October 7, 2023
The Best
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No. 221
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In This Week’s Issue
KISSING COUSINS

In eastern Paris, a 200-year-old religious cult’s nearly 4,000 members all hail from one of only eight families, relying on incest and ironclad secrecy to remain alive …

WELLINGTON’S WATERLOO

In Florida’s ritziest horse town, the only people more competitive than power players’ show-jumping daughters are the real-estate developers who want to take it over …

WITNESS PROTECTION

In the latest installment of his series on the Idaho student murders, Howard Blum tracks down a victim’s grief-stricken father as the alleged killer’s trial is postponed …

RED-COLORED GLASSES

China’s Xi Jinping can’t shake his Cultural Revolution past, which is why he wants the younger generation to walk a long march in his shoes …

TO INFINITY … AND … JAIL?

Jacob Silverman reviews Michael Lewis’s new biography of Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto-currency scammer whose trial is unfolding in tandem with the Big Short author’s book release …

THE WRITE BROTHERS

The three Midwestern lads who wrote and directed Airplane! were turned away by every studio before a freelance script reader found humor in a knockoff screenplay about food poisoning, PTSD, and a flight gone horribly wrong …

IMMOVABLE FEASTS

When Italian restaurants want to open in America—from Sant Ambroeus and Cipriani to, more recently, Roscioli—it’s not as simple as following a formula … er, recipe …

BUT, WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Bette Midler gets nervous, just like you … it’s beginning to look a lot like Naples … Julian Schnabel and Johnny Depp aren’t on speaking terms … Europe’s most prominent dynasty is back, with more rules … safari like Liz and Dick (without the marital strife) … our Landing Gear columnist solves the eternal Canada-geese conundrum … And won’t you please vote for the Attention Whore of the week, darling? …

But First …
Issue No. 221

The View from Here Psych report: Does Xi Jinping have a Mao complex?

By James Palmer
Read On
Barry Blitt’s Sketchbook
In Cold Blood

The Eyes of a Killer:
Part VI After a few false leads, a grieving father turned amateur sleuth discovers the prosecution’s hidden ace

By Howard Blum
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CHOP CHOPPISH SHOP
Read On
A Town Divided

There Goes the Neigh-borhood! In Florida, old-guard horse-lovers and new-money developers are duking it out for the soul of Wellington

By Nancy Jo Sales
Read On
The Cult Around the Corner

Keeping It in La Famille For more than 200 years, members of a religious cult characterized by intermarriage have been living in central Paris in near-total secrecy

By Makana Eyre and John Knych
Read On
Air Supply

The Athletic Aesthete

Whether your workout of choice is sun salutations or a round of doubles, AIR SUPPLY has you covered, with smart activewear and fitness accessories—plus the ultimate recovery tools—for your best performance yet
Shop
Photo: Allstar Picture Library (Curtis)
Guest Edit

My Favorite Things The designer behind Métier’s leather heirlooms shares her own objects of permanence, from discreet yet distinctive wardrobe essentials to the suitcase staples that bring ease to every journey

By Melissa Morris
Shop
Photo: Zev Starr-Tambor (Morris)
Small Talk

Family (Mis)Fortunes A Trump and a Kushner square off for the title of “World’s Worst Grandpa”

By Nell Scovell
Photo Illustration by Chop Choppish Shop
Read On
Landing Gear

Status Symbols Earbuds that sound money! Send the Canada geese back to Green Acres! The strongest screen protector around! And more …

By Jonathan Margolis
Read On
Small Talk
“Obviously our vow of poverty excludes real estate.”
“Obviously our vow of poverty excludes real estate.”
Listen

Lunch with Bette Midler On this week’s episode of Table for Two, Bette Midler reveals to host Bruce Bozzi that, yes, even she gets nervous …

Read On
T.G.I.S.

The Attention-Whore Index The Republicans spit out Kevin McCarthy, Gwyneth Paltrow chokes on her politics, and one of Britain’s richest men doesn’t recognize Jeffrey Epstein in the mirror. Please, pick your favorite loser already!

Read On
Kings of Comedy

Terminal Hilarity How three guys from the Milwaukee suburbs re-invented American comedy

By Josh Karp
Read On
Artistic License

Julian Schnabel’s Cutting Edge Despite commercial success and a body of work that now spans more than five decades, the artist is just as irritable and unimpressed as ever

By Arwa Mahdawi
Read On
Best
Read Top Dogs: A British Love Affair What do you get when you combine Queen Camilla and “a British love affair”? A story about dogs… Wear Jacquemus The party gods have informed us that our festive fashion is handled until further notice. The good people at Jacquemus have just… Wear Uniqlo Sometimes it’s O.K. to be boring! It really is! Which is why today we are talking about socks. Specifically basic black ones you can wear under… Listen Tim: Let It Bleed Edition Deep into the reissue era, one approaches yet another elaborately packaged boxed set with a little… Sparkle Lucy Delius “Old meets new” is the simplest way to describe the emerging British jewelry brand Lucy Delius. After spending more than 15 years building… Read Fear Is Just a Word Mexican cartels that kidnap, torture, and behead civilians are not normally anything you’d want to read about. Azam Ahmed, a New York Times… Read Top Dogs: A British Love Affair What do you get when you combine Queen Camilla and “a British love affair”? A story about dogs… Wear Jacquemus The party gods have informed us that our festive fashion is handled until further notice. The good people at Jacquemus have just… Wear Uniqlo Sometimes it’s O.K. to be boring! It really is! Which is why today we are talking about socks. Specifically basic black ones you can wear under… Listen Tim: Let It Bleed Edition Deep into the reissue era, one approaches yet another elaborately packaged boxed set with a little… Sparkle Lucy Delius “Old meets new” is the simplest way to describe the emerging British jewelry brand Lucy Delius. After spending more than 15 years building… Read Fear Is Just a Word Mexican cartels that kidnap, torture, and behead civilians are not normally anything you’d want to read about. Azam Ahmed, a New York Times…
Spaghetti Western

There’s No Place Like Rome The Manhattan opening of Roscioli, a revered fourth-generation Roman bakery and salumeria, asks: Can an iconic Italian restaurant ever really be replicated in the U.S.?

By Nina Friend
Read On
High Times

Livin’ la Vida Circoloca Unlike history’s favorite nightclub parties, whose popularity was fleeting, Circoloco—nearly 25 years into its tenure in Ibiza—is cooler than ever

By Elena Clavarino
Read On
After Hours

A Night Celebrating Adam Nagourney On Tuesday, Gay Talese, Maureen Dowd, Maggie Haberman, and other journalistic swells gathered at a book party hosted by AIR MAIL Co-Editors Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley in celebration of the writer’s new book, a history of The New York Times

By Nathan King
Photographs by Daniel Paik
11
Jim Goodale, Graydon Carter, and Adam Nagourney at the Waverly Inn, in Manhattan, for a party in honor of Nagourney’s new book, The Times.
Top, Gay Talese, Graydon Carter, and Nick Pileggi; above, Shawn McCreesh and Maureen Dowd.
Top, Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zucker; above, Michael Grynbaum and Juli Weiner.
Top, Jim Goodale and Peter Osnos; above, Allison Gollust and Linda Wells.
Top, David Margolick and Jeff Roth; above, Nick Pileggi, Gay Talese, and Adam Nagourney.
Top, Joe Kahn; above, Alessandra Stanley.
Top, Marcia Kramer, Ben Kushner, and Ann Bramson; above, Dan Barry and David W. Dunlap.
Top, Jim Roberts; above, Shannon Wu and Will Griggs.
Top, Jim Goodale; above, Alex Levy and Lisa Lerer.
Top, Jon Kelly, Graydon Carter, and Dana Brown; above, David Halbfinger, Lisa Tobin, and Lisa Lerer.
Top, Adam Nagourney; above, Nick Pileggi and Graydon Carter.
Read On
Small Talk
Listen

Will a Victim’s Father Take Down the Idaho Killer? On this week’s podcast, Howard Blum reveals how the father of one of the victims is pursuing his own investigation—and uncovering new facts

Read On
Open Book

Twentieth-Century Woman A new book collects 100 images taken by Lee Miller, the intrepid photographer, war correspondent, and Surrealist muse, played by Kate Winslet in an upcoming film

By Celia McGee
14
Lee Miller, photographed by Life magazine’s David E. Scherman in Hitler’s bathtub in Munich in 1945. The bath mat beneath her combat boots is smeared with dirt from the Dachau concentration camp.
Portrait of Space, photographed by Miller in Al-Bulwayeb, near Siwa, Egypt, in 1937.
Piano by Broadwood, photographed in London in 1940.
Leonora Carrington, photographed in Saint-Martin-d’Ardèche, France, in 1939.
Irmgard Seefried sings an aria from Madama Butterfly in the bombed-out Vienna State Opera in 1945.
Artillery spotters in the Hôtel Ambassadeurs direct fire in Saint-Malo, France, in 1944.
Picnic, photographed on the Île Sainte-Marguerite, in Cannes, in 1937.
Margaret Bourke-White, of the 97th Bombardment Group, 8th Bomber Command, photographed in Northamptonshire, England, in 1942.
Auxiliary Territorial Service searchlight operators in South Mimms, in North London, in 1943.
Jean Cocteau, photographed in the Palais Royal arcade, in Paris, in 1944.
Edward Matthews as Saint Ignatius in Four Saints in Three Acts, photographed in New York in 1933.
A model, photographed for Pidoux in the Vogue London studio in 1939.
The performer Nusch Éluard, photographed in Mougins, France, in 1937.
A parachute packer, photographed in Somerset, England, in 1941.
Read On
Film and Television

The Devil’s in the Details From Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God to the novels of Elena Ferrante—where has this insatiable appetite for all things Naples come from?

By Tobias Jones
Read On
Book Reviews
Jacob Silverman On

Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon

by Michael Lewis
Read On
Abhrajyoti Chakraborty On

The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice, and Courage

by Philippe Sands
Read On
Small Talk
“Spare me the early-bird lecture.”
“Spare me the early-bird lecture.”
Rules of Civility

Till Kingdom Come The Holy Roman Empire failed so you don’t have to. In a new book, a scion of the Habsburg family interprets lessons from one of Europe’s most powerful dynasties for the personal realm

By Mattia Ferraresi
Read On
Highlight
Julia Margaret Cameron’s 1867 photo of her niece Julia Jackson, who was Virginia Woolf’s mother.

Photo Finish

Described by Roland Barthes as one of the great “originators” of photography, Julia Margaret Cameron was a creature like no other. She picked up her first camera in 1863, when she was 48. A gift from her daughter, the camera was delivered with a note that now reads like an award-winning example of British understatement: “It may amuse you, Mother, to try to photograph during your solitude at Freshwater.” In that seaside village, on England’s Isle of Wight, she made almost 1,000 images that to this day look like no one else’s. “Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron” opens at the Jeu de Paume on October 10, the first Paris exhibition of the artist since 1985. It will be fascinating to see how this new interest in Cameron expresses itself in the creative Zeitgeist of the fashion capital. READ ON

Julia Margaret Cameron’s 1867 photo of her niece Julia Jackson, who was Virginia Woolf’s mother. Read On
Close-up

Tommy Grimshaw As the fall grape harvest begins, the youngest head wine-maker in England discusses the U.K.’s burgeoning wine industry

By Elena Clavarino
Read On
Small Talk
Barhopping

Bottoms Up Copenhagen has long been an epicenter of fine dining. But these exciting wine bars make the case for a less fussy experience

By Kyle Beechey
Read On
View With a Room

The Elephant in the Room Safaris can make or break couples—we’re thinking here of Out of Africa, Mogambo, and, naturally, Harry and Meghan. At Chobe Game Lodge, in Botswana, you can re-ignite your passion, just like Dick and Liz did

By Adam Hay-Nicholls
Read On
The Seasoned Traveler

Molly Baz The chef, food writer, and cookbook author reveals her travel routine

Read On
Danielle Kosann’s Sketchbook
When I was growing up, my parents had an enormous Fernando Botero poster in the center of our kitchen, where we spent most of our time. As a figurative painter whose work is often rooted in whimsy and satire, I find it hard to imagine that it didn’t have a greater impact on me than I’m even aware. To this day, he is one of my favorite painters, and I often look to his work for a creative spark. I visit his painting Dancing in Colombia (which inspired this oil sketch) whenever I’m at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City. Each time, I find something new.
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In Memoriam

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

Issue No. 221
October 7, 2023
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Issue No. 221
October 7, 2023
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