July 29, 2023 – Air Mail

Defense of a Suspect

From the courtroom, Howard Blum’s latest dispatch on the Idaho student murders reveals a new defense angle, clouding the case against alleged killer Bryan Kohberger …

Going AWOL

From Israel, Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv report on the elite soldiers who say they will not show up for duty in protest of Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to tame the courts, as talk of a civil war grows …

Nuclear Family Man

From the archives, as Robert Oppenheimer gets his day in the light of a thousand suns, Lesley M. M. Blume uncovers Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little author E. B. White’s decades-long campaign against Oppenheimer’s atomic progeny …

Start the Presses!

From the newsroom, Ash Carter reports on County Highway, a new, print-only magazine aiming to reconnect the coastal media world with the flyover states …

Saving Face

From Air Mail’s beauty-and-wellness lab, Linda Wells catches up with makeup legend Bobbi Brown …

Suits You

From London, Tom Chamberlin celebrates the life of tailor Edward Sexton, who transformed Savile Row and influenced everyone from Alexander McQueen to Harry Styles …

Table for Two, Please!

From the podcast lab, Bruce Bozzi talks to Sarah Jessica Parker about motherhood and taking cues from Diane Keaton …

but, wait, there’s more!

Jeff Goldblum knows his Monk from his Mingus … Naples is back! … the disdainful genius of Hilma af Klint … London’s waiters go head-to-head … model turned interior designer Camilla Deterre drips sophistication … Follies! Pavilions! Pre-revolutionary France! … get thee to Mongolia … And vote now in our Attention-Whore Index Poll!

Issue No. 211

The View from Here As Israeli protests against Netanyahu’s efforts to tame the courts escalate, military officers talk about a possible pro-democracy coup

By Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv

Read On

The Eyes of a Killer: Part V This week, Bryan Kohberger’s defense team announced that they plan to prove their client wasn’t even at the scene of the crime. Could they actually get him off?

By Howard Blum

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CHOP CHOPPISH SHOP

Read On

Company Town Inside the Praxis Society, a Silicon Valley–backed start-up attempting to build a city in the Mediterranean

By Jack Sullivan

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CHOP CHOPPISH SHOP

Read On

A Village Fête in London

One of the city’s most eccentric traditions sees waiters going head-to-head in a race around Soho

By Charlie Baker

Illustrations by Paul Cox

Read On

Como Chameleon

Fire up the Riva Aquarama and prepare to dance the night away in your best Italian slippers, dazzle in your sparkliest jewels, and dine among the most enchanting table-scapes. Buon Ferragosto!

Shop

Photo: ImageBroker/Shutterstock (Lake Como)

My Favorite Things The Argentinean producer and creative director breaks down his understated—but nevertheless exquisite—uniform, from perfect black jeans to the jacket that will last a lifetime

By Marcos Fecchino

Shop

Photo: Dmitry Maximov (Fecchino)

The Attention-Whore Index King Charles getting a pay raise? Elon Musk tearing down Twitter? R.F.K. Jr. playing the Trump card? Who is the neediest of them all? You decide!

Read On

Stealing God’s Stuff He is best remembered as the author of the children’s classics Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little. But is E. B. White also the forgotten prophet of our nuclear doom?

By Lesley M. M. Blume

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CHOP CHOPPISH SHOP

Read On

Changing His Tune For decades, Jeff Goldblum has been a beloved actor and a sex symbol. Now, at age 70, he’s also becoming a jazz pianist

By Dan Cairns

Read On

Lunch with Sarah Jessica Parker On this week’s Table for Two, host Bruce Bozzi escapes the city heat on Long Island with the And Just Like That… actress

Read On

Read Scraps Since 2020, I have been chasing the high of pre-coronavirus, pre-cancellation Bon Appétit videos. After a long search, I finally found …

Shop Forsyth There’s nothing more cumbersome than trying to find the perfect finishing touches for your living space, especially if you’re in the market for…

Stash Snugbox It’s no secret that we’ve all become more freewheeling and open about enjoying cannabis and its many and various forms these days…

Visit Loewe Is the East End of Long Island the most fashion-obsessed place in the universe? A new piece of evidence points to yes. On August 2,…

Serve Los Vasos de Agua Clara Until all too recently, the beautiful hand-painted glassware by Los Vasos de Agua Clara were available only…

Switch Giberto While working in his studio one afternoon, tucked away on the top floor of his Baroque-style palazzo on Venice’s Grand Canal…

Read Scraps Since 2020, I have been chasing the high of pre-coronavirus, pre-cancellation Bon Appétit videos. After a long search, I finally found …

Shop Forsyth There’s nothing more cumbersome than trying to find the perfect finishing touches for your living space, especially if you’re in the market for…

Stash Snugbox It’s no secret that we’ve all become more freewheeling and open about enjoying cannabis and its many and various forms these days…

Visit Loewe Is the East End of Long Island the most fashion-obsessed place in the universe? A new piece of evidence points to yes. On August 2,…

Serve Los Vasos de Agua Clara Until all too recently, the beautiful hand-painted glassware by Los Vasos de Agua Clara were available only…

Switch Giberto While working in his studio one afternoon, tucked away on the top floor of his Baroque-style palazzo on Venice’s Grand Canal…

Eye of the Beholder In 1991, Bobbi Brown founded one of the most successful cosmetics businesses in history. Now, at age 66, she just might do it again, with her line, Jones Road

By Linda Wells

Read On

Highway to Nowhere In an interview, the writers David Samuels and Walter Kirn discuss County Highway, a new, print-only broadsheet that bills itself as “a magazine about America in the form of a 19th century newspaper”

By Ash Carter

Read On

“The mighty roar she emits as she wrests her quarry from amidst the tendril-like fibers of her hunting grounds. I both fear her and respect her.”

Tailor-Made Edward Sexton, who died this week, gave bespoke suits the right amount of flair—and just might have saved Savile Row

By Tom Chamberlin

Read On

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow Thanks to an influx of art, restaurants, and hotels, Naples, a city long considered too dirty and dangerous to visit, is more popular than ever

By Elena Clavarino

Read On

“Tech savvy? No. Is there any call for regular savvy?”

At the Drop of a Hat Audiences’ surprising takeaway from Christopher Nolan’s biopic about the “father of the atomic bomb”: buy a J. Robert Oppenheimer–style fedora

By Chloe Mac Donnell

Read On

Inside the Strategy to Free the Idaho-Murders Suspect On this week’s episode, Howard Blum reveals the audacious plan to win an acquittal

Read On

Camilla Deterre With a high-concept vision, the model turned interior designer has helped make Casino one of downtown Manhattan’s coolest restaurants

By Hayley J. Clark

Read On

“O.K., tough guy, let’s see if you can take the unbearable tickle of your runny nose with the facial tissues just out of reach.”

Max Carter On

Hilma af Klint: A Biography

by Julia Voss

Hilma af Klint: The Complete Catalogue Raisonné: Volumes I–VII

by Hilma af Klint

Read On

Tom Scocca On

The Tao of the Backup Catcher: Playing Baseball for the Love of the Game

by Tim Brown with Erik Kratz

Read On

When Amusement Reigned The pavilions and garden follies of pre-revolutionary France are collected in a charming new coffee-table book

9

The Pavillon de l’Audience, at the Château de Villandry.

Madame de Pompadour as Diana the Huntress, in a 1746 portrait by the French painter Jean-Marc Nattier.

The pagoda of the Château de Chanteloup, designed by Louis-Denis Le Camus.

A miniature of Chanteloup’s garden axis, by Henri Joseph van Blarenberghe.

Jacques-Germain Soufflot’s proposal for a private competition to design a pagoda for the gardens of Ménars, a temple dedicated to Apollo and the Muses.

A pastel of Louis XIV at age 24, by the court painter Charles Le Brun.

One of a pair of guard pavilions at the Château de Versailles, attributed to First Architect Louis Le Vau and completed in 1664.

A corner panel of the balustrade at the Petit Trianon, which King Louis XVI gave to Marie Antoinette in 1774.

The pagoda at the Château de Kerlevénan.

Read On

Magical Thinking A retrospective of Remedios Varo’s mystical paintings puts the spotlight on the long-overlooked Surrealist

By Patricia Zohn

Read On

Far and Away A little bit of agony and a whole lot of ecstasy make Mongolia the hottest travel destination that no one’s talking about—yet

By Marcia DeSanctis

Read On

Selma Diamond, a Jewish comedian, monologuist, and actress, was a staff writer for *Your Show of Shows* and later (Sid) *Caesar’s Hour* who achieved her greatest fame in the mid-1980s as the feisty chain-smoking bailiff on *Night Court.* She’s part of my “Old Jewish Comedians” portraits on display at the first annual Borscht Belt Fest, this Saturday in Ellenville, New York. The all-day event celebrates the legendary Jewish summer resorts in the Catskill Mountains known as “the Borscht Belt,” and features food, art, music, film, lectures, and, natch, comedy.

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 Daphne Merkin

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 Gözde Sevim

Designer

Zoé Gillette

Technology

Brooks Oakley Justin Rubaloff Sade Singleton

Interns

Eleanor Barzun Isabella Carter Nyla Gilstrap Michael Melinger 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

Account Manager

Dillon Freeman

Chief Strategy Adviser

Adam Mendelsohn

AIR SUPPLY

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

The View from Here As Israeli protests against Netanyahu’s efforts to tame the courts escalate, military officers talk about a possible pro-democracy coup

The Eyes of a Killer: Part V This week, Bryan Kohberger’s defense team announced that they plan to prove their client wasn’t even at the scene of the crime. Could they actually get him off?

Company Town Inside the Praxis Society, a Silicon Valley–backed start-up attempting to build a city in the Mediterranean

One of the city’s most eccentric traditions sees waiters going head-to-head in a race around Soho

Fire up the Riva Aquarama and prepare to dance the night away in your best Italian slippers, dazzle in your sparkliest jewels, and dine among the most enchanting table-scapes. Buon Ferragosto!

My Favorite Things The Argentinean producer and creative director breaks down his understated—but nevertheless exquisite—uniform, from perfect black jeans to the jacket that will last a lifetime

The Attention-Whore Index King Charles getting a pay raise? Elon Musk tearing down Twitter? R.F.K. Jr. playing the Trump card? Who is the neediest of them all? You decide!

Stealing God’s Stuff He is best remembered as the author of the children’s classics Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little. But is E. B. White also the forgotten prophet of our nuclear doom?

Changing His Tune For decades, Jeff Goldblum has been a beloved actor and a sex symbol. Now, at age 70, he’s also becoming a jazz pianist

Lunch with Sarah Jessica Parker On this week’s Table for Two, host Bruce Bozzi escapes the city heat on Long Island with the And Just Like That… actress

Eye of the Beholder In 1991, Bobbi Brown founded one of the most successful cosmetics businesses in history. Now, at age 66, she just might do it again, with her line, Jones Road

Highway to Nowhere In an interview, the writers David Samuels and Walter Kirn discuss County Highway, a new, print-only broadsheet that bills itself as “a magazine about America in the form of a 19th century newspaper”

Tailor-Made Edward Sexton, who died this week, gave bespoke suits the right amount of flair—and just might have saved Savile Row

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow Thanks to an influx of art, restaurants, and hotels, Naples, a city long considered too dirty and dangerous to visit, is more popular than ever

At the Drop of a Hat Audiences’ surprising takeaway from Christopher Nolan’s biopic about the “father of the atomic bomb”: buy a J. Robert Oppenheimer–style fedora

Inside the Strategy to Free the Idaho-Murders Suspect On this week’s episode, Howard Blum reveals the audacious plan to win an acquittal

Camilla Deterre With a high-concept vision, the model turned interior designer has helped make Casino one of downtown Manhattan’s coolest restaurants

New York

Lacoste

Martha's Vineyard

Arles

Online

All aboard: Asmik Grigorian redeems Bayreuth’s non-seaworthy The Flying Dutchman, streaming now …

When Amusement Reigned The pavilions and garden follies of pre-revolutionary France are collected in a charming new coffee-table book

Magical Thinking A retrospective of Remedios Varo’s mystical paintings puts the spotlight on the long-overlooked Surrealist

Far and Away A little bit of agony and a whole lot of ecstasy make Mongolia the hottest travel destination that no one’s talking about—yet

Is Edited By

Creative Director

Deputy Editors

Chief Technology Officer

Editor at Large

Books Editor

Arts Intel Report Editor

Senior Editor

Junior Editor

Photo Director

Copy Editor

Research & Legal Editor

Production Editor

Associate Editors

Art Director

International Editor

London Editor

Communications Director

Columnists

Writers at Large

Contributing Artists

Contributing Photographers

Architectural Consultant

Head of Audience Development

Social Media Manager

Cartoon Editor

Music Supervisor

Photo Editor

Designer

Technology

Interns

OUR CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER AND CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER ARE

Air Supply General Manager and Brand Partnerships

Advertising Director

European Sales Director

Financial & Business Operations

Account Manager

Chief Strategy Adviser

Chief Merchant

Shop Editor

E-Commerce Manager

E-Commerce Associates

In Memoriam