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August 19, 2023
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No. 214
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In This Week’s Issue
Up, Up, and Away

From the editors’ desk, Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley unveil AIR MAIL’s reimagined Arts Intel Report, our one-of-a-kind resource for the discerning world traveler …

Death and Taxes

From New York, Johanna Berkman chronicles how the financier Leon Black thought he could avoid paying more than $1 billion in taxes—with the help of his friend Jeffrey Epstein—in part two of her exclusive investigation …

Dirt Digger

From the courtroom, Jack Crosbie reveals the identity of Sam Bankman-Fried’s private investigator, whose previous clients include O. J. Simpson, Ghislaine Maxwell, and John Gotti Jr. …

Going to the Mat

From Long Island, Linda Wells reports on how the Tracy Anderson Method, the fitness class for the Über-wealthy, has become a sweatbox of burning rage, chafed egos, and sprained hip flexors …

Swamp Thing

From Florida, Carrie Monahan analyzes the two faces of Ron DeSantis—savior of the Everglades, anti-climate-change crusader—and the billionaire environmentalist who’s aiding him in his greenwashing …

East Meets West

From Hollywood, Celia McGee traces the life and times of Anna May Wong, the Chinese-American golden-era movie star who fought racism on set and off …

Inspector Gadget

From the Air Mail test lab, our tech-and-gear columnist, Jonathan Margolis, takes a shine to the Y-Brush, a whole-mouth toothbrush that claims to immaculately clean teeth in 20 seconds …

BUT, WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

A Fyre Festival–esque scouting disaster in South Korea … Rob Brydon, the “Keith Richards of niceness” … disrupting the humanitarian-aid industry in Ukraine … traveling the Arctic on a luxury icebreaker … Beck is back! … it’s the summer of the trompe l’oeil lemon dessert … Olivia von Halle’s favorite things … Vote now in our Attention-Whore Index Poll!

But First …
Issue No. 214

The View from Here Introducing our updated Arts Intel Report travel search resource. It is unlike anything out there now. You must give it a try

By Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley
Illustrations by Andrea Ferolla
Read On
Barry Blitt’s Sketchbook
The Epstein Chronicles

The $158 Million Question: Part II Leon Black told investigators that Jeffrey Epstein saved him more than $1 billion with his “unique” solutions. The Senate Finance Committee isn’t so sure

By Johanna Berkman
Photo Illustration by Chop Choppish Shop
Read On
A Face in the Crowd

True Detective He’s everywhere in photos—the charismatic private eye who escorts Sam Bankman-Fried to court dates. Past clients include Ghislaine Maxwell and John Gotti Jr.

By Jack Crosbie
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CHOP CHOPPISH SHOP
Read On
Air Supply

This Must Be the Place

Travel can be divine, but so can a weekend at home with a clear calendar. Don’t spend it without these elegant but easy clothing ensembles, gardening and household essentials, and entertaining finds, plus the books and gadgets to carry you blissfully from Friday afternoon to Monday morning
Shop
Photo: Slim Aarons/Getty Images (Andress and Parigini)
Guest Edit

My Favorite Things Luc Goidadin, the creative director behind the heritage stationery house Smythson of Bond Street, highlights the pieces that get him through his day-to-day, including the most elegant alternative to a briefcase yet

By Luc Goidadin
Shop
T.G.I.S.

The Attention-Whore Index Lock up your grandmothers! Rupert Murdoch’s on the prowl for a wife … again! But can he beat indictment magnets Donald T. and Rudy G. for your attention? Vote now for your champion!

Read On
Modern Times

All the Rage! On the East End of Long Island, pricey exercise classes aren’t providing any stress relief. Quite the opposite, in fact

By Linda Wells
Read On
Landing Gear

The New Sonic Boom The trick to brushing your teeth in 20 seconds flat! A pair of earbuds for the pen-and-paper set! The smartphone you can fix yourself! And more …

By Jonathan Margolis
Read On
The Front Lines

High on Life As the war in Ukraine rages on, a maverick humanitarian from New Orleans makes his mark by importing ambulances and saving lives

By Adam Hay-Nicholls
Read On
Small Talk
“I’m, like, Hello, we evolved so you could pick stuff up, not so you could scroll yourself into oblivion!”
“I’m, like, Hello, we evolved so you could pick stuff up, not so you could scroll yourself into oblivion!”
Breaking Camp

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fyre More than 40,000 young scouts traveled to Seoul for the 25th World Scout Jamboree. Instead of swapping badges, they faced heat waves, broken toilets, and overrun medical tents

By Katie Gatens
Read On
Best
Listen Unraveled There has been no shortage of podcasts on the shocking case of the Long Island serial killer, but Alexis Linkletter’s Unraveled… Shop Dora Maar It’s well established that shopping vintage and secondhand is significantly better for the economy than its alternatives, but the infinite… Apply Kosas Anyone who has been forced to spend time with me on Zoom lately (sorry) knows that, in August, the only beauty products on my face are… Read Vineyard Folk Even those who have been spending their summers in the waters off West Chop since the 60s would probably admit that Martha’s Vineyard… Read The Parrot and the Igloo James Inhofe, a Republican senator for Oklahoma for three decades, is perhaps best known for bringing a… Watch The Ex-Wife Why isn’t there a Second Wives Club? Tasha, the heroine of a new British thriller, The Ex-Wife, could certainly use some… Listen Unraveled There has been no shortage of podcasts on the shocking case of the Long Island serial killer, but Alexis Linkletter’s Unraveled… Shop Dora Maar It’s well established that shopping vintage and secondhand is significantly better for the economy than its alternatives, but the infinite… Apply Kosas Anyone who has been forced to spend time with me on Zoom lately (sorry) knows that, in August, the only beauty products on my face are… Read Vineyard Folk Even those who have been spending their summers in the waters off West Chop since the 60s would probably admit that Martha’s Vineyard… Read The Parrot and the Igloo James Inhofe, a Republican senator for Oklahoma for three decades, is perhaps best known for bringing a… Watch The Ex-Wife Why isn’t there a Second Wives Club? Tasha, the heroine of a new British thriller, The Ex-Wife, could certainly use some…
The Barbenheimer Effect

An Actor’s Actor Rob Brydon, who makes a brief cameo as Sugar Daddy Ken in Barbie, discusses choosing his family over his career and the fun of projects outside of Hollywood

By Michael Odell
Read On
The Planet

A Snake in the Everglades Ron DeSantis wants to save Florida’s cherished Everglades while promoting an aggressive anti-climate-change agenda. One of the state’s largest environmental charities is helping him with his greenwashing

By Carrie Monahan
Read On
Travel

Luxury on Thin Ice A champagne-fueled journey to the North Pole has confirmed that it’s melting. Was the glamorous voyage on Ponant’s Le Commandant Charcot enough to soften the blow?

By Alexander Lobrano
Read On
Style

Doing the Charleston A ramshackle country house once owned by the Bloomsbury Group has become the most sought-after high-society destination

By Jess Cartner-Morley
Read On
Books

Low Shelf Esteem In the last decade, “sad girl” literature, novels about well-off girls who drink, go to therapy, and are consumed by self-loathing, has taken over contemporary fiction

By Sarah Manavis
Read On
Small Talk
Listen

Hot Messes in East Hampton! On this week’s podcast, Linda Wells reveals how big egos are bringing big drama to gyms out East

Read On
Highlight

Au Revoir, les Femmes A new documentary tells the little-known story of a group of 230 non-Jewish women of the French Resistance who were sent to Auschwitz

By Tobias Grey
Read On
Close-up

Emma Seligman In Bottoms, a comedy about a queer fight club, the young director collaborates with college friends, who happen to be rising stars in Hollywood

By Carolina de Armas
Read On
Book Reviews
David Kamp On

Kingdom Quarterback: Patrick Mahomes, the Kansas City Chiefs, and How a Once Swingin’ Cow Town Chased the Ultimate Comeback

by Mark Dent and Rustin Dodd
Read On
Read On
Small Talk
Highlight

Always Beckoning Beck, laughing wild amid severest woe, is on tour through September 10, with upcoming stops in Texas, Chicago, Toronto, and cities along the East Coast

By David Yaffe
Read On
Open Book

Picasso Unseen Rare, intimate pictures taken by the Irish photographer Edward Quinn over the course of his 19-year friendship with Picasso capture the artist in his downtime

9
Pablo Picasso with his children Paloma and Claude at the ceramics exhibition in Vallauris, France, where Edward Quinn first met and photographed the artist, in 1951.
Jean Cocteau and Picasso dressed up as toreadors ahead of a bullfight in Vallauris, 1955.
Françoise Gilot, who shared children Claude and Paloma with Picasso, ahead of opening the Corrida of Vallauris, 1954.
Paloma, Maya Picasso (daughter of Marie-Thérèse Walter), and Claude watch a bullfight with their father, 1955.
Maya photographs Cocteau; his adopted son, Édouard Dermit; and Picasso with her father’s Minox camera, 1955.
Jacqueline Roque and Picasso at La Californie, his villa in Cannes, 1958. The pair would marry in 1961.
Roque and Picasso at the telephone, 1956. Her dress was printed with motifs of a Picasso work.
Paloma, Jacqueline, Pablo, and Claude look through photos taken by Quinn on a visit to La Californie, 1960.
Picasso with Catherine Hutin, his stepdaughter by Roque, passing by a circus promoter in St. Tropez, 1961.
Read On
Small Talk
Food

When Life Gives You Lemons … French pastry chef Cédric Grolet’s lemon trompe l’oeil dessert is having a moment on menus around the world

By Nina Friend
Read On
View With a Room

Revival on the Riviera Maya After an extensive renovation, Belmond Maroma is once again luring its loyalists back to Mexico

By Mary Lussiana
Read On
The Perfect Ending

Olivia von Halle

The fashion designer answers 35 of life’s most pressing questions
Read On
Joe McKendry’s Sketchbook
I made this sketch on the beach in Cassis, in the South of France. My kids swam over to this rock and chatted with some locals as they took turns jumping.
Is Edited By

Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley

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In Memoriam

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

Issue No. 214
August 19, 2023
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Issue No. 214
August 19, 2023
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