forces destroying the city’s most prized feature: its waterfront …

GREAT SCOTT!

The chaste, optimistic, and conciliatory Tim Scott represents the polar opposite of Donald Trump’s apocalyptic cynicism. How on earth did he become a potential Trump running mate? …

NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND

Our woman in Moscow reports on the intrepid ways the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s supporters seek to keep his legacy alive …

PUTTING THE “HELL” IN HEALTH

In his latest column for AIR MAIL, Buzz Bussinger takes aim at the wellness industry, bemoaning self-improvement fads and yearning for a reprieve from all the good, worthy behavior …

SYSTEM FAILURE

How Mike Lynch, a tech tycoon once seen as Britain’s answer to Bill Gates, ended up under house arrest, staring down the barrel of an $11 billion fraud trial …

BUON APPETITO!

In an interview, Hollywood’s most lovable gourmand, Stanley Tucci, dishes on his dream home, his favorite pasta meal, and the transatlantic trip that left him in tears …

DOG DAYS

Designer dogs are all the rage, and at the forefront of the hype are poodle mixes, which today can be modified into whatever shape, size, color, and temperament their high-paying owners desire …

BUT, WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Harry and Meghan’s P.D.A. nightmare … The Village Voice’s last hurrah … London’s Ivy is worth more than $1 billion, but will the cash kill its charm? … Have the Bidens ruined aviator sunglasses for good? … Who will top this week’s Attention-Whore Index? …

But First …
Issue No. 241

The View from Here Tim Scott can be Trump’s running mate, or he can be Tim Scott—but not both

By Jeff Maurer
Read On
Barry Blitt’s Sketchbook
Letter from Moscow

Navalny’s Afterlife Defying police and informants, Russians mourn the opposition leader in groups, on the Internet, and even in snowdrifts

By Katya V.
Read On
Paw Patrol

Doodling Along As hypoallergenic poodle mixes grow in popularity, so, too, does the complicated—and wildly expensive—science behind breeding them

By Susan Lehman
Read On
Dredge Report

She Covers the Waterfront How environmentalist Rachel Silverstein took on Florida Power & Light—and won

By Nicholas Griffin
Read On
Air Supply

Springing Forward

Breathe new life into your wardrobe with the help of the AIR SUPPLY team, who toiled all winter to curate a surefire sartorial guide for the season ahead
Shop
Photo: Silver Screen Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images (Bacall)
Guest Edit

My Favorite Things The jewelry designer behind Dezso’s refined oceanic accents shares her shopping list for achieving a vacation state of mind, even in the depths of winter

By Sara Beltrán
Shop
Photo: Conrado Veliz (Beltrán)
Design for Living

Rule of Three Have the Bidens ruined aviator sunglasses for the rest of us? How to avoid looking like a rent boy on the runway! And more, in our column on how to live …

By George Hahn
Read On
Small Talk
Frostus Augustus
Frostus Augustus
P.D.A. Alert!

Heavy-Handed Come on, Harry and Meghan—isn’t there anything better you can think to do than hold hands?

By Judith Woods
Read On
T.G.I.S.

The Attention-Whore Index Tucker Carlson falls Vladly in love, Donald Trump is eager to sell his sole, and Prince Harry is raring to be royal again. But who is the biggest Attention Whore of the week?

Read On
Small Talk
“You know, you’re right—a lot of this would be solved by eating his whole head.”
“You know, you’re right—a lot of this would be solved by eating his whole head.”
Department of Complaints

The Wellness Madness Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Buzz Bissinger is sick of wellness. What he wants is more badness, malice, and depravity

By Buzz Bissinger
Read On
Small Talk

Feeding Frenzy Post-Putin, Tucker Carlson interviews Jaws, the shark

By Craig Brown
Photo illustration by Chop Choppish Shop
Read On
Modern Times

#MeToo: The Early Years Back in 1969, we didn’t have hashtags. If you were getting harassed by your boss, you had to get creative

By Joy Behar
Read On
Best
Listen The Past Is Still Alive To open their intimate, transporting show at Levon Helm’s barn, in Woodstock, New York… Read Nobody’s Angel In the late 90s, real-life Chicago taxi driver and autodidactic author Jack Clark hand-printed 500 copies of a pulpy manuscript he’d written… Stay The King’s Lodge London is not suffering from a lack of appealing hotel rooms, but the King’s Lodge at the Connaught… Carry Burberry Perhaps Capote’s “swans” are responsible for our hot pursuit of a structured shoulder bag, but whatever the inspiration may be… Wear Câbleami Almost every winter, I purchase two beanies—one in early December, when I can’t find my hat from last year, and the other in… Savor Postcard Working at AIR MAIL, it is easy to find a friend in other businesses with postal-related names. My latest find is Postcard,… Listen The Past Is Still Alive To open their intimate, transporting show at Levon Helm’s barn, in Woodstock, New York… Read Nobody’s Angel In the late 90s, real-life Chicago taxi driver and autodidactic author Jack Clark hand-printed 500 copies of a pulpy manuscript he’d written… Stay The King’s Lodge London is not suffering from a lack of appealing hotel rooms, but the King’s Lodge at the Connaught… Carry Burberry Perhaps Capote’s “swans” are responsible for our hot pursuit of a structured shoulder bag, but whatever the inspiration may be… Wear Câbleami Almost every winter, I purchase two beanies—one in early December, when I can’t find my hat from last year, and the other in… Savor Postcard Working at AIR MAIL, it is easy to find a friend in other businesses with postal-related names. My latest find is Postcard,…
Kitchen Confidential

Fuss Pot He cooks. He cleans. He even handles the child care. Now the actor and food-show host Stanley Tucci proves he’s the ultimate Renaissance man, launching a cookware line with GreenPan

By Katrina Burroughs
Read On
West End Story

Talking to the Hand Fifteen years after Jerusalem, Jez Butterworth’s new play is a rich and masterful portrait of a divided family of women

By John Lahr
Photo Illustration by Paul Davis
Read On
Better by Design

The House That Modernism Built The Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity, in Northern California, offers an unprecedented look inside Ray and Charles’s design universe

By Patricia Zohn
Read On
Crime and Crunching It

Not the Smartest Guy in the Room Once hailed as Britain’s answer to Bill Gates, Mike Lynch is facing 20 years in prison if found guilty of conspiracy and fraud linked to his company’s sale

By Danny Fortson, William Turvill, and Jill Treanor
Read On
Small Talk

Election-Year Anxiety? A veteran advice columnist fields questions—and comments—from a few concerned citizens

By Margo Howard and George Kalogerakis
Read On
The Restaurant World

Poisoned Ivy? The Ivy was once the most fashionable spot in London. Now it’s a restaurant chain worth more than $1 billion. Have the moneymen killed the glamour?

By Joseph Bullmore
Read On
Books
James Wolcott On

The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture

by Tricia Romano
Read On
Romesh Ratnesar On

The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq

by Steve Coll
Read On
Small Talk
“M’lady, we’ve reached peak Brooklyn.”
“M’lady, we’ve reached peak Brooklyn.”
Film and Television

Do It Like the French Do! Fresh from playing Coco Chanel in The New Look, Juliet Binoche takes on the role of the live-in cook of a celebrated gourmand in The Taste of Things

By Robbie Collin
Read On
Photography

Around the World and Back Again From tenement life to royal weddings to war’s front lines, Bert Hardy captured it all. A new exhibition in London collects the British photojournalist’s best work

9
The British heavyweight wrestling champion Bert Assirati takes on Mike Marino, photographed by Bert Hardy at a gym in London in 1949.
Women enjoy a beach day in Blackpool, Lancashire, 1951.
Top, a boy plays soccer with Ming, his pet panda, 1939; above, a Guinness advertisement illustrated by John Gilroy, 1949.
The American boxer Sugar Ray Robinson with Parisian fans, 1951.
“Spivs” catch up by a lamppost, 1954.
Top, vacationing in Southend, Essex, 1953; above, U.S. Marines in an assault craft during the Korean War, 1950.
Jawaharlal Nehru, the former prime minister of India, 1947.
Top, a Buddhist monk memorizes religious texts in a temple in Burma (now Myanmar), 1950; above, a crowd watches the Saint Patrick’s Day street parade in Dublin, 1955.
Walking in the countryside of Kent, England, 1951.
Read On
The Publishing World

Romantasy Addicts It’s unadulterated escapism. It’s junk food for the mind. Suddenly, sales of fiction classed as both fantasy and romance are booming

By Jessica Tomlinson
Read On

Hollywood Lights

By Peter Saenger

Greta Garbo was not in the mood. Instead of her usual photographer, Ruth Harriet Louise, she had reluctantly agreed to sit for George Hurrell (1904–92). By this time—1930—Hurrell’s star in Hollywood was rising almost as fast as Garbo’s. But when the Swedish actress showed up, she was stone-faced, and she remained so during the sitting. Increasingly desperate, Hurrell attempted to loosen her up—crawling on the floor and walking backward while shooting, as Mark A. Vieira tells it in the book George Hurrell’s Hollywood. On the way out, Garbo said to a photographer’s assistant, “There’s a crazy man in there.” READ ON

The photographer George Hurrell with some of his portraits of Hollywood stars in 1938.

Read On
Listen

Why Do Today’s Leading Men Dress Like Rent Boys? On this week’s podcast, George Hahn has a few choice words for the death of Hollywood style

Read On
Highlight

A Long Day’s Journey into Night The Italian filmmaker behind Gomorrah and Pinocchio adapts immigrants’ real-life horror stories for the screen in his Oscar-nominated new film

By Tobias Grey
Read On
Documentary

The Amazing Race Bobi Wine’s journey from pop star to presidential candidate dominated headlines in Uganda. Now, thanks to an Oscar-nominated documentary, the conversation continues around the world

By Vassi Chamberlain
Read On
Small Talk
Oscar would laugh whenever he recalled his empty existence before golf.
Oscar would laugh whenever he recalled his empty existence before golf.
Close-up

Lucas Zelnick After a brief stint as a corporate strategist, the young comedian started a stand-up club in Manhattan

By Paulina Prosnitz
Read On
The Perfect Ending

Ryan Calais Cameron

The writer and director answers 48 of life’s most pressing questions
Read On
Drew Friedman’s Sketchbook
From Zero to hero: Struggling comedian Sam Mostel had some false starts early in his career, but after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he was hired by Café Society, the popular New York nightclub; the owner of the club thought his patrons could “use some laughs” during wartime. (The club’s press agent dubbed him “Zero,” saying, “Here’s a guy who started from nothing.”) The manic Mostel would soon become a top comic actor, with appearances on radio and in film and theater, all leading to such major roles as Tevye in the original Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof, Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (both onstage and in the movie), and Max Bialystock in the original film version of The Producers. Mostel’s birthday falls on February 28.
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In Memoriam

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

Issue No. 241
February 24, 2024
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Issue No. 241
February 24, 2024
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