Letter from the Editor
I’m still yawning. Last night was a late one, but when Renée Fleming, the 21st century’s only real diva, is singing Desdemona in Otello at the Metropolitan Opera, one can’t really complain. Tonight it’s the opening of King Arthur at the New York City Opera—music by Purcell, choreography by Mark Morris, and costumes by Isaac Mizrahi. Who could say no? Even though that means not being able to see Passing Strange, the funky Public Theater musical that has just moved uptown. Oh, and last week there was Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George from London’s Menier Chocolate Factory. Superb. And I promised myself that we’d go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which stays open late on Fridays…and Sunday at the Imperial theater there’s a matinée of August: Osage County—critics say it combines Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with a late-afternoon TV soap opera. It’s set in rural Oklahoma, with a cast that could win every Tony award in the book this year. Gotta see that, right? Especially since I am actually from Oklahoma. But then when do I get to just plop down with my newspapers and magazines? Or catch another In Treatment with Gabriel Byrne on HBO? I loved the first 2.35 episodes. And at the side of my bed, stacked deep, are all the books I seem to be midway through, including Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, which I haven’t read since my son was an infant. Next week (and 15 years later) he and I are going to India, to a tiger camp in the very place Kipling set his tales of Mowgli and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. And then there are books by old friends, like Alex Witchel, who they tell me has written this great old-fashioned, new-style New York comedy of manners called The Spare Wife. And the latest detective novel by contributing editor Reggie Nadelson. Ahhh! Almost forgot the one-man show in the West Village—tonight!—for photographer Bill Phelps, whose pictures of Dorset last issue had readers gasping. I had a couple of other dates penciled in on my calendar...For This Week. Stop! I’ll be the first to raise my hand: I suffer from attention (and information) overload. It’s the cultural disease of our time: too much to do, too little time to do it, too many other truly deeply important personal things to do that get tossed by the wayside. You’ve heard of that book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die. Sometimes doesn’t it seem more like 1,000 Things to Do Before Breakfast? That’s the premise of this year’s Culture Issue. In his opening essay for the CultureWatch A-to-Z edition that anchors this issue, Lee Siegel addresses the problem (“A” is for Attention Span). In the 25 remarkable pages that follow, deputy editor Stephen Wallis and contributing genius Paul Holdengräber together try to straighten things out culturally—pointing us in the right direction, eliminating the detritus of distraction. We hope it helps.
Elsewhere, novelist Claire Messud recounts the two weeks the Pilobolus dance company spent in Israel this past winter, while photographer Robert Whitman turns his Technicolor razzle-dazzle to the same subject. Jewelry in this issue is devoted to those rare gems called spinels. Maira Kalman, whose work suggests a modern-day Matisse, had a dream: that she had her own guided tour (by whom we don’t know) through the Metropolitan Museum. It was, I suppose, a dream meant in part to say farewell to the museum’s director, Philippe de Montebello who, at 72, retires toward the end of the year. Anyway, her dream became our “Mad About the Met.”
EURO-HORROR
It’s a Saturday morning, early. You know the scenario: bathrobe, cup of coffee in hand, alternating between reading the front page, changing CDs on the Bose, and catching up on e-mail. Suddenly I hear that little bliiiiiiiiiiing! from the laptop. Msg. Arrived. It’s our friend The Editor, who’s been in Paris for the fall collections. She, too, loves that city— as much as I do—but can’t believe the high prices of everything there. “A fashionista here at the Ritz, who will go nameless, walked into the lobby this a.m. with his tote bag. ‘Do some good shopping?’ I asked with a knowing wink. ‘No,’ he snapped back. ‘I did my laundry!’ He’s staying at the Ritz and he spent the morning at the laundromat! Go figure!” I did: He probably saved around $350 in cleaning bills. Complètement fou!
CLOSER TO HOME
The other day I was having lunch at Brasserie 44 in the Royalton, just a few doors down from the Departures offices on West 44th Street. Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager made the hotel famous as part of their “boutique” collection back in 1988. Alas, that was then and this is now. Gone are Philippe Starck’s ravishingly modern interiors, and in their place is something very different. Much as I personally prefer the old Starckian touches to the seventies Danish kitsch, the restaurant is a place to be reckoned with again. Not surprising, given that the whole enterprise is masterminded by John McDonald, the restaurateur (Lure, MercBar, Lever House) and publisher (City won last year’s National Magazine Award for best photo portfolio). Breakfast and lunch (on the menu was the best hamburger in Manhattan as of 6:15 p.m., Thursday, March 6) are especially fun and particularly felicitous. And if the service is, well, sometimes enough to drive you absolutely crazy, be patient…I promise it’s worth it.
