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March 18, 2023
The Best
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No. 192
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Edition
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In This Week’s Issue
Inside Man

From New York, a top art dealer turned fraudster divulges the deceptions and cons of the big-time art world as well as how he taught the Situation to play Scrabble behind bars …

Own Goal

From the U.K., Stuart Heritage recounts the disastrous battle the BBC has been waging—and spectacularly losing—against national treasure and former soccer player Gary Lineker …

Reich Here, Reich Now

From Germany, Antonia Woloshyn exposes the neo-Nazis who have been murdering immigrants, robbing banks, and making bombs, all while the police look the other way …

Moving the World

From the newsroom, Brian Stelter reports on the Lever, David Sirota’s scrappy yet scoop-rich news organization that’s been shaping mainstream coverage of the SVB collapse and the Norfolk Southern train derailment …

Shear Misery

From the Upper East Side, Andrew Zucker uncovers the tangled tale of love and Barbicide that’s shuttered the landmark Paul Molé barbershop …

Murder Without Intent

From Cancel Corner, David Christopher Kaufman examines how social-justice activists are increasingly ignoring people’s intent. All the better to cancel you with, my dear …

Scent of a Woman

From AIR MAIL’s beauty-and-wellness lab, Linda Wells praises the malodorous masks, fishy face creams, and bizarre waxes … so long as you administer them in private …

Ticket to Ride

From AIR MAIL’s test lab, Jonathan Margolis tries out the “silent assassin,” a new electronic gear hub for bicycles, as well as the detachable motor that can turn a regular bike into an e-bike in seconds …

BUT, WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Mel Brooks, poet of failure … V.I.C.’s are the new V.I.P.’s … Turks and Caicos, the Rolex of archipelagoes … the London Library is the sexier, more literary WeWork … the novelist Mona Simpson answers our Eight Questions … the actress Kyra Sedgwick insists the dog ate her homework … and the Attention-Whore Index will not stop staring at you!

But First …
Issue No. 192

The View from Here Social-justice activists say impact—not intent—is all that matters. They’re wrong

By David Christopher Kaufman
Read On
Barry Blitt’s Sketchbook
3
Rogue’s Gallery

Art-World Confidential He was one of New York’s most active art dealers—until he got busted for wire fraud. Now Ezra Chowaiki reveals the underhanded tricks of the trade, and how to survive in a prison filled with V.I.P.’s

By Ezra Chowaiki
Read On
Chronicles of Disruption

Politics by Other Means Is David Sirota—whose two-year-old news site, the Lever, has been ahead of the media pack on several recent stories—a journalist or an activist? The answer is yes

By Brian Stelter
Read On
Chop Shop

Splitting Hairs Inside the messy legal battle that’s temporarily shuttered Paul Molé, the Upper East Side barbershop where everyone from Henry Fonda to John F. Kennedy Jr. went for haircuts

By Andrew Zucker
Read On
Air Supply

A Fine Art

As the art world descends on London for Frieze, let the right side of your brain go wild with our curation of studio supplies and gallerist-approved ensembles
Shop
Photo: courtesy of Everett Collection (Taylor and Johnson)
Guest Edit

My Favorite Things Since giving up his career as a men’s-wear designer at Calvin Klein, the architect and interior designer Rafael de Cárdenas has become known for creating bold, sculptural spaces, be it Baccarat’s Manhattan flagship or a private Parc Monceau residence. Here, he shares the items that he can’t live without

By Rafael de Cárdenas
Shop
Photo: Adrian Gaut (Cárdenas)
Another BBC Mess

Outmatched The national broadcaster reinstates its star sports commentator Gary Lineker, after a Twitter showdown and a management meltdown

By Stuart Heritage
Read On
T.G.I.S.

The Attention-Whore Index A warlord, a king, and a short-fingered vulgarian compete for the No. 1 ranking. Which blackguard rules them all? Plus: strange news from across the world

Read On
When Putsch Comes to Shove

Skeletons in the Closet The exposure of neo-Nazi elements in German law enforcement is a shock—but not a surprise, to those who have been paying attention

By Antonia Woloshyn
Photo Illustration by Chop Choppish Shop
Read On
Beauty and Wellness

Eye of the Beholder Getting gorgeous is not always pretty. But, please, apply the smelly masks, fishy creams, and messy waxes in private. Your sex life will thank you!

By Linda Wells
Read On
Ticket to Ride

Cycling’s Fresh Blood Whether you’re an e-bike believer or prefer to pedal it out the old-fashioned way, three start-ups are breathing new life into the Victorian-era invention

By Jonathan Margolis
Read On
Best
Carry Loro Piana In the late 1970s, the Loro Piana family went on a mission to find the world’s finest cashmere. They landed in Inner Mongolia. Fifty years… Serve Laguna B In 1994, Marie Angliviel de la Beaumelle founded her glassware company, Laguna B, on the shores of Murano, an isle in the Venetian… Read The Creative Pragmatist I used to scroll blindly and endlessly through Instagram and Pinterest for outfit-and-styling inspiration… Sip The Mulberry All seems quiet on the Mulberry’s velvet front because Cindy, the gatekeeper dressed in fur, keeps it that way. “Reservation,” she states… Shop Oh, What a Match Some mothers and daughters bond over sweets, alcohol, and gossip. For others, it’s phillumeny. That’s the official term for the hobby… Cook Eleven Madison Park Oh, I suppose I could spend all day Sunday making soup, but, then again, life beckons. Plus, the good people at Eleven Madison Park… Carry Loro Piana In the late 1970s, the Loro Piana family went on a mission to find the world’s finest cashmere. They landed in Inner Mongolia. Fifty years… Serve Laguna B In 1994, Marie Angliviel de la Beaumelle founded her glassware company, Laguna B, on the shores of Murano, an isle in the Venetian… Read The Creative Pragmatist I used to scroll blindly and endlessly through Instagram and Pinterest for outfit-and-styling inspiration… Sip The Mulberry All seems quiet on the Mulberry’s velvet front because Cindy, the gatekeeper dressed in fur, keeps it that way. “Reservation,” she states… Shop Oh, What a Match Some mothers and daughters bond over sweets, alcohol, and gossip. For others, it’s phillumeny. That’s the official term for the hobby… Cook Eleven Madison Park Oh, I suppose I could spend all day Sunday making soup, but, then again, life beckons. Plus, the good people at Eleven Madison Park…
The Business of Fashion

V.I.C.’s—The New V.I.P.’s Fashion-show seats and the odd freebie are no longer enough for luxury brands’ Very Important Clients. Cue candlelit dinners in ancient palazzos, regattas in the Caribbean … and a major case of keeping up with the Joneses

By Elena Clavarino
Read On
Chronicles of the .1 Percent

Treasured Island Long overlooked for its flashier neighbors, the Caribbean islands of Turks and Caicos are having a real-estate renaissance

By Sheila Yasmin Marikar
Read On
Inside Story

How Mel Brooks Got Smart Over a seven-decade career, the actor and filmmaker behind some of the most successful TV comedies of all time achieved success by becoming a poet of failure

By Jeremy Dauber
Read On
Small Talk
“Just answer the question.”
“Just answer the question.”
Listen

Sex in the Stacks? On this week’s podcast: how an old London library has become a dating site for the younger literary set

Read On
After Hours

Three Days in New Orleans The second annual New Orleans Book Festival, held on the Tulane University campus and co-chaired by Walter Isaacson, featured panels with Maggie Haberman, Michael Lewis, and AIR MAIL’s Alessandra Stanley and Nathan King

Read On
Small Talk
First contact did not go well.
First contact did not go well.
Eight Questions

Mona Simpson’s Guide to Writing In an interview, the novelist discusses her new book, her early days working at The Paris Review, and finding inspiration

By Jim Kelly
Read On
Little Britain

The Writers’ Room Who needs WeWork, anyway? At the London Library, authors of all persuasions gather to toil, tinker, and socialize

By Daisy Dawnay
Read On
Small Talk
“I get this all the time. Other end!”
“I get this all the time. Other end!”
Close-up

Courtney Rafuse The Toronto-based perfumer discusses Universal Flowering, her cult-favorite brand of small-batch scents that transform over time

By Marlowe Granados
Read On

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Don’t Miss
New York

When Dalí met WALL-E: at Gagosian, Bennett Miller uses the new A.I. software DALL-E to create eerie black-and-white images of children and landscapes …

Chicago

A matter of life and death(s): Alan Turing, the man who cracked Nazi Germany’s Enigma code, gets the musical treatment at the Chicago Opera Theater …

San Francisco

New old master: at the de Young Museum, Kehinde Wiley reclaims the motif of the fallen figure to comment on the silence surrounding systemic violence against Black people …

Atlanta

A known unknown: work by the under-recognized photographer Evelyn Hofer goes on show at the High Museum of Art …

Online

Circle of light: dazzling projections on the façade of the Zurich Opera House celebrate Wagner’s “Ring” cycle …

Paper Trail

Reveling in the fleeting moment of “now,” paper dresses of the 1960s offered a shiny new page of futuristic simplicity during fashion’s most tumultuous decade. An unlikely marriage of avant-garde design and the promotional arms of corporate paper manufacturers, they were also testament to a society-wide belief in the utopian fruits of technology. Drawing a bead on pomposity, “Generation Paper: A Fashion Phenom of the 1960s” opens today at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), in New York. READ ON

“Generation Paper,” a new exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design, is devoted to paper garments made in the 1960s. This colorful caftan is on view alongside more than 80 other pieces.

Read On
Discover
Books
Thomas Beller On

Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation that Saved the Soul of the NBA

by Theresa Runstedtler
Read On
Ben Macintyre On

The Collaborators: Three Stories of Deception and Survival in World War II

by Ian Buruma
Read On

Murder, They Wrote

by Lisa Henricksson
Read On
Small Talk
“Jenkins is trying to unionize again.”
“Jenkins is trying to unionize again.”
Open Book

Better by Design A new coffee-table book celebrates 50 years of Pentagram, the world’s largest independent design consultancy

13
Kate Moss in a body-cast sculpture made by Allen Jones in 1978, photographed by Jones in 2013. The catalogue for a 2014 show of Jones’s work at London’s Royal Academy of Arts was designed by Harry Pearce.
A Rainforest Action Network poster, designed by Matt Willey. The text begins: “Forests are the lungs of the earth.”
A Witness poster drawing attention to the burning of villages in Burma, designed by Pearce.
A London Poster Project poster for the 2009 London Design Festival, designed by Angus Hyland.
For the opening of The New York Times’s Midtown Manhattan headquarters, in 2007, designer Michael Bierut and his team created a customized program of environmental graphics, including a massive landmark sign on the building’s façade.
The Bibliothèque National de Luxembourg, designed by Sascha Lobe.
Branding for New York’s first rail link to J.F.K. airport, designed by Michael Gericke.
An American Folk Art Museum poster, designed by Woody Pirtle.
The Kenwood Chef stand mixer, which became a staple in tens of thousands of British households starting in 1948, designed by Pentagram co-founder Kenneth Grange.
A Pentagram design for the Coca-Cola Company’s 1994 annual report.
Top, an installation view of 2019’s “Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition” at the Design Museum, in London, designed by Marina Willer; above, the Gakken Easy Vinyl Maker, a compact five-inch record cutter designed by Yuri Suzuki.
A Yale School of Architecture poster, designed by Bierut.
A poster for Fucking A at New York’s Public Theater, designed by Paula Scher.
Read On
The Perfect Ending

Kyra Sedgwick

The actress answers 41 of life’s most pressing questions
Read On
JAMES OLSTEIN’s Sketchbook
“Why, yes—I am a native New Yorker.”
Is Edited By

Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley

Creative Director

Angela Panichi

Deputy Editors

Ashley Baker Ash Carter Chris Garrett Nathan King Julia Vitale

Chief Technology Officer

John Tornow

Editor at Large

George Pendle

Books Editor

Jim Kelly

Arts Intel Report Editor

Laura Jacobs

Senior Editor

Elena Clavarino

Junior Editor

Jensen Davis

Photo Director

Ann Schneider

Copy Editor

Adam Nadler

Research & Legal Editor

Matt Kapp

Production Editor

H. Scott Jolley

Associate Editors

Carolina de Armas Clara Molot Paulina Prosnitz

Art Director

Paloma Huerre

International Editor

Isabelle Harvie-Watt

London Editor

Bridget Arsenault

Communications Director

Harrison Vail

Columnists

Cazzie David Lisa Henricksson Walter Isaacson
Pico Iyer Rachel Johnson John Lahr
Jonathan Margolis Linda Wells James Wolcott

Writers at Large

Lili Anolik Johanna Berkman Joseph Bullmore Vassi Chamberlain William D. Cohan Rich Cohen Michael Hainey Stuart Heritage George Kalogerakis Sam Kashner James Kirchick Alexander Lobrano Alexandra Marshall

Contributing Artists

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

Contributing Photographers

Jonathan Becker Justin Bishop Alex Board James Emmerman Marcos Fecchino Daniel Paik Art Streiber Sharon Suh Justin Weiner

Architectural Consultant

Basil Walter

Head of Audience Development

Rachel LeSage

Cartoon Editor

Bob Mankoff

Music Supervisor

Randall Poster

Photo Editor

Emine Gozde Sevim

Designer

Zoé Gillette

Technology

Brooks Oakley Justin Rubaloff Sade Singleton

Intern

Gasper Tringale-White

OUR CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER AND CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER ARE

Bill Keenan and Emily Davis

Air Supply General Manager and Brand Partnerships

Anjali Lewis

Advertising Director

Michael Pescuma

European Sales Director

Selim Mataraci

Financial & Business Operations

Marc Leyer

Chief Strategy Adviser

Adam Mendelsohn

Chief Merchant

Jennifer Noyes

Shop Editor

Zoe Ruffner

E-Commerce Manager

Isaac Metlitsky

E-Commerce Associates

Coco Paul-Henriot Roxy Solis

In Memoriam

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

Issue No. 192
March 18, 2023
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Issue No. 192
March 18, 2023
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