Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2013 i Vanity Fair

Depending on the circumstances, a major anniversary can put you in any number of moods. Celebratory certainly. Maybe a little wistful. Depressed, if you’re built that way. But in an age when nothing seems to last—not convictions, not even cities—a centennial, like the one Vanity Fair celebrates this year, makes me marvel at the simple fact of longevity. Over the past year, as we’ve been putting together a volume representing the magazine’s first century (Vanity Fair 100 Years: From the Jazz Age to Our Age; Abrams), David Friend, Lenora Jane Estes, and I have spent a lot of time leafing through old issues, from the first one, in 1913 (when the magazine came into being as Dress & Vanity Fair), up to the hiatus that began in 1936, and then…

Speaking of death, although we weren’t, is it maybe time to replace the old “On the whole, I’d rather be in Philadelphia” tombstone gag with “On the whole, I’d rather be participating in a survey”? In any event, our current poll shows that it’s Canada we’d rather be in—if we were in ash form—or at least we’d prefer to be spread around there than, say, in a bar or a shopping mall. If we chose burial over cremation, then we’d probably want an epitaph, and a solid 40 percent of us, optimists all, would go with Frank Sinatra’s choice, “The best is yet to come.” (Rodney Dangerfield, even in death, gets no respect: his epitaph, “There goes the neighborhood,” finished, um, dead last in our polling.) Fictional characters we wished…

The novelty of the 1913 Armory Show may never again be matched. Modernism, then largely reviled, has long since carried the day. This October, the New-York Historical Society will commemorate the exhibition’s centenary with “The Armory Show at 100: Modern Art and Revolution,” reuniting approximately 100 works from its original display—in which styles ranged from Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s classical line to Marcel Duchamp, whose Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 earned the greatest opprobrium and subsequent fame from the exhibition. So much for the half-joking admonition of one contemporary critic in 1913: “Men, it was a bully show, but don’t do it again!” (nyhistory.org) —MAX CARTER…

Many women love the idea of ‘that amazing vintage dress,’” says the impeccably groomed William Banks-Blaney, “but think, Oh my God—how do I find it, how do I clean it, how do I know it’s a good one?” So, nearly three years ago, former interior designer Banks-Blaney opened WilliamVintage, a byappointment-only boutique, in London’s Marylebone neighborhood. Here he sells an impressively tight edit of vintage clothes with a contemporary relevance and haute couture focus. And now, vintage magpies the world over can shop WilliamVintage’s couture trove online when the e-commerce site launches this month. The clothes are filed according to mood and event: boardroom chic, black-tie, day at the races. For each piece, there is a condition report and design history. And you can dialogue with William if you need…

In 1931, a widow and her young children were murdered in cold blood in a tiny West Virginia town very near the place where Jayne Anne Phillips grew up. In Quiet Dell (Scribner), Phil llips mesmerizingly spins together fact and fiction, vividly imagining the circumstances leading to their deaths, and sets a young female reporter on the case to solve it. Photojournalist Paul Conroy and kickass war correspondent Marie Colvin were a team before she was taken out in Syria. In Under the Wire (Weinstein), Conroy relives their odyssey and its harrowing final hours. Eric Schlosser detonates a truth bomb in Command and Control (Penguin Press), a powerful exposé about America’s nuclear arsenal. Peter Savodnik proves that, whether in the U.S.A. or the U.S.S.R., lonely Lee Harvey Oswald always felt…

Sublime Lacquer for Fashionable Fall Nails From glitter and shimmer to brooding hues and bold classics, the season’s nail-polish spectrum offers something for everyone Giorgio Armani Beauty, the Signature Armani Reds, No. 400, $20, giorgioarmanibeauty.com. Butter London, Colour Clash Collection, Pimms, $15, butterlondon.com. Nails Inc., Modern Art Polish Collection, St. Martin’s Place, $11, nordstrom.com. Jin Soon, Tibi à la Mode Collection, Azurite, $18, jinsoon.com. Revlon, Evening Opulence Collection by Gucci Westman, Elusive, $4.99, revlon.com. Rescue Beauty Lounge, Emoting Me Collection, Thank You, $20, rescuebeauty.com. Guerlain, Voilette de Madame Collection, Madame Batifole No. 860, $23, saks.com. Ricky’s, Ricky Color Collection, Fleet Week, $6.50, rickysnyc.com. Essie, For the Twill of It Collection, the Lace Is On, $8, essie.com. OPI, San Francisco Collection Liquid Sand, Alcatraz ... Rocks, $9, ulta.com. Dolce & Gabbana,…

RED-CARPET COIFFURES As stars prepare for the upcoming awards season, the beauty industry’s top hairstylists forecast award-winning trends. “Wear a hair accessory that doubles as a jewel.”—JOHN NOLLET “When short cuts are starting to grow out, I’m seeing a lot of what I like to call the ‘up and over.’ The hair has a strong side part with pieces falling in front—Michelle Williams is a great example.”—CHRIS MCMILLAN “It’s necessary to dare to try amazing chignons.”—JOHN NOLLET “Jewelry or headbands can finish off a simple look.”—SERGE NORMANT “Glamorous yet tousled hair that is sexy and full of texture.”—ADIR ABERGEL “Out with the over-set, in with loose ponytails.”—SAM MCKNIGHT “Slickedback buns and straightblown hair.”—HARRY JOSH “Out with the over-bouffant—and in with classic sharp chignons.”—SAM MCKNIGHT “Effortless chic—fresh, clean, and contemporary—is on…

Food Network host Guy Fieri’s takedown by The New York Times, Paula Deen’s blithe racism, Nigella Lawson’s domestic split—culinary controversy has been the order of the day. But some scandals are more digestible than others, and the explosions from Gordon Ramsay seem only to feed his fame Whom the gods would destroy, they first render plump and juicy. That is how foodies are brought down to earth. Last year it was Guy Fieri, the spiky-haired, garishly tattooed showman chef and host of Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, who found himself served on the sacrificial altar: glazed with honey, decorated with pineapple medallions, and then devilishly sliced up by the e New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells, whose review of Fieri’s Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar tourist trap in…

To mark Vanity Fair’s centennial, this month, 10 major minds stroll through the last 10 decades, reliving and rethinking World Wars, social revolutions, and technological innovations—the dramatic sweep of history the magazine has witnessed BILL MAHER on the 2000s DAVE EGGERS on the 1990s KURT ANDERSEN on the 1980s LORNE MICHAELS on the 1970s ROBERT STONE on the 1960s JAN MORRIS on the 1950s DANIEL OKRENT on the 1940s LAURA HILLENBRAND on the 1930s A. SCOTT BERG on the 1920s JULIAN FELLOWES on the 19 10s…

In each decade, America finds a new way to go overboard. Our eras are defined by the flavors of our excess. In the 1950s we re-engineered the country around love of cars and fear of Communism; in the 70s we fetishized the impossibly luxuriant and fuzzy, from body hair to carpeting to spiritual practice; and in the 00s we fretted too much about crazy Islamism and too little about crazy financialism. The 1980s were our manic episode, an exciting and euphoric spree with unfortunate long-term consequences. I’m not using the term “manic” loosely. Someone is hypomanic, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, if euphoria comes on suddenly and is then accompanied by any three of seven kinds of thoughts and behaviors. During the 80s, America was…

Around midday on May 30, 1953, I was drinking a mug of cocoa outside a tented camp at 22,000 feet on the western flank of Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain. I can taste the sweet liquid to this day, and as I look back upon the memory now it seems to me that I was experiencing the apex of the 20th century at an ultimate moment in one of the earth’s ultimate places. All around me was white, blue, and sparkling—the snowy mass of the Himalayas set against an azure sky. All was still, except for a plume of driven snow from the summit above. All was silent, but for the occasional rumble of a distant avalanche. All was calm, despite an indefinable tingle of excitement in the air.…

He was known in his time, quite simply, as “the World’s Greatest Entertainer.” Born Asa Yoelson in 1886 in Lithuania, this cantor’s son became the dominant voice of the 1920s: as Al Jolson, he popularized the new sound that had engulfed America and engaged the world—jazz. For the entire decade, Jolson held center stage, selling songs to his audiences with a combination of raw energy and schmaltz. F. Scott Fitzgerald claimed credit for christening the 20s “the Jazz Age,” and he said that decade began when the demobilized American soldiers who had just won the greatest international conflict in history found that “something had to be done with all the nervous energy stored up and unexpended in the War.” The new president, Republican Warren G. Harding, urged a return to…

Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s grandfather Michael Gordon directed one of the great romantic comedies of the 50s, Pillow Talk, so it’s fitting that the 32-year-old’s debut as a writer-director is a contribution to that genre. In Don Jon, out this month, he casts himself against type in the title role, a porn-addicted bridge-and-tunnel muscle boy (more Jersey Shore than Don Giovanni), whom he describes as “that kind of tough guy who makes Don Juan’s machismo his persona and is an archetype as iconic as the cowboy used to be.” Gordon-Levitt says that his days attending Columbia University, along with his San Fernando Valley upbringing, helped him capture the outer-boroughness of the role. He talks—and walks—flawless “guido” in the film; very few are the scenes in which his costume includes sleeves, and he…

THE WAY It Wasn’t PAGE 280 Vanity Fair may not have been around for much of Hollywood’s GOLDEN AGE, but we sure wish we had been. So, without further ado, the OSCAR for best imaginary after-parties goes to . . . US! Tweets THROUGH TIME What if TWITTER had been with us from the beginning? #BCWORLDPROBLEMS PAGE 283 @vf.com WATCH BEHINDTHE-SCENES VIDEO FROM THE PHOTO SHOOT. GO TO VF.COM/OCT2013. ALICIA VIKANDER AGE: 25. PROVENANCE: Gothenburg, Sweden. NORDIC GIRL: The Scandinavian hails from a coastal city, where she grew up with an actress mother and psychiatrist father. “I was brought up in a very creative environment. I was fortunate to see Mom’s passion towards her acting, and it inspired me from an early age.” STAGE DOOR: Having moved to Stockholm at…

Kate Upton is the people’s supermodel. The 21-year-old bombshell has more than a million Twitter followers to go with her You-Tube fame as the most enthusiastic dancer of the Dougie this side of Michelle Obama. And over the last year or so, in an unusual move, she has risen from her position as the bros’ favorite swimsuit queen and has broken down the gates guarding the cloistered world of high fashion. She got her start in 2008, at the age of 15, when she signed with Elite Model Management fresh off a Miami casting call. When her contract ran out, in 2010, she went to meetings with various other agencies. “I’m not going to name names, but one agency told me, ‘You’re too American, and everybody knows American women are…

Was I the only person in the world who punched the air when Tom Freston was forced out of One Astor Plaza, headquarters of Viacom? I should have been sobbing, like most of the hundreds of colleagues and staff who worked for him. His exit was not good for the audiovisual music business (i.e., MTV) or for the other Viacom companies, which would cry for imaginative leadership as they faced a life without the Walt Disney of Pop Culture. But I punched the air because I had sensed for some time that this magnificent man, this satellite cowboy, this pioneer of communications, had long since been ready to ride off into a much more satisfying sunset than nailbiting box-office returns and Nielsen ratings. Tom Freston’s world has never been just…

T he manicured lawn of the Middleton family estate was the perfect retreat. Here the proud mother of the new third in line to the throne was free to roam as she pleased without fear of being spied on. The baby-blue Bugaboo pram Kate revealed she had bought weeks before the birth, along with a fully furnished nursery, had been set up at the Manor, the family’s 18-acre estate, on the outskirts of Bucklebury, a sleepy village in the middle of the Berkshire countryside where Kate grew up, 50 miles from Buckingham Palace. Surrounded by lush green fields and protected from the outside world by high oak trees and an impenetrable security system, it was like a fortress. Here, cocooned by her family, Kate felt safer than anywhere else in…

Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild are flying. These New York City Ballet principals constantly redefine what it means to be dancers today, whether performing at Lincoln Center or on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars. They are a couple onstage and off, engaged to be married since Fairchild dropped to his knee at Sacré-Coeur, in Paris, last spring. Peck is the most musical dancer of our time. Daring, beautiful, and high-spirited, she has seemingly limitless range. Her nuanced clarity in the Balanchine, Robbins, and Wheeldon roles she performs with N.Y.C.B. is matched by effortless technical fireworks, and she is also an affecting actress. As a child, she performed in movies, on TV, and on Broadway, so it seems appropriate that in October of next year at the Kennedy Center she will…

It’s the prom for San Francisco’s most soigné—the midwinter gala to benefit the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum—and the impeccably mannered host, Trevor Traina, scion of one of the city’s most established families, gives Jeremy Stoppelman, co-founder and C.E.O. of Yelp, a head-to-toe assessment. “You made the right call with the tux,” says Traina approvingly. “Yeah, glad I asked you,” replies Stoppelman, who’d thought maybe he could get away with wearing just a jacket and tie to this thing. (Please, my friend.) Traina, who in addition to being San Francisco’s undisputed social king is also a successful tech entrepreneur, puts an affectionate hand on his new pal’s shoulder. “These tech guys. You’ve got to keep them in line.” A few years ago, a major-league gala such as this would…

1 Annie Leibovitz For 30 years, contributing photographer Annie Leibovitz has upheld the magazine’s rich photographic legacy, shaped by Edward Steichen and Cecil Beaton. This month, Leibovitz helped commemorate Vanity Fair’s centennial ’ with her photos of Tom Freston (page 306), actors Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart (page 324), and Kate Upton (page 288)—her 167th cover for the magazine. “Annie made every person on set feel like they were an essential part of the team—such camaraderie,” recalls Upton (pictured above at the shoot). 2 Errol Morris In Errol Morris’s forthcoming documentary, The Unknown Known, the Academy Award–winning director explores the revisionist history spun by former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld about the Iraq War. “I’m trying to understand how Rumsfeld sees the world, how he wants other people…

Finally, a self-described “urban sanctuary” that lives up to its billing. Though located in the most hopping part of Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, the new High Line Hotel sits within the tranquil, cloistered grounds of the General Theological Seminary, a venerable Episcopal institution that dates from 1817 and occupies a prime block fronting 10th Avenue. Formerly an apple orchard, the property was part of a vast estate that stretched from what is now Eighth Avenue to the Hudson River and belonged to Clement Clarke Moore, a wealthy gentleman who in 1822 penned the Yuletide classic “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.” A few years ago, the seminary sold a few of the red-brick, English Gothic–style buildings on its campus. What were once dormitories are now the High Line Hotel. While retaining handsome…

When the stakes are high for those heading toward divorce, Hollywood’s top family-law attorney, Laura A. Wasser, is the woman to have on your side. She keeps mum on the details of high-profile clients such as Maria Shriver, Ashton Kutcher, Kim Kardashian, Jimmy Iovine, and Stevie Wonder, but this month she dispenses her wisdom to all with the publication of It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way: How to Divorce Without Destroying Your Family or Bankrupting Yourself (St. Martin’s). With talent, brains, and beauty, Wasser (whose initials are L.A.W.) shares some of her favorite things INSPIRATIONS Who inspires you My family; Stevland Morris. Necessary extravagance Oversize Hermes beach blankets. Favorite place in the world Our trailer in Point Dume. Favorite charities The Harriett Buhai Center for Family Law and the…

ANTHONY GORDON LENNOX Speechwriter and voice consultant I, Cinna (The Poet), by Tim Crouch “Through the Shakespearean character ‘Cinna,’ Crouch asks his audience to question the power of words and their ability to impact our actions and the society within which we live.” JESSICA SEINFELD Author of The Can’t Cook Book: Recipes for the Absolutely Terrified!, out this month The Tools, by Phil Stutz and Barry Michaels “It’s the only self-help book I’ve ever finished. I’m blown away by how user-friendly and practical the ‘tools’ are. It’s very gratifying to help yourself feel a little less crazy, without years of therapy.” RICKY VANVEEN Co-founder of CollegeHumor and producer of its first feature film, Coffee Town Daily Rituals, by Mason Currey “I’ve always been fascinated by people’s routines—when they get up,…

Dave Eggers digs into issues of privacy in his novel The Circle (Knopf). Peter Stothard excavates the story of Cleopatra in Alexandria (Overlook). David Plante turns diarist in Becoming a Londoner (Bloomsbury). Graham Nash remembers Wild Tales (Crown Archetype). Brian Jay Jones animates Jim Henson (Ballantine). Douglas Kirkland reviews A Life in Pictures (Glitterati). Slip into Jimmy Choo co-founder Tamara Mellon’s In My Shoes (Portfolio). Max Hastings revisits the outbreak of war in Catastrophe 1914 (Knopf). Leslie Cockburn plays Baghdad Solitaire (Asahina and Wallace). Songbird Linda Ronstadt entertains in Simple Dreams (Simon & Schuster). Valerie Gordon’s desserts make Sweet (Artisan) love to your senses. Earle Labor recalls the life of Jack London (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Medical-mystery cracker Philip A. Mackowiak looks at the history of Diagnosing Giants (Oxford). Stephen…

When it comes to skin care, three brands have traveled far and wide to tap into the Fountain of Youth. For its newly formulated, best-selling Immortelle Divine line, including golden elixirs for the face and eyes, L’Occitane cultivated Corsica’s native flower, containing multiple anti-aging properties ($54–$116; usa.loccitane.com). Meanwhile, Fresh turned to France’s Loire Valley for the finest Buckfast-bee honey, which constitutes 38 percent of its ultra-moisturizing Crème Ancienne Ultimate Nourishing Honey Mask ($130; fresh.com). And at an undisclosed location in France, Chanel grows its own miracle edulis plant (commonly known as morning glory)—the key ingredient in its new anti-wrinkle cream Le Lift, which comes in three textures, from light to rich ($165 each; chanel.com). —LENORA JANE ESTES…

Neil Patrick Harris looks younger than his 40 years (he reached the 4-0 milestone in June), yet he has already lived publicly through a lifetime’s worth of artistic phases: the teen-actor phase, in which he was, from 1989 to 1993, the star of Doogie Howser, M.D.; the transitional theater-actor phase, in which he flourished in revivals or touring productions of Rent, Cabaret, and Assassins; the proper-TV-star phase, in which he took on the role of the caddish Barney Stin-son on CBS’s How I Met Your Mother, now beginning its ninth and final season; and his M.C.-of-his-generation phase, which has seen him preside over the Em-mys twice (as of this month) and the Tonys four times. Soon begins a new phase, in which Harris shall trade in Barney’s cherished slim-fit suits…

It will be one big party at the Metropolitan Opera this month when Così Fan Tutte, Mozart’s comedic gem and eternal crowdpleaser, returns in a much-anticipated revival of Lesley Koenig’s charming 1996 production. Back in the pit, after a two-year absence due to physical problems, will be revered music director James Levine. And up on stage, leading an ensemble of rising stars, will be soprano standout Susanna Phillips in the role of Fiordiligi, one of the two sisters in the opera who are tricked into being unfaithful to their betrothed. (Her Juilliard suite-mate Isabel Leonard sings Dorabella.) “She’s a real firecracker,” says Phillips of Fiordiligi, “someone who’s very strong and passionate.” A native of Alabama and southern to her core—five years ago more than 450 Alabamians attended her Met debut,…

The Buddha says not to dwell on the past, or dream of the future, but concentrate on the moment. Or maybe that was Dr. Oz. Either way, I don’t like to look back at the 2000s, when I can help it, because my memories of the first decade of the 21st century are all tied up with George W. Bush. The 21st century? It was like moving into a brand-new dream house and spending the first night searching for the source of some terrible smell. And then finding Leatherface in the basement, making furniture out of hitchhikers. We’re always afraid of the wrong thing. We entered the century afraid that a computer glitch would ruin our economy and our defenses and plunge us into chaos. Little did we know. The…

The 70s began for me in 1975—on April 1, 1975, to be exact. That was the day I signed on to move to New York and begin work on a new late-night comedy/variety series for NBC. And it was going to be live. As it turns out, April Fools’ Day is the right day to start work on something like that. The year 1975 was a hinge moment in America. The president of the United States had recently resigned in disgrace, and politics was deeply unsettled. The Vietnam War had ended with the last helicopter taking off from the roof of the American Embassy in Saigon. New York City was flat broke. It was a moment of chaos, doubt, and, of course, opportunity. The perfect time to start a new…

On June 22, 1944, barely two weeks into the Allied invasion of France, the future of those who would survive the assault—and of the 16 million other members of the U.S. armed forces—began to take shape in Washington, D.C. The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, soon and forever to be known as the G.I. Bill, became law. Few deeds of presidents or legislators would have as much impact on the lives of Americans. By subsidizing veterans’ mortgages, it accelerated a prosperity-building postwar housing boom; by sending millions to college, it fostered the birth of a vast middle class. The optimism and generosity embodied in the G.I. Bill were expressions of a belief that there was nothing a nation on the brink of victory in a bloody worldwide struggle could not accomplish. As…

I have always been interested in that short space of time, 1913 to 1920, a mere seven years, that formed a bridge, quite literally, from the old world to the new. In 1913, most of British society was living much as it had done since the Glorious Revolution of 1688, with the hereditary Establishment at the head of almost everything. In America, there had been more-seismic shifts in the nineteenth century, it is true, not the least the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, but the way people lived, once things had settled down, was again much as it had always been. And yet seven years later the modern world, a world of nightclubs and motors and transatlantic travel, had essentially arrived. My late father had a very distinctive…

Daughters of Britain’s last viceroy, Louis, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Lady Pamela Hicks and her sister, the Countess, knew extreme privilege and epic tragedy. Hicks’s memoir describes experiences of a lifetime—friendships with Gandhi, Nehru, and the Queen—even though it ends at age 24 Not many people remain who can tell stories like Lady Pamela Hicks and her big sister, Patricia, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, the only children of Louis, Earl Mountbattten of Burma—and great-great-granddaughters of Queen Victoria. So while Pamela is 84 (and Patricia is 89), it’s no wonder that her new memoir, Daughter of Empire: My Life as a Mountbatten, stops at age 24. There was so much to get in. Their father, who was born in 1900 at Windsor Castle, became a naval officer and in 1922 married…

1937 Attending the party at the Brown Derby restaurant, Spencer Tracy shares a banquette with Howard Hughes and Amelia Earhart, while F. Scott Fitzgerald decries the state of the movie business, telling Frank Capra and Norma Shearer that Shearer’s late husband, Irving Thalberg, was “truly, the last tycoon.” Later in the evening, Fitzgerald is overheard confiding to Carole Lombard and Clark Gable his hopes that “someday, someone will make a decent movie adaptation” of his novel The Great Gatsby. 1941 Nine months before America enters World War II, the German consul general of Los Angeles attempts to crash the V.F. Oscar party at Ciro’s. Joining forces to dispatch him, best-actor honoree Jimmy Stewart (The Philadelphia Story) teams with fellow nominees Charlie Chaplin (The Great Dictator) and Henry Fonda (The Grapes…

I. Dead End Every afternoon, at four o’clock, a small group of demonstrators gathers outside 3 Hans Crescent, in London’s Knightsbridge district, to protest the confinement of a man inside the embassy at that address. The man hasn’t set foot beyond the embassy since June 19, 2012, the day he walked through its doors to avoid extradition from Britain to another country, where he is facing allegations that, he contends, are merely a first step in his eventual extradition to the United States. The man is Julian Assange, the 42-year-old Australian who is best known as the founder (in 2006) and public face of Wiki-Leaks, the nonprofit Web site that publishes previously secret material. In April, the organization released its largest trove to date, a database of approximately 1.7 million…

For decades, Spain’s Juan Carlos was one of the most powerful and popular Today, he faces a crisis: his younger daughter and her husband enmeshed in a relationship with a glamorous German businesswoman under scrutiny. Might the traditionalists by wedding an anchorwoman? BOB COLACELLO gets the latest monarchs in Europe, hailed as the father of his country’s democracy. corruption scandal; his marriage to Queen Sofía on rocky terrain; his 75-year-old king abdicate in favor of his son, Crown Prince Felipe, who shocked from the inner circle in Madrid—and also hears from the lady in question LOW OF 54 PERCENT Before dawn on Friday, April 13, 2012, King Juan Carlos of Spain took a fall while on an elephanthunting safari in Botswana and was immediately flown home to Madrid, where he…

Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart—who are starring on Broadway in repertory together starting November 24 in two benchmark plays of the 20th century, Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot—are old friends and contemporaries who have a great deal in common. They are mutant rivals Magneto and Professor X in the X-Men movies. And, as the Brits tend to be, they were both weaned on Shakespeare. McKellen achieved early acclaim as a great classical actor following his stagestruck years at Cambridge University, while Stewart was a yeoman member of the Royal Shakespeare Company for 16 years before Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the starship Enterprise made him internationally famous. They starred in a play together as long ago as the 1977 premiere of Tom Stoppard…

Deep below the streets of New York City lie its vital organs—a water system, subways, railroads, tunnels, sewers, drains, and power and cable lines—in a vast, threedimensional tangle. Penetrating this centuries-old underworld of caverns, squatters, and unmarked doors, WILLIAM LANGEWIESCHE follows three men who constantly navigate its dangers: the subway-operations chief who dealt with the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, the engineer in charge of three underground mega-projects, and the guy who, well, just loves exploring the dark, jerry-rigged heart of a great metropolis I. The Trainman When Hurricane Sandy hit New York City, on the night of Monday, October 29, 2012, the first man to realize that the underground was flooding—and calamitously so—was an unassuming subway manager named Joseph Leader, who, having ridden in a National Guard truck from the…

America’s pre-eminent horror novelist, whose Under the Dome inspired the CBS series, is now out with his latest, Doctor Sleep—a sequel to The Shining. Here, he admits his own greatest fear: losing his memory What is your idea of perfect happiness? Time to read. What is your greatest fear? Alzheimer’s disease. Which historical figure do you most identify with? None. Which living person do you most admire? Barack Obama. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? A tendency to go along with what people want from me, even if it’s not what I want, rather than disappoint them. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Anger. What is your greatest extravagance? I own too damn many cars. What is your favorite journey? Maine to Florida, by…

The erosion of coastal beaches and bluffs near high-priced real estate is sad but inevitable [“From Coast to Toast,” by William D. Cohan and Vanessa Grigoriadis, August]. We who live in the Orange County beach areas are no longer shocked to see earth and homes slip away. While expensive homes are threatened in such highly attractive communities, the “one-percenters” themselves are having a serious negative impact on what were once charming villages and neighborhoods. The super-rich buy the quaint and colorful beachfront homes and replace them with showy, multi-million-dollar trophy homes. Then they rarely use them, and certainly not as family dwellings. So we locals are left year-round with their cold, empty buildings, seldom visited and almost never occupied by a family with kids and dogs. They create ghostly stretches…

The quest for the perfect shirt is a passion for Alexander Drexler, whose label, Alex Mill—a name that represents both quality and value—has just debuted at Drexler’s new boutique, in N.Y.C.’s Nolita. (The line is also sold at Barneys.) “Despite all the options out there,” says Drexler, “it was still hard to find the perfect shirt with the right fit, the right fabric.” Determined to define a single, versatile cut that looks as good with a blazer as it does with swim trunks, Drexler positioned the Alex Mill shirt for men of any age. “I find that the coolest clothes out there can work for a range of guys. That’s something I’ve learned from my father”—Alexander’s father is J. Crew C.E.O. Mickey Drexler. Alex Mill’s debut line will also include…

Awakening First Love Blue Is the Warmest Color, Tunisian-French director Abdellatif Kechiche’s coming-of-s age story, is one of the most hotly debated films of the year, both for its length—almost three hours—and its graphic lesbian-sex scenes. Winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, the film is further distinguished by the jury’s insistence that actresses Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos be included as recipients of the coveted prize. Based on the graphic novel Le Bleu Est une Couleur Chaude, by Julie Maroh, Blue is the story of Adèle, an idealistic high-school student aspiring to be a teacher, who finds herself drawn to Emma, a slightly older artist-tomboy with short bright-blue hair. The film is stunning not for the explicit sex but for the emotional exposure, the exquisite…

It’s not about fashion as much as it’s about style,” says designer John Varvatos about his massive new book, John Varvatos: Rock in Fashion, which showcases and celebrates some of the best looks in rock and roll. Varvatos, who grew up in Detroit—home to Motown as well as early punk pioneers the MC5 and the Stooges—has never lost his love for the funky but chic. This 272-page book has extraordinary images of the Stooges, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, the Clash, New York Dolls, and dozens of others. Here, Varvatos talks with Lisa Robinson about his love of the sound and vision of rock and roll. LISA ROBINSON: Which bands did you love when you were growing up? JOHN VARVATOS: I loved the MC5 and the…

Jhumpa Lahiri is an elegant stylist, effortlessly placing the perfect words in the perfect order time and again so we’re transported seamlessly into another place. In her new novel, The Lowland (Knopf), it’s the 1960s, and violent revolution has come to Calcutta and America, with reverberations to be felt by generations to come. Every family story is somehow a war story; Lahiri has a talent for coolly illustrating this truth. On one side of The Lowland is the bookish and obedient Subhash, on the other his charismatic, rebellious younger brother, Udayan, to whom Subhash has always felt inferior. While Subhash breaks away from home to quietly pursue his studies in America, Udayan stays behind to join the Naxalite movement. Lahiri conveys the complicated nature of their relationship in Udayan’s letters…

La Prairie Anti-Aging Eye and Lip Perfection à Porter Eye-contour-cream-gel-and-lip-balm duo are perfect together in a sleek silver compact. ($150; laprairie.com) Clinique New, Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion+ just got more dramatic with a new formula to provide extra barrier protection and hydration. ($26; clinique.com) Chantecaille The Wild Horses Palette Save the wild horses! Five percent of all proceeds will go to the Humane Society for its efforts. ($83; chantecaille.com) See by Chloé Paint a Scent Don’t spray it, paint it! Limited-edition mini of its eau de parfum is as playful as it looks. ($35; sephora.com) Kiehl’s Super Multi-Corrective Cream Lift, firm, and re-texturize your skin in no time. ($62; kiehls.com) —SUNHEE GRINNELL…

Fergus Henderson, most genial of men, is the eccentric British chef who pioneered “nose-totail eating,” or the unsqueamish pleasure in the entire animal. “If you kill an animal, you should eat all of it,” he explained over lunch in his gentle way. “It’s only polite.” Let the record show that Mr. Henderson is worshipped by master chefs—Mario Batali and David Chang among them. When Anthony Bourdain dined at Henderson’s now fabled St. John restaurant, in the City of London, he swooned in a form of religious epiphany, as foodies are wont to do; while A. A. Gill most unusually reversed his negative review in The Sunday Times to pronounce that Henderson’s traditional farmyard fare now left him in tears of wonder. I met our man for lunch at his favorite…

Big birthday: big book. Next month will see the publication of Vanity Fair 100 Years, a cultural feast as centennial tribute. At 456 pages, and just over eight pounds, it showcases visual and literary highlights from both of V.F.’s incarnations as the gold standard of the thoroughly modern magazine. Herewith, a first eyeful Cabaret eminence Josephine Baker, by Paolo Garretto, February 1936. Tina Fey, by Annie Leibovitz, January 2009 cover. Leslie Howard, by Edward Steichen, January 1934. George Herman “Babe” Ruth, by Miguel Covarrubias, September 1933 cover. George Clooney at Villa Allamel, Lake Como, Italy, by Annie Leibovitz, October 2003. Katharine Hepburn, by Cecil Beaton, July 1935. “IN A LOVE AFFAIR, IF A REAL LADY IS INVOLVED, SHE KEEPS IT SECRET. A LOVE AFFAIR IS NOT A LOVE AFFAIR IF…

The decade started with a series of miracles. Affronts to justice and human dignity, which for decades seemed as unchangeable as the distance to the moon, suddenly were no more. The first seemed impossible. Nelson Mandela had been in prison for 27 years. The world had a right to assume that he, and the dream of equality in South Africa, would die behind bars, and no amount of international condemnation would make a difference. Then there was de Klerk. Then his first address to Parliament, when he lifted the ban on the African National Congress. People began to hope. Could it happen? And then Mandela was out. On February 11, 1990, he was released, a gray man but a free man. It defied belief and felt like resurrection. Seeing Nelson…

The word that I associate with the 60s is Disruption. There was, for example, technical disruption, just as there had been around the invention of the printing press. The computer, which had started the decade sitting in a corner looking like your mom’s refrigerator, climbed down off itself and became freakishly empowered tiny chips of silicon that would end up littering the surface of the very moon. Other technical disruptions followed. In Trumansberg, New York, Robert Moog had been working on his synthesizer, and we would get to hear it a lot. And I remember as a toddler in the early 40s being led into a newspaper office full of typewriters, smoke, profanity, and fedoras. The newspaper office of 1960 looked very much the same. But the newspaper off ice…

After the Crash, you could walk any road and feel the stillness. Main Streets were sad corridors of shuttered businesses. Jobs were gone. A man in New York City later recalled the bankrupt stores on Broadway, the avenue strangely yellowed by fallen fortunes, people just standing, shuffling aimlessly, silent. In Los Angeles, behind houses darkened when utility bills couldn’t be paid, people cooked suppers over campfires. Everywhere, foreclosure signs picketed streets lined with vacant houses. By the beginning of 1934, roughly one-half of urban homeowners had defaulted on their mortgages. In Manhattan, architect Richard B. Snow had long been accustomed to factory smoke blooming over the city. “And then it was 1932, and there was no smoke at all,” he told his son, historian Richard F. Snow. “Just … maybe…

How does Donald Rumsfeld see his signal legacy: the disastrous invasion of Iraq? For a new movie, the author, a noted documentary-maker, conducted 34 hours of interviews with the former secretary of defense—producing a portrait of Rumsfeld’s knowns and unknowns In May of 2011, I sat in a conference room in Washington, D.C. The walls were papered with citations by presidents from Richard M. Nixon to George W. Bush, evidence of a life in power. In front of me was Donald Rumsfeld, a man who had helped persuade the country to go to war with Iraq, a war I strongly opposed. I was there to persuade him to let me make a film about him. Rumsfeld showed me a crumpled piece of metal, a fragment of an anti-ballistic missile. He…

On the heels of her leading role in director Tommy Wirkola’s Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, this past winter, ravishing English actress and former Bond girl Gemma Arterton returns to the world of crime in the thriller Runner Runner, in theaters in October. She plays Rebecca Shafran, the right-hand girl of nefarious poker-Web-site owner Ivan Block (played by Ben Affleck), who is forced to contend with Richie Furst (Justin Timberlake), a Princeton student who has lost his tuition money on the site. Embroiled in the billion-dollar online-gambling industry, Rebecca “finds herself trapped and in too deep in a world of crime she doesn’t really enjoy,” Arterton says of her character. “She is the only female in the movie, so I had to make her earthy and give her a lot…

WHO TO FOLLOW: Marco Polo @China Lover Followed by @CapsJonesy and others A Lincoln @ Stove Pipel Followed by @narmstrong and others Cleopatra @MissCleo Followed by @Dogstar and others TRENDS #EtTuBrute #letthemeatcake #madflatworld #VeniVidiVici #AngkorSayWhat #1066 #lutheratthedoor #henrysgotawife #partyatwoodstock Lucy Bipedal @ Pleistoscenester HDMD ERECTUS, 1-2 MILYEARS AGO Hey so who’s the new hominin on the block? Tall guy! #twolegsgood Ramses @ Dogstar EGYPTIANS/365-DAY CALENDAR, C. 2700 B.C. FINE BUT STILL THINK WE NEED TO RESOLVE PROB OF EXTRA DAY "366"—WORK OUT PLS & HAVE ON MY DESK BY FIRST OF AKHET—THX #giantleapyearforward Thutmose @ flatsurfaceplease FIRST PYRAMID, C. 2630 B.C. F#%$! @Imhotep & his PYRAMID scheme, like where’s the outdoor grill supposed 2 go? Bobamemnon Costas @BCostas FIRST OLYMPICS, 776 B.C Open ceremonies:suggest LSE rit.sacrifice of centaurs, KEEP chariot…

For 75 years Le Viol (The Rape)–one of some 80 works in "Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926–1938," opening at the Museum of Modern Art this month.has had a vivid meaning for me. In 1938, when Surrealism was still a mystery to most people, my mother took my sister and me on a round of London’s avant-garde galleries. "Heaven knows what we are in for," she said as we stepped into the first exhibition. To her horror, we were confronted by a different version of this outrageous facial pun. She promptly hustled us out, but the image stuck in my mind and ignited a passionate, lifelong interest in Surrealism. What is so discombobulating about this rape is the way Magritte has given the subject an expression of pursed-lipped disapproval.…

The Hunger Games films may have begun as Suzanne Collins’s hugely popular trilogy of books aimed at young adults, but with a new director and a star who scored the best-actress statuette at this year’s Oscars, the second installment of this blockbuster franchise is all grown up. “One of the big overarching themes for all the books is this idea of the consequences of war, and one of the unfortunate consequences of war is post-traumatic stress,” explains Francis Lawrence, who directed The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, out this November. (His previous films include I Am Legend and Water for Elephants.) In the new movie, not only have young leads Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson aged nearly two years, but also their characters, Katniss and Peeta, have returned to their home…

Thrity-five years after Roman Polanski served time in prison for unlawful sex with a minor-fleeing Hollywood for Europe only when Judge Laurence J. Rittenband threatened to re-incarcerate him-the notorious director’s punishment may have exceeded his crime. Dissecting one of the longest cases in California history. JAMES FOX gets a rare interview with Polanski, who discusses hig 2009 arrest in Switzerland, the public hatred he experieneed, and his next movie, about another legal and political epic: the Dreyfus affair The French statesman Talleyrand’s advice to his diplomats, “Above all, not too much zeal,” would have been well observed in the Federal Office of Justice in Berne, Switzerland, one day in late September 2009. That day, an official received a call from a police station in Zurich. As the Swiss journalist Daniel…

With New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art about to open “Balthus: Cats and Girls—Paintings and Provocations,” focusing on the artist’s work from the mid-1930s to the 1950s, one can already hear the crowds purring about his Alice-in-Wonderland-type paintings. Folks who think contemporary art is the emperor’s new clothes will once again breathe a sigh of relief: “Whew! A real painter!” The shrinks will have a field day: “What’s with the fixation on pubescent girls?” The feminists—please God, there are some left—will weigh in, and maybe the moralists too. Balthus, who died in 2001, liked to stay above the fray, never embracing the isms that absorbed so many of his contemporaries. Born Balthasar Klossowski, he cultivated an air of mystery and myth, secluding himself in old-world country houses and castles in…