February 16, 2022 • 24 mins
Minnie questions Graydon Carter, journalist, former editor of Vanity Fair, and co-founder of the satirical magazine, Spy. Graydon shares stories of lasting memories from mentors, the common feature he works into all of his projects, and playing the role of Quiz Master at the dinner table.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, so you're in London now right, Yeah, you can
tell from the books they have them Lost Angeles. I'm
going to use them as coast because you pull them
out there. Drink bring. I must say I'm using a
book as a coaster right now for my comp tea.
It's not a very good book. Hello, I'm Mini driver
and welcome to many questions. I've always loved Pruces questionnaire.
(00:24):
It was originally an eighteenth century parlor game meant to
reveal an individual's true nature. But with so many questions,
there wasn't really an opportunity to expand on anything. So
I took the format of Pruce's questionnaire and adapted What
I think are seven of the most important questions you
could ever ask someone. They are when and where were
you happiest? What is the quality you like least about yourself?
(00:49):
What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you? What
question would you most like answered, What person, place, or
experience has shaped to you the most? What would be
your last meal? And can you tell me something in
your life that has grown out of a personal disaster.
(01:10):
The more people we ask, the more we begin to
see what makes us similar and what makes us individual.
I've gathered a group of really remarkable people who I
am honored and humbled to have had a chance to
engage with. My guest today on many questions is writer, editor, producer,
and legendary party thrower Graydon Carter. Grayden co founded the
(01:34):
satirical magazine Spy and was editor in chief of Vanity
Fair magazine for twenty five years. After a brief interlude
after Vanity Fair, which I believe he called his gardening leave,
he created, along with Alessander Stanley, the online weekly newsletter Airmail,
(01:54):
which as a subscriber, I can tell you is like
getting an email each week from your gossip eist, most
well read, well traveled aren't slash uncle, slash friend slash enemy.
The Vanity Fair parties celebrating the oscars that Grayden through
were legendary. It was at that party that I really
(02:17):
cut my teeth on learning how to interact with Hollywood.
I remember I was at the party one year before
I was what you call famous, and I'd really ill
advisedly borrowed away too casual striped sundress from a friend,
and Madonna asked if I had come as a beach umbrella,
and frand Liebowitz asked if I was selling ice cream
good times. Grading is a man of brevity. He really
(02:40):
is the living embodiment of the short letter. Mark Twain
was referencing in his quote, sorry about the long letter,
didn't have time to write a short one. Okay, So
tell me about this podcast. What's completely hilarious and ironic
with this idea of women because I'm sort of invisible
(03:01):
and silent after the age of forty five, and then
it's only women who sort of stand up and go, no,
we're not We're great, and it's like, yeah, but culture
doesn't necessarily absolve you of that getting old. And the
reality is I have never been more creative. I've never
been making more things that I love, whether it's the
book that I just wrote, which is coming out next year,
(03:22):
or this podcast, which came out of, you know, the
isolation of lockdown and wanting to speak to people wanting
to create. Well, it's like a memoir. In essays, it's
a tell most tell some, it's to tell some memoir,
with the central thesis that runs through the essays being
(03:42):
that things not working out is actually everything working out,
and that is just life that we might not be witnessed.
Were so used to witnessing everything these days on the internet,
seeing every failure and fall down, But it often happens privately. Agree.
I agree. And my mother used to throw around the
Christian Questionnaire and it was always really fun. And I
(04:06):
also loved Desert Island Disks, which is the English radio program, right,
but it was the first page I would always turn
to in Vanity Fair was the back page. Okay, very telling,
very chilling, Bruce, And you can tell a lot about
it person by the way they answered these questions, if
they answered them honestly, definitely, and also that the brevity
of a lot of the questions belies of deeper response,
(04:27):
like they seem to engender, like it's been fascinating. You know.
The funniest one we ever got in twenty odd years
of doing it was Arnold Schwarzenegger's What did he say?
It was just funny and self dappricating. He was really
very funny. Yeah, he is the people. It was funnier
than the comedians. He's pretty fantastic. When I first met him,
(04:52):
I met him a hundred years ago. He did do this, Hillary,
I mean, by today's standards, it would not be allowed
at all. But at the time I thought it was
hilarious and awful in equal measure. He was introduced to
me and his lovely then wife was next to him,
smiling a lot, and I went to shake his hand
and he reached out and he just picked me up
(05:12):
and he went five pounds that's party drink. He literally
did like a guess your weight, and he would have
done it to everybody. Yeah, but I told him it
wasn't a good idea. No, that would be against everything
is against a lot nowadays, but that's certainly against a lot. Yeah,
But guessing a woman's weight, even if you low ball it,
you can't ever do that unless it's like when you're
(05:34):
at bale Moral apparently where they do wear you when
you arrive for Christmas. Did you see that in that film, Spencer?
I didn't see that. Now. Apparently the queen weys you
to see how much you've enjoyed the food, and then
they wear you when you leave and see how much
weight you've gained. The silver ware in your pockets you're
way more. And by the way, that's really what they
should be looking for, is that that's what I do.
(05:56):
They don't call you light fingers guard for nothing. No, no,
they don't know. So what do you want from me?
I want you to answer these seven questions, and I
want you to make the answers perky and excellent. No,
I'm not sure I can do that pretty early in
the morning here, I mean in my time. But anyway, okay,
I'll do my best. Am I supposed to weep at
certain point during this thing, and just absolutely not. In fact,
(06:19):
you might be penalized if you do. Okay, So when
do we start? Okay, we're gonna start right now. We're
gonna start right now. In your life, can you tell
me about something that has grown out of a personal disaster.
When I was in college, I had a magazine and
it was a literary political magazine, and it did nothing
(06:40):
but lose money. I spent so much time on it
that I was thrown out of school before I had
so many incomplete and they said, basically, there's no point
you're ever coming back because you can never graduate. And
the magazine folds, and I thought, okay, I'm out here.
This magazine I worked on for five years have folded.
And I was in my early twenties. I was thrown
of the school and I thought, that's it. I mean,
(07:02):
I've got nothing left. So then ten years later I
started Spine Magazine in New York and that worked, and
it was a huge success, and it changed the course
of my professional life. But I learned from my magazine
in Canada that to succeed, the thing you do has
to have a point. And my magazine in Canada didn't
really have a point to it. It just was a
magazine that wrote about politics and culture in a maronic way,
(07:26):
the way twenty three year olds dude. And Spine Magazine
had a point because it was a satirical magazine about
New York City at a very particular time in the
city's history. And it was funny and it was fact
filmed and it was nonfiction and it did well. And
I've had a restaurant that did really well because it
had a point in that restaurant that did less well
because it didn't have a point. So out of that
(07:46):
horrible crisis, and when you're in the early twenties, everything
seems like it's like the end of the world. Something
came out of it, and that is just that things
have to have a point. I mean, they have to
be there for a reason. There has to be a
slight audience for it, and it has to be not
a complete rip off of what's gone before. That is
a really good point. I haven't thought about it like that.
(08:06):
It's like a story. William Goldman needs to say that.
You have to have a spine of a story that
everything else hangs on. If you don't have that central spine,
it doesn't matter how clever, how brilliant the characters, how
wonderful the dialogue, none of it matters if you don't
have that central thesis, right, I mean, look at the
Star Wars. You know, George Lucas, and then something is
sort of original. There's eight thousand imitations of Star Wars,
(08:27):
but if you want to buy a collectible lego, it's
a Star Wars and it's not like Star Gigantica or
some other rip off thing. It's the original and originals
it may take a little longer to catch on, but
they have longer shelf lives. So how do you figure
out what the point of something is? You personally? How
do you know what the point is? Is there a
need for it? Was there something exactly like this before?
(08:50):
Even if you recreate someone from the past as long
as it fills a purpose in other people's lives. Because
at the end of the day, everybody's in the service industry.
And whether you're man factoring artisanal candles in Brooklyn or
making a tesla in Texas, you're in the service centery.
You're gonna take that candle or that tesla and give
it to somebody else, and they're going to give you money.
(09:11):
And that's the service industry. And I suppose other than
people in fintech or whatever the hell that is, we're
all in the service business. You've got to think about
the other person at the other end. And when I
add an a vanity fair and we never did any
readership studies or anything like that, but I just thought
of some person getting on an eight hour flight and
picking up a copy of the magazine, and I just
wanted to make sure they were engaged and entertained for
(09:32):
a portion of that flight, and I figured if they were,
they'd come back the next month. It's so true. It's
so true, And I'm just trying to figure out how
it works in like filmmaking, because sometimes it feels like
there are films that directors have just made for themselves
and yet they do seem to strike a note like
the Lobster, for example, is a strange I don't know
(09:52):
if you ever saw that movie. It's a strange movie,
but you can catch the threat of the creativity and
the strangeness of it, which becomes the point. Maybe it's
slightly harder to pin down in films than it is
in a magazine or a restaurant. Well, person, you've gotta
be talented. You've got to be talented. I mean, there's
a lot of untalented filmmakers, and it's hard to make
it movie. It's hard to make a bad movie, let
(10:13):
alone a good one. It's hard to make a movie,
point blank. Yeah. And I've been in some stinkers and
some really good ones, and they were all as hard
to make. Yeah, but that's true. That's life. To make
a crummy car is just about the same amount of
work to make a really good car. I don't know.
I mean, to me, the joy in life is about
trying to have a job that's less about a sausage
(10:35):
assembly line as possible, make it in each individual meal,
and try to make it as good as possible because
you want the person to enjoy it. I like that
I like that it's a service industry. In the service industry, yes,
if you're offering up any kind of cultural content, you're
in a service industry for sure. What question would you
(11:03):
most like answered, Well, there's the obvious, what's the world
going to look like at the end of the century
for children, grandchildren? And is their life after death? But
I feel we're going through an age of unaccountability and
I would like to see some of the miscreants and
criminals of the last eight years. I'd like to see
justice done. You know, it's funny. After the savings and
(11:25):
loan crisis in the early nineties, people went to jail,
and after there were two thousand and eight banking crisis,
nobody went to jail. And I thought, you know, you're
never going to scare these people off unless somebody pays
the price for it. Do you think that we really
are in a sort of middle ages. We're in a
strange period and we all come out of it, because
we always do. Because the pendulum swings very dramatically in
(11:48):
the United States and less so in Britain, less so
in Canada, probably less so in Australia. But in America
you go from the anti establishment sixties and by three
or eighty four you had a Wall Street explosion with
the same people. So things do tend to swing. They're
going to swing another way, and I have no idea
which way that's going to go, but things will be
(12:09):
very different in three years than they are now. I agree.
So if it's this era of on accountability, then how
is it also this era of sort of witch hunting
as well and forcible responsibility. It seems to be these
two extremes are happening at the same time. That's a
good point, is that part of the pendulum swinging, I mean,
is that part of what you think is that when
(12:31):
something cannot settle, when it needs to change but it
can't figure out where it's going to, that all voices
just become louder. Well, the culture wars are so far
out on one swing of the pendulum, do you worry
that if the pendulum does swing, those voices won't count
at all? Because that's the only way to go. You
can't have counting more. And if they don't count at all,
(12:51):
you go back to a very dark place where people
who are underserved or underprivileged have no say in what's
going on. So all I know is it won't stay
the same. Never does. So things will shift and I
have no idea which way they'll shift. And if you're
in the nineteen sixties and you said, like, the same
guys that are protesting the war in Vietnam in the
nine Democratic Convention are gonna wind up being the suspender
(13:15):
wearing bankers on Wall Street fourteen years ladies say you're crazy.
It's so weird because stuff needs to change, like systemic changes.
That is a very real happening that America needs and
arguably the world needs. A lot of good will come
out of this. I don't know what good will come
out of it, but a lot will social and people generally.
The end result is something better than before the social
(13:37):
people started, right, and that historically that's what it looks like. Yeah,
and so four years now things will be better, at
least I as him, So maybe they won't be. I'm
a half glass full sort of person, so my son
said the other day when he was like, I don't
I don't understand the glass half full. The glass had empty, Like,
why don't you just refill the glass though it's full? Like,
(13:57):
just refilled the glass? What relationship real or fictionalized defines
love for you. You know, I've got five children. I've
seen the way my children are with each other, and
that is absolutely and utter true love. Even if they
haven't seen each other for like four months, because one
lives in Los Angeles, one in London, three of them
(14:19):
live in New York, that they just sort of pick
up a conversation that they left off like six months
before and never stopped talking, And that would be it
would be my definition of luck. It's the way that
they love each other. Right, How do you think that
you have thoroughly nice children because they learned that that's
learned that. I feel like it's learned behavior. You know,
Like we would go to dinner and they would sit
(14:39):
at the table, they couldn't bring any toys before, screens
or anything like that, and they either like said nothing
or they would have to start talking to each other.
It took a few dinners and restaurants before they have
sudden they realized that this is it, we have to
start talking to each other. And they started and they
never stopped. Do you think that conversation is a far
more powerful tool than we give it credit for? I
(15:02):
feel like conversation is kind of dissolved now into screaming matches,
and that that idea of being able to share ideas
or listen to someone else is kind of a bit
more remote. Well, there's always been hot button issues within families,
within groups of friends, within colleagues, you know. And during
the nineteen sixties and early seventies, you know, the war
was a very much a hot hot button issue. You know,
(15:25):
climate changes, the culture wars are now. The Battle of
the sexes in the sixties was a hot button issues.
So there's always there. So you're going to have sort
of elements at a dinner table that you are going
to avoid based on your reading of the other people
at the table, right, Because interesting getting your children to
listen to each other or to even engage, Like it
(15:46):
was funny Kate's youngest and my son at the same age,
and I took them out for lunch today and they
sat there and locked in this awkward silence to begin with,
and then I got up to go and talk to
a friend who I had seen and it's so interesting
when there isn't any alternative. They really did just start talking.
But it's kind of like your their backs have to
be against the wall to do it and there has
(16:07):
to be no distraction. Yeah, you need something to prime
the pump. I used to do this thing called quiz
Masters at the dinner table, and because I got home
at five thirty most days and then I've had dinner
with my family, we have a thing called quiz Masters,
and I would just just make up these things, like
for five points, what does you know NBC stand for?
For like eight points what cars to general motors make?
And you know, things like they are in cultural things
(16:30):
and business things and political things. And as a result,
we have something called Loser Nightlife where we have dinner
and watched Jeopardy. I love Jeopardy, so my kids, I mean,
my kids are astoundingly good to Jeopardy. I think because
of quiz Masters, you ran you dinner like trivial pursuit.
It primes the pump and conversation. I think it's really good.
I'm adding that into my percentages of what parenting is.
(16:52):
I think being a quiz master is a legitimate percentage. Sure. Yeah,
And it's like stupid stuff. It's not an important history
racle stuff. It's just dumb things that are sort of
linked in the culture that you want them to know.
About is because they're gonna learn important stuff in school. Definitely, definitely, definitely,
And also weirdly, there's a brevity and there's well maybe
(17:12):
it's just with children with a short attention span, a
short question with a short answer that has a sort
of mind blowing concept. But my son loves that you
know the distance from the Earth to the sun, and
that's why it's right, why quiz is good. But I
do also think it gives you like a foundation of curiosity,
which I do think needs to be encouraged, particularly now
with the distraction of everything. I agree, I agree, I
(17:36):
agree with that what would be your last meal? Like
the actual food elements, Yeah, I mean you can actually
expand on where it would be in Hobie with but yeah,
the food, I'm not going to say, like you know,
your hoody menu went in Winston Churchill like everybody else,
and I mean they could be I mean, you know,
it's your last dinner. My last dinner would be pretty simple. No,
(17:58):
I'm not a gourmand. I don't know about lines or
anything like that, or smoke cigars or anything like that.
I'd probably have Italian food and red wine and now
ice cream and I'd have cigarettes after the meal, you
would definitely are you kidding me? Yes, cigarette before the meal,
sigarette after the meal. Good cigarettes. Cigarettes are a huge
part of your meal. Man, I wish they were. I know.
(18:19):
I'm with you. I will always, I think, be a
smoker who chooses not to smoke. Yeah, and I'm a
white knuckle non smoker. Yeah. That's actually a good wife
putting it. It's terrible. It's terrible to have done something
that I knew was so, Joe, what person, place, or
experience has most altered your life? Well, obviously you know,
(18:41):
family members and huge part you know, so I knew
has had a huge impact of my life. I worked
for for twenty years and he was like a father
to me, and I learned more from him than I
probably learned from anybody in a working situation. And I
feel blessed by that. And I got to ride the
concorde at the same time. So that was win win.
(19:01):
Hold on, So, did he teach you a lot about
life or about specifically working in publishing and being an editor.
It's altogether. You know, he hated trickery. He loved you know,
the cleanliness of making a magazine is easy to read.
As humanly possible, and they're often when you have lunch
with them, to be long gaps, and you learned not
(19:21):
to fill in those gaps because I was thinking about
what he wanted to say, and as a result, I
don't recall him ever saying anything dumb. Ever, everything he
said was thoughtful and reasoned, and he had a study
of yoda Ish wisdom and this I've also learned that
he would have a conversation about a problem in a
very socratic method. Rather than saying do this, he said,
(19:44):
have you thought of this? And you worked through a
problem that way? So what he'd ask you to examine,
like have you thought about these different ways of looking
at this? Yes? And you could say, well, I can't
do it this way because of this, for this reason
and that reason. And I think it came through him organically.
I don't think anybody sort of instructed him to do this.
It's just the way his mind worked. I found it
(20:05):
invaluable when I was working for him, and I find
it a value as I work after him. Now, do
you think that having a sort of paternal or Evankula
figure in your life was that all pre children? I'm
tryingly no, I've I've always had an older man in
my life. And you know, when you're in your twenties
and somebody in their thirties takes you seriously, you're you know,
(20:25):
you're e static. It's very validating. And so I've always
been last with any number of sort of older figures.
I mean, David Halberstam was a good friend of mine
and he was fifteen years older than me, but we
used to talk a couple of times a week. And
there was a writer called Michael Hare who had brought
a very famous book about Vietnam called Dispatches. You know,
I talked to him for hours usday, used to talk
(20:46):
to for hours every day to like frandly with it.
So it's just there a lot of people in your
life that have part in shaping who you've become over
the years. And the way you think, yeah, do you
find that you at that figure for your children? Um,
you know, you want your child to be able to
come to you, but you do not want to be
intruding on their lives. They're adults, they have their own lives,
(21:07):
their own careers, and then there as a backdrop in
case they want to talk about something. And I see
a lot of them, and I'm trying to be as
supportive and helpful as I can without getting in the way.
(21:28):
Where and when were you happiest? I mean, I'm generally
a pretty content person. I can put up with a
lot of crap and still managed to get through a
good day. But four years ago, almost today, i'd left
fanity Fair. I left handy Fair one day. The next
day we're on a flight to London on our way
to Provence. And the time I spent spent most of
(21:48):
the next three years in this little town in Provence,
about twenty miles north of Antibe, and I honestly think
I was happier there than I've ever been in my life.
I had no stress of a big job in jobs
like you know, being the other vanuy Ferrets have an
enjoyable job, but it is stressful and it does take
its toll. And I just felt like all this weight
(22:08):
had been lifted from my shoulders. I got like two
thousand letters from around the world, people saying congratulations or whatever,
and I replied to every one of them, and I
just read and relaxed and went to the Christmas markets.
And we had thirteen family members come for Christmas and
it was just the one of the most enjoyable periods
of my life. And how long were you therefore, well,
(22:31):
about two and a half years, over three and a
half year period, and we had to go back to
New York for a period, and then we're back in
New York. Now that's where I am. Now. So what
if we don't associate work with being happy, then why
is that the sort of apparently all an end all pursuit.
It's like, why are we happiest when we don't have
that pressure? And yet that pressure is about of our lives,
(22:53):
it seems all the pursuit of it. Well, there's stress,
and there's pressure, and I find that stress comes from
external factors. Sure, just sort of something you can put
on yourself to do something better, to write something better,
to film something better, to paint something better. And I
love working and I love my job at Vanni very.
I was just really happy when I was done. Yeah.
(23:13):
I love working. Yeah, me too, I love it in moderation. Yeah.
The best time is the time between when I know
I've got a job and when the job actually starts.
I really like that bit in between. That's true, because
you need an income and you need to be busy,
otherwise you just woind up being a playing golf and
becoming a Republican. Yes, those two things do seem to
(23:33):
go hand in hand. They do, brilliant. Thank you so much. Okay, Okay,
it's the pleasure, and thank you so much. Thank you,
graydon At. You can sign up to receive air mail weekly,
and inside airmail is this incredible thing called Arts Intel,
(23:57):
which is the only global cultural matrix for finding out
what's happening in the arts around the whole world. Mini
Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver, supervising
producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Lavoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown.
(24:21):
Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver, Additional music by
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(24:43):
Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support,
Henry Driver
Okay, so you're in London now right, Yeah, you can
tell from the books they have them Lost Angeles. I'm
going to use them as coast because you pull them
out there. Drink bring. I must say I'm using a
book as a coaster right now for my comp tea.
It's not a very good book. Hello, I'm Mini driver
and welcome to many questions. I've always loved Pruces questionnaire.
(00:24):
It was originally an eighteenth century parlor game meant to
reveal an individual's true nature. But with so many questions,
there wasn't really an opportunity to expand on anything. So
I took the format of Pruce's questionnaire and adapted What
I think are seven of the most important questions you
could ever ask someone. They are when and where were
you happiest? What is the quality you like least about yourself?
(00:49):
What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you? What
question would you most like answered, What person, place, or
experience has shaped to you the most? What would be
your last meal? And can you tell me something in
your life that has grown out of a personal disaster.
(01:10):
The more people we ask, the more we begin to
see what makes us similar and what makes us individual.
I've gathered a group of really remarkable people who I
am honored and humbled to have had a chance to
engage with. My guest today on many questions is writer, editor, producer,
and legendary party thrower Graydon Carter. Grayden co founded the
(01:34):
satirical magazine Spy and was editor in chief of Vanity
Fair magazine for twenty five years. After a brief interlude
after Vanity Fair, which I believe he called his gardening leave,
he created, along with Alessander Stanley, the online weekly newsletter Airmail,
(01:54):
which as a subscriber, I can tell you is like
getting an email each week from your gossip eist, most
well read, well traveled aren't slash uncle, slash friend slash enemy.
The Vanity Fair parties celebrating the oscars that Grayden through
were legendary. It was at that party that I really
(02:17):
cut my teeth on learning how to interact with Hollywood.
I remember I was at the party one year before
I was what you call famous, and I'd really ill
advisedly borrowed away too casual striped sundress from a friend,
and Madonna asked if I had come as a beach umbrella,
and frand Liebowitz asked if I was selling ice cream
good times. Grading is a man of brevity. He really
(02:40):
is the living embodiment of the short letter. Mark Twain
was referencing in his quote, sorry about the long letter,
didn't have time to write a short one. Okay, So
tell me about this podcast. What's completely hilarious and ironic
with this idea of women because I'm sort of invisible
(03:01):
and silent after the age of forty five, and then
it's only women who sort of stand up and go, no,
we're not We're great, and it's like, yeah, but culture
doesn't necessarily absolve you of that getting old. And the
reality is I have never been more creative. I've never
been making more things that I love, whether it's the
book that I just wrote, which is coming out next year,
(03:22):
or this podcast, which came out of, you know, the
isolation of lockdown and wanting to speak to people wanting
to create. Well, it's like a memoir. In essays, it's
a tell most tell some, it's to tell some memoir,
with the central thesis that runs through the essays being
(03:42):
that things not working out is actually everything working out,
and that is just life that we might not be witnessed.
Were so used to witnessing everything these days on the internet,
seeing every failure and fall down, But it often happens privately. Agree.
I agree. And my mother used to throw around the
Christian Questionnaire and it was always really fun. And I
(04:06):
also loved Desert Island Disks, which is the English radio program, right,
but it was the first page I would always turn
to in Vanity Fair was the back page. Okay, very telling,
very chilling, Bruce, And you can tell a lot about
it person by the way they answered these questions, if
they answered them honestly, definitely, and also that the brevity
of a lot of the questions belies of deeper response,
(04:27):
like they seem to engender, like it's been fascinating. You know.
The funniest one we ever got in twenty odd years
of doing it was Arnold Schwarzenegger's What did he say?
It was just funny and self dappricating. He was really
very funny. Yeah, he is the people. It was funnier
than the comedians. He's pretty fantastic. When I first met him,
(04:52):
I met him a hundred years ago. He did do this, Hillary,
I mean, by today's standards, it would not be allowed
at all. But at the time I thought it was
hilarious and awful in equal measure. He was introduced to
me and his lovely then wife was next to him,
smiling a lot, and I went to shake his hand
and he reached out and he just picked me up
(05:12):
and he went five pounds that's party drink. He literally
did like a guess your weight, and he would have
done it to everybody. Yeah, but I told him it
wasn't a good idea. No, that would be against everything
is against a lot nowadays, but that's certainly against a lot. Yeah,
But guessing a woman's weight, even if you low ball it,
you can't ever do that unless it's like when you're
(05:34):
at bale Moral apparently where they do wear you when
you arrive for Christmas. Did you see that in that film, Spencer?
I didn't see that. Now. Apparently the queen weys you
to see how much you've enjoyed the food, and then
they wear you when you leave and see how much
weight you've gained. The silver ware in your pockets you're
way more. And by the way, that's really what they
should be looking for, is that that's what I do.
(05:56):
They don't call you light fingers guard for nothing. No, no,
they don't know. So what do you want from me?
I want you to answer these seven questions, and I
want you to make the answers perky and excellent. No,
I'm not sure I can do that pretty early in
the morning here, I mean in my time. But anyway, okay,
I'll do my best. Am I supposed to weep at
certain point during this thing, and just absolutely not. In fact,
(06:19):
you might be penalized if you do. Okay, So when
do we start? Okay, we're gonna start right now. We're
gonna start right now. In your life, can you tell
me about something that has grown out of a personal disaster.
When I was in college, I had a magazine and
it was a literary political magazine, and it did nothing
(06:40):
but lose money. I spent so much time on it
that I was thrown out of school before I had
so many incomplete and they said, basically, there's no point
you're ever coming back because you can never graduate. And
the magazine folds, and I thought, okay, I'm out here.
This magazine I worked on for five years have folded.
And I was in my early twenties. I was thrown
of the school and I thought, that's it. I mean,
(07:02):
I've got nothing left. So then ten years later I
started Spine Magazine in New York and that worked, and
it was a huge success, and it changed the course
of my professional life. But I learned from my magazine
in Canada that to succeed, the thing you do has
to have a point. And my magazine in Canada didn't
really have a point to it. It just was a
magazine that wrote about politics and culture in a maronic way,
(07:26):
the way twenty three year olds dude. And Spine Magazine
had a point because it was a satirical magazine about
New York City at a very particular time in the
city's history. And it was funny and it was fact
filmed and it was nonfiction and it did well. And
I've had a restaurant that did really well because it
had a point in that restaurant that did less well
because it didn't have a point. So out of that
(07:46):
horrible crisis, and when you're in the early twenties, everything
seems like it's like the end of the world. Something
came out of it, and that is just that things
have to have a point. I mean, they have to
be there for a reason. There has to be a
slight audience for it, and it has to be not
a complete rip off of what's gone before. That is
a really good point. I haven't thought about it like that.
(08:06):
It's like a story. William Goldman needs to say that.
You have to have a spine of a story that
everything else hangs on. If you don't have that central spine,
it doesn't matter how clever, how brilliant the characters, how
wonderful the dialogue, none of it matters if you don't
have that central thesis, right, I mean, look at the
Star Wars. You know, George Lucas, and then something is
sort of original. There's eight thousand imitations of Star Wars,
(08:27):
but if you want to buy a collectible lego, it's
a Star Wars and it's not like Star Gigantica or
some other rip off thing. It's the original and originals
it may take a little longer to catch on, but
they have longer shelf lives. So how do you figure
out what the point of something is? You personally? How
do you know what the point is? Is there a
need for it? Was there something exactly like this before?
(08:50):
Even if you recreate someone from the past as long
as it fills a purpose in other people's lives. Because
at the end of the day, everybody's in the service industry.
And whether you're man factoring artisanal candles in Brooklyn or
making a tesla in Texas, you're in the service centery.
You're gonna take that candle or that tesla and give
it to somebody else, and they're going to give you money.
(09:11):
And that's the service industry. And I suppose other than
people in fintech or whatever the hell that is, we're
all in the service business. You've got to think about
the other person at the other end. And when I
add an a vanity fair and we never did any
readership studies or anything like that, but I just thought
of some person getting on an eight hour flight and
picking up a copy of the magazine, and I just
wanted to make sure they were engaged and entertained for
(09:32):
a portion of that flight, and I figured if they were,
they'd come back the next month. It's so true. It's
so true, And I'm just trying to figure out how
it works in like filmmaking, because sometimes it feels like
there are films that directors have just made for themselves
and yet they do seem to strike a note like
the Lobster, for example, is a strange I don't know
(09:52):
if you ever saw that movie. It's a strange movie,
but you can catch the threat of the creativity and
the strangeness of it, which becomes the point. Maybe it's
slightly harder to pin down in films than it is
in a magazine or a restaurant. Well, person, you've gotta
be talented. You've got to be talented. I mean, there's
a lot of untalented filmmakers, and it's hard to make
it movie. It's hard to make a bad movie, let
(10:13):
alone a good one. It's hard to make a movie,
point blank. Yeah. And I've been in some stinkers and
some really good ones, and they were all as hard
to make. Yeah, but that's true. That's life. To make
a crummy car is just about the same amount of
work to make a really good car. I don't know.
I mean, to me, the joy in life is about
trying to have a job that's less about a sausage
(10:35):
assembly line as possible, make it in each individual meal,
and try to make it as good as possible because
you want the person to enjoy it. I like that
I like that it's a service industry. In the service industry, yes,
if you're offering up any kind of cultural content, you're
in a service industry for sure. What question would you
(11:03):
most like answered, Well, there's the obvious, what's the world
going to look like at the end of the century
for children, grandchildren? And is their life after death? But
I feel we're going through an age of unaccountability and
I would like to see some of the miscreants and
criminals of the last eight years. I'd like to see
justice done. You know, it's funny. After the savings and
(11:25):
loan crisis in the early nineties, people went to jail,
and after there were two thousand and eight banking crisis,
nobody went to jail. And I thought, you know, you're
never going to scare these people off unless somebody pays
the price for it. Do you think that we really
are in a sort of middle ages. We're in a
strange period and we all come out of it, because
we always do. Because the pendulum swings very dramatically in
(11:48):
the United States and less so in Britain, less so
in Canada, probably less so in Australia. But in America
you go from the anti establishment sixties and by three
or eighty four you had a Wall Street explosion with
the same people. So things do tend to swing. They're
going to swing another way, and I have no idea
which way that's going to go, but things will be
(12:09):
very different in three years than they are now. I agree.
So if it's this era of on accountability, then how
is it also this era of sort of witch hunting
as well and forcible responsibility. It seems to be these
two extremes are happening at the same time. That's a
good point, is that part of the pendulum swinging, I mean,
is that part of what you think is that when
(12:31):
something cannot settle, when it needs to change but it
can't figure out where it's going to, that all voices
just become louder. Well, the culture wars are so far
out on one swing of the pendulum, do you worry
that if the pendulum does swing, those voices won't count
at all? Because that's the only way to go. You
can't have counting more. And if they don't count at all,
(12:51):
you go back to a very dark place where people
who are underserved or underprivileged have no say in what's
going on. So all I know is it won't stay
the same. Never does. So things will shift and I
have no idea which way they'll shift. And if you're
in the nineteen sixties and you said, like, the same
guys that are protesting the war in Vietnam in the
nine Democratic Convention are gonna wind up being the suspender
(13:15):
wearing bankers on Wall Street fourteen years ladies say you're crazy.
It's so weird because stuff needs to change, like systemic changes.
That is a very real happening that America needs and
arguably the world needs. A lot of good will come
out of this. I don't know what good will come
out of it, but a lot will social and people generally.
The end result is something better than before the social
(13:37):
people started, right, and that historically that's what it looks like. Yeah,
and so four years now things will be better, at
least I as him, So maybe they won't be. I'm
a half glass full sort of person, so my son
said the other day when he was like, I don't
I don't understand the glass half full. The glass had empty, Like,
why don't you just refill the glass though it's full? Like,
(13:57):
just refilled the glass? What relationship real or fictionalized defines
love for you. You know, I've got five children. I've
seen the way my children are with each other, and
that is absolutely and utter true love. Even if they
haven't seen each other for like four months, because one
lives in Los Angeles, one in London, three of them
(14:19):
live in New York, that they just sort of pick
up a conversation that they left off like six months
before and never stopped talking, And that would be it
would be my definition of luck. It's the way that
they love each other. Right, How do you think that
you have thoroughly nice children because they learned that that's
learned that. I feel like it's learned behavior. You know,
Like we would go to dinner and they would sit
(14:39):
at the table, they couldn't bring any toys before, screens
or anything like that, and they either like said nothing
or they would have to start talking to each other.
It took a few dinners and restaurants before they have
sudden they realized that this is it, we have to
start talking to each other. And they started and they
never stopped. Do you think that conversation is a far
more powerful tool than we give it credit for? I
(15:02):
feel like conversation is kind of dissolved now into screaming matches,
and that that idea of being able to share ideas
or listen to someone else is kind of a bit
more remote. Well, there's always been hot button issues within families,
within groups of friends, within colleagues, you know. And during
the nineteen sixties and early seventies, you know, the war
was a very much a hot hot button issue. You know,
(15:25):
climate changes, the culture wars are now. The Battle of
the sexes in the sixties was a hot button issues.
So there's always there. So you're going to have sort
of elements at a dinner table that you are going
to avoid based on your reading of the other people
at the table, right, Because interesting getting your children to
listen to each other or to even engage, Like it
(15:46):
was funny Kate's youngest and my son at the same age,
and I took them out for lunch today and they
sat there and locked in this awkward silence to begin with,
and then I got up to go and talk to
a friend who I had seen and it's so interesting
when there isn't any alternative. They really did just start talking.
But it's kind of like your their backs have to
be against the wall to do it and there has
(16:07):
to be no distraction. Yeah, you need something to prime
the pump. I used to do this thing called quiz
Masters at the dinner table, and because I got home
at five thirty most days and then I've had dinner
with my family, we have a thing called quiz Masters,
and I would just just make up these things, like
for five points, what does you know NBC stand for?
For like eight points what cars to general motors make?
And you know, things like they are in cultural things
(16:30):
and business things and political things. And as a result,
we have something called Loser Nightlife where we have dinner
and watched Jeopardy. I love Jeopardy, so my kids, I mean,
my kids are astoundingly good to Jeopardy. I think because
of quiz Masters, you ran you dinner like trivial pursuit.
It primes the pump and conversation. I think it's really good.
I'm adding that into my percentages of what parenting is.
(16:52):
I think being a quiz master is a legitimate percentage. Sure. Yeah,
And it's like stupid stuff. It's not an important history
racle stuff. It's just dumb things that are sort of
linked in the culture that you want them to know.
About is because they're gonna learn important stuff in school. Definitely, definitely, definitely,
And also weirdly, there's a brevity and there's well maybe
(17:12):
it's just with children with a short attention span, a
short question with a short answer that has a sort
of mind blowing concept. But my son loves that you
know the distance from the Earth to the sun, and
that's why it's right, why quiz is good. But I
do also think it gives you like a foundation of curiosity,
which I do think needs to be encouraged, particularly now
with the distraction of everything. I agree, I agree, I
(17:36):
agree with that what would be your last meal? Like
the actual food elements, Yeah, I mean you can actually
expand on where it would be in Hobie with but yeah,
the food, I'm not going to say, like you know,
your hoody menu went in Winston Churchill like everybody else,
and I mean they could be I mean, you know,
it's your last dinner. My last dinner would be pretty simple. No,
(17:58):
I'm not a gourmand. I don't know about lines or
anything like that, or smoke cigars or anything like that.
I'd probably have Italian food and red wine and now
ice cream and I'd have cigarettes after the meal, you
would definitely are you kidding me? Yes, cigarette before the meal,
sigarette after the meal. Good cigarettes. Cigarettes are a huge
part of your meal. Man, I wish they were. I know.
(18:19):
I'm with you. I will always, I think, be a
smoker who chooses not to smoke. Yeah, and I'm a
white knuckle non smoker. Yeah. That's actually a good wife
putting it. It's terrible. It's terrible to have done something
that I knew was so, Joe, what person, place, or
experience has most altered your life? Well, obviously you know,
(18:41):
family members and huge part you know, so I knew
has had a huge impact of my life. I worked
for for twenty years and he was like a father
to me, and I learned more from him than I
probably learned from anybody in a working situation. And I
feel blessed by that. And I got to ride the
concorde at the same time. So that was win win.
(19:01):
Hold on, So, did he teach you a lot about
life or about specifically working in publishing and being an editor.
It's altogether. You know, he hated trickery. He loved you know,
the cleanliness of making a magazine is easy to read.
As humanly possible, and they're often when you have lunch
with them, to be long gaps, and you learned not
(19:21):
to fill in those gaps because I was thinking about
what he wanted to say, and as a result, I
don't recall him ever saying anything dumb. Ever, everything he
said was thoughtful and reasoned, and he had a study
of yoda Ish wisdom and this I've also learned that
he would have a conversation about a problem in a
very socratic method. Rather than saying do this, he said,
(19:44):
have you thought of this? And you worked through a
problem that way? So what he'd ask you to examine,
like have you thought about these different ways of looking
at this? Yes? And you could say, well, I can't
do it this way because of this, for this reason
and that reason. And I think it came through him organically.
I don't think anybody sort of instructed him to do this.
It's just the way his mind worked. I found it
(20:05):
invaluable when I was working for him, and I find
it a value as I work after him. Now, do
you think that having a sort of paternal or Evankula
figure in your life was that all pre children? I'm
tryingly no, I've I've always had an older man in
my life. And you know, when you're in your twenties
and somebody in their thirties takes you seriously, you're you know,
(20:25):
you're e static. It's very validating. And so I've always
been last with any number of sort of older figures.
I mean, David Halberstam was a good friend of mine
and he was fifteen years older than me, but we
used to talk a couple of times a week. And
there was a writer called Michael Hare who had brought
a very famous book about Vietnam called Dispatches. You know,
I talked to him for hours usday, used to talk
(20:46):
to for hours every day to like frandly with it.
So it's just there a lot of people in your
life that have part in shaping who you've become over
the years. And the way you think, yeah, do you
find that you at that figure for your children? Um,
you know, you want your child to be able to
come to you, but you do not want to be
intruding on their lives. They're adults, they have their own lives,
(21:07):
their own careers, and then there as a backdrop in
case they want to talk about something. And I see
a lot of them, and I'm trying to be as
supportive and helpful as I can without getting in the way.
(21:28):
Where and when were you happiest? I mean, I'm generally
a pretty content person. I can put up with a
lot of crap and still managed to get through a
good day. But four years ago, almost today, i'd left
fanity Fair. I left handy Fair one day. The next
day we're on a flight to London on our way
to Provence. And the time I spent spent most of
(21:48):
the next three years in this little town in Provence,
about twenty miles north of Antibe, and I honestly think
I was happier there than I've ever been in my life.
I had no stress of a big job in jobs
like you know, being the other vanuy Ferrets have an
enjoyable job, but it is stressful and it does take
its toll. And I just felt like all this weight
(22:08):
had been lifted from my shoulders. I got like two
thousand letters from around the world, people saying congratulations or whatever,
and I replied to every one of them, and I
just read and relaxed and went to the Christmas markets.
And we had thirteen family members come for Christmas and
it was just the one of the most enjoyable periods
of my life. And how long were you therefore, well,
(22:31):
about two and a half years, over three and a
half year period, and we had to go back to
New York for a period, and then we're back in
New York. Now that's where I am. Now. So what
if we don't associate work with being happy, then why
is that the sort of apparently all an end all pursuit.
It's like, why are we happiest when we don't have
that pressure? And yet that pressure is about of our lives,
(22:53):
it seems all the pursuit of it. Well, there's stress,
and there's pressure, and I find that stress comes from
external factors. Sure, just sort of something you can put
on yourself to do something better, to write something better,
to film something better, to paint something better. And I
love working and I love my job at Vanni very.
I was just really happy when I was done. Yeah.
(23:13):
I love working. Yeah, me too, I love it in moderation. Yeah.
The best time is the time between when I know
I've got a job and when the job actually starts.
I really like that bit in between. That's true, because
you need an income and you need to be busy,
otherwise you just woind up being a playing golf and
becoming a Republican. Yes, those two things do seem to
(23:33):
go hand in hand. They do, brilliant. Thank you so much. Okay, Okay,
it's the pleasure, and thank you so much. Thank you,
graydon At. You can sign up to receive air mail weekly,
and inside airmail is this incredible thing called Arts Intel,
(23:57):
which is the only global cultural matrix for finding out
what's happening in the arts around the whole world. Mini
Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver, supervising
producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Lavoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown.
(24:21):
Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver, Additional music by
Aaron Kaufman. Executive produced by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks
to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day, Lisa Castella
and Annicke Oppenheim at w kPr de La Pescador, Kate
(24:43):
Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support,
Henry Driver
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