Simon Doonan had a wonderful article in Slate last week about his experience designing the installation for the auction of Marilyn Monroe‘s effects for Christie’s in 1999. Doonan says the process of cataloging her belongings took months, but “Right away, I discovered that Marilyn was shockingly and unimaginably slender. She was sort of like Kate …
Going into the weekend, smart money was saying that Mitt Romney would be ecstatic if he emerged from the Tuesday Iowa caucuses with a strong second or even third place in a dead heat finish, and would be over the moon if he won. Somehow, even after eking out an eight-vote win over Rick Santorum …
News we could use later this year: STEVE’S LAST GIFT! Jobs’ Final Invention Solves Nation’s Unemployment Crisis! New iJobs Device Pays People to Sit and Twiddle Their Thumbs! SLUGFEST! Ex-Comedian Sinbad Latest to Grab Lead for Republican Nomination Overtakes Garth, the Capital One Viking; Romney Holds Steady at 25% IT’S A MOCKERY! Kim Kardashian Denounces …
The peerless Ronald Searle has died in his sleep in France at the age of 91. Best known for a manically gothic style that invigorated his illustrations of the frantically anarchic schoolgirls of St. Trinian’s, the grinning, lustful oenophiles in The Illustrated Winespeak, the Molesworth series, The Rake’s Progress, The Adventures of Baron Muchausen, and …
As has become our custom, here is a wholly individual, utterly personal, completely idiosyncratic list of the top 11 whatevers of 2011. 11. THE MIDNIGHT RAMBLE On a freezing night last winter, a group of us took a limo to Woodstock to see the great Levon Helm and his amazing band in concert in Levon’s …
The Christmas Eve party was at our house this year, and love and joy came to us, and to our wassail, too. Ginny outdid herself in the kitchen, making a Beef Wellington that disappeared in no time. Bad puns were entertaining, the Giants won, and apart from a malfunctioning flash which gave us far too …
“You know, you never want to say, ‘It’s all them,’” President Obama told Barbara Walters last week, “But I do think that right now at least, in the Republican Party there are a couple of notions. Number one is that compromise is a dirty word. Number two, anything that Obama’s for, we’re against.” Come on, …
Cathy, Tim, Greg, Susan, Jo, Dave, Ginny and I hit Town Hall on Saturday evening to attend a taping of the radio show Prairie Home Companion. We enjoyed Garrison Keillor‘s low key, folksy, whimsical fun, and his guests Gillian Welch, Joel Grey and especially Itzhak Perlman (with a very fine Klezmer orchestra!) were a treat. …