A digital weekly from Graydon Carter. Arriving every Saturday morning, it's news and culture at a civilized pace. Start reading now via the link below.
“There have been so many people in the West feeding at the Russian trough that everyone looked for ways to ignore, deflect, and minimize the evil of Putin,” says
@Billbrowder
.
@simonschuster
Combat-season photojournalists who are old enough to collect Social Security have put retirement on pause to cover the war in Ukraine, writes
@lauhaim
.
“When I was young … I struggled and I didn’t believe in myself, because I didn’t see many Tunisians before me," says
@Ons_Jabeur
, this season's tennis star to watch.
AIR MAIL’s report on Armie Hammer may not change how the actor is seen, but it does give a fuller, more detailed, and fact-checked version of the allegations made against Hammer, write
@graydoncarter
and Alessandra Stanley.
Traditionally, magazines are a portal from Nowheresville to the Big City. David Samuels and
@walterkirn
want to transport readers in the other direction.
@countyhwy
Peter Bogdanovich interviewed all the greats, from Hitchcock to Tarantino. Thanks to his posthumously released podcast, you can hear the top filmmakers of the 21st century commune with the giants of Old Hollywood.
@SamKashner
"The Ibram Kendi–ization of the discourse is really bleak, because everything is binary," says
@thomaschattwill
. "But we know that every single idea, policy, or action can’t be either racist or anti-racist. There are so many gray areas."
If you loved
@JoshOConnor15
as Prince Charles in the latest season of
@TheCrownNetflix
, you’ll be charmed by him yet again in this new take on the Jane Austen classic, “Emma.”
After an investigation, the Los Angeles County D.A.’s office has dropped sexual assault charges against Armie Hammer. Read AIR MAIL’s exclusive interview with the actor.
@jkirchick
“‘Nightmare Alley’ has a different weight in black and white,” says
@RealGDT
, “It becomes grittier, more cautionary, and … seduces in a different way.”
This summer's steamy poolside read? “Cabana Boy”! Where Jerry Falwell Jr. selflessly offers to bear witness as his wife Becki ministers to a young man.
Illustration by
@brightworkillo
.
"I’m going to say something terribly simple and terribly true: women alone can’t stop men raping, hurting, scaring and killing other women. We need men – these
#notallmen
, these good men – to help us,"
@caitlinmoran
writes.
Few people in polite modern society want to look at a man’s bare feet, unless he’s next to a pool or working at the sandal salon at Bergdorf Goodman in ancient Rome.
@georgehahn
Roberto Saviano revisits the little-remembered trials and tribulations of Pier Paolo Pasolini, a fellow persecuted Italian intellectual.
@robertosaviano
I unsubscribed from Graydon Carter’s “Air Mail” this morning. It was the first issue. I was hoping it would be about travel, as its name indicates. Instead, it contained a nasty, anti-Trump cartoon. Why does everything have to be about politics? Don’t even bother.
.
@susanorlean
: "I could be using the time I spend on Twitter doing something antisocial like tagging buildings or lighting small fires. Instead, I’m parked in front of my computer tapping out silly messages. So, on balance, it’s a win."
.
@aimeemann
’s latest album follows “McLean Hospital’s literary trail of Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath, charting borderline-personality disorder, incest, electroshock, suicide, and transfiguration at the Frick Museum,” writes
@davidmyaffe
.
Two years after some of the most shocking allegations of the
#MeToo
era lit up the Internet and destroyed Armie Hammer’s career, the actor has decided to tell his side of the story to
@jkirchick
.
It’s not only because he’s six feet, five inches tall and very telegenic that Mory Sacko is the most prominent new face of French cuisine.
@AlecLobrano
reports.
For our latest Air Play playlist,
@rufuswainwright
shares the songs that represent Judy Garland and the “constant force” she’s been in his life as a fellow singer.
“If ‘The New Yorker’ made New York City into a small town, we’re going to make the small towns of America into New York City,” says
@walterkirn
.
@countyhwy
.
@DANIELPEMBERTON
, the composer behind the soundtrack for the upcoming movie
#BirdsofPrey
, shares a selection of songs that inspired the musical worlds of the film's all-female superhero team.
The issue of sexual consent is complicated in BDSM relationships, where dominance, power, and the feigning of forced activity are part of the thrill. Asked if it’s fair to say that he was emotionally abusive to his accusers, Hammer replies, “One million percent.”
Few people in polite modern society want to look at a man’s bare feet, unless he’s next to a pool or working at the sandal salon at Bergdorf Goodman in ancient Rome.
@georgehahn
He’s known as the nerdy genius whose Twitter feed moves markets, but as Eric Berger (
@SciGuySpace
) writes, Elon Musk’s greatest skill is scoring talent.
“Those who live solely for a cult of personality leave no legacy. Not for any great moral reason, but just because they die and the world moves on.”
@AatishTaseer
In his first interview since the scandal, Hammer explains his interest in BDSM, which he says originates from sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of a youth pastor when he was 13 years old, an event that was corroborated by AIR MAIL.
.
@Baratunde
Thurston—an Emmy-nominated writer, a former Obama White House adviser, and a New York Times best-selling author—asks a new question about how to “citizen���: Can it be done without tackling the deepest roots of division in the U.S.?