Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2016 i Vanity Fair

Six months before the last presidential election, in 2012, the Berlin-based financial investigator Nicholas Shaxson wrote a hugely influential Vanity Fair article, “Where the Money Lives,” exposing then candidate Mitt Romney’s offshore investments and other tax-avoidance schemes. Taken together, they enabled him to pay only about 14 percent of his income in federal taxes each year—even though his net worth was estimated to be in the neighborhood of $250 million. Earlier this year we turned Shaxson loose on Donald Trump and his taxes. The candidate isn’t exactly forthcoming about this—he refuses to release his tax returns because, he says, he is being audited (which is not a legal bar to their release). He says that he also believes his tax returns are none of our business and that he is,…

Dear Matthew, Mark, and Luke— First, let me tell you how thrilled everyone at the network is with the latest draft. I ran into the head of scheduling at an off-site yesterday and he said that from the buzz he’s hearing, NEW TESTAMENT is a contender for a Sunday-night slot at midseason. So exciting! With that goal in mind, here’s a few notes from my team. Small stuff, mostly—we all love the premise, the principal characters, and the setting (who knew Israel was once a Roman colony? That sort of inside info makes viewers feel smart). These are mostly matters of tone and pacing. Easy fixes. 1. Do we need 12 apostles? Let’s cut to two—Peter and Judas. 2. Can the wedding feast at Cana and the Last Supper be…

Over the years, television has brought us Lucy and Ethel, Laverne and Shirley, Mary and Rhoda. But in 1992 it spawned Absolutely Fabulous’s Patsy and Eddy, arguably the most hilariously despicable comedienne duo of all time. Relentlessly drunk, self-obsessed fashion slaves, Joanna Lumley’s magazine editor, Patsy Stone, and Jennifer Saunders’s publicist, Edina “Eddy” Monsoon, took madcap satire to giddy heights and sleazy lows. They are two “ludicrous” creatures, says Lumley—a 1960s-era model turned actress who first became a household name as Purdey in The New Avengers in the mid-70s. Yet the role of Patsy turned her into an international star: “After that, I didn’t have to explain who I was,” she says. “People knew.” The series ran sporadically through the 90s and into the 21st century, and this month Absolutely…

Long before “immersive theater” was the rage there was the Atlantic Theater Company, on 20th Street in New York City, where you had to cross the stage to use a restroom. On the way to the john, or in it, you might encounter one of the evening’s actors—no daring artistic stratagem; the theater was in an old church which had only so much plumbing. Now that the theater has been renovated and the house facilities are downstairs, the only audience-performer intercourse is that contemplated by the playwright. Which is good. I hate immersive theater. It’s misguided. I don’t want to be using the urinal next to one of the play’s “characters.” It’s too confusing. Whose genitals are those? What universe am I in? Is this art or life? I don’t…

It was a snowy night in Boston in 1974 and our rehearsal of Steve Reich’s Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ was going well. But something was bothering Steve. We stopped playing, and sure enough we could hear a low electronic buzz. “It’s the extension cords!,” he exclaimed. “They’ve all got to be replaced!” Nothing could convince him that this might be done in the morning, so we finally contacted a store that carried the brand of cord he considered foolproof. As we inched down the icy streets, I reflected on the determination of this remarkable man. Judging from his work, I had imagined a very laid-back, mellow, 60s kind of guy. Nothing was further from the truth. I had first heard his music at a late-night party in…

It began with a young woman screaming in her sleep. Andrea Constand, then 31, had left her job as director of operations of the women’s basketball team at Temple University, in Philadelphia, to return home outside of Toronto to live with her parents. She planned to begin studies to become a massage therapist. Six feet tall, her red hair a mass of curls, she was, her father would say, “the most truthful, honest, and faithful kid I’ve ever met.” Her prowess on the basketball court had attracted scholarship offers from dozens of colleges, and later she played professionally in Sicily before finding a job at Temple University, the alma mater of Bill Cosby. But when she returned home her upbeat personality had dimmed into darkness. She suffered from nightmares, flashbacks,…

ETHAN COEN Filmmaker and writer Ethan Coen, half of the Coen brothers, examines Manhattan’s Atlantic Theater Company in “Atlantic Overtures,” on page 84, in honor of its 30th anniversary. “For some people, 80s New York recalls Studio 54,” says Coen. “For me it recalls Tad’s Steaks and the Yoshinoya Beef Bowl. The Atlantic Theater was also around then, and of all of them is the only one left. I guess they offered the best product.” SARAH ELLISON For her investigation of the National Rifle Association, “Whose N.R.A. Is It?,” on page 102, Contributing Editor Sarah Ellison visited Newtown, Connecticut—the location of the Sandy Hook school massacre—attended gun shows, went to shooting ranges, and even joined the N.R.A. Her reporting afforded her an insider’s understanding of how the lobbying juggernaut galvanizes…

Though hardly flattering, the poll results certainly were succulent this month. We’re a country of hearty carnivores—we love our barbecue and would gladly choose cheeseburgers over caviar—but we can also be vain, delusional, and cheap. Forget fruits and vegetables: we think meat is sexy. Maybe that’s why gluttons for sloppy joes and sliders still manage to get dates, even if they’ll fork out only $25 a meal. We may not be as sophisticated as the Europeans, but at least we tip! But let’s not beat ourselves up. We’re not just a flabby mess of appetites; there’s a glimmer of conscience, too. While the majority of us said we have no problem eating meat, almost a quarter admitted we’d feel better knowing the animal had led a happy life. When it…

In the marvelously twisty and absorbing Siracusa (Blue Rider), Delia Ephron tracks two married couples over the short course of an Italian vacation gone bad. The result is a tensely exciting, page-turning novel about betrayal and secrecy, and the ways in which partners collude, consciously and unconsciously, as they head straight toward disaster. The many pleasures here include stark coastal scenery, lingering moments in cafés, sexual electricity between the wrong people, searing X-rays not only of marriage but also of friendship, and a spectacularly unnerving child character who will stay with readers even longer than the memory of their favorite Italian meal.…

“I’m really proud of him,” Robert Pattinson says of 27-year-old actor Brady Corbet—a close friend—and his astonishing directorial debut film, The Childhood of a Leader. Pattinson signed on for a cameo role as reporter Charlie—a “deliberate red-herring character. I’d read the script a long time ago and thought it was amazing,” Pattinson says. “I really trusted Brady. He is so singular in his vision—I’ve never met someone in the film industry so pure in his intentions.” Set in post–World War I France, leading up to the signing of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, this psychological family drama serves as a small-frame window into the rise of Fascism. The father, played by Liam Cunningham, has been sent by President Wilson from America to help negotiate the treaty. He, his wife, played…

Into the Deep Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake has been revolutionizing the industry with his single-minded vision since the 1970s. Now, after a major retrospective of his work at the National Art Center, in Tokyo, and the publication of a career-spanning Taschen book, he launches a new fragrance this month, Issey Miyake L’Eau d’Issey Pure, which embodies the true essence of his ideology. “My touchstone started out being, and is still, exploring the ways by which to make clothing from a single piece of cloth,” Miyake says. Drawn from a singular inspiration—one drop of water—a conical bottle forms an elongated droplet that contains the scent. With a fresh floral bouquet of lily of the valley, damask rose, and jasmine, underscored by warm amber notes, the fragrance evokes a golden sea…

America is so far gone, we have to go to Australia to find a girl next door. In case you’ve missed it, her name is Margot Robbie. She is 26 and beautiful, not in that otherworldly, catwalk way but in a minor knock-around key, a blue mood, a slow dance. She is blonde but dark at the roots. She is tall but only with the help of certain shoes. She can be sexy and composed even while naked but only in character. As I said, she is from Australia. To understand her, you should think about what that means. Australia is America 50 years ago, sunny and slow, a throwback, which is why you go there for throwback people. They still live and die with the plot turns of soap…

‘Taxation, in reality, is life,” said Sheldon Cohen, a former commissioner of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. “If you know the position a person takes on taxes, you can tell their whole philosophy. The tax code, once you get to know it, embodies all the essence of life: greed, politics, power, goodness.” A rich person’s tax affairs will tell you lots about him or her—but the reverse is fuzzily true, too. Though Donald Trump has refused to release his tax returns, we can get a good idea of what’s in there if we start with what we know about his character and business affairs, then mix these up with the vast rich pudding of loopholes, abatements, and gray areas that wealthy folk in America use to milk the tax system.…

What is your idea of perfect happiness? Close friends, spectacular food, gorgeous weather, and interesting conversation! What is your greatest fear? I know we all have to die, but when my time comes, I’d rather it not be because a goose flew into the engine of a plane I’m on. Which historical figure do you most identify with? Harriet Tubman. I read a lot of autobiographies when I was in elementary school, but hers was the one I never forgot. Now I can’t wait to spend some Tubmans! Which living person do you most admire? Oprah Winfrey. She always does the right thing—even when no one is looking. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? I’m disorganized. What is the trait you most deplore in others? It’s a…