Is there anything to the rumor that Graydon Carter has signed Monocle Editor In Chief Tyler Brûlé, the shopping and design fetishist, as a Vanity Fair columnist? Brûlé's freelance gigs have taken him from the New York Times to the Financial Times to, most recently, the International Herald Tribune, but his last "weekly" column there appears to have run Feb. 1.
A story in Canada's National Post about how Canadian journo Clive Thompson is secretly jealous of more famous Canadian author Malcom Gladwell made brief mention of "a Canadian mafia of print journos that exists in the Manhattan magazine world." There are more Canucks in the New York media world than you might imagine, and nearly all of them hold positions of terrifying power. Do you know your Canadian Mafia members? Join us on a trip through Manhattan's dirty underbelly with the Molson-guzzling old time hockey aficionados who secretly run the media.
Page Six says Vanity Fair found an illegitimate son of John F. Kennedy out in Canada somewhere. His name is Jack and he "bears a strong resemblance to the 35th president assassinated in 1963." But Teddy strong-armed Graydon Carter and they killed the story! Except Vanity Fair says it isn't dead, so much as waiting on some sort of proof beyond resemblance and hearsay. Page Six, unfamiliar with such quaint niceties, is understandably unconvinced. [NYP]
Edward Graydon Carter doesn't have the pedigree you'd expect from the editor of one of the most popular and profitable fashion magazines around. The foppish, bon vivant editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair is the pal of countless celebs and moguls. One of his latest hobbies involves serving up mediocre food to the same crowd as the co-owner of the Waverly Inn and Monkey Bar.
Yar-loving Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter has proven his worth as a restaurant promoter. The Waverly Inn is the hottest spot in town no doubt no doubt. But apparently his grip on New York's restaurant scene isn't all there. Recently a disgruntled commenter at the "haute travel talk" site Extravigator complained of his experience at the Gramercy Tavern thusly, "had a horrible experience - ...the maitre'd was one of the rudest i've ever encountered in any nyc restaurant in years. i had confirmed reservations - thru graydon carter's office, and was still treated horribly - would not recommend this restaurant to anyone right now!" Umm, so there you have it. Making a reservation for a restaurant through Mr. Carter's office for a place he does not own nor with which he has any affiliation will not get you treated well. You heard it here first.
Graydon Carter may have been wasting his time launching and editing magazines all these years. The 58-year-old's true calling is restaurant promoter. Carter's Vanity Fair is doing fine, at least among the middle-aged middle-American women who make up the core of its readership: the glossy title is a carefully-disguised supermarket tabloid. But Carter has had greater success recently with the restaurant the Canadian bon vivant opened up just a few doors from his house. The Vanity Fair editor was a regular at Da Silvano's on Sixth Avenue; he and his friends lent the Italian restaurant an allure, which brought a celebrity clientele, and press mentions. But look at this chart of mentions of the restaurants in the Nexis press database: Carter's new restaurant, which drew Lindsay Lohan and Cameron Diaz last Friday, has eclipsed his old haunt.
The New Republic polled the people who really matter for their endorsements in the ongoing primary battle. Yes, finally, we shall get to hear the thoughts of two noted media recluses: famous lawyer Alan Dershowitz and Vanity Fair editor/Canadian Graydon Carter! Dershowitz endorses Hillary Clinton, because Barack Obama is a Muslim. Graydon Carter endorses Barack Obama because Hillary Clinton is not sufficiently yar. [The Star]
Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter has a very very strange and deep obsession with the 1940 romantic screwball comedy "The Philadelphia Story." He named Spy after the paper for which Jimmy Stewart's character Macaulay Connor writes. He aped the expression "yar" as in "Nicole Kidman is yar" from a nautical term of endearment C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant) calls the super bangable Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn not Traci Lords) . He even blathers on about the movie on Turner Classic Movies. The latest manifestation of Carter's TPS obsession is his non sequitur quote about said film in a Telegraph piece about, basically, Vanity Fair invented the world including portraits. Regarding a 1929 photograph of Douglas Fairbanks Jr and Joan Crawford Carter said “That picture is one of my favourites...It’s so beautifully composed. It’s The Philadelphia Story in one image.” I mean, it is in black & white, there is a man and woman (there were men and women in the Philadelphia Story) and there is a bathing suit. But other than that, Gray-Gray, it's more the story of Joan Crawford and Douglas Fairbanks Jr in one image.
Magazine shakeup! Longtime Vanity Fair contributing editor David Margolick is leaving the Condé Nast magazine to join Portfolio (as Howell Raines did earlier this week), the Observer is reporting. Margolick most recently penned a well-received profile of Eliot Spitzer for the magazine. Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter is known for his rotating list of favorites-could Margolick have been on the outs? We would wish him better luck with his new capitán, Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman, but we're not sure he's headed for friendlier pastures. One thing's for sure, Portfolio must be putting serious coin on the table to convince players like Margolick to come on board. If you know, let us know.
One web maven, recently arrived in New York, was asked whether he'd like to experience the scene at Graydon Carter's Waverly Inn, downtown's power restaurant of the moment. His reply: "As an anthropologist, sure; as a human, not really."
Graydon Carter's diatribes against the Bush administration have passed through the full arc of a great journalistic campaign. When it began, five years ago, the president was the still the victor of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Vanity Fair editor an aging liberal prophet in the wilderness, irritating, and mocked. Then Graydon Carter because simply a prophet, vindicated by the collapse of the Bush presidency. And now? The obsession continues (the latest editor's letter even compares George Bush to the awful mid-level manager of the Office) — but it feels dated. As we've been told by the pundits, the results of the Iowa caucuses show that the electorate has moved beyond the war in Iraq, Bush and the Clintons. Graydon Carter has not.
Ex-Conde Nast president and recently deceased Steve Florio didn't always really get on with one-time GQ publisher and model for Mr. Big model Ron Galotti, a fact which would have come to light in Florio's tell-all memoir had it not been squashed by more prudent minds. But at his funeral over the phone with Observer's John Koblin on Monday, Mr. Galotti said, "A lot is always written about myself and the Steve Florios. But I would hope you understand that when you get older, you forget the bad. You just do. You really try to focus on the good. And my memories of Steve Florio are all good. And I'm lucky to have had him as a friend." The Steve Florios, may they rest in peace.
Sign number million that you are no longer an angry young man: someone in your office suggests that you dress up as Santa Claus at Christmastime. Clearly, Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter has always had a broad face and a little round belly that shakes, when he laughs, like a bowlful of jelly. Slap a wig over the traditional winged hairdo and paste on a fake beard, and he's ready to add Bono to his nice list and President George W. Bush to his naughty list! Ho ho ho!
Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter and New Yorker editor David Remnick hustled to beat each other on profiles of Eliot Spitzer, notes the Observer; technically Graydon won with publishing online first, but Remnick won with extended access. Yeah, yeah. Apart from that silliness, we hear that Spitzer's press minder who was handling the reporters is kind of an idiot! After Nick Paumgarten's New Yorker profile was already in edits, Spitzer's guy was asking him, "What's going to be in the piece?" That's just sad. Real political operations—see Team Clinton—don't have to ask, because they already know.
After we gave up on the Pats-Bills game last night we turned it over to Turner Classic Movies to watch the ridiculous and vaguely misogynistic end of one of our favorite movies ever, The Philadelphia Story, only to find as it ended that TCM's Sunday night line-up was programmed by none other than Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, who seemed to have made his choices from Turner's vast library by throwing a couple darts at an AFI list. He did point out, in his amusingly awkward sit-down with Robert Osbourne, that he got the name for HIS FAMOUS MAGAZINE THAT INVENTED EVERYTHING from the aforementioned classic romantic comedy, and took his own Spy pseudonym from Jimmy Stewart's poor lesbian photographer friend. Then he played Casablanca. We'd much rather see Spike guest-program the network, though he's more Sundance, what with his funky and outré taste. (NB: The thing with The Philadelphia Story means Carter himself is clearly responsible for calling Nicole Kidman YAR.)
