New York Magazine 3/6-3/19/17

1 Gabriel Sherman’s profile of John McCain in New York’s most recent issue detailed how the so-called maverick is ambivalently, agonizingly taking on Trump (“How Many Chances Do You Get to Be an American Hero?,” February 20–March 5). Tom Nichols, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, thought the story demonstrated that “John McCain’s loss in 2008 could be the country’s gain now.” Nichols wrote, “While McCain is right that he can’t be ‘the car alarm that always goes off,’ he is, in fact, one of the last moral lodestones left in a party that has been whipsawed by President Trump’s kaleidoscopic change of positions. McCain was pilloried for lack of principle as both a senator and a candidate but now has the seniority and the scars—physical and political—to…

A visit to the writers’ room “The Twisted Minds Behind the Letterman Show,” read the subheadline on Eric Pooley’s story. It ran in New York at what was perhaps the creative peak of Late Night With David Letterman, then marking its fifth anniversary on NBC, where it aired after Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. The difference in sensibility between 11:30 and 12:30 could not have been made clearer than it was on the day Pooley visited the control room of Studio 6A at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Two of Letterman’s writers, Randy Cohen and Kevin Curran, were watching as a technician began slowly rotating the onscreen image of Dave at the start of the show. Over the course of the one-hour episode, the whole show would go through one slow rotation, reaching…

THE HIGH POINT of Donald Trump’s presidency to date—the moment when those who desperately wanted to close their eyes and imagine a normal president standing before the country got something resembling their wish—came during his late-February speech to a joint session of Congress. Trump managed to read his address without narcissistic digressions, and the message he delivered (“Nationalism with an indoor voice,” as one White House official put it) would have been obvious to any casual listener. Over and over, Trump blamed America’s problems on foreigners or the willingness of past leaders to accommodate them: “We’ve watched our middle class shrink as we’ve exported our jobs and wealth to foreign countries”; “We’ve defended the borders of other nations while leaving our own borders wide open for anyone to cross”; “America…

“I want to get my hands dirty and do some gardening. I want to design pinball machines.” RYAN ADAMS BURSTS through the door of Rivington Guitars, the tiny East Village instrument shop where he’s asked me to meet him, and immediately launches into a conversation with the owner, Howie, about the red 1983 Les Paul he bought there last November. “Dude, [the Smiths’] Johnny Marr’s guitar tech sent me a DM on Instagram and goes, ‘You chose wisely—that’s the same guitar I bought for Johnny,’” says Adams, 42, wearing a Black Sabbath T-shirt under a leather jacket with an Iron Maiden logo on the back. “He told me to go on YouTube and watch [the Smiths] play ‘How Soon Is Now?’ on Top of the Pops. It’s the exact model…

ON THE DAY I met Camille Paglia for lunch, I arrived early at the Greek restaurant she had selected and let the hostess guide me to a table in the back. To me, this seemed like a perfectly fine table. Paglia, who arrived a few minutes later, disagreed. It was a booth. And there were people right beside us. There was a table near the front, Paglia said, where she had taken meetings before; perhaps we could sit there. Accompanied by the hostess, we walked to the new table and considered it. Paglia allowed that probably the hostess could not grant the two of us this six-top. We needed a smaller table—but one that was quiet, and private. By this point, a second restaurant employee had joined us. Another booth…

SINCE RETIRING FROM The Late Show two years ago, David Letterman has kept a low public profile—aided by the growth of a truly impressive beard. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been as fixated on politics as the rest of us. “If I still had a show,” says the 69-year-old, dressed in a baggy sweater and cargo pants and sitting high above midtown in a conference room at his publicist’s offices, “people would have to come and take me off the stage. ‘Dave, that’s enough about Trump. We’ve run out of tape.’ It’s all I’d be talking about. I’d be exhausted.” Late-night TV comedy has offered some of the sharpest—and most-remarked-upon—responses to the Trump presidency. But despite the work of Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Saturday Night Live, and the rest,…