I’ll leave it to my friends in Philadelphia to decide how warmly to embrace Michael Vick; the spirit of forgiveness has never really been the City of Brotherly Love’s style, but if it’s worth a couple of touchdowns, I’m sure Iggle fans can learn to be warm and fuzzy. I am more impressed by the …
FORGET WHETHER VICK SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO PLAY–SHOULD TOM DELAY BE ALLOWED TO DANCE? Read More »
. . .on the roof of the famous Puck Building, much of the staff of Spy assembled. These were friends of mine. Photos by Julie Mihaly, courtesy Natasha Lessink. In the top picture, Constance Drayton, Cindy Arlinsky, John Brodie, Ben Svetkey, Rachel Urquhart, George Kalagerakis, Elissa Schappell, Kurt Andersen, Cynthia Cotts, Joe Mastrianni, Graydon Carter, …
The word novel may seldom be more aptly applied to a book than it can be to Jed Mercurio‘s new book American Adulterer. After all, John F. Kennedy is not exactly a figure who has lacked for attention or interpretation, but Mercurio, a British doctor and novelist, has developed a unique approach that truly makes …
AMERICAN ADULTERER: A NEW WAY OF THINKING ABOUT JFK Read More »
It was one of those good days, a mood changer. Went down to Chelsea to sign some papers for Joe Cilibrasi, and then decided to grab some lunch in a barbecue joint, and right at the next table was my friend Sharon Jautz, the former head of HR at Playboy, now blonde and tan and …
I’d never read the memoir of anyone I actually know until I read Closing Time, the account of my friend Joe Queenan of his upbringing in Philadelphia. Joe, for those of you who don’t know, is a very funny writer who contributed many wonderful articles to Spy and other magazines (including a hilarious piece for …
Three cheers for my friend and former Esquire colleague Michael Gross for his new book Rogues’ Gallery, a smashing expose of all the secrets that reside behind the masterpieces at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among the fascinating swells Michael’s very entertaining expose brings back are General Luigi Palma di Cesnola, the first director of …
Three cheers for my pal A.J. Baime, whose new book Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans is in bookstores now. A.J. does a great job telling the story of the rivalry in the sixties between Ferrari, the dominant racing power, and the upstart Ford Motor Company, …
I had a lot of fun yesterday at the annual Marymount Manhattan Writers’ Conference. First, I participated in a panel on Humor Writing hosted by my friend and benefactor Lewis Burke Frumkes, on which I was honored (a much-abused word, but in this case, totally appropriate) to join my friend Ben Cheever; Tony Hendra, whom …
Visiting London last January, I met a woman named Diane Wei Liang. A former management professor, a writer of detective novels, a mother of two, Liang was someone I had seen serving as a commentator of the BBC. I thought she might add an interesting perspective to an article I was writing about the rise …
Sonda Andersson, an art director at SPY, posted on Facebook these photos taken sometime in the summer of 1989 at Kurt Anderson and Anne Kreamer‘s second home up near Carmel in Putnam County. Good to see all these shiny happy faces.