Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2013 i Vanity Fair

OF KINGS AND QUEENS Those who remember New York in the 1970(s, as I do, look back on a city that had hit a very rough patch—decaying, bankrupt, and crime-ridden. But fun. Looking at real-estate prices back then, from today’s perspective, is like a trip through the Looking-Glass. Indeed, for a period of several months in 1978 and 1979 the most valuable pieces of real estate in all of Manhattan may well have been spots at the front of the line for “Treasures of Tutankhamun,” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Some eight million people visited the Tut exhibition—not only a mass of humanity greater than the population of New York at the time, but more people than Tut ruled when he was king. It was the beginning of the…

Illustration by TIM SHEAFFER Sandra Day O’Connor met me for lunch at her chambers within that white marble temple to justice, the Supreme Court Building, in Washington, D.C. I was unprepared for the informality and glamour of this mythic American woman. “Sandra,” she said, introducing herself warmly, adding the “Day O’Connor” almost, it seemed, as an afterthought. “So, come sit.” Her delightful new book, Out of Order: Stories from the History of the Supreme Court (published this month by Random House), gives the forbidding Court a human face, and Justice O’Connor, I would soon learn, could give it nothing less. The FWOTSC, as she amusingly describes herself—First Woman On The Supreme Court—was born in El Paso, Texas, in 1930, and raised as a cowgirl on the family’s Lazy B Ranch,…

Every spring, the repetition of the cycle of life is heralded by an eruption of narcissus; the publishing world equivalent is an explosion of fiction. In Jennifer Gil more’s timely, riveting, and heartrending novel The Mothers (Scribner), an infertile couple’s sanity and marriage are tested by the domestic open-adoption process. The disaster obsessed hero of Nathaniel Rich’s scarily prescient and wholly original novel, Odds Against Tomorrow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), finds calculating the costs of natural catastrophe and war for greedy corporations easier than mastering his fears. Rachel Kushner’s fearless, blazing prose ignites the 70s New York art scene and Italian underground of The Flamethrowers (Scribner). In Woke Up Lonely (Graywolf), Fiona Maazel brilliantly imagines a cult that promises to cure loneliness. Highly decorated literary hero James Salter burnishes his…

Frédéric Malle’s eclectic and imaginative taste in fragrance has placed him in the pantheon of renowned luxury perfumers. This month, he launches a new collection of scents—each is evocative of the world inhabited by a person he admires. The first is Dries Van Noten par Frédéric Malle. Herewith, his favorite things … INSPIRATIONS Favorite scent Women. Favorite discovery Fairway Market, and Pieter Schoolwerth at Miguel Abreu’s gallery—both in N.Y.C. Who inspires you My family. Necessary extravagance My shop on Madison Avenue. Favorite place in the world My bed. Favorite charity The Rockefeller University. Favorite movie Le Feu Follet. Favorite hotel Hôtel le Blizzard, in Val d’Isère, France. GROOMING PRODUCTS Shampoo Christophe Robin Antioxidant Cleansing Milk with 4 Oils and Blueberry. Cologne Dominique Ropion’s Geranium pour Monsieur. Razor Gillette Mach3 Turbo…

Am I obsessive? Yes, totally,” admits Ian Barry, the Los Angeles–based designer and engineering mastermind behind the fabled Falcon Ten, a series of painstakingly constructed motorcycles that has created an international media frenzy. “I once worked 48 hours straight without sleep. When I get a spark of inspiration, I can’t stop or I’ll be miserable.” This month, Barry will reveal The White— his just-completed fourth Falcon motorcycle. “There is never going to be another bike like this on the planet,” he says. “We built everything around the engine”—a rare 1967 Velocette—“and every component is designed, engineered, and handmade, including the suspension. Every detail at its most minute and expansive has been considered.” Each of Barry’s bikes requires thousands of hours of work; The White took more than two years to…

If there is a God of Memorable Voices (and who is to say there isn’t?), she should have put Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein onstage together long ago. She finally had the good sense at least to enlist Lauper to write the music and lyrics and Fierstein to do the book for Kinky Boots, a musical opening this month on Broadway about what happens when a son inherits his dad’s troubled shoe factory and meets a drag queen named Lola looking for the next big thing in stilettos. Inspiration came from the 2005 British film Kinky Boots, which, aside from the performance of Chiwetel Ejiofor as Lola, sank faster than a crate of Jimmy Choos in the Thames. What attracted Fierstein to the story is how these men, the son…

Illustrations by JAMES TAYLOR CARSON: Might I have a word, milord? LORD GRANTHAM: Can’t it wait? CARSON [looking at wristwatch]: I’m sorry to bother you, milord, but it’s gone noon, and it appears that the First World War has just come to an end. LORD GRANTHAM: That’s marvelous news, Carson, particularly for our boys at the front. War is a tiresome business, particularly when it leads to bloodshed. A human life is a precious thing, Carson. CARSON: Indeed so, milord. [Prepares to exit.] LORD GRANTHAM: One moment, Carson. You mentioned the First World War. I trust you did not mean to imply that a second may be on the way? CARSON [looking at wristwatch]: Indeed, milord, I regret to say that Mr. Churchill has just this minute announced the commencement…

STYLED BY JESSICA DIEHL At the Golden Globes this year, after mutually losing out for best actress in a comedy series to Lena Dunham of Girls, hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler mounted the stage with drinks in hand, making light of their disappointment by appearing bitter and drunk. “Everyone’s getting a little loose now that we’re all losers,” Poehler joked. “Congratulations, Lena,” said Fey. “I’m glad we got you through middle school.” The camera cut to Dunham shaking with laughter and clutching her gold statuette. “It’s getting sloppy in here, everybody,” Fey went on. “Look at how drunk Glenn Close is.” Close played along, simulating delirium tremens. And then: “You know what, Taylor Swift,” said Fey, shaking a finger. “You stay away from Michael J. Fox’s son.” The joke…

For all his self-effacing urbanity, Jeremy Denk is a frontiersman. The 42-year-old pianist, who earned a doctorate at the Juilliard School, has a way with some of the most encyclopedic works in the repertoire, music that catalogues the known world before striking out into the wilderness. His first recording was of the massive, Whitman-esque piano sonatas of Charles Ives. His latest pairs the sundry virtuosity of György Ligeti’s piano études with the final, untrammeled piano sonata of Ludwig van Beethoven, his Opus 111—a work that also culminates his March 22 recital at Carnegie Hall. For Denk, the reward is bringing out the valedictions within such manifestos. “What they all share is this tenderness,” he says, “a tenderness at the edge of the universe, where one world is going away and…

The supremely confident billionaire hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman has never been afraid to bet the farm that he’s right. In 1984, when he was a junior at Horace Greeley High School, in affluent Chappaqua, New York, he wagered his father $2,000 that he would score a perfect 800 on the verbal section of the S.A.T. The gamble was everything Ackman had saved up from his Bar Mitzvah gift money and his allowance for doing household chores. “I was a little bit of a cocky kid,” he admits, with uncharacteristic understatement. Tall, athletic, handsome with cerulean eyes, he was the kind of hyper-ambitious kid other kids loved to hate and just the type to make a big wager with no margin for error. But on the night before the S.A.T., his…

The unlikely destination for Sue Mengers was a spa. A decade ago, Bette Midler and Carole Bayer Sager, friends of the legendary and legendarily sedentary superagent who ruled Hollywood in the 1970s, wanted to drag Mengers away from her smoky jewel box of a house, in Beverly Hills, and into the sunny fresh air of Canyon Ranch, in Arizona. “It was like a health mission, an intervention—you literally could not talk to her about her health,” Midler recalls, sitting in the serene living room of her Fifth Avenue triplex with a blazing fire and a view of the Central Park reservoir. “This is a real challenge, because she doesn’t budge. She’s not moving.” We are talking about Mengers because Midler is preparing to play the role of her old friend…

WAYNE’S WORLD This month, the gun debate—and what we don’t know. Americans don’t know who Wayne LaPierre is. Well, 24 percent of us do, but that’s just 23 percent more than ID’d him as the voice of Elmer Fudd—not so impressive (or, rather, impwessive). We don’t know where guns originated (China) or how many there are in the United States: just 16 percent of us know that there are 89 civilian guns for every 100 Americans. And despite all those guns in all those homes, we don’t know for certain what will make us feel safest there, with a roughly even split between guns and alarm systems. We also don’t know that the Second Amendment, which put those guns in those homes, begins with “A well regulated Militia …” (O.K.,…

THE GHOST AND MR. FORSTMANN I was the ghostwriter on Teddy Forstmann’s book before Rich Cohen (“The Ghost in the Gulfstream,” February). I want to take a moment to congratulate Cohen on a great piece. His mention of the G V and London brought back some nice memories. Teddy was demanding and intense, but I found him also to be intuitive and quite generous. It was surreal to discover that Cohen’s experiences so closely mirrored my own. I still remember Teddy getting annoyed because I texted my wife from Padma’s apartment instead of watching him nap, and I almost missed Thanksgiving dinner with my family because he insisted that I hang out with him in the Bahamas. Strangely, I have nothing but fond recollections of that time, even though I…

Chicago rides high with an adopted son in the White House and financial clout. But book editor, novelist, and native Thomas Dyja chronicles more profound and ambiguous influences in The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream (Penguin), a rollicking cultural history of the 1930s to the 1960s. What’s a given now was often given by Chicago: high-rises, gospel and the blues, TV talk shows, Hugh Hefner’s Playboy, McDonald’s golden arches, sketch comedy, the bomb, and the brutish political machine. Creativity, muscle, and greed ran rampant. Bemoan mass markets and uniformity, but understand their genesis. Devour granular detail, too, of the torrid affair between rough-hewn Nelson Algren and café intellectual Simone de Beauvoir. Was it all dazzling coincidence or, as Dyja suggests, something in the water back then?…

‘We tackle the problem that most of us have—we all want to be informed, but none of us have extra time,” says Danielle Weisberg, 26, who co-founded the Skimm, a daily six-A.M. (E.S.T.) news blast, with Carly Zakin, also 26, last July. The two met in 2006 in Rome, where each was spending a semester abroad. (Zakin attended the University of Pennsylvania; Weisberg went to Tufts.) A year ago, they quit their jobs as associate producers—Zakin at NBC’s in-house production company and Weisberg at MSNBC—to launch their electronic newsletter, bravely entering the crowded field of subscription news digests (Circa, NextDraft, BuzzFeed). However, they have an edge. “We give you what you need to know but with a voice,” Weisberg says—imagine “your best friend, sitting next to you on the couch,…

Spring’s Bouquet 1. Van Cleef & Arpels Féerie Spring Blossom EDT, $90 (neimanmarcus.com) 2. L’Oréal Paris Colour Riche Eye Shadow Quad in Snooze Addict, $7.95. (lorealparisusa.com) 3. Prada L’Eau d’Iris, $77. (macys.com) 4. Shay & Blue Atropa Belladonna, $45 for 30 ml. (shayandblue.com) 5. Valentino Valentina Assoluto EDP Intense, $117 for 2.7 oz. (neimanmarcus.com) 6. Clinique Chubby Stick Intense Moisturizing Lip Colour Balm in Plushest Punch, $16. (clinique.com) 7. Dior Cherie Bow Palette, $80. (dior.com) 8. Givenchy Dahlia Noir L’Eau, $84 for 3.4 oz. (givenchybeauty.com) 9. See by Chloé EDP, $98 for 2.5 oz. (bloomingdales.com) 10. Caudalie Premier Cru the Cream, $155. (caudalie.com) 11. Oscar de la Renta Something Blue EDP, $115 for 3.4 oz. (saksfifthavenue.com) 12. Tom Ford Lip Color Shine in Willful, $48. (bergdorfgoodman.com) 13. Daisy Marc Jacobs…

Up until the 18th century, Knightsbridge, which borders genteel Kensington, was a lawless zone roamed by predatory monks and assorted cutthroats. It didn’t come of age until the Victorian building boom, which left a charming legacy of mostly large and beautiful Victorian houses, with their trademark white or cream paint, black iron railings, high ceilings, and short, elegant stone steps up to the front door. This will not be the impression a visitor now gets as he emerges from the Knightsbridge subway station’s south exit. He will be met by four hulking joined-up towers of glass, metal, and concrete, sandwiched between the Victorian splendors of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, to the east, and a pretty five-story residential block, to the west. This is One Hyde Park, which its developers insist…

(1) DECLARE YOUR UNIQUE AREA OF EXPERTISE. Mix and match to come up with a field that is suitably arcane yet also impressive. PREFIXES agro-anthro-eco-edu-geopolitical-neuro-socio-techno CAREERS advocate feminist futurist physicist sex worker theologian theorist wonk (2) STATE YOUR COUNTERINTUITIVE PREMISE. A Everything you know is WRONG. B Everything COMPLEX is actually quite SIMPLE. (3) ILLUSTRATE YOUR SUPPOSITION USING ONE (OR MORE) OF THE FOLLOWING PROPS: A dance troupe. Flying monkeys. Boiling cauldrons of lava. PowerPoint. (4) BE SURE TO WORK IN SOME OF THE FOLLOWING WORDS OR PHRASES: Big data. Memes. Silos. THE CLOUD. “The driving force behind all of reality.” (5) REFERENCE AT LEAST ONE OF THE GODS OF HIGH CULTURE: Stephen Hawking Carl Sagan Jane Goodall Obi-Wan Kenobi (6) DO THE FAUX SELF-EFFACING HUMBLE-BRAG: “But here’s what I…

Swift can hardly take a breath without inspiring a new dating rumor. Below, some of the guys who have sparked those rumors—and a few chart-topping hits in 1989. Swift spent her early childhood on a Christmas-tree farm in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, in a picturesque house owned by her parents, Andrea, who had worked in finance, and Scott, then a stockbroker with Merrill Lynch. “My favorite thing in life is writing about life, specifically the parts of life concerning love,” her bio went on. “Because, as far as I’m concerned, love is absolutely everything.” Watching her rehearse that day, it became clear that Swift works incredibly hard. While her band—which she commands in a friendly, laid-back way—was taking a break, she continued practicing, playing songs on her guitar and piano, and…

One day in November 2007, on an editing console in the Dawn television news bureau in Peshawar, Pakistan, the bright brown eyes of a young girl popped from the computer screen. Just three hours to the northeast, in the Swat Valley, the mountain town of Mingora was under siege. Walking by the desk of the bureau chief, a reporter named Syed Irfan Ashraf stopped to take a look at the edit, which was being translated into English for that night’s news, and heard the girl’s voice. “I’m very frightened,” she said crisply. “Earlier, the situation was quite peaceful in Swat, but now it has worsened. Nowadays explosions are increasing… We can’t sleep. Our siblings are terrified, and we cannot come to school.” She spoke an Urdu of startling refinement for…

From Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn to Jack Nicholson and George Clooney, there has been no shortage of roguish leading men on-screen, one bad boy after another getting into all sorts of devilry while charming his way into audiences’ hearts. But it’s doubtful even Clark Gable could have stayed on the public’s good side playing a part that required him, within the space of a single scene, to commit incest and then push a little boy out a high castle window, breaking his back. Not nice! But rising above such unpleasantness is the singular achievement of Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, the Danish actor who plays the callow nobleman Jaime Lannister on Game of Thrones, which will be starting its third season on HBO right about … now. As both “Kingslayer” and child-crippler—as…

Approximately 3,336 years ago, Tutankhamun, a minor king in a major Egyptian dynasty—the 18th—breathed his last. He was in his late teens, and he had reigned since he was nine years old. After a brief mourning period, the pharaoh’s acolytes swung into action, mounting an epic of funerary ceremony worthy of Cecil B. DeMille. First came embalming. Tutankhamun’s heart was left intact, but other vital internal organs—his liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines—were removed, preserved, wrapped in cloth, and placed in four mini-coffins, each about a foot and a quarter long and made of gold inlaid with carnelian stone and colored glass. The pharaoh’s body was washed, anointed with herbs and unguents, adorned with more than a hundred amulets, rings, and bangles, and then carefully wrapped in strips of linen. The…

1 Maureen Dowd “Sometimes, in the middle of one of her glamorous meals, she would announce in her throaty voice, ‘I think we should all pay attention to me now,’” recalls New York Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd of the late superagent Sue Mengers. “Sue would be thrilled to be the center of attention on Broadway, played by another larger-than-life star, like Bette Midler.” Dowd’s article, “Baby, It’s Sue,” about the upcoming one-woman show, begins on page 154. 2 Michael Lewis “She is a person who has moved from high-status position to high-status position but doesn’t reek of high status,” says contributing editor Michael Lewis of Facebook C.O.O. Sheryl Sandberg. In this month’s V.F. Portrait, on page 142, Lewis applauds Sandberg for her forthcoming book, Lean In. “What she’s talking…

When Elizabeth Lancaster writes from Adams, Massachusetts, to say that “Thomas Keller looks like an angry George W. Bush with smaller ears,” she has the Mailbag’s attention. “Charlie Trotter looks like a bloated, constipated Charles Krauthammer,” she continues, transfixing us still, “and Ferran Adrià bears an uncanny resemblance to John Boehner. Don’t want to eat their food no matter how many courses they offer.” And what inspired her to comment? “Tyranny—It’s What’s for Dinner” did, much as it inspired Donna Reiter Brandwein, who writes as follows from Lincolnshire, Illinois: “Corby Kummer’s biting take on celebrity chefs reminded me of renowned impressionist Danny Gans. I attended his Vegas show in his last few years, and we too felt like hostages. If his audience wasn’t madly clapping a few notes into his…

Eve Golden reels through the life of silent-film star John Gilbert (University Press of Kentucky). The inimitable William H. Gass’s Middle C (Knopf) is pitch-perfect. Deborah Cohen unbuttons Family Secrets (Oxford). Bernhard Rieger joyrides in the VW bug, The People’s Car (Harvard). Lynne Olson views pre–W.W. II America as Those Angry Days (Random House). Denyse Beaulieu combines a history of scent with heady top notes of her personal history in The Perfume Lover (St. Martin’s). In Paris Reborn (St. Martin’s), Stephane Kirkland recalls how the City of Light got its luster. Simon Morrison composes the marriage of the Prokofievs, Lina and Serge (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). David Graeber’s The Democracy Project (Spiegel & Grau) reconsiders the past, and looks at the future, of democracy. Rod Dreher’s The Little Way of Ruthie…

‘I would be crushed if I wasn’t booked for at least the next two years,” says Questlove, co-founder and drummer of the Roots, Philadelphia’s most important hip-hop group. Questlove (born Ahmir Thompson) is jammed. He’s the musical director of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon—where the Roots have been the house band for the past three years. He’s also a D.J., producer, food entrepreneur (his company is called Quest Loves Food), and author, with two books set to come out this year. He teaches a course on classic albums at N.Y.U. and has worked with musicians as diverse as Eminem, D’Angelo, Jay-Z, and Elvis Costello. Here, he talks to Lisa Robinson about music, politics, and how he juggles his schedule. LISA ROBINSON: When Michele Bachmann came on the Fallon show, you…

Newspapers, those that plaintively remain, should print their editions back to front, because the sports pages are where the nation’s true psychodramas rip open and flutter, exposing the hypocrisies we hold dear and destroying whatever illusions we still have hanging around the house. Celebrity athletes are just about the only giant-size mugs left in our infotainment arena whose falls from grace carry a steep drop from a lofty altitude, the classic arc of hubris. Cyclist and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong—even his name boasts an excelsior quality, like an American flag planted on the moon. Golfer Tiger Woods—the child prodigy turned Jedi master—seemed to pull the entire golf course along with him as he strode the greens, a corporate wet dream of an endorsement machine. New York Yankees third-baseman Alex Rodriguez—the…

AGE: 31. PROVENANCE: Newcastle upon Tyne, England. STAGING A CAREER: Coming from the industrial North of England, Riseborough ended up landing a coveted spot at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, in London. “The first year you wander around thinking you made a mistake. They called the wrong person—they thought I was the other one with the dark hair, you know? And that doesn’t stop for quite a while.” COUNTERPARTS: She relishes the range of roles she has had a chance to play—from Wallis Simpson in W.E. to the Iron Lady in Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley (for which she won a TV BAFTA). “It’s one of the things that excite me most about my job—the opportunity and the ability to completely live in somebody else’s rhythm.”…

Q&A with GEORGE WAYNE "G.W. already envisions David LaChapelle directing Psy in the ‘Bunga Bunga’ video at the fabulous new Christian Liaigre hotel on Lake Como. It used to be all about Cool Britannia. Today it seems to be about Cool South Korea! Samsung has upstaged Apple, and now Psy sets his sights on upstaging Gaga." Our correspondent catches up with the Korean YouTube sensation to talk about “Gangnam Style,” dancing with Britney, and sharing a manager with Justin Bieber. GEORGE WAYNE: What a whirlwind year of fame it’s been for you, Psy. What’s been the highlight? PSY: Making a surprise appearance with Britney Spears on the Ellen show—teaching her to dance “Gangnam style” was the best. G.W. How do you top “Gangnam Style”? P. I don’t know. There is…

SPECIAL REPORT: STATES OF TERROR Part One It’s every war correspondent’s nightmare: dragged from the car by men with AK-47s; bound, gagged, and blindfolded; fearing torture or execution at any moment. Last December, a quick trip into Syria turned deadly, NBC News’s RICHARD ENGEL recalls, when his team of six was kidnapped by the vicious, pro-government shabiha militia and toyed with by a sadistic captor as they fought against their panic—and for their lives I. In and Out December 13, 2012 The commander was waiting for us by the side of the road, just as he had promised. His name was Abdelrazaq, and he was clean-shaven and had bright eyes that made him look intelligent. He smoked a cigarette and didn’t let on if he was annoyed that we were…

The most powerful working mother in Silicon Valley, Sheryl Sandberg may wish her life weren’t viewed as a social statement. But since it is, the C.O.O. of Facebook is tackling the issue head-on. MICHAEL LEWIS checks out Sandberg’s manifesto. Sheryl Sandberg is one of those people who attract more attention than they want. If she were a man, no one would think twice about her career: McKinsey consultant, chief of staff to U.S. Treasury secretary Larry Summers, head of one of Google’s biggest businesses, and now chief operating officer of Facebook. Those are the sorts of jobs that people who finish at the top of their Harvard Business School class wind up in. Alas, Sheryl Sandberg is not a man, and so her career is not just a bunch of…

On January 7, during the ESPN broadcast of college football’s championship game between Notre Dame and Alabama, the director cut to a medium shot of a lovely female face in the audience—something we are accustomed to, especially when the game, early on, looks to be a blowout. But this face had been particularly gifted by the gods, and so, in the manner of demi-goddess Helen, Katherine Webb launched a fleet of objectifying comments from the mouth of beloved sportscaster Brent Musburger, focused solely on Miss Webb’s exterior. Oh, the horror. There were shameful exclamations of “You see that lovely lady there?” and “What a beautiful woman!” and “Whoa!” Then, referring to Webb’s boyfriend, Alabama quarterback AJ Mc-Carron, Musburger concluded with “So, if you’re a youngster at Alabama, start getting the…

Alan ARKIN What is your idea of perfect happiness? Contentment with what I have. What is your greatest fear? Dying with a feeling of incompleteness. Which historical figure do you most identify with? Beethoven. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Impatience. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Incompetent leadership. What is your greatest extravagance? Camera equipment. What is your favorite journey? Inward. What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Piety. On what occasion do you lie? When people ask me if I’m listening. What do you dislike most about your appearance? The whole shebang. Which living person do you most despise? I’m afraid to say. What is your greatest regret? Not having been wiser earlier. What or who is the greatest love of…