Innholdsfortegnelse for June 24-July 7, 2019 i New York Magazine

September 24, 1973 “How ‘Gay’ Is New York?” ➸ “It may be reasonable to estimate, then, in an admittedly rough sort of way, that upwards of 500,000 New Yorkers (but probably fewer than 750,000) are, or will grow up to be, predominantly gay. Well over a million more, judging from Kinsey’s study, have, or have had, more than incidental homosexual desires or experiences. And then there are perhaps a million straight New Yorkers who are, without necessarily realizing it, the parents, siblings, or even the children of predominantly gay New Yorkers. “Yet for all that presumed interest in the subject, knowledge and acceptance of homosexuality by the average New Yorker remains quite limited. The subject remains largely taboo. ‘The gay world’—as though all the gays were reassuringly segregated into their…

THE FIRST TIME I met Gloria Vanderbilt, who recently died at the age of 95, I was about 6. I started storing away memories of her then, when my family went to the fantastical Christmas parties she hosted each year, first at 10 Gracie Square, when she was married to Sidney Lumet, and later in a townhouse at 45 East 67th Street, when she was married to Wyatt Cooper. As she welcomed our family and the other guests to the festivities, she left me dazzled. Her rooms were drenched in the scents of Rigaud candles and the exquisite flowers that towered above the elaborately set tables, and the women at the parties wore evening clothes and sparkling jewels, seizing the opportunity to look their most magnificent best. But it was…

My first rich boy pulled down my underpants. My last rich boy pulled down my tights. My first rich boy—I had fixed my eyes on his face long enough to know—was beautiful, with dark gray eyes and long golden-brown hair across his forehead. I don’t know what he grew up to be. My last rich boy was blond. He grew up to be the president of the United States. The first rich boy’s name was James. He was raped by his grandfather. He was raped by his uncles. He was beaten by his father. My mother told me the stories much later. When James was 6, he was taken away from his father and given to a rich couple, Arthur and Evelyn. Arthur and Evelyn were best friends with my…

OVER THE PAST couple of years as the ceramics craze built steadily to its saturation point, another artisanal movement has been swiftly gaining traction: glassmaking. A surge of young glassblowers inspired by the studio-glass movement of the ’60s are creating loopy glass straws and warped vessels (like those pictured here, by Jochen Holz, available at thenewcraftsmen.com) that have found their way into hypercurated homewares shops far and wide. In May, anecdotal evidence that handblown is the new hand-thrown was confirmed when online design magazine Sight Unseen erected a glassware exhibit at the Hudson Yards shop Forty Five Ten: Stylish young men and women (whose home shelves are more than likely lined with BZippy & Co. clay vases and Workaday Handmade ceramic mugs) mulled around, buying up handblown vessels by Sophie…

FOR YEARS, Jared Snyder, who runs the decorative-finishing company JJ Snyder Studio, used to get his work van fixed at J&S Auto Repair. “I mentioned to my studio manager, James Perry Owens, when I was in there one day that I would love to buy a garage like that—ideally for a studio, as we needed more space and a better location.” A few months later, Jerry Salter, who’d been running the garage for over 30 years, told Owens he was ready to sell. Snyder closed on the building, located on the Clinton Hill–Bed-Stuy border, in 2012. He initially thought he would add one floor above it and create a modest live-work space. But once he found the right architect—Eli Fernald, who, along with partners Bretaigne Walliser and Thom Dalmas, founded…

LULU WANG AND I are heading toward Coney Island on the F train one morning in early June, playing Two Truths and a Lie. I go first. I tell her I’m allergic to penicillin, I’m a gold-star gay (meaning I’ve never slept with a woman), and I’m the oldest of three kids. She’s pensive for a second, with sunlight dappled across her face, then shoots from the gut: The last one is the lie because the other two were too specific. (Indeed, I’m an only child and a bad liar.) “Truth is stranger than fiction, so the more mundane thing is easy to lie about,” she says. “I’m very good at spotting when people are inauthentic. I can always feel when someone’s not fully connected. It’s just an energy thing.”…

1. It’s a warning about the Illuminati. ➽ Images of Masonic elements occur throughout, and exteriors for the orgy were shot at Mentmore Towers, once owned by the Rothschilds. Many who buy into this theory believe Kubrick was murdered. 2. It’s a psy-op designed to protect the Illuminati. ➽ By presenting the Illuminati as a bunch of rich dudes who like to get randy, Kubrick was actually diverting attention from the secret organization’s more sinister attempts at world domination. 3. It’s about Scientology . ➽ Besides the presence of outspoken Scientologist Cruise, the film contains messages about the organization—including references to the “sex magick” rituals in which founder L. Ron Hubbard reportedly participated. 4. It’s about the CIA. ➽ After faking the moon landing, Kubrick spent…

NORMALLY SUCH a strong reinterpretation of the work you’ve done happens after you’re dead,” Baz Luhrmann says, reclining on a couch as if engaging in a fabulous therapy session. We’re in a dusty lounge in midtown’s 3 West Club, discussing the stage adaptation of his 2001 film Moulin Rouge!—which is set in Montmartre in 1900 yet includes a tango version of “Roxanne” and the hit-filled cluster bomb that is the “Elephant Love Medley.” Luhrmann isn’t directing the stage version; he has handed it off to Alex Timbers, who memorably (and maximally) mixed history and modern music for Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and the Imelda Marcos musical, Here Lies Love. (He also directed the Rocky and Beetlejuice adaptations.) In Moulin Rouge!’s Boston run, Timbers added samples from Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”…

1 New York’s “TV Issue” examined America’s appetite for RuPaul’s Drag Race—and the culture it has ushered into the mainstream—and included a ranking of the 100 most powerful alums (“America Has a New National Pastime,” June 10–23). Naturally, the drag queens sounded off, especially about the 37 covers, shot by award-winning photographer Martin Schoeller. Laganja Estranja tweeted, “I am so honored to be one of the 37 SICKENING drag queen covers.” Even queens who weren’t featured created their own mock covers, including fan favorite Vanessa Vanjie Mateo. Some queens spoofed the covers, including Thorgy Thor, who posted on Instagram, “They were a little late getting me my cover photo, but I look great! #honored.” And many others turned the cover into a meme, with the Instagram “cat drag queen” @rupaws_drag_race…

AT THE ASSEMBLAGE near Madison Square Park—a 48,000-square-foot “coworking, coliving, and community space in New York City for those who believe in doing well by doing good”—close to 200 people are gathered in the ground-floor lounge area, beneath the soaring ceilings, sitting on Moroccan rugs and patterned floor cushions and ordering juices and tonics and elixirs and teas from the nonalcoholic bar. “The vegan tacos, do they contain soy?” In the crowd, at least two men with shaved heads and knitted ponchos are leaning into their respective conversations, which are both about Burning Man. There are a number of astoundingly thick beards, Greek fisherman caps, turbans, and well-defined, chaturangatoned deltoids to be looked at. On the wall is a massive, living mural: a hodgepodge of hieroglyphics and a big, all-seeing…

1 THE BIGGEST UrbanGlass 647 Fulton St., Fort Greene Fort Greene’s UrbanGlass has been around since 1977 and was where Dale Chihuly worked in the ’80s. Courses are taught by local artists and range from workshops (from $500) to intensives (from $890). 2 THE MOST SPECIFIC Brooklyn Glass 142 13th St., Gowanus It’s all about the highly niche classes here: from a one-day apple-making workshop ($180) to a make-your-own-shot-glass class ($220) to a five-hour terrarium intensive ($220). 3 THE ONE WITH A WATER VIEW Scanlan Glass 499 Van Brunt St., Red Hook Kevin Scanlan, a glassmaker who has shown work at the Museum of Modern Art and the Corning Museum of Glass, teaches beginner, intermediate, advanced, and private classes out of his waterfront Red Hook studio.…

By Boris Kachka ON JULY 21, 2016, Gabriel Sherman, a journalist then at New York Magazine, was standing on a residential street in Cleveland, his newly fractured elbow in a sling, simultaneously covering the Republican National Convention and the forcing out of Fox News’ charming, conniving, and seemingly omnipotent ringmaster, Roger Ailes. Sherman’s phone flashed an L.A. area code, and he fumbled for it with his one good arm: Someone wanted to turn his first book into prestige-cable TV. ¶ That book, the Ailes biography The Loudest Voice in the Room, had upended Sherman’s life—he’d been followed, threatened, and slandered on right-wing sites—even before its 2014 publication. Then it sold modestly, received generally positive reviews (but was panned by some critics with friends in high places), and made barely a…

THE SCANDAL STARTED with a party, of course, because this was Palm Beach. It took place last year, during the winter season, when the rich men arrive on their jets with their third wives and the island swirls with charity benefits and gossip. A few opulent venues compete to hold society events, including Mar-a-Lago, the estate Donald Trump runs as a private club. But since 2016, many charities have shunned the president’s impolite company, opening the way for a new social set. In February 2018, a Jewish activist known for walking around Trump-campaign rallies in a Stars and Stripes–patterned blazer staged a big affair at Mara-Lago, which he promoted as an act of patriotic and financial solidarity with the president. It was called the Truth About Israel Gala. Tickets started…

Tina: The Tina Turner Musical is coming to Broadway this fall. Recently, dozens of 8-to-12-year-old actresses lined up for the opportunity to play a young incarnation of the title role. MORGAN WELLONS, 11, Atlanta Did you know who Tina Turner was before this? My mom asked me that when I got the audition. I guessed she was a singer, and my mom said, “No, baby, she’s like Beyoncé.” And Lord knows, I love B. She’s my idol, to the heart. So I went and looked up facts about Tina. What’d you find out? That her real name is Anna Mae. And that her story is interesting and deep. What song did you prepare for the audition? “Nutbush City Limits,” by Tina, and a song called “Born to Entertain.” That…

It’s pretty much agreed that you don’t shake a Negroni. Among the cocktail cognoscenti, the act is considered just plain wrong, like cooking a steak well done. The rules state that unless you’re James Bond, you stir cocktails consisting purely of spirits (martinis, Manhattans, Negronis, etc.) when you want a smooth, cold, weighty texture like a lake that’s about to freeze over. And you shake drinks containing juice, cream, or eggs—ones for which a frothy effervescence is desirable. Yet rules wouldn’t be rules if you couldn’t break them. And so we have Jamie McCormick—co-owner of the East Village coffee spot–cum–nighttime aperitivo bar Abraço—asking the question: What’s wrong with a slightly frothy Negroni? As it turns out, not a thing. McCormick shakes Negronis like hardware-store clerks shake cans of Sherwin-Williams paint…

BRIAN COOK (first assistant director): I used to say to Stanley, “We should get Adrian Lyne or Tony Scott to come and shoot this stuff for us. They know how to do this, Stanley. You don’t!” We used to have a laugh about that. But really, [the orgy scene] kept getting pushed back and back and back in the shoot. It was complicated, and so was finding the right places to do it. ANTHONY FREWIN (assistant to Stanley Kubrick): I had a friend who lived in the south of France, G. Legman. He supplied us with a lot of information about secret societies and sexual mores in [early-20th-century] Vienna. He also sent over a lot of illustrations of secret-society rituals and the Black Mass, mainly from the 19th century. We…

“YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN” is out now. TAYLOR SWIFT’S MUSIC VIDEO for her latest single, “You Need to Calm Down,” might be her most bi-curious yet. Many queer critics aren’t happy with her aggressive LGBTQ allyship or her stringing along fans with the suggestion that she may herself one day come out, but let’s uncover the video’s rainbow-flag Easter eggs anyway. JILL GUTOWITZ 1. LGBTQ Cameos Directed by Drew Kirsch and Swift herself, the video features a deluge of queer celebrity cameos: Ellen DeGeneres, Bobby Berk, Billy Porter, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Justin Mikita, Adam Lambert, Todrick Hall, Hayley Kiyoko, Adam Rippon, Chester Lockhart, Dexter Mayfield, Hannah Hart, Jonathan Van Ness, Tan France, RuPaul, and others. 2. Bi-Flag Hair In a scene with singer and Kinky Boots star…

Arturo’s Island, by Elsa Morante, translated by Ann Goldstein This utterly enchanting novel, first published in 1957, is now available in a new version by Ann Goldstein, a.k.a. Elena Ferrante’s translator. The Old Drift, by Namwali Serpell I haven’t read a debut novel this good since Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer—and that went on to win a Pulitzer. Lady in the Lake, by Laura Lippman Lippman’s most ambitious book yet is based on the unsolved drowning of a young black woman in 1960s Baltimore and is compulsively readable. A Prayer for Travelers, by Ruchika Tomar Tomar’s subtle prose, sharp dialogue, and expert plotting make this a literary page-turner of the highest order. Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family, by Mitchell S. Jackson This moving…