Vanity Fair articles from November 2006

Vanity Fair archives from November 2006

Rawhide and Rhinestones; V.F. traveled America to corral 32 pages of country,[euro]os finest.(Vanity Fair)
November 1, 2006... Byline: Lisa Robinson When Graydon Carter suggested ,ucountry and western, for this year,os Music Portfolio, two things immediately came to mind: the line from that Blues Brothers movie, ,uWe got both kinds,Iwe got country and western,,...

The NORAD 9/11 Tapes.(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2006... Michael Bronner's article is an extraordinary piece of journalism ["9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes," September]. It is a shame that it has taken five years for the truth to be published. The "story" the NORAD officers told the 9/11 commission did a...

Whimsical Magic.
November 1, 2006... Mary Poppins floats onto Broadway October 14 at the New Amsterdam Theatre. Ashley Brown stars as the umbrella-wielding nanny, alongside Gavin Lee, as Bert.

Web sites we can't get enough of ...
November 1, 2006... traceyross.com net-a-porter.com

Hot Type.
November 1, 2006... Byline: Elissa Schappell Here is what I am thankful for: great American visionaries such as the master of the heroic western landscape, Ansel Adams, whose Sierra Nevada (Bulfinch), first published in 1938, is being re-released; Jerome...

LANGE JOURNEY.(Dorothea Lange's )(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Byline: Elissa Schappell Dorothea Lange's photographs of 1930s migrant workers and sharecroppers, taken for the government's Farm Security Administration, put a face brave, dignified, hopeful on poverty. Years later Lange, at the behest of...

Hot Tracks.
November 1, 2006... Byline: Lisa Robinson Beck still believes in albums, and The Information contains 17 groove-laden numbers that evoke his Mellow Gold period (and one song that really evokes the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St.) and a package that includes...

Music City U.S.A.
November 1, 2006... Byline: Lisa Robinson In Robert Altman's scathing 1975 film Nashville, the director used the capital of country and western music as a backdrop to focus on American show business, politics, and leadership at the end of Watergate and...

6 Bionic Tower.
November 1, 2006... Byline: Matt Tyrnauer When the outlying neighborhoods of Paris were burning last year, some were blaming the situation in part on Le Corbusier, the Swiss-born master architect who in the 1950s designed and built huge Utopian apartment...

Deep Seating.(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Byline: Aaron Gell He's the son of jet-set playboy Gunter Sachs and the stepson, since the impressionable age of 13, of Brigitte Bardot, but creatively, furniture designer Rolf Sachs seems to have sprung from a rather odder pairing. His...

BON VOYAGE!(Louis Vuitton S.A.)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Byline: Punch Hutton The Louis Vuitton Monogram Groom small-leather-goods collection, out this month, was inspired by an advertisement the company ran in 1921. It's evocative of an era when affluent travelers boarded ocean liners and...

Rhinestone Cowboys.(clothing )(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Byline: Emily Poenisch "Sometimes I feel like I'm cutting through $100 bills," says Manuel Cuevas Sr. of the achingly extravagant designs of his world-renowned, handmade, one-of-a-kind ensembles. From Elvis Presley's white jumpsuit to...

Man from La Mancha.(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Byline: Anderson Tepper Who can resist a new Pedro Almodovar film? The camp, the hysteria, the splash of color and sly subversion of Spanish taboos and obsessions-death, desire, and religion-all make for one of film's most addictive...

Time and Again.
November 1, 2006... Byline: Bruce Handy In an era when even "independent" films seem ever more formulaic, it's heartening to see a studio-Warner Bros.-release a movie as totally bonkers as The Fountain. This is Darren Aronofsky's first film since Requiem for...

American Dilemma.(David Hare)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Byline: A. M. Homes "I am curiously writing about America," says prescient British playwright Sir David Hare. "At nearly 60 it has taken me this long to decide to write about a culture not my own-last year's Stuff Happens was a crude...

Travel.
November 1, 2006... Byline: Victoria Mather Hip hoteldom is hell. It's no longer cool enough to name-drop that you're staying at the new, searingly hot Gramercy Park Hotel, in New York City, or the Hotel Costes, in Paris, or the Standard Downtown LA. Hip...

Grrrl's Got Rhythm.
November 1, 2006... Byline: Marc Spitz Like Sam "Ace" Rothstein, the handicapper Robert De Niro played in Martin Scorsese's Casino, Sarah "Ultragrrrl" Lewitinn has made her name picking winners for a shadowy syndicate-not the Mob but, perhaps worse, the major...

FOUND IN TRANSLATION.(Robert Fagles)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Byline: Max Carter A generation may, without too much presumption, expect its healthy share of illustrious novelists, poets, playwrights, and journalists. Great translators, however, do not always abound. Thankfully, we have Robert Fagles....

Red State Babylon; If the blue states are sinkholes of moral decay, as right-wing pundits insist, how come red states lead the nation in violent crime, divorce, illegitimacy, and incarceration, among other evils.
November 1, 2006... Byline: James Wolcott In contemporary lore, the good people of the red states walk in Jesus's sandals while the rest of us are following Satan into the licking flames. Twenty-plus years of conservative propaganda have convinced millions of...

Slurs and Arrows; Mel Gibson's meltdown, Gunter Grass's past, and Joe Lieberman's primary loss all have reminded the world of a centuries-old hatred.
November 1, 2006... Byline: Michael Wolff So, Mel and Ned and Guenter. The Mel moment was practically a perfect one-exhilarating even. Not only did Mel Gibson actually say what on occasion every Jew suspects lies in the heart of every unreconstructed...

Who Didn't Kill JonBenet?
November 1, 2006... Byline: Dominick Dunne There's one thing you have to say about John Mark Karr: the frequently fired 41-year-old schoolteacher who was arrested in Thailand on August 16, after having confessed to killing JonBenet Ramsey the six-year-old...

The Luce Family War; At 81, Leila Hadley Luce, widow of Time Inc.
November 1, 2006... Byline: Vicky Ward Leila Hadley Luce enters, leaning on a walker and breathing with the assistance of oxygen from a tank. She has short white-blond hair and wears a loose-fitting dress and big jewelry. The widow of Henry Luce III (the son...

Ford's Triple Play.(Richard Ford works )(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Byline: Terry Mcdonell Richard Ford will tell you he's still got a few arrows in his ass. It has not always been as easy as it looks now handsome novelist, beautiful wife, all that success. There was a time when he actually wanted to be a...

Is Hip-Hop's Jeweler on the Rocks? Jacob Arabo owes his jewelry empire to hip-hop.(Biography)
November 1, 2006... Byline: Nancy Jo Sales He left his house around 9:30 on the morning of June 15, the day he was arrested. He had dressed in a charcoal-gray suit with red pinstripes made for him by his friend the Italian designer Domenico Vacca. Jacob...

Galloping Scared; Before 1971, when Velma "Wild Horse Annie" Johnston won her crusade to save the country's wild horses, they were being trapped in brutal airplane roundups, slaughtered, and sold as steaks overseas.
November 1, 2006... Byline: Kurt Brungardt Exhausted and terrified, a herd of wild mustangs gallop around the side of the mountain, miraculously managing to skirt the treacherous prairie-dog holes and deep crevices as they try to escape the screaming,...

Sofia's Choice; When her acclaimed biography of Marie Antoinette was optioned by Sofia Coppola, the author got ready for the standard Hollywood let down.
November 1, 2006... Byline: Antonia Fraser 2 February 2001 But of course the film won't actually happen. Because it never does. I noted this (remarkably inaccurate) prophecy in my diary when Sofia Coppola had just taken an option to write/direct a film...

Isla Fisher.(Interview)
November 1, 2006... Byline: Krista Smith AGE AND OCCUPATION: 30, actor. PROVENANCE: Muscat, Oman (birth), Scotland (parents' background), and Australia (upbringing). THE NAME IS PRONOUNCED... "EYE-la," and she was so named in tribute to the Isle of Islay,...

Diary.(Guy Ritchie, Madonna )
November 1, 2006... Byline: Craig Brown MADONNA: Life is a mystery. Everyone must stand alone. I hear you call my name. And it feels like home. For me, those precious words sum up a profound truth about the whole life experience. Yes, it is my life's purpose...

True Lies.(political campaigns )
November 1, 2006... Byline: Bruce Feirstein Part 1: The Campaign Welcome to the No-Spin Zone. I'm running to serve the people. If elected, I'm going to end the war. I'm not questioning your patriotism. This is a referendum on the...

The REAL America.
November 1, 2006... Byline: Jamie Malanowski Herewith, another report from the down-to-earth world that exists beyond the view of the latte-sipping, Chardonnay-swilling peacenik freaks who control the media. Many thanks to my crack research team of...

What if ... YOUR TEENAGE DAUGHTER BECAME AN Aztec Warrior.
November 1, 2006... Byline: Henry Alford CORRIDOR Daughter replaces her locker photos of High School Musical's Zac Efron and Ashley Tisdale with candids of Huitzilpochtli and Tlaloc. WRITING LAB Daughter expands hieroglyphic alphabet by...

The Princess Diaries.(Carrie Fisher)(Interview)
November 1, 2006... Byline: George Wayne Carrie Fisher, 50, has acted in 37 films and written four novels. Currently, she is starring in a one-woman show, Wishful Drinking, at Los Angeles's Geffen Playhouse. Previously, our correspondent went up against her...

Celebrity Step-by-Step.
November 1, 2006... 1. Carouse into the wee hours. Drink, ingest, and/or engage in sexual activity to excess. 2. Oversleep. Miss your on-set call time. NOTE: This lends truth to the claim that you are exhausted! 3. Ask agent or manager to run interference...

Vanity Fair The Country & Western Music Portfolio.(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... On the lost, lonesome country-and-western highway, the veterans of hard times and heartbreak think George Jones, Wynonna Judd, Lee Ann Womack, Merle Haggard-are making it through the night and telling tales with new talent such as Gretchen...

The Rebels; Shelby Lynne, Willie Nelson, and Shooter Jennings Singers, songwriters, musicians, truth tellers.
November 1, 2006... Misfits, rough around the edges, irreverent in their different ways, they were never destined for "the Nashville sound"-what guitarist Chet Atkins once described (while jangling change in his pocket) as "the sound of money." Forty years ago,...

The Hillbilly Rock Star; Kenny Chesney Singer, songwriter, guitarist.
November 1, 2006... Between filling stadiums in the heartland and sports arenas in the coastal cities (and a brief marriage to Rene Zellweger), Kenny Chesney made time recently to play the White House East Room for a crowd that included one of his biggest fans,...

The Redneck Woman; Gretchen Wilson Singer, songwriter, guitarist, author, hell-raiser.
November 1, 2006... On the day this beer-swilling tough gal landed her record dealafter eight years of struggle in Nashvilleher car was repossessed. Gretchen Wilsons first single, Redneck Woman, which she wrote with John Rich, of the duo Big & Rich, spent six...

The Pros; Lee Ann Womack and George Jones Quintessential country singers.
November 1, 2006... George Jones is one of Lee Ann Womack's heroes. She learned to sing by listening to his records while growing up in the same East Texas region where he came from. Known for her 2000 crossover mega-hit, "I Hope You Dance," Womack pays homage to...

The Man; Kris Kristofferson Singer, Songwriter, Musician, Actor.
November 1, 2006... After Turning Down A Plum Teaching Job At West Point, Kris Kristofferson Swept Floors At ColumbiaRecords In Nashville. There, With The Help Of Jack Daniel's, He Wrote What Would Become Some Of The Most Emotionally Stirring, Intelligent Songs In...

The Heartbreaker; Julie Roberts Singer, Songwriter, Ingenue.
November 1, 2006... South Carolina Native Julie Roberts Doesn't Look The Way She Sings. She's Purty, With A Fresh, Cheerful, Wholesome Appearance, But She Sings Raw, With A Bluesy Voice That Lends Itself Especially To The Gritty Heartbreak Songs That Are Fast...

The Showmen; BROOKS & DUNN Singers, songwriters, guitarists.
November 1, 2006... Hard-charging beer-joint fare. Gut-wrenching ballads. Rhythmic numbers perfect for a boot-scootin' line dance. If it's country, Brooks & Dunn have been doing it ever since they joined forces on the 1991 mega-hit album Brand New Man. When they...

The Virtuosos; Alison Krauss and Ralph Stanley Bluegrass deity and one of his newgrass disciples.(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Besides sharing in the success of the O Brother, Where Art Thou?soundtrack and the Down from the Mountain concert tour that followed, Ralph Stanley and Alison Krauss have something in common:both started their careers by impressing audiences...

The Bohemians; Ryan Adams, Patty Griffin, Alejandro Escovedo, Tift Merritt, Steve Earle, and Dan Zanes Alt.(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... The term "alt.country" has gotten hazier since it was coined, in the 90s, to describe music that draws on folk and country but is produced and consumed outside the Nashville-L.A. pop machine. But these artists get to the essence of the term:...

The Showstopper; Reba McEntire Singer, songwriter, entertainment dynamo.(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Even after all the money, fame, and heartache over her three knockout decades in the field, Reba McEntire is still "the redhead from Oklahoma." She does just finewith L.A., where she shoots her CW sitcom, the ever popular Reba, and she pleased...

The Diva; Wynonna Judd Singer, songwriter, actress, memoirist.
November 1, 2006... She's got the star quality of Elvis Presley and one of the best sets of pipes ever to grace the airwaves. Throw in an impoverished upbringing, a surprise rise to stardom in the company of her mother as part of the Judds, a newsmaking...

The Rocker; Keith Urban Singer, songwriter, musician.
November 1, 2006... He has appeared on People magazine's list of sexiest men. His wedding to the ultra-glamorous Nicole Kidman prompted some over-the-top tabloid coverage. But Keith Urban has said he still feels like "this 15-year-old guy in his first garage...

The Lone Stars; Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Stephen Bruton, Cindy Cashdollar, T Bone Burnett, Joe Ely, And Jessi Colter Musicians, kindred spirits.
November 1, 2006... Texas is a lonesome place. You can hear it in the pure, keening voice of Jimmie Dale Gilmore, a Zen-trickster music cowboy who now lives outside of Austin. On Come On Back, he sings his daddy's favorite songs. The ever wandering Joe Ely, of...

The Crowd-Pleasers; Trisha Yearwood, Martina McBride, and Billy Currington Small-town singers made good.
November 1, 2006... Trisha Yearwood and Martina McBride are small-town girls turned bona fide members ofcontemporary Nashville royalty. Yearwood, who recently married Garth Brooks following his onstage proposal at Buck Owens's Crystal Palace, in Bakersfield,...

The Veteran; Porter Wagoner Singer, songwriter, standard-bearer.(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... With the silver pompadour and $10,000 Nudie suits of rhinestone wagon wheels and cacti, Porter Wagoner has remained true to his Opry roots. Born in West Plains, Missouri, he got his start when a neighborhood grocer put him on a local radio...

The Idol; Carrie Underwood Singer, songwriter, musician.
November 1, 2006... Carrie Underwood's music doesn't fit some people's notions of what country should be. These people tend to be cutthroat music critics who live on the coasts. Country-music fans, on the other hand, are perfectly willing to make room in their...

The Outlaws; Hank Williams Jr.(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... The number of longnecks these two icons of outlaw country have emptied could fill a train yard. They're kindred spirits. Merle Haggard once sang a song called "I'm Always on a Mountain When I Fall," and Hank Williams Jr. (nicknamed "Bocephus")...

The Adventurers; Jimmy Buffett, Bob Seger, Sheryl Crow, John Mellencamp, and Kid Rock Roots rockers.
November 1, 2006... If you didnt already know, country is a state of mind. Having worked with Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow, who keeps a house in Nashville, has incorporated into her career the music that produced the soundtrack for the rootsy...

The Georgia Peach; Jennifer Nettles Singer, songwriter.
November 1, 2006... With the Jennifer Nettles Band, five albums; with Sugarland, two albums (one multi-platinum); three Top 10 singles on Billboard's country chart; one Academy of Country Music award. Jennifer Nettles, a singer-songwriter with a supple,...

The Songbird; LeAnn Rimes Singer, songwriter.(Sound recording review)
November 1, 2006... LeAnn Rimes, the owner of one of country music's most sublime voices, has packed a whole lot of career into her 24 years. She won Star Search at age 8 and made an almost scary major-label recording debut at 13, conjuring Patsy Cline with her...

The Renegades; Dwight Yoakam, Rosanne Cash, Emmylou Harris, and Lyle Lovett Genre-bending singers, songwriters, musicians.
November 1, 2006... Not everyone fits the formula. From the start of her eclectic career as a singer-songwriter and harmony vocalist par excellence, Emmylou Harris has gone against convention. The latest in her string of sublime releases is a collaboration with...

The Queen Of Country; Dolly Parton Singer, songwriter, actress, theme-park entrepreneur.
November 1, 2006... One of the great American success stories, Dolly Parton has gone from a small cabin in the Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee to international stardom. With all the accolades that have come with selling an estimated 100 million albums over a...

Rules of Engagement; On November 19, 2005, in Haditha, during Kilo Company's third tour of duty in Iraq, a land mine planted by insurgents exploded beneath a Humvee, killing a 20-year-old Marine.
November 1, 2006... Byline: William Langewiesche In September and October of 2005, the photographer Lucian Read took portraits of nearly all of the members of Kilo Company. Those pictured in this article are men in the convoy that was attacked in Haditha on...

Diamonds Are for Eva.(Eva Green in 'Casino Royale')(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Byline: Jim Windolf Any actress, or actress-model, who dares join the ranks of Bond Girls inevitably finds herself competing with some of the most stunning glimpses of hotness ever recorded on film. In its 21 outings, the James Bond...

Code of the Rothermeres; Eight years after Viscount Rothermere inherited the family newspaper empire, at age 29, he is navigating that legacy through perilous times, engaging in a turf war with Rupert Murdoch and maintaining a friendship with Tony Blair-despite attacks on the prime minister by the powerful Rothermere flagship, the Daily Mail.
November 1, 2006... Byline: Kate Reardon At the age of 29, Viscount Rothermere became one of the most powerful men in Britain. He inherited the chairmanship and control of a newspaper empire that owns, among other things, 100 regional newspapers, the Evening...

Annie, Unwrapped.(Annie Leibovitz's A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Byline: Vicki Goldberg Take it off, take it off! cried a voice in the rear so they did, for Annie Leibovitz's camera. John Lennon, Sly Stallone, and Lauren Hutton took it all off; Cindy Crawford dropped everything but a snake; Demi Moore...

Already a Classic; The perennial bachelor prankster is also Hollywood's silver-haired statesman, making movies and speaking out for a basic American decency.
November 1, 2006... Byline: Rich Cohen America projects two kinds of power in the world: hard power, which is tanks, jets, and missiles, and soft power, which, at the moment, is George Clooney. He is dashing, and charming; his hair glistens; his dark, soupy,...

Waiting for Oscar.(movies )(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Byline: Bruce Handy Is self-loathing the shadow twin of excessive self-regard? That seems to be the case in Hollywood, which has long been fond of beating itself up, as Dr. Phil might say, even as its leading citizens grow ever more...

Jerry Lee Lewis; The title of his much-anticipated studio album, Last Man Standing, couldn't be more fitting as Jerry Lee Lewis reinforces his status as one of rock 'n' roll's founding fathers.(Interview)
November 1, 2006... What is your idea of perfect happiness? I think true happiness can only be found in heaven. Here on earth, happiness just comes and goes. What is your greatest fear? Flying in bad weather is one of them. What is the trait...

The Madness of King George II.(environmental protection )
November 1, 2006... Byline: Graydon Carter At his hobby ranch in Crawford the Gunslinger-in-Chief assumes the tough-talking western swagger of a child dressed up in chaps and a fringed vest for a Halloween party. But behind the brush-clearing and arms-out,...

Cary On, George.(George Clooney )(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Byline: Julian Sancton All George Clooney has to do is put on a pair of Ray-Bans and he looks like an outtake from North by Northwest. What Clooney shares with Cary Grant isn't a physical resemblance as much as the humor, elegance, and...