Lifestyle
The New Yorker Celebrates 100 Years
On Tuesday evening, Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly were sitting at a sidewalk table outside Jean’s, a chic night spot in the NoHo neighborhood of Manhattan. Nearby, writers, critics and cartoonists streamed past a black rope and a bouncer to attend The New Yorker’s 100th anniversary party.
Mr. Spiegelman, the graphic novelist who has been a contributor to the publication since 1992, puffed on a slender e-cigarette. Ms. Mouly, the magazine’s longtime art editor, took in the scene. The two have been married almost 50 years.
“The New Yorker is the last of its kind standing, and tonight we’re celebrating that,” Mr. Spiegelman said. “I still remember meeting the great writer Joseph Mitchell in the magazine’s hallway. I felt like I was in the presence of a monument.”
Ms. Mouly, who recently curated a centennial exhibit of the magazine’s covers for L’Alliance New York, a French cultural center, also reflected on the big night.
“A hundred years of The New Yorker is a vindication of what I believe in,” she said. “Now there’s TikTok, and all the minutes people spend on it, but to me a magazine is a magazine is a magazine. That copies of The New Yorker used to pile up at the foot of the bed was once the magazine’s curse, but to me now that’s a point of pride.”
The choice of Jean’s as the venue for a party meant to celebrate a publication known for deeply reported articles and literary fiction came as a bit of a surprise to Hua Hsu, a Pulitzer Prize winner who writes about music and culture for the magazine.
“I guess part of me was hoping the party might be at some stuffy old uptown spot,” he said. “But this magazine can only be what it is because of the young people who keep coming through it and imparting their vision, so I think this venue nicely reflects that.”
As Iggy Pop and Fleetwood Mac played from the speakers, the place was packed with bookish guests who squeezed past one another on their way to a seafood platter.
David Remnick, who became the magazine’s fifth editor in 1998, roamed the floor, as did his predecessor in the job, Tina Brown.
“It would be the height of presumption to think anything can last another 100 years, and I know we’re all obsessed with every new thing that comes down the highway,” Mr. Remnick said. “But I absolutely believe that people will always want what we do at The New Yorker.”
He grew pensive as he considered two stalwarts of the magazine who were now gone. “I miss Janet Malcolm, and I miss Roger Angell,” he said. “I’ll always remember sitting with him in the left field stands for the Yankees. It was one of the great nights of my life.”
A pack of fiction writers — Zadie Smith, Jennifer Egan, Jeffrey Eugenides and Jonathan Lethem — gathered by the bar. The club was also flooded with staff writers including Rachel Aviv, Adam Gopnik, Jia Tolentino, Naomi Fry, Vinson Cunningham, Gideon Lewis-Kraus, Helen Rosner, Kelefa Sanneh, Rachel Syme, Kyle Chayka and Doreen St. Félix.
“The New Yorker doesn’t really change, which can be seen as a marker of conservatism, but there’s something to be gleaned by consistency,” Ms. St. Félix said. “We’re entering an era where there won’t be many things that last a hundred years.”
As waiters offered fries in Anthora coffee cups, bartenders served cocktails with New Yorker-appropriate names. The gin-based Tipsy Tilley referred to the magazine’s foppish mascot, Eustace Tilley, who appeared on the cover of the first issue, dated Feb. 21, 1925. Versions of the character, created by the cartoonist Rea Irvin, appear on the six cover variants the magazine rolled out for its anniversary issue this month.
“I think that in this day and age, endurance means something,” Susan Orlean, a longtime staff writer, said. “Tonight is like celebrating the centennial of the United States. We made it.”
The critic Emily Nussbaum danced beneath a disco ball alongside editors, fact-checkers and editorial assistants. Also present at Jean’s were the cartoonist Roz Chast and the writers Daniel Mendelsohn and Bill Buford. Roger Lynch and Jonathan Newhouse were among the executives at Condé Nast, the publisher that operates The New Yorker, who made the party.
Judith Thurman, who started writing for the magazine in 1987, made her way to the coat check. She said the party was a little more boisterous than she had expected.
“You could be wearing a garbage bag here, it’s so dark,” she said. “I don’t know if this venue is that great for those of us with hearing problems.”
“At first I thought this was my 100th birthday party, but then I remembered I’m only 78,” she added. “The more A.I. takes over, and TikTok takes over, the more there’s going to be a resistance to it one day. And The New Yorker will be here, more necessary than ever.”
As the party wound down, Patrick Radden Keefe reminisced about stepping into David Grann’s office to get structural advice on his stories. The film critic Richard Brody and the food writer Hannah Goldfield traded notes on “The Brutalist” and the merits of intermissions.
Calvin Trillin, who started writing for the magazine in 1963, was holding court by the bar as Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” blasted from a speaker.
“I’m 89 now, so I haven’t been here for all of the hundred years, but I’ve been here for quite a few,” he said. “Tonight I’ve thought about Joseph Mitchell, and how in awe I was of him. My wife used to say to me, ‘Why don’t you just ask him if he wants to go to lunch with you?’ But I didn’t have the nerve to.”
He swiped a cookie from a passing tray.
“A hundred years is a long time,” he said, “but I hope The New Yorker will go on for another hundred. There’s no good reason not to.”
Phil Pritchard of the Hockey Hall of Fame works the 2019 NHL Awards at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on June 19, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
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This week’s show was recorded in Chicago with host Peter Sagal, judge and guest scorekeeper Alzo Slade, Not My Job guest Phil Pritchard and panelists Alonzo Bodden, Adam Burke, and Dulcé Sloan. Click the audio link above to hear the whole show.
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The Don Vs The Poppa; World’s Worst Doctor; Should We Eat That?
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Our panelists tell three stories about someone missing a huge opportunity in the news, only one of which is true.
Not My Job: Phil Pritchard, the NHL’s Keeper of the Stanley Cup, answers three questions about the other NHL, National Historic Landmarks
Peter talks to Phil Pritchard, the NHL’s Keeper of the Stanley Cup. Phil plays our game called, “Let’s Go Visit The NHL” Three questions about National Historic Landmarks.
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The Trump Dump and Air Traffic Control Becomes Animal Control
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Paul W. Downs can’t help it that even on the weekends, his life intersects with “Hacks,” the HBO comedy he co-created and co-showruns with his wife, Lucia Aniello, and their friend Jen Statsky. (He also appears on the show as Jimmy LuSaque Jr., the besieged manager of its two stars, played by Emmy winners Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder.) The fifth and final season of “Hacks” premiered last week, but on Downs’ days off, he often finds himself at its previous filming locations or hanging out with cast members who have become like family.
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
Downs moved to Los Angeles in 2011, but soon after, he and Aniello were hired to write (and for him to act) on the über-New York show “Broad City,” keeping them away from the West Coast for years. Now the couple live in Los Feliz, which they enjoy with their young son.
“I love Los Feliz because it’s a real neighborhood with restaurants and bars, but also feels close to nature with Griffith Park,” Downs says. “Also it’s very central to my Eastside friends and Westside agents.”
And if he had to live at a local mall, like the character Ava Daniels did in the third season of “Hacks,” which would he choose?
“It would be the Americana, obviously.”
Here’s how he’d spend a perfect day in L.A.
10 a.m.: A late rise and a li’l barista
I’m sleeping in if I can, which I can’t because I have a toddler, but let’s say I can sleep ’til 10. That would be insane.
Then I’m making coffee at home. I’m making it with my 4-year-old because he likes to make my coffee now. He always wanted to help, now he really wants to do it on his own. I’m still there to supervise, but he does do a lot of it.
I do batch brew. I’m doing Verve Coffee that I’m grinding there, and then I’m brewing four cups because I need my coffee. I had a Moccamaster for a long time, but I recently got a Simply Good Coffee. There’s no plastic — it’s all glass and metal.
11 a.m.: Chocolate croissants for everyone
We’re driving to Pasadena and we’re going to [Artisanal Goods by] CAR, which is the place to get the best chocolate croissant, I think, in the world. I don’t just think in L.A., I think they’re better than Paris. I’m going there with my wife and my kid and I’m having another coffee and some pastry. We’re ordering three [chocolate croissants]. We’re not doubling up.
11:45 a.m.: The family business
We’re driving to Fair Oaks in Pasadena. There’s a place called T.L. Gurley. We shot “Hacks” there, actually. Not only in Season 1, but also full circle in Season 5. We’re going to shmay around and look at antiques. My kid is going to want to play a vintage pinball machine. We’re going to find a little piece of art for the house or what have you. It’s not necessarily that I’m on the hunt. It’s to pass the time and to have some fun. If I could do anything and have a leisurely day and take my mind off work, that’s what I’m doing.
People love to interact with my kid when he’s there. We’re really training him to appraise things at a young age. My parents are part-time dealers of antiques. My grandmother bought and sold antiques. It’s kind of a family business.
1:30 pm.: Baguettes and books
We’re driving to Larchmont and we’re getting a sandwich at Larchmont Village Wine, Spirits & Cheese. I’m doing prosciutto-mozzarella-basil on a baguette.
Then we’re going to Chevalier’s Books. What’s sad is that I’m often not looking for leisure material. I’m looking for something that I’m interested in learning more about or writing about, or that they’re turning into a show I want to audition for. But we’re also doing Little Golden Books for my son. He’s obsessed. We’re not huge on screen time, so we really encourage the book-buying.
2:30 p.m.: Cast pool party
We’re having some family fun in the pool and we’re doing that until evening. We invite people over all the time. My sister-in-law is a New Yorker, but she actually wrote last season on “The Rooster” and she’s often writing on shows in L.A., so she’s often here and she’ll have a couple friends come over. I know this sounds like a piece of PR or something, but we’ll really literally have Hannah [Einbinder] and maybe Mark Indelicato from “Hacks” come over to swim. Jen, our co-creator of “Hacks,” will come over.
6:00 p.m.: Family dinner
Sometimes we’ll order Grá to the house, which is a pizza place in Echo Park — excellent sourdough crust pizza. But if we don’t do that, an ideal evening is an early dinner at All Time on Hillhurst in Los Feliz. We’re ordering the ceviche and my son is having all of it and not sharing with anybody at the table.
8:45 p.m.: A thrilling ending to the day
After putting my kid to bed, my wife and I, in an ideal world (full disclosure: we haven’t done this in two years), we’ll watch something together that we’ve been meaning to watch. We have a long list of movies and we either want to revisit or that we haven’t seen that we need to watch.
We don’t watch a lot of comedies. It’s a dream to watch a “Black Bag” or a little espionage thriller. We really like that because it’s so different than the stuff that we’re working on in the day.
Often the things we watch are things that we admire. We like deconstructing it as fans of film and television. We do like talking about the making of it, but it’s less of a critique and more of a listing of the things we appreciated about it.
10:30 p.m.: No work tomorrow
And then it’s lovemaking ’til morning on a perfect Sunday. If it’s a perfect Sunday, there’s also a Monday that’s off.
Jay (not pictured) found himself alone and hopeless in a jail cell when a fellow inmate’s unexpected words of comfort changed his life.
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When Jay was 22 years old, he was a self-described loner. In this story, he is being identified by his nickname to allow himself to speak candidly about the following experience and his mental health. He says the few people he did hang out with at the time had questionable morals.
”I chose my friends poorly, and your friends have a tendency to rub off on you. And so I started making poor decisions,” Jay said.
One evening, when he and his friends were out drinking, someone suggested they should try to break into the chemistry building on his college campus. Most of the group shrugged the suggestion off, deeming it impossible, but Jay was convinced he could pull it off.
“The next night I made a plan of how to do it, and I did it,” Jay remembered. “And I didn’t get caught doing it, [but] I got caught afterwards.”
At around 1 that morning, Jay was placed in the county detention center. Sitting alone in his cell, reality began to sink in.
“I pretty much thought that my life as I knew it was going to be over, and I had decided that the world would be better off without me in it.”
Jay made a plan to end his life. As he prepared himself, he began to cry.
“But just in that moment when I was ready to do it, I heard a voice coming from the top left corner of my cell, from a little vent. And someone called out to me and said, ‘Hey, is this your first time?’”
The man who called out was an inmate in the cell next door.
“I collected myself a little bit, and I said, ‘Yeah.’ And he said, ‘Can I pray for you?’”
Jay had grown up religious, but had stopped going to church years before. In that moment, though, he knew he needed support. He said yes, and listened as the man began to pray.
“I wish I could tell you that I remember the [exact] words that he said to me, but what I remember is that his words landed with me, and instead of wanting my life to be over, suddenly I saw hope,” Jay said.
The interaction happened nearly ten years ago, but it was a pivotal moment in Jay’s life, and one he thinks about all the time.
“[Now], I have a good job. I have a girlfriend who loves me. I have a life. But I have a life because somebody who was in the same situation I was in had the courage to talk to a fellow inmate and be kind.”
Jay says that he wishes he could meet that man again and express his appreciation.
“[I would] shake that guy’s hand, give him a hug, and tell him what his small gesture meant for me, how he changed the course of my life.”
My Unsung Hero is also a podcast — new episodes are released every Tuesday. To share the story of your unsung hero with the Hidden Brain team, record a voice memo on your phone and send it to myunsunghero@hiddenbrain.org.
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