Skip to Content
The Best
of
The
News
from
Abroad
Weekend
Edition
Saturdays

at 6:00 AM
In This Week’s Issue


Issue No. 17

The View from Here

Berlin, Berlin, Berlin. What about Ljubljana?…

Read On

Unbuild the Wall The night they drove old Deutschland down

Read On

The Polanski Affair Will American audiences ever see An Officer and a Spy after the exiled director likened his rape case to the anti-Semitic false charges leveled against Alfred Dreyfus?

Read On

The Mikado’s Fresh Start

Ever since its premiere at London’s Savoy Theatre in 1885, The Mikado, a farce set in a daffy fantasy Japan called Titipu, has routinely been performed in yellowface, a practice increasingly untenable in any enlightened metropolis. Yet, demand for this ninth of Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operettas—with hits like “A wand’ring minstrel I,” “Three little maids from school,” and so many more—shows no sign of waning. What to do? READ ON

The Mikado at the English National Opera, in London, runs through November 30.

Read On
Discover

The Most Important Man on Earth David Attenborough is beloved in Britain, and, at 93, a global star. Now he’s sounding alarms about the planet. Is he too late?

Read On
Small Talk
“The press briefings have picked up since they added the laugh track.”

Throne for a Loss Why do the royals keep falling for moneyed mountebanks and billionaire bounders?

Read On

Read On
Books

Here’s to You, Mr. Nichols Graydon Carter toasts Ash Carter and Sam Kashner at Monkey Bar to celebrate their new oral biography of Mike Nichols


Prescription Dubs Can you tell your pharmaceuticals from your pop stars? Really? A quiz

Read On

All the Senator’s Men

Bad guys have always been good for opera. They betray friends, doom lovers, and disrupt the peace—mayhem that leads to melodrama and drives a juicy plot. Composer Gregory Spears’s Fellow Travelers, set in early-1950s Washington, D.C., deploys one of the baddest guys of all, Senator Joe McCarthy, but he appears only briefly. “Opera is a very complex system, involving a lot of resources,” says Spears. “I don’t think we need to waste the resources of the orchestra telling people that McCarthy was a villain. I’m interested in complicated characters we can get close to—and I don’t want to get very close to him.” READ ON

The cast of Fellow Travelers, opening at the Boston Lyric Opera on November 13.

Read On
Discover

Inside Prison 1600 An exclusive excerpt from Melania Trump’s (completely unverified) private diary

Read On

“What Ho, Sergei!” Rich Russian family advertises for a butler who can shimmer like Jeeves

Read On

Giorgia Lupi The information designer who is connecting the dots of data to generate highly covetable fashion

Read On
Style

Why Do Rich People Love to Shoplift? A week before he was busted for petty larceny at Kmart, a man had paid $8 million for an island in the Florida Keys

Read On
Small Talk
“I’m invisible to all men.”

Bowie’s Top 100 Before he died, David Bowie published a list of books that changed his life. A new volume parses through all 100 titles, including a little-remembered 1842 novel

Read On

Lauren Groff Recommends the jewels among her preferred novels and short stories

Read On
Books

Margaret Thatcher

by Charles Moore
Read On

Find Me

by André Aciman
Read On

A Castle in Wartime

by Catherine Bailey
Read On

I Used to Be Charming

by Eve Babitz
Read On
Books

Daydreams A new collection of photographs by the actor and filmmaker, most of which have never before been published, takes you back to the 60s


Before Before Sunrise Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke on how they made their memorable trilogy

Read On
Small Talk
“The next downtown local train has entered a rift in the space-time continuum, and will arrive in 3027.”

Boccioni Ex Machina

Originally a painter, Umberto Boccioni turned to sculpture only four years before his death, in 1916, at the age of 33. Along with the rest of his futurist cohort, Boccioni was obsessed with Italy’s delayed industrialization, and in his work he sought to capture the dynamics of speed and machinery. The result was a series of abstract sculptures that express the essence of movement, filling space with a sensation of forward advance. READ ON

Umberto Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913) goes to auction at Christie’s in New York on November 11.

Read On

Deconstructing Ralph Lauren A new documentary explores the life and legacy of the man behind the mega-brand

Read On
Small Talk
“I went to a school in Boston.”
Best
Shine Flashlight Call us old-fashioned, but we think there’s something a bit sad about formerly essential tools that have been tossed aside… Wear A Winning Rolex Through all his championships, all the times his famed wrists provided a blast of strength or the perfect soft touch… Eat Díporto Near Athens’s Central Market, far from the shadow of the Acropolis and its surrounding tourist traps… Adam Driver, Azhy Robertson and Scarlett Johansson in Marriage Story (2019), directed by Noah Baumbach. Watch Marriage Story If any doubt remains that Adam Driver is one of the top talents of this decade, Marriage Story puts an end to those thoughts… Shown from left: Br’er Fox (voice: James Baskett), Bobby Driscoll (as Johnny), James Baskett (as Uncle Remus), Br’er Bear (voice: Nicodemus Stewart), Luana Patten (as Ginny), Br’er Rabbit (voice: Johnny Lee) in Song of the South (1946). Listen You Must Remember This Karina Longworth is an archaeologist of Old Hollywood, weaving together movie lore and social history… Ride Garibaldi C Prohibition If you like Barolo with barbecued brisket, Garneau’s flagship bike, the Garibaldi C Prohibition, will suit you… Shine Flashlight Call us old-fashioned, but we think there’s something a bit sad about formerly essential tools that have been tossed aside… Wear A Winning Rolex Through all his championships, all the times his famed wrists provided a blast of strength or the perfect soft touch… Eat Díporto Near Athens’s Central Market, far from the shadow of the Acropolis and its surrounding tourist traps… Adam Driver, Azhy Robertson and Scarlett Johansson in Marriage Story (2019), directed by Noah Baumbach. Watch Marriage Story If any doubt remains that Adam Driver is one of the top talents of this decade, Marriage Story puts an end to those thoughts… Shown from left: Br’er Fox (voice: James Baskett), Bobby Driscoll (as Johnny), James Baskett (as Uncle Remus), Br’er Bear (voice: Nicodemus Stewart), Luana Patten (as Ginny), Br’er Rabbit (voice: Johnny Lee) in Song of the South (1946). Listen You Must Remember This Karina Longworth is an archaeologist of Old Hollywood, weaving together movie lore and social history… Ride Garibaldi C Prohibition If you like Barolo with barbecued brisket, Garneau’s flagship bike, the Garibaldi C Prohibition, will suit you…

Soul Sisters As an exhibition on the work of black artists hits San Francisco, the academic reflects on the show’s centerpiece: a portrait of the ex–Black Panther she shares a name with

Read On
View With a Room

Rock of Ages Check into Brice and Helen Marden’s bohemian hideaway on a scenic hilltop in Nevis

Small Talk
“Stand back, give him air.”

Read On

Is Edited By

Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley

Deputy Editors

Chris Garrett Michael Hainey George Kalogerakis Nathan King

Design Director

Angela Panichi

Chief Technology Officer

John Tornow

Books Editor

Jim Kelly

Arts Intel Report Editor

Laura Jacobs

Style Editor

Ashley Baker

Articles Editor

Ash Carter

Senior Editor

Julia Vitale

Photo Editor

Ann Schneider

Cartoon Editor

Bob Mankoff

Communications Director

Beth Kseniak



Assistant Editors

Elena Clavarino Clementine Ford Alex Oliveira


International Editor

Isabelle Harvie-Watt

London Editor

Bridget Arsenault


Copy Editor

Adam Nadler

Production Editor

H. Scott Jolley

Associate Editor

Elinor Schneider


Chief Operating Officer

Bill Keenan

Chief Marketing Officer

Emily Davis

Brand Partnerships

Anjali Lewis

Financial & Business Operations

Marc Leyer

Integrated Marketing Manager

Madeline Spates

Intern

Eshaan Jain

Issue No. 17
November 9, 2019
Loading issue contents …
Issue No. 17
November 9, 2019

Every editorial product is independently selected. If you buy something through
our links,
AIR MAIL may earn an affiliate commission.