HENRY KISSINGER's long and lucrative third act of dining out in New York City began in January 1977, when he was 53, long after he'd left academia (his first act) and then government (his second), exhausted by years of global jet-setting and his endless aggressive manipulations. He was in debt, he said, upon leaving government, and his evening clothes were in tatters. He promptly signed a book contract with Little, Brown and Company with a $2 million advance just for the hardcover rights, keeping all the other rights for himself. He spent the weekends in Westchester with the Rockefellers and began to write.
Even by the time he came here, in all the world there were fewer names more hated than his. This did not slow anyone down. For years, he was the darling of the dinner party, beloved by a now mostly dead army of regal, wealthy socialites. "Manhattan social life is more generous than Washington political life," Kissinger noted. "It's not a blood sport."
The avatar and architect of the United States' desire to control the world left a softer legacy of an entire generation raised to view geopolitics as a clash between America, China, and Russia, with all those other pesky countries and entire continents as opportunities for our strategic wins and losses. His harder legacy is dead children and the mass displacement of humans from Bangladesh to Chile. "Every man in a certain sense creates his picture of the world," he wrote in 1950.
Denne historien er fra December 4-17, 2023-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Denne historien er fra December 4-17, 2023-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Early and Often: David Freedlander - Momentum vs. Machine The Trump and Harris campaigns battle it out for every last vote.
WIth two weeks left to go, the contours of the 2024 presidential election are clear: Both campaigns need voters who usually don’t vote, and Kamala Harris needs to bring the Democratic coalition, including its Trump-curious members, back home.While the Republican side plans to spend the remaining days of the contest trying to lure low-propensity voters to the polls, the Harris team will attempt to persuade voters of color to return to its side and will try to increase numbers among white voters in previously red suburbs.
Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
SLOP started seeping into Neil Clarke's life in late 2022. Something strange was happening at Clarkesworld, the magazine. Clarke had founded in 2006 and built into a pillar of the world of speculative fiction. Submissions were increasing rapidly, but “there was something off about them,” he told me recently. He summarized a typical example: “Usually, it begins with the phrase ‘In the year 2250-something’ and then it goes on to say the Earth’s environment is in collapse and there are only three scientists who can save us. Then it describes them in great detail, each one with its own paragraph. And then—they’ve solved it! You know, it skips a major plot element, and the final scene is a celebration out of the ending of Star Wars.” Clarke said he had received “dozens of this story in various incarnations.”
The City Politic- The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.
On Sunday, September 15, Derell Mickles hopped a turnstile, got asked to leave by cops, then entered the subway again ten minutes later through an emergency exit. This was at the Sutter Avenue L station, out by his mother's house, five stops from the end of the line. Police said they noticed he was holding a folded knife. They followed him up the stairs to the elevated train, asking him 38 times to drop the weapon.
Can the Media Survive?
BIG TECH, Feckless Owners, CORD-CUTTERS, RESTIVE STAFF, Smaller Audiences ... and the Return of PRINT?
Status Update
Hannah Gadsby's fascinatingly untidy tour through life after fame and death.
A Matter of Perspective
A Matter of Perspective Steve McQueen's worst film is still a solid WWII drama.
Creator, Destroyer
A retrospective reveals an architect's vision, optimism, and supreme arrogance.
In Praise of Bad Readers
In a time of war, there is a danger in surveying the world as if it were a novel.
Trust the Kieran Culkin Process
First, he nearly dropped out of Oscar hopeful A Real Pain. Then he convinced Jesse Eisenberg to change the way he directs.
The Funniest Vampires on TV
What We Do in the Shadows is coming to an end. Its idiosyncratic brand of comedy may be too.
