The Air Mail Archive: Every weekly issue

Issue No. 153

June 18, 2022

Creature from the Bleak Lagoon

As the January 6 committee builds its shocking case against the former president, Graydon Carter shares his unique perspective as to how the orange-hued real-estate huckster’s lifetime obsession with lying almost culminated in the toppling of America

Mother’s Little Helper

Clara Molot reports on the alarming rise of the suburban “Glocker mom,” influencer-mothers who have taken to social media to praise the virtues of kids—and guns

Righting Wrongs

David Kaufman considers a recent California plan that proposes to pay reparations to descendants of enslaved people and argues that, while the idea is noble, for him the price will be too high

Issue No. 152

June 11, 2022

Irregular Programming

From New York, William D. Cohan reveals that accused sexual harasser Charlie Rose has uncanceled himself and rebooted his show. Will anyone watch?

Russki Business

Where’s an oligarch to tan his hairy back, now that Europe’s turned its back? As Mark Ellwood reports, there’s at least one town in Italy where they’ll still be spoiling our view

Workers of the World, Lie Down!

Julia Hobsbawm looks at the latest virus sweeping China: tang ping, which has burned-out young workers refusing to go to work. And now it seems to be quickly infecting offices in the West

Issue No. 151

June 4, 2022

The Decisive Moment

As America hides the photographic evidence of the horrors perpetrated inside a Texas classroom, Errol Morris reminds us that, 50 years ago, a single snapshot of a wounded girl in Vietnam transformed public opinion around the world

The (Very) Quiet American

From France, Whit Stillman uncovers the amazing story of the James Bond of the Loire Valley, a former J. C. Penney clerk from Minnesota who secretly saved de Gaulle from a coup in 1961

Bitter Pills

From London, Flora Gill reveals how young women have been driven from traditional means of birth control to much riskier alternatives

Issue No. 150

May 28, 2022

Clubbed

In New York, Hannah Seligson checks out the hilarious drama now playing at Aman New York, where members dropped $100,000 to join but find the amenities not close to what they were promised

Modern Times

Tenth-grader Khaleel Wright tells us how reading and writing help him cope with America’s never-ending gun violence

Photo Finish?

From France, Alexandra Marshall reveals the pathetic truths behind Emmanuel Macron’s sexy selfies, and why French politics will never be the same

Issue No. 149

May 21, 2022

All Troubled on the Eastern Front

Andrew Ryvkin reveals that Putin’s most dangerous threat to holding power comes not from the left but from the hard right, who believe he has actually gone soft on Ukraine

High Society

Jensen Davis reports on kratom, the Asian drug that’s an upper and a downer—and what everyone suddenly seems to be taking

Tale Dogs WAG

Stuart Heritage covers the foulmouthed, venom-spewing, knockdown, better-than-Depp-and-Heard, London courtroom-showdown drama between WAGs

Issue No. 148

May 14, 2022

Dim Lights, Big City

From the other side of midnight, Elena Clavarino reports on New York City’s hot new nightlife trend: roaming clubs that pop up and then vanish

Grape Expectations

From London, Joseph Bullmore reveals how two flimflammers allegedly snookered greedy wine snobs out of nearly $100 million

Four Score and Seven Smears Ago

From the campaign trail, Eric Hanson shows how easy it is to twist the truth about a candidate—even a very, very honest one

Issue No. 147

May 7, 2022

Barbarians Inside the Gates

From Wall Street, William D. Cohan looks at the revolt inside Goldman Sachs, where Gen Z bankers are telling C.E.O. (and part-time D.J.) David Solomon to take his back-to-the-office order and shove it

Social X-Rays

From the Upper East Side, Hannah Seligson pulls back the curtain on the hot new weight-loss trend among New York’s .01-percenters

Send in the Clown

From the West End, John Lahr takes in The 47th, the “ugly, rousing, cathartic” new play that captures Donald Trump as he plots his run for president in 2024

Issue No. 146

April 30, 2022

The Kids Aren’t Alright

Gen Z was going to save the planet. But as Cazzie David reports, a Chinese fast-fashion brand upended their climate activism

Justice At Last?

In part three of his report on writer Alice Sebold’s mistaken identification of her rapist, Howard Blum details the complicated road ahead for the man who served 16 years for a crime he didn’t commit—and now wants $50 million

Sultans of Style

Amy Fine Collins unveils the latest inductees to the celebrated International Best-Dressed List

Issue No. 145

April 23, 2022

Love For Sale

Nancy Jo Sales wonders why a big-money dating service that promises to introduce women to wealthy men has allegedly signed up bar crawlers, felons, and stalkers

(In)human Resources

David Kaufman on the rise of Gen Z’s “corporate Karens,” unleashing woke terror in the office

No Roman Holiday

The French grab Abramovich’s exquisite and historic château in Cap d’Antibes

Issue No. 144

April 16, 2022

Helsinki Discord

Tim Bouverie reveals how Ukraine’s battle against Putin mirrors Finland’s 1940 battle against Stalin. And there are lessons for the West in all of this

Portrait of a Fraudster

Joseph Bullmore on the trial of the Madoff of the contemporary-art world, Inigo Philbrick

Marked Man

Jim Kelly speaks with Bill Browder on how to defeat Putin, who stole $200 million from the author—and still wants him dead

Issue No. 143

April 9, 2022

Is #Canceled Canceled?

Louis C.K. wins a Grammy? As Alessandra Stanley notes, this was the week the Zeitgeist rebelled against the excesses of left-wing sanctimony and censoriousness

The Eastern Front

As Elena Clavarino reports, the war in Ukraine has barely touched the well-to-do in Moscow and St. Petersburg. But that doesn’t mean they don’t dread what’s coming

Casualty Report

Charles Leerhsen looks at Lara Logan, the former 60 Minutes star who survived a harrowing attack in Cairo and now peddles far-right conspiracy theories

Issue No. 142

April 2, 2022

Work-Life Balance?

Putin’s true motivation for his disastrous war? As Stuart Heritage theorizes, a man desperate to avoid a nagging wife, ex-mistresses, and numerous kids will create a distraction. Any distraction

Moscow on the Thames

From London, Patrick Kidd wonders how it’s O.K. that a member of the House of Lords moonlighted as the top executive of Oleg Deripaska’s energy company

General Deception

Christopher Buckley imagines the rather awkward conversations now taking place between Putin and his military leadership

Issue No. 141

March 26, 2022

Ivy Grows on Putin’s Cronies

From New Haven, Clara Molot reveals the shocking and tangled financial connections between Yale and some of Russia’s most reviled oligarchs

Drama Department

From the Great White Way, John Mauceri recounts the dramatic moment in 1958 when The Music Man and West Side Story went head-to-head for the Tony

Not Your Mother’s Laundromat

Scott Galloway explains how kleptocrats turn dirty money into 57th Street penthouses

Issue No. 140

March 19, 2022

To The Barricades!

From Ukraine, a revealing look at Olena Zelenska, the woman beside the man who has electrified the Free World

Sharp Shooters

Laura Haim on why some of the 20th century’s greatest war photographers—many now in their 70s—are risking their lives to show the world what is happening in Ukraine

Sand Castle

Mitch Glazer recalls Miami’s historic—and soon-to-be demolished—Deauville Hotel, where everyone swung in the 1960s, from J.F.K. to the Beatles to the Rat Pack

Issue No. 139

March 12, 2022

Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express

Taking inspiration from Agatha Christie, Graydon Carter presents a novel proposal on how to end the war in Ukraine—involving some highly motivated members of the criminal element

Stacked Deck?

Collect one, collect ’em all! George Kalogerakis presents “Olicards”—trading cards of all your favorite Putinistas, so you can tell who’s who, whose boat is whose, and who’s going to flip

Songs in the Key of Life

Sam Kashner remembers Oscar Levant, a titan of midcentury America’s movie and theater worlds, whose legend is being revived in both a new play and on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Issue No. 138

March 5, 2022

Russian War Bonds

The West wants to demonize the oligarchs, but, as Alessandra Stanley points out, it wasn’t just Putin who enabled their massive fortunes—it was also Harvard elites and Wall Street kleptocrats

Factory Recall

As director Ryan Murphy puts Andy Warhol under his heat-seeking lens in a new series, the former editor of Interview, Bob Colacello, presents a different portrait of the artist

In Excellent Taste

From London, Emma Freud comes under the spell of Sally Clarke and her beloved Notting Hill restaurant, where she has been charming diners and seducing their palates for 37 years

Issue No. 137

February 26, 2022

MAGA-a-Lago Quislings in Training

With Trump and his cronies lavishing praise on Putin and his invasion of Ukraine, Douglas McGrath ponders how shockingly low the Republican Party has sunk

Dispatch from the Front

Will Cathcart gets caught between Ukrainian fighters and an advancing Russian force

(Don’t) Meet the Parents!

From Greenwich, Connecticut, Rich Cohen spins the sordid tale of a mother of four who secretly videotaped her kids’ friends messing around in her $10 million mansion

Issue No. 136

February 19, 2022

Slick Ice

Bill de Blasio brayed that he’d bar Donald Trump from managing Central Park’s Wollman Rink. So why, asks Johanna Berkman, did Trump’s pals get the contract?

Me Write Pretty One Day

James Wolcott dares to read Our Journey Together, Donald Trump’s $75 coffee-table book glorifying his presidency, where his “writing” consists of tweet-like captions beneath big, shiny pictures

California Screamin’

Todd S. Purdum registers how liberal Angelenos are reacting to high crime and homelessness

Issue No. 135

February 12, 2022

Prime Mover?

Alexandra Marshall takes a second look at Lauren Sanchez, the woman Jeff Bezos can’t keep his hands off of—and who also just might be the most powerful woman in America

Spirit Squad!

Former cheerleader (and top media executive) Bonnie Hammer has eight tips for Joe Biden and other leaders on what they need to do to raise our optimism

A Profitable Crime Branch

George Pendle takes us inside the bizarre, multi-billion-dollar global smuggling ring that’s bringing rosewood to China’s nouveau riche

Issue No. 134

February 5, 2022

From Watergate to Mar-a-Lago

The Watergate break-in happened 50 years ago, but Alessandra Stanley traces today’s post-Trump political dysfunction to Nixon’s “third-rate burglary”

The Grifters I

William D. Cohan unspools the tale of Hollywood’s millennial Madoff, a failed actor from Indiana who bilked his friends out of $227 million

The Grifters II

As the fraudster Anna Sorokin gets the Netflix treatment in a limited series, her former friend (and victim) Rachel DeLoache Williams weighs in on Sorokin’s profiting from her crimes

Issue No. 133

January 29, 2022

Putin on the Blitz!

From Russia, Andrew Ryvkin reports on how Vladimir Putin’s delusional belief in his anti-West lies has brought Europe to the brink of war

Sex Lives and Videotape

Al Gore may think he invented the Internet, but as George Kalogerakis reminds us, Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s grainy 1995 sex tape really jump-started the Web—and a Hulu limited series!

Islands in the Schemes

Mark Ellwood reports on the fabled (and now fading?) island of Mustique, where a new just-say-no vibe has driven decadents-in-exile to Bequia

Issue No. 132

January 22, 2022

Always in Fashion

Graydon Carter remembers his longtime friend and singular colleague André Leon Talley, a truly towering talent in the world of style

Old Money, New Marks

Steve Kroft and Howard L. Rosenberg reveal a string of audacious high-end jewel thefts from Newport to Georgetown, and wonder if a distinguished guest is the culprit

Made You Look … Again

Barry Avrich shows why 2022 is set to be the biggest year ever for art forgery and fraud

Issue No. 131

January 15, 2022

Scent of a Scoundrel

Christopher Mason reports on the stench engulfing Guerlain, France’s oldest perfume house, as the heir is accused of abusing his elderly father

The Great White (and BIPOC?) Way

Michael Riedel details how Broadway, reeling from coronavirus shutdowns, is grappling with demands to confront various inequalities

Here to Stay

Sam Kashner remembers his friend and mentor, Peter Bogdanovich, and shares details of the script they were completing at the time of his death: a love story about George and Ira Gershwin

Issue No. 130

January 8, 2022

The Last Picture Show

Graydon Carter recalls Peter Bogdanovich, a friend of many generosities and talents

Famiglia Feud

Rachel Donadio dishes the dirt on the battle between a former Playboy centerfold and her princely Italian stepsons that has sent a $531 million Roman villa to the auction block

The Roots of Crime

From the U.K., Stuart Heritage shares the very strange story of the tree killer stalking the tiny town of Poole

Issue No. 129

January 1, 2022

Parting is Such Sweet Pleasure

John Ficarra tallies up the 14 people, trends, and annoyances that left us (fortunately!) in 2021

Welcome to 1984

Ian Bremmer warns us that Facebook and other data titans have become the 21st century’s true superpowers. Have Zuck & Co. already defeated democracy?

Life B4 Studio 54

Michael Callahan transports us to El Morocco, the star-studded, super-exclusive epicenter of New York nightlife from 1939 to 1969

Issue No. 128

December 25, 2021

Enter Laughing

Sam Kashner recounts the astounding (and uproarious) life of S. J. Perelman, the man who re-invented American humor

From Rags to Britches

Adrian Brune catches up with Sir John Bird, who grew up homeless, spent decades running a street newspaper, and now sits in the House of Lords

Road Trip!

Fifty years after Dennis Wilson and James Taylor tried to jump-start movie careers in Two-Lane Blacktop, Jason Guriel fires it up and takes us for a spin

Issue No. 127

December 18, 2021

Crimes of the Heart

In part two of his riveting story, Howard Blum details how acclaimed author Alice Sebold helped send an innocent man to prison for a rape he did not commit

Larry Christmas to All!

Everyone’s favorite grinch, Larry David, breaks down his holiday-survival strategies

What Was Lost