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Crime and Scandal
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October 31, 2026
The Best
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No. 381
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In This Week’s Issue
THE ALL-EXCLUSIVE RESORT

In Jamaica, the drinks are unlimited. Beach access is another matter entirely. Of the island’s 494 miles of coastline, less than three are currently accessible to the public. Now some locals are suing for the right to take a dip …

HOCUS POTUS

Harry Houdini spent his last months trying to rid Washington, D.C., of fortune tellers and phony psychics. A hundred years after his death this Halloween, the mystics and cranks in the White House haven’t gone away …

A ROYAL PARDON

For years, Britain’s tabloids cast Meghan Markle as a social climber who snubbed her commoner father. Now that disturbing allegations about him have been made public, do the press and the Palace owe her an apology?

GET LOST

If you have a problem with a blackmailing dominatrix or an unpaid debt, or you simply want to disappear from the drudgery of your life, Frank Ahearn is the man to call …

IN THE DOGHOUSE

Did Mango and Beignet, a pair of toy poodles owned by a circus heiress, foul the carpet at the National Arts Club? In the balance hangs the future of the Silurians—New York’s oldest press club …

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE

In 1945, still shaken by the war, director Frank Capra took on a story he’d dismissed as “the lousiest piece of cheese I ever heard of.” Sam Wasson’s new biography traces how he turned it into a Hollywood classic …

THE WRITE STUFF

At a celebration hosted by AIR MAIL and Montblanc, Patricia Clarkson, Katie Holmes, and Emily Ratajkowski toasted the winners of the second annual Tom Wolfe literary prizes …

BUT, WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

At a four-table restaurant on Rwanda’s Lake Ruhondo, dining is a tour of African cuisine … from starving artist to blind master, Claude Monet in his own words … how Jaalen Best became Muhammad Ali … and the French photographer who caught America in the act of political rebellion …

But First …
Issue No. 381

The View from Here Harry Houdini died 100 years ago this Halloween. But he left behind an unfinished book about the dangers of magical thinking that is unfortunately more relevant than ever

By Kyle MacNeill
Read On
Barry Blitt’s Sketchbook
a shore ting

Jamaica’s Vanishing Coastline All-inclusive resorts and private compounds now control more than 99 percent of the country’s world-famous beaches. Ordinary Jamaicans are fed up

By Ben Ryder Howe
Read On
Games

The Weekly Waffle

A positively addictive word game to go with your morning coffee
Royal Follies

The Meghan We Didn’t Know Disturbing allegations against the Duchess of Sussex’s father cast their estrangement—and the events leading up to Megxit—in a new light. Does the press owe her an apology?

By Ashley Baker
Read On
the invisible man

How to Disappear Completely Frank Ahearn used to find people who didn’t want to be found. Now he helps them vanish

By Mark Ellwood
Read On
Air Supply

Vote Early, Shop Often

For the trip to the polls and the walk home, with absolutely no promises about what happens after the results come in
Shop
Photo: Jean Pottier/Kharbine-Tapabor/Shutterstock (woman in voting booth)
Guest Edit

Eva Karayiannis’s Favorite Things The founder of Caramel has spent 25 years making children exceptionally well dressed. With her latest Zara collection now in stores, the designer shares the things she loves

Shop
Reporters in the Ruff

Silurians in the Doghouse A member of New York’s oldest press club sued the National Arts Club for banning her incontinent service poodles. Now its septuagenarians have been evicted, too

By Wendell Jamieson
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CHOP CHOPPISH SHOP
Read On
Best
watch Carnival of Souls Herk Harvey’s only narrative feature film is an atmospheric and macabre indie masterpiece, exploring emotional distance… shoot Leica x Formula 1 Fresh off the United States Grand Prix in Austin, with Las Vegas still to come, Leica has unveiled its first official partnership with Formula 1… sparkle Pomellato For this year’s Memorie d’Archivio—a heritage capsule collection that reimagines beloved designs from Pomellato’s storied archives… look Joy One of the first sentences in multi-disciplinary artist Maira Kalman’s latest book, Joy—“Suffering and sorrow envelop our planet… buy The Complete Kubrick “Watching a Kubrick film is like gazing up at a mountaintop,” Martin Scorsese once said. “You look up… read Hotel & Farm Ben Katchor calls himself a cartoonist, but what I call him is a novelist of heartbreaking brilliance whose graphic novels… watch Carnival of Souls Herk Harvey’s only narrative feature film is an atmospheric and macabre indie masterpiece, exploring emotional distance… shoot Leica x Formula 1 Fresh off the United States Grand Prix in Austin, with Las Vegas still to come, Leica has unveiled its first official partnership with Formula 1… sparkle Pomellato For this year’s Memorie d’Archivio—a heritage capsule collection that reimagines beloved designs from Pomellato’s storied archives… look Joy One of the first sentences in multi-disciplinary artist Maira Kalman’s latest book, Joy—“Suffering and sorrow envelop our planet… buy The Complete Kubrick “Watching a Kubrick film is like gazing up at a mountaintop,” Martin Scorsese once said. “You look up… read Hotel & Farm Ben Katchor calls himself a cartoonist, but what I call him is a novelist of heartbreaking brilliance whose graphic novels…
After Hours

A Night Celebrating Sarah Anderson and Carlos Barragán At a dinner hosted by AIR MAIL and Montblanc, Patricia Clarkson, Parker Posey, Katie Holmes, and Jay McInerney toasted the winners of the second annual Tom Wolfe literary prizes

By Maggie Turner
Photographs by Daniel Paik
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Top, Carlos Barragán and Sarah Anderson; above, Julia Vitale and Patricia Clarkson.
Top, the Lambs Room at Keens Steakhouse; above, Jason Yarmosky and Katie Holmes.
Top, the prizes, replicas of Tom Wolfe’s trademark homburg; above, Parker Posey.
Top, Adam Eli and Sloane Crosley; above, Caroline Calloway.
Top, Stephanie Danler; above; Patricia Clarkson, master of ceremonies.
Top, Emily Ratajkowski; above, Nancy Bass Wyden and Lynn Nesbit.
Top, Hunter Abrams and Sarah Hoover; above, Andrea McCoid, Alexa Schilz, and Sylvain Costof.
Top, Parker Posey and Patricia Clarkson; above, Sheila Wolfe, Alexandra Wolfe Schiff, and Drew Schiff.
Top, Sarah Anderson accepting her award; above, Madeline Cash and Zoe Dubno.
Top, Jay McInerney and Lynn Nesbit; above, Adam Klappholz, Stephanie Danler, Emily Ratajkowski, and Romain Gavras.
Top, Josh Duboff, Dana Brown, and Joseph Bullmore; above, Jim Kelly, Lynn Nesbit, and Sheila Wolfe.
Top, Jasmine Vojdani and Adam Eli; above, Ian Van Wye, Carlos Barragán, and Zoe Dubno.
Top, Matthew Gasda; above, Juliette Jeffers and John Lippman.
Top, Elena Clavarino and Kiara Barrow; above, Josh Duboff, Molly Jong-Fast, and Karah Preiss.
Top, Candace Bushnell and Sloane Crosley; above, Matt Starr and Caroline Calloway.
Top, Paul Needham and Marie Solis; above, Patricia Clarkson, Victoria Herman, and Carolina de Armas.
Top, Paulina Prosnitz and Jack Sullivan; above, Carole Radziwill, Victoria Herman, and Jane Sarkin.
Top, Michael Hainey; above, the Lauren Schofield–designed Tom Wolfe cake, based off an illustration by Robert Risko.
Read On
once more, with feeling

How Frank Capra Got His Wings The horrors of World War II shook the director’s faith in humanity. Making It’s a Wonderful Life restored it. An exclusive excerpt from Frank Capra

By Sam Wasson
Read On
Close-up

Jaalen Best He took his first acting class to fill a college elective. Seven years later, the 28-year-old is stepping into the role of Muhammad Ali in a new series about the boxer, and has found a mentor in Michael B. Jordan

By Maggie Turner
Read On
Around the World in Culture
On Netflix
A documentary on the bygone Canadian comedy show Second City Television features Martin Short, Tom Hanks, and many others… In Houston
Winslow Homer’s watercolor scenes and landscapes go on view for the first time in nearly half a century, at the Museum of Fine Arts… In New York
Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell lead a musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Jamie Lloyd… On Apple TV
Liev Schreiber plays a detective racing to find a notorious serial killer’s last captive after a presumed-dead victim turns up alive… In London
An exhibition of letters, photographs, personal belongings, and manuscript drafts is opening up the inner sanctum of Agatha Christie… In Los Angeles
Jeffrey Deitch presents the work of Kiki Smith, including important early bronze sculptures and explorations in papier mâché and beeswax…
Books
Max Carter On

Claude Monet: A Life in Letters

Edited by Teresa Krasny, Frances Fowle,
Flavie Durand-Ruel Mouraux,
Karen Serres, and Sylvie Patry
Read On
Pan-African

The Hardest Reservation in Africa At a four-table restaurant on Rwanda’s Lake Ruhondo, Rick Owens’s former private chef is putting African cuisine on the global culinary map

By Christine Muhlke
Read On
Highlight

Arte Povera’s Feminine Force A century after Marisa Merz’s birth, three exhibitions in Italy pay homage to the only woman in the radical art movement built on humble materials, non-commercial spaces, and ephemeral installations

By Patricia Zohn
Read On
Open Book

Pièces de Résistance Ahead of the midterms, a new book of photographs by Jean-Pierre Laffont captures two decades of American defiance

14
Martin Luther King Jr., photographed by Jean-Pierre Laffont, delivering a speech against the Vietnam War outside the United Nations, Manhattan, 1967.
Top, protesters at the first Women’s Equality March, where feminists filled the streets demanding equal jobs, education, and reproductive rights, Manhattan, 1970; above, the funeral procession for six of the prisoners slain in the Attica State Prison uprising, Brooklyn, 1971.
A couple kissing during the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen rock festival, Watkins Glen, New York, 1973.
A view of the 600,000 gathered for the Watkins Glen festival.
Top, the Savage Skulls, a Puerto Rican gang based around Fox Street, South Bronx, 1972; above, the activists Abbie Hoffman and Jane Fonda at a protest against the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia, Washington, D.C., 1970.
A member of the community of young trans sex workers living on 65th Street and Broadway, Manhattan, 1966–67.
Gloria Steinem speaking at the first Women’s Equality March.
Top, Muhammad Ali pointing at Joe Frazier before the boxers’ second match, three years after their “Fight of the Century,” Manhattan, 1974; above, a protester raising his fist in solidarity with the Black Panther Party at an anti–Vietnam War demonstration, Manhattan, 1969.
The first Women’s Equality March.
The singer Isaac Hayes and other fans arriving at Madison Square Garden for Ali and Frazier’s “Fight of the Century” rematch.
Top, a women’s-liberation activist being arrested at a demonstration outside the 30th Republican National Convention, Miami, 1972; above, protesters during a Moratorium March, denouncing Richard Nixon’s policies and advocating for the end of the Vietnam War, Washington, D.C., 1969.
Police officers taking an anti–Vietnam War protester into custody outside the 30th Republican National Convention.
Students swimming in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on the National Mall in defiance of the Kent State shooting, Washington, D.C., 1970.
Top, demonstrators during a Moratorium March, Washington, D.C., 1969; above, a couple in Central Park after New York’s second Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day celebration, Manhattan, 1971.
Read On
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Writers at Large

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Contributing Artists

Monica Ahanonu Barry Blitt André Carrilho Pip Carter Paul Davis David Downton Andrea Ferolla Josh Gosfield Cathy Graham Eric Hanson Angelica Hicks 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 Dafydd Jones Daniel Paik Art Streiber Sharon Suh Justin Weiner

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In Memoriam

Peter Bogdanovich Milton Esterow Duncan Hannah Jane Larkworthy Douglas McGrath Richard David Story André Leon Talley David Yaffe

Issue No. 381
October 31, 2026
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Issue No. 381
October 31, 2026
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