It’s a kind of integrated, deep-dive learning experience. I just read the Condé Nast history “Empire of the Elite,” long-time Vanity Fair (a Condé Nast staple) Editor and Waverly Inn/Monkey Bar Owner Graydon Carter’s autobiography “When the Going Was Good,” and NYC restaurateur (Balthazar, Minetta Tavern) Keith McNally’s autobiography “I Regret Almost Everything.”
I topped it off this morning watching the just-released Netflix documentary “The New Yorker at 100,” another Condé Nast staple. Oh, and let’s throw in “Mr. Scorcese,” the new Apple TV documentary about Marty from New York.
What a mixed-media, intersecting set of stories, especially over the past 50 years - magazines, books, food, art, photography. fashion, cartooning, politics, and tech.
And what an unending set of characters, too, starting with New York City itself and including Vogue Editors Diane Vreeland, Grace Mirabella, and Anna Wintour, superstar photographers Annie Leibowitz and Richard Avedon, New Yorker Editors Harold Ross, William Shawn, Tina Brown, and David Remnick, writers and thinkers from Baldwin and Updike to Capote, Dunne, Orlean, Hitchens, Kincaid, and Lepore, and Warhol, Basquiat, and Anna Wintour holding court at Keith and brother Brian’s many NYC restaurants.
What a fascinating journey.