New York Magazine 9/17-9/30/18

1 “Is it possible we’ve never really met Jonah Hill before?” Adam Sternbergh asked in his cover story on the actor, sartorial icon, and first-time director (“What Do You Expect From Jonah Hill?,” September 3–16). Poulomi Das said, “Such a lovely piece deconstructing the second coming of Jonah Hill. (Was I the only one who didn’t know that Beanie Feldstein, who played Julie in Ladybird, is his sister?)” The story also revealed that Hill has a tattoo of Beanie’s name, which prompted Anna Brand of NBC News to write, “I would be concerned if my brother tattooed my name on his arm.” And @menssen tweeted, “I usually detest celebrity profiles, but this Jonah Hill #longread was a nice break from reading about the end of America.” 2 Across the country,…

ONE OF THE MOST BLANDLY UNSETTLING PASSAGES in Bob Woodward’s Fear recounts the near resignation of Gary Cohn, one of the book’s likely sources and (therefore) heroes. In August 2017, Cohn, nauseated at President Trump’s equivocation over neo-Nazis demonstrating in Charlottesville, Virginia, attempted to quit. Trump berated Cohn for his weakness and, characteristically equating political loyalty to himself with loyalty to the country, accused Cohn of “treason.” “It was chilling,” Woodward reports. Then Trump tried another approach. “If you leave now, taxes are over,” he warned. By this he meant the massive corporate-tax cuts Cohn had helped to craft and from which he also stood to personally benefit. Cohn’s moral outrage began to drain, and he instead decided to stay on, prioritizing the taxes, or, as Woodward has him selflessly…

In May I Come In? (Abrams, September 25), Wendy Goodman, who first worked for New York in 1984 and has been producing design stories here since 1997, recounts an unusual life. An uncanny percentage of her friends are hugely talented and/or just fabulous, and the book tells her professional story as a tour through three worlds: her own life, those amazing interiors, and the great era of print magazines. Here, we’ve excerpted five of her most memorable New York recollections. It’s a greatest-hits reel that is by no means complete: You’ll see her latest in our next issue. 1. Andrew Solomon When the writer Andrew Solomon bought his townhouse on West 10th Street, it was a gloomy beauty, with cracked walls and peeling paint. I went to see it before…

HAS a politician ever debased himself more in public than when Lindsey Graham eulogized his friend John McCain? Bleary-eyed from grief, the senior senator from South Carolina took his place at the lectern on the Senate floor and insisted on his own inferiority. He was the Great Man’s mascot, his funny little buddy—his “wingman,” he said—lucky to have walked in his shadow and blessed to have been loved by him. McCain, who used pejoratives as endearments, called Graham “Little Jerk.” Recalling this, Graham looked up from his notes, seeming to be considering its meaning for the first time. “You’ve all got your names,” he said darkly. “And you earned them like I did.” It is tempting to imagine that in that moment, Graham was reflecting on all the ways he…

THIS SEPTEMBER, there have been handmaids marching around Washington, D.C., some standing silent sentinel in Senate office buildings. Women have dressed demurely to get into Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, then leapt up and yelled: about life and death, health care, and abortion. Those women have been pulled roughly from the room, then replaced by others. Every day, more women willing to yell. Women have sent 3,000 coat hangers to Senator Susan Collins; anti-Kavanaugh messages have been projected onto the City Hall building in Portland, Maine. One day, during the Kavanaugh hearings, a few dozen women—plus some men!—flooded into the office of Chuck Grassley, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and started chanting and clapping: “Chuck Grassley! Come out! We’ve got some things to talk about!” These women…

ANYONE WHO THINKS it’s nothing but teeth-grinding paranoia and rank misery in Washington these days hasn’t been to the office of New Jersey senator Cory Booker. These people are happy. Indeed, his staff are some of the cheeriest, nicest people you could ever hope to meet. When I arrive on a hot, swampy morning just before Labor Day weekend, I am greeted with hugs and candy. An exuberant woman in a dashiki sits at reception. Kristin Lynch, the communications director, greets me—okay, hugs me—and takes me to Booker’s office, where we say hello to his chief of staff, Matt Klapper, who also hugs me. Booker has not hugged me yet, but give him time. A young staffer comes in and hands Booker a brown-paper bag and tells him she managed…