Khyber Pass The Buck?

Alessandra Stanley finds that the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan and the finale of The White Lotus have a lot in common …

The Social Network

More than one billion people in 150 countries use TikTok every day, making it the world’s most downloaded social-media app. So what does it want?

Wheels of the Fortunate

Jamie Kitman gets behind the wheel of the new generation of the Chevrolet Corvette, the C8 …

A Fish Story

In Iceland, Tim Bouverie gets hooked by the real sport of kings (or at least Prince Charles): salmon fishing in the North Atlantic …

Checkbook Charlie

Helena Merriman gives the incredible inside story of how a group of East Germans tunneled to freedom in 1961, thanks to money from NBC News …

Back In the U.S.S.R.

Marc Bennetts reports on the growing number of Russian “revivalists,” who don’t believe the Soviet Union ever dissolved …

The Chador-ing Class

Ashley Baker reveals the remarkable details of CNN’s intrepid woman in Afghanistan, Clarissa Ward …

Issue No. 110

Kabul and Kaput What do the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan and the White Lotus finale have in common? Plenty

By Alessandra Stanley

Read On

Warding Off Evil CNN’s star correspondent takes us to the front lines of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan

By Ashley Baker

Read On

4

QAnon on the Volga A growing number of Russian “revivalists” believe that the dissolution of the Soviet Union is a hoax

By Marc Bennetts

Read On

What Makes TikTok Tick? It starts with 75 million videos vying for your attention …

By Julia Llewellyn Smith

Read On

The Big C Indian businessman Lalit Modi allegedly name-dropped royals and public figures to con investors for his bogus cancer treatment

By Joseph Bullmore

Read On

Bellinis at Sunset The Ciprianis open a luxe private club on the New York waterfront

By Ashley Baker

Read On

The Best Nest

If spring cleaning is such an established ritual, shouldn’t fall nesting be one, too? We think so. From objets d’art and kitchen appointments to organizers and linens, this week we catalogue our favorite items for a well-loved home

Shop

Photo: Austral/zumapress.com (Gable and Lombard)

My Favorite Things Stylist Beverly Nguyen’s curation of affordable yet covet-worthy staples—dish towels, glassware, cooking utensils, even a small-batch olive oil—has made waves since she opened her eponymous specialty-homewares store in New York this spring. Herewith, Nguyen shares her ultimate packing list

By Beverly Nguyen

Shop

Photo: Katie McCurdy (Nguyen)

The Week That Was in 30 Minutes If you haven’t heard our podcast, you don’t know what you’re missing

Read On

From the Outside In

Western fine art has had appropriation in its bones since the High Renaissance. That’s when sacred works, originally meant to please or appease a deity, were first held up for detached aesthetic contemplation—they were appropriated, that is, into a brand-new sphere called “art.” This unacknowledged “borrowing” got a new, more public impetus about a century ago, when the modernists invited us to see every kind of artifact, from airplane propellers to tribal totems, through an artistic lens. READ ON

Josephine Joy’s Waterbirds Nesting, included in “Gatecrashers,” a long-overdue exhibition at Atlanta’s High Museum focusing on self-taught artists in America.

Read On

Discover

Smiles (and Scents) of a Summer Night AIR MAIL hosts a dinner in honor of Tom Ford Beauty

By Ashley Baker

7

*Top,* Nina Agdal captures the mood; *above,* Tom Ford’s best-selling scent.

*Top,* Joe Weir, Jelena Cikoja, and Ryan Clark; *above,* Charlotte Blechman and Rachel Zoe.

Petrossian caviar, served from the AIR MAIL Apé, was consumed with relish.

*Top,* the AIR MAIL Apé became a spritzing station; *above,* the meal was masterminded by Mary Giuliani Catering & Events.

*Top,* the menu included sliders, lobster, and miniature doughnuts dipped in dark chocolate; *above,* Clark, Jessica Wang, Moti Ankari, and Igee Okafor.

*Top,* Art Production Fund’s Casey Fremont Crowe; *above,* Facebook’s Annie Dean Zaitzeff and AIR MAIL’s Anjali Lewis and Ashley Baker.

*Top,* Amy Julliette Lefévre; *above,* Clark, Sophie Sumner, and Okafor.

Read On

Are You Ready for the “Genuinfluencers”? And other curious news about these strange days …

By George Kalogerakis

Read On

Stingray of Sunshine Chevrolet breathes new life into their Corvette franchise, proving that American car-makers aren’t out of the fight

By Jamie Kitman

Read On

“Just a heads-up, if we ever become super-wealthy and you want to use the money to take a rocket into outer space instead of, like, feeding poor people, I’m going to be really mad.”

An Icelandic River Runs Through It Forget polo: salmon fishing in the North Atlantic, a favorite of Eric Clapton and Prince Charles, is the real sport of kings

By Tim Bouverie

Read On

Upholster Fermoie In 2006, when longtime English school friends Martin Ephson and Tom Helme sold Farrow & Ball—the go-to paint brand for shooting…

Watch Claire Saffitz x Dessert Person For three years, Claire Saffitz created homemade versions of name-brand junk food (Cheetos…

Drink Olipop We’ve gone to great lengths to distance ourselves from Diet Coke, which led us to a high-volume LaCroix habit that is hard…

Wear Balenciaga We’re not going to debate logo-mania today. Sorry, it’s not happening. But we can, and will, get excited about these new…

Dine CeCe Barfield Thompson Some of us spent lockdown baking bread and drinking. Others, such as interior designer…

Listen The Castle Session 1971 Leon Russell was many things: in-demand session musician, singer-songwriter, bandleader…

Upholster Fermoie In 2006, when longtime English school friends Martin Ephson and Tom Helme sold Farrow & Ball—the go-to paint brand for shooting…

Watch Claire Saffitz x Dessert Person For three years, Claire Saffitz created homemade versions of name-brand junk food (Cheetos…

Drink Olipop We’ve gone to great lengths to distance ourselves from Diet Coke, which led us to a high-volume LaCroix habit that is hard…

Wear Balenciaga We’re not going to debate logo-mania today. Sorry, it’s not happening. But we can, and will, get excited about these new…

Dine CeCe Barfield Thompson Some of us spent lockdown baking bread and drinking. Others, such as interior designer…

Listen The Castle Session 1971 Leon Russell was many things: in-demand session musician, singer-songwriter, bandleader…

Opera Non Buffa Opera is back with the summer festivals of Salzburg, Bayreuth, and Aix-en-Provence, but it’s as bleak as Mozart’s Requiem

By John Mauceri

Read On

Nana Mensah The Ghanaian-American screenwriter, filmmaker, and actress is adding humor to the African-immigrant experience

By Bridget Arsenault

Read On

Land Before Time Gianfranco Gorgoni’s otherworldly shots put the 20th-century Land Art movement of Richard Serra, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, and others on the map

7

Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, at Rozel Point, off of Utah’s Great Salt Lake, shot by Gianfranco Gorgoni in 2010.

Gorgoni saw the odd figure in his work more as “a personage of scale than a protagonist … for understanding the grandiosity of his work,” he wrote in his monograph. *Spiral Jetty* shot by Gorgoni in 1970 (*top*) and 2013 (*above*).

Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s *Running Fence* on land (Sonoma, California) and sea (Marin), 1976.

Ugo Rondinone’s Seven Magic Mountains, near Jean Dry Lake, Nevada, 2016.

*Top,* Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels, in Utah’s Great Basin Desert, 2016; *above,* Michael Heizer’s *Circular Surface Planar Displacement Drawing,* at Jean Dry Lake, 1970 (person for scale).

Richard Serra’s Shift, in King City, Ontario, circa 1972.

*Top,* Heizer’s *Double Negative,* at Mormon Mesa, in Overton, Nevada, 1970; *above,* Heizer’s *Complex One,* in Garden City, Nevada, 1974.

Read On

“This book says I should eat your arm first.”

Romesh Ratnesar On

The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War

by Craig Whitlock

Read On

Helen Zia On

The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics

by Mae Ngai

Read On

The Light at the End of the Tunnel How did a few German students manage to dig a tunnel under the Berlin Wall?

By Helena Merriman

Read On

New York Nightlife’s Next Big Thing Get ready to take the tram to Roosevelt Island …

By Laura Neilson

Read On

“Well, it was a tough decision, Doug, but we’ve decided to go with Doug.”

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Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley

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Chris Garrett Michael Hainey Nathan King

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John Tornow

Books Editor

Jim Kelly

Arts Intel Report Editor

Laura Jacobs

Style Editor

Ashley Baker

Features Editor

Ash Carter

Senior Editor

Julia Vitale

Executive Editor

David Foxley

Photo Director

Ann Schneider

Associate Editors

Elena Clavarino Jensen Davis Shireen Mohyi Jacob Robbins Elinor Schneider Roxy Solis

Art Director

Paloma Huerre

Columnists

Cazzie David Emma Freud Lisa Henricksson
Walter Isaacson Pico Iyer Rachel Johnson
John Lahr Douglas McGrath James Wolcott

Writers at Large

Lili Anolik Joseph Bullmore William D. Cohan Rich Cohen Stuart Heritage George Kalogerakis Sam Kashner Alexandra Marshall Alex Oliveira

Contributing Artists

Monica Ahanonu Barry Blitt André Carrilho Paul Davis David Downton Andrea Ferolla Josh Gosfield Cathy Graham Duncan Hannah Eric Hanson Angelica Hicks Pip Johnson Hilary Knight Jenny Kroik Michael Lindsay-Hogg Ross MacDonald Joe McKendry James McMullan Donald Robertson Charles Dare Scheips Grant Shaffer Ed Sorel Ralph Steadman

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Matt Kapp

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Emine Gozde Sevim

Production Editor

H. Scott Jolley

Intern

Gasper Tringale-White

Chief Operating Officer

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Chief Marketing Officer

Emily Davis

Brand Partnerships

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Sales Director

Michael Pescuma

Financial & Business Operations

Marc Leyer

Integrated Marketing Manager

Madeline Spates

Chief Strategy Adviser

Adam Mendelsohn

In Memoriam

Richard David Story (1952–2021)

Kabul and Kaput What do the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan and the White Lotus finale have in common? Plenty

Warding Off Evil CNN’s star correspondent takes us to the front lines of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan

QAnon on the Volga A growing number of Russian “revivalists” believe that the dissolution of the Soviet Union is a hoax

What Makes TikTok Tick? It starts with 75 million videos vying for your attention …

The Big C Indian businessman Lalit Modi allegedly name-dropped royals and public figures to con investors for his bogus cancer treatment

Bellinis at Sunset The Ciprianis open a luxe private club on the New York waterfront

If spring cleaning is such an established ritual, shouldn’t fall nesting be one, too? We think so. From objets d’art and kitchen appointments to organizers and linens, this week we catalogue our favorite items for a well-loved home

Despite inspiring books, movies, and movements, the unibrowed Mexican painter Frida Kahlo remains elusive. A striking new volume adds to the allure

The Week That Was in 30 Minutes If you haven’t heard our podcast, you don’t know what you’re missing

Smiles (and Scents) of a Summer Night AIR MAIL hosts a dinner in honor of Tom Ford Beauty

Are You Ready for the “Genuinfluencers”? And other curious news about these strange days …

Stingray of Sunshine Chevrolet breathes new life into their Corvette franchise, proving that American car-makers aren’t out of the fight

Rome

Jerusalem

Munich

New York

Stanford

An Icelandic River Runs Through It Forget polo: salmon fishing in the North Atlantic, a favorite of Eric Clapton and Prince Charles, is the real sport of kings

Opera Non Buffa Opera is back with the summer festivals of Salzburg, Bayreuth, and Aix-en-Provence, but it’s as bleak as Mozart’s Requiem

Nana Mensah The Ghanaian-American screenwriter, filmmaker, and actress is adding humor to the African-immigrant experience

Land Before Time Gianfranco Gorgoni’s otherworldly shots put the 20th-century Land Art movement of Richard Serra, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, and others on the map

The Light at the End of the Tunnel How did a few German students manage to dig a tunnel under the Berlin Wall?

New York Nightlife’s Next Big Thing Get ready to take the tram to Roosevelt Island …

Is Edited By

Deputy Editors

Design Director

Chief Technology Officer

Books Editor

Arts Intel Report Editor

Style Editor

Features Editor

Senior Editor

Executive Editor

Photo Director

Associate Editors

Art Director

Columnists

Writers at Large

Contributing Artists

International Editor

London Editor

Communications Director

Social Media Editor

Cartoon Editor

Music Supervisor

Copy Editor

Research & Legal Editor

Photo Editor

Production Editor

Intern

Chief Operating Officer

Chief Marketing Officer

Brand Partnerships

Sales Director

Financial & Business Operations

Integrated Marketing Manager

Chief Strategy Adviser

In Memoriam