Vanity Fair articles from August 2004

Vanity Fair archives from August 2004

Hot Type.
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: Elissa Schappell It's neither the heat nor the humidity, darling. It's the stupidity. Francis Wheen's Idiot Proof (PublicAffairs) shows that, while science and technology are galloping forward, we, as a people, appear to be getting...

HOT TRACKS.
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: Lisa Robinson In view of both the light summer season and the heavy impending election, half of this month's releases are suitable for singing around the bonfire, the other half for singing around the campfire. Bonfire: From...

Bohemian Rhapsody.(Brief Article)(Biography)
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: Evgenia Peretz With her heart-piercing, worldly-wise voice, Angela McCluskey brings to mind Nina Simone or Billie Holiday. But spend a few minutes with this chortling, cussing, room-dominating force of nature and all hints of...

Filling the Gap.
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: Kimberly Cutter Before it was about Madonna, and Will Kemp, and Katie Holmes with snowflakes in her hair, the Gap was all about "good-looking flares" and "Sta-Prest" slacks. Its stores had groovy rainbows painted on the walls, and...

Classic Comeback.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: Christine Lennon Shea Halston, the iconic American designer of the 1970s, didn't much care for Los Angeles. He was probably too busy with Bianca and Liza and the New York party boys to pay California any mind. But that doesn't mean...

Logistical Grooming.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: Emily Poenisch Anthony Sosnick, the dashing 34-year-old founder of the popular grooming line Anthony Logistics for Men, is at least partly responsible for the legions of men currently competing with their partners for prime...

The Teetotal Effect; Recent articles tie Bush's war policies to his alcoholism.(Biography)
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: Christopher Hitchens When you consider how many millions of workdays begin with hangovers great and small, it is mildly surprising to find how few real descriptions of the experience our literature can boast: Dixon was alive...

Bland Ambition; Don't recognize the faces on the magazine racks.
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: James Wolcott I was waiting in the checkout line, zoning out as usual, when I had a Rip van Winkle moment at the magazine racks. Emerging from my coma, I hazily scanned the faces on the covers of the celebrity mags and realized I...

It's Deneuve, It's Deluxe, It's Delovely; First the author discovered incriminating e-mails were being sent in his name.
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: Dominick Dunne A rotten thing happened to me recently, which caused me enormous anxiety and a great deal of sleeplessness. In legal terms, I appear to be the victim of computer fraud. Pay attention, because it could happen to you....

Hidden From Hitler.(Life in Shadows: Hidden Children and the Holocaust exhibition at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: Jacques Menasche "I hate that word: tough," snaps Charlene Schiff (third from left). And indeed it can't begin to describe the eight Washington, D.C.-area residents who gathered for this group portrait at the U.S. Holocaust...

Kerry's Karl Rove; Like a character from The West Wing, Bob Shrum is the ultimate inside-the-Beltway Democratic consultant, embodying a neurotic, populist, J.F.K.-style liberalism.
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: Michael Wolff Bob Shrum is very quiet. This is strange because he is not the silent type. He's the strenuous and bombastic type. In media terms, he is a Hardball and Crossfire type, an exemplar of cable Sturm und Drang. His new...

DANIA RAMIREZ.(Interview)
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: Krista Smith age and occupation: 24, actor. provenance: Dominican Republic. urban flight: "I moved to Manhattan when I was about 10-164th and Broadway. But my dad quickly moved us out of there to Jersey." bag lady:...

Neal Pollack Celebrates Democracy in Iraq.
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: Today I marvel, as I do every day, at the beneficence and moral courage of this great country I've chosen to call home. But today, as they used to say back in the first form, is a special day. Today is one of those rare days in...

Girl Meets Fame; Is there any difference between the private Jessica Simpson and the ditzy young wife America thinks it knows from Newlyweds, the MTV reality show that turned her from frustrated singer into pop-culture phenomenon.(Interview)
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: Krista Smith What do Albert Einstein and Jessica Simpson have in common? If her mother is to be believed, Jessica has an I.Q. of 160, which puts her up there with the man who discovered that E = mc2. This may come as a surprise,...

titlehere; Returning to her roots in Mexico at 18, Anita Brenner posed for photographer Edward Weston's 1925 abstract masterpiece, Pear-Shaped Nude.
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: Marie Brenner For years I have imagined my aunt Anita Brenner at the tender moment when she arrived at Edward Weston's photography studio on the Calle Veracruz in Mexico City on that rainy morning of November 12, 1925. Small-boned,...

Ali G For Real; British comedian-actor Sacha Baron Cohen has become famous as "Ali G," an aspiring gangsta rapper and TV interviewer who confounds the unwitting likes of Ralph Nader, C. Everett Koop, and Donald Trump with his deeply idiotic and offensive questions.(Interview)(Biography)
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: Jim Windolf The bellhop arrives at the door with the videocassette player I've requested. He hooks it up and tells me to try it out. I take an Ali G videocassette from my bag. It's a compilation of the funny interview segments that...

Swinging on a Skyline.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: David Friend To many musicians, jazz resonates best in a dark basement warren. But New York, a city already overrun with warrens, loves nothing so much as a picture window and a room with a view. Ergo, the Allen Room-with its...

So Very Valentino; All Valentino Garavani ever wanted was to dress the world's most beautiful and famous women.(Biography)
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: Matt Tyrnauer Giancarlo Giammetti stands at a bar in the terminal of Ciampino Airport, in Rome. He orders an espresso, drinks it quickly, and, as he walks away, makes a discreet motion for his bodyguard to pay. Strikingly handsome...

Bob Edwards; As the host of National Public Radio's Morning Edition for the past 25 years, Bob Edwards helped millions of listeners gently start their day with his soothing baritone.(Interview)
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: What is your idea of perfect happiness? The company of family and good friends-all in good health. What is your greatest fear? The loss of a son or daughter. Which historical figure do you most identify with? ...

Truth and the 9/11 Commission.(Editorial)
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: Graydon Carter One would think that an investigation into the causes and intelligence and judgment failures leading up to the attacks of September 11-the most devastating assault on U.S. soil in more than half a century-would be at...

And Justice For None.(Letter to the Editor)
August 1, 2004... BYLINE: I read Hunter S. Thompson and Mark Seal's "Prisoner of Denver" [June], about Lisl Auman's felony-murder conviction in my brother's death, with conflicting emotions. I am opposed to the felony-murder law, and I hope the article...