Thanks Tina for bringing up Jimmy Lai. He should be the Nelson Mandela of our time but he is not. Let's keep him in the news and support all the other incarcerated democracy activists in Hong Kong and China.
Best Substack subscription I have taken. Thank you, Tina. You cover the waterfront with engaging topics written with your usual wit and style. I was particularly touched by your reminiscences of your happy life with Harry. I lost my wonderful Roman-born husband in April and am still coming to grips with the silence and loss. I sat next to a woman 2 weeks ago who asked me why I wasn't "out there," and I was appalled at even the thought. Seeing a new piece from you in my email is a joy!
delighted that Fresh Hell is landing well with you. And so sorry for your loss in April. I wish I could say it gets easier, but friends and family are a wonderful consolation. Happy H0lidays Tina
You may not be able to cook but I feel so well fed by your writing. As a pre-teen, I'd ferret away my mom's VFs (and not just for Raquel Welch and those Olympians), and then became the insufferable teenager with the New Yorker under his arm (in the Canadian prairie). Even if I didn't know what you were talking about, I felt smarter by dint of just having read you. Now I'm hardly satiated by the popcorn of Buzzfeed or the bon bons of Vulture or the vegetables of the grey lady. But reading this substack is like tucking into something fantastic again. Can't wait for the 2025 iteration and beyond.
Yes. To it all. I will re-post your section on widowhood ("women over 70" is my niche, and you have hit the heart of most of my friends with your story). What are you writing is not only good, it is important, and your fearlessness is an inspiration.
Grief is a sneaky pathogen, the absent arm ballast among familiar chatterati at the cocktail party, the shape-shifting Cassandra upending our placid dreams. I’ve lost two brothers and a sister-in-law in the last two seasons, and I can’t anticipate when it will hit me until suddenly I find myself in an envelope of stasis. It is a calculus of loss conducive to florid overstatement (such as this) – until you’ve been there. When you published my profile of Tommy Tune, Harry reached out to me. “So when are you doing a book with us?” he asked. Perhaps he said that to every VF virgin, but who cares? The ego boost could have launched a rocket. Let others celebrate his genius as editor and mentor. I recall his kindness and sensitivity and enthusiasm.
Later, when artists under lethal threat were added to my brief at Bloomberg News (a humbling counterweight to my coverage of Broadway), the writers, artists, and assorted gadflies in Cuba, China, Iraq, and Afghanistan I met and wrote about taught me the true meaning of bravery, commitment, and sacrifice. And so I applaud your heartfelt nod to Jimmy Lai.
And speaking of Quogue: I grew up in Port Washington, on the North Shore of Long Island. One weekend each summer, my father and his fellow high school teachers, a garrulous bunch, rented a couple of cottages in Quogue among the onion and potato fields for a few days of clam digging, beer drinking, immodest tale-telling, and corn husking, all culminating in a clambake of Dionysian pleasures. The East End of the '50s was where school teachers and artists could afford to live, or at least hang out with like souls. I hope your holidays are rum soaked and log warmed and full of happy clichés.
Jeremy this was all so heartening to read. I am sure Harry was genuinely jazzed by Tommy Tune and saw a book in it. He had such a great eye for talent. Media is such a car wreck these days and we both worked in more excitin times, we were lucky. Have a great Holidays and thanks for your enthusiasm for Fresh Hell T
I hope you find someone who loves you just as are and who also has a desire for silence and retreat. Necessary things for creativity. Fun really comes when we can be who we are. I have a feeling if you do want to meet someone it will be while you are doing something you love. I recall you saying somewhere that your husband could tell when you’d a great day because you had that light in your eyes. Your openness is a tonic!
Thank you Lisa, yes collaborating is the best way to meet someone who is a soul mate, but I am really fine with my solo life and my amazing circle of friends. Have a great Holidays and so glad to have you as a Fresh Hell reader. T
Tina, what about using some free time to write about your years after The Vanity Fair Diaries, editing the New Yorker, launching Talk etc.? The memoir surely can’t be finished!
"Consigliere" is a word I didn't know I'd missed seeing, but I'm sure we'll be seeing more of it now. PS - the photos of you and your husband are beautiful
How do you feel about ironman Pritzker from Chicago? He seems enough of a tough guy, he is wealthy, he is a Democrat, and maybe the right man for the job.
It's not a hobby. And I am presuming. But I kind of think you would enjoy doing something hands-on in the nuts & bolts realm of literacy training with some volunteer group—maybe GED tutoring or English As a Second Language tutoring.
I do realize your experience & fame puts you at a disadvantage here because these volunteer groups would rather use you as a figurehead.
But I think you would find the hands-on work immensely rewarding.
Trouble is i spend so much time helping out ( with joy) media friends and authors trying to reboot theirl ives in media's falling masonry, not sure I have the time but thanks for the suggestion! Happy Holidays Tina
Tina this is sheer brilliance. Have a lovely festive time free from the glittering mirage of craziness. Look forward to more in 2025. You make me appreciate Substack and now I have an excellent idea for a gift for my discerning pals. Only ones I gave now - thankfully
The Democrats will rally if they can absorb 2 noble lessons from Trump. 1 - aspirational optics. 2 - talk directly to the people. In person. The only one who’s achieving these 2 basic concepts is AOC. Bringing wins home for the team (under budget) would also help.
As far as dating, I’m as lost as anyone but all the older women I pay attention to (Cher, Madonna, Sam Taylor-Johnson, my mom…) all went younger and seem happy and well-fed for it. The market exists!
I felt bad for AOC that the gerentocracy won again on the job she wanted. And I think I am fine with my solo life with so many wonderful friends around, but i hear you on the toy boys..... T
Tina, this sub stack is absolutely in a class by itself. Fresh Hell, indeed! Your paragraph in this one, specifically telling the Democratic establishment explicitly what they need to do to climb out of their self-inflicted Hell of recurrent election beat-downs is perfectly trenchant and very much needed. Beginning way back, from Carter, then Mondale, then Dukakis, to now losing twice to the real life version of the sh*t demon from Dogma, your clarity of thought needs to be adopted. The Dems need more candidates like Kamala Harris, only not sent into the fray wearing leg weights and given a truncated campaign in which to fight. In the words of James Carville, “the Democrats need to stop bringing tissue paper to political knife fights.” What’s it gonna take!? Thank you so much for offering FRESH HELL. Very much looking forward to all you will write in 2025! Happy New Year!
Thans so much for this. And deighted Fresh Hell is landing well with you. God knows what awaits us in 2025 but let's pray at least some of it is good. Happy Hpolidays Tina
Thanks Tina for bringing up Jimmy Lai. He should be the Nelson Mandela of our time but he is not. Let's keep him in the news and support all the other incarcerated democracy activists in Hong Kong and China.
I fear Jimmy will die in prison but the more we lobby the better.
Best Substack subscription I have taken. Thank you, Tina. You cover the waterfront with engaging topics written with your usual wit and style. I was particularly touched by your reminiscences of your happy life with Harry. I lost my wonderful Roman-born husband in April and am still coming to grips with the silence and loss. I sat next to a woman 2 weeks ago who asked me why I wasn't "out there," and I was appalled at even the thought. Seeing a new piece from you in my email is a joy!
delighted that Fresh Hell is landing well with you. And so sorry for your loss in April. I wish I could say it gets easier, but friends and family are a wonderful consolation. Happy H0lidays Tina
You may not be able to cook but I feel so well fed by your writing. As a pre-teen, I'd ferret away my mom's VFs (and not just for Raquel Welch and those Olympians), and then became the insufferable teenager with the New Yorker under his arm (in the Canadian prairie). Even if I didn't know what you were talking about, I felt smarter by dint of just having read you. Now I'm hardly satiated by the popcorn of Buzzfeed or the bon bons of Vulture or the vegetables of the grey lady. But reading this substack is like tucking into something fantastic again. Can't wait for the 2025 iteration and beyond.
Hooray this makes me very happy indeed and delighted you are getting the sustenance I can't serve up for dinner! Happy Holidays Tina
I have just subscribed. You are a breath of fresh air. Thank you.
Blessings to you! Many thanks T
Yes. To it all. I will re-post your section on widowhood ("women over 70" is my niche, and you have hit the heart of most of my friends with your story). What are you writing is not only good, it is important, and your fearlessness is an inspiration.
I am so glad it's hittinng home - inspires me to keep going. Happy Holidays and thanks Tina
Grief is a sneaky pathogen, the absent arm ballast among familiar chatterati at the cocktail party, the shape-shifting Cassandra upending our placid dreams. I’ve lost two brothers and a sister-in-law in the last two seasons, and I can’t anticipate when it will hit me until suddenly I find myself in an envelope of stasis. It is a calculus of loss conducive to florid overstatement (such as this) – until you’ve been there. When you published my profile of Tommy Tune, Harry reached out to me. “So when are you doing a book with us?” he asked. Perhaps he said that to every VF virgin, but who cares? The ego boost could have launched a rocket. Let others celebrate his genius as editor and mentor. I recall his kindness and sensitivity and enthusiasm.
Later, when artists under lethal threat were added to my brief at Bloomberg News (a humbling counterweight to my coverage of Broadway), the writers, artists, and assorted gadflies in Cuba, China, Iraq, and Afghanistan I met and wrote about taught me the true meaning of bravery, commitment, and sacrifice. And so I applaud your heartfelt nod to Jimmy Lai.
And speaking of Quogue: I grew up in Port Washington, on the North Shore of Long Island. One weekend each summer, my father and his fellow high school teachers, a garrulous bunch, rented a couple of cottages in Quogue among the onion and potato fields for a few days of clam digging, beer drinking, immodest tale-telling, and corn husking, all culminating in a clambake of Dionysian pleasures. The East End of the '50s was where school teachers and artists could afford to live, or at least hang out with like souls. I hope your holidays are rum soaked and log warmed and full of happy clichés.
Jeremy this was all so heartening to read. I am sure Harry was genuinely jazzed by Tommy Tune and saw a book in it. He had such a great eye for talent. Media is such a car wreck these days and we both worked in more excitin times, we were lucky. Have a great Holidays and thanks for your enthusiasm for Fresh Hell T
I hope you find someone who loves you just as are and who also has a desire for silence and retreat. Necessary things for creativity. Fun really comes when we can be who we are. I have a feeling if you do want to meet someone it will be while you are doing something you love. I recall you saying somewhere that your husband could tell when you’d a great day because you had that light in your eyes. Your openness is a tonic!
Thank you Lisa, yes collaborating is the best way to meet someone who is a soul mate, but I am really fine with my solo life and my amazing circle of friends. Have a great Holidays and so glad to have you as a Fresh Hell reader. T
Tina, what about using some free time to write about your years after The Vanity Fair Diaries, editing the New Yorker, launching Talk etc.? The memoir surely can’t be finished!
I am noddling doing just that and hope that Fresh Hell is the way to limber up! Thanks for suggesting and Happy Holidays T
"Consigliere" is a word I didn't know I'd missed seeing, but I'm sure we'll be seeing more of it now. PS - the photos of you and your husband are beautiful
So glad you liked and discovered a new word! Merci beaucoup for writing T
Crap. Now I can't stop seeing this amalgam-man in my head: "Think Rahm Emanuel’s brain and pugilism with Mark Wahlberg’s abs and pecs."
Well, I will take Rahm's brain if we cant't get the rest of it. He's looking qute buff these days T
You made me cry on that one.
How do you feel about ironman Pritzker from Chicago? He seems enough of a tough guy, he is wealthy, he is a Democrat, and maybe the right man for the job.
Fear he's not irrerverent enough for the young, but definitely an improvement on some......
>>What, for instance, is a hobby?.<<
It's not a hobby. And I am presuming. But I kind of think you would enjoy doing something hands-on in the nuts & bolts realm of literacy training with some volunteer group—maybe GED tutoring or English As a Second Language tutoring.
I do realize your experience & fame puts you at a disadvantage here because these volunteer groups would rather use you as a figurehead.
But I think you would find the hands-on work immensely rewarding.
Just a thought! 😀
Trouble is i spend so much time helping out ( with joy) media friends and authors trying to reboot theirl ives in media's falling masonry, not sure I have the time but thanks for the suggestion! Happy Holidays Tina
Tina this is sheer brilliance. Have a lovely festive time free from the glittering mirage of craziness. Look forward to more in 2025. You make me appreciate Substack and now I have an excellent idea for a gift for my discerning pals. Only ones I gave now - thankfully
Very delighted to hear this and to know you are enjoying Fresh Hell. Hooray and Happy Holidays Tina
The Democrats will rally if they can absorb 2 noble lessons from Trump. 1 - aspirational optics. 2 - talk directly to the people. In person. The only one who’s achieving these 2 basic concepts is AOC. Bringing wins home for the team (under budget) would also help.
As far as dating, I’m as lost as anyone but all the older women I pay attention to (Cher, Madonna, Sam Taylor-Johnson, my mom…) all went younger and seem happy and well-fed for it. The market exists!
I felt bad for AOC that the gerentocracy won again on the job she wanted. And I think I am fine with my solo life with so many wonderful friends around, but i hear you on the toy boys..... T
And Happy Holidays - delighted to have you as a Freh Hell reader. Tina
Don’t know where to start! Thank you!!
Delighted to have you as a Fresh Hell reader. Have a greta 2025 Tina
Tina, this sub stack is absolutely in a class by itself. Fresh Hell, indeed! Your paragraph in this one, specifically telling the Democratic establishment explicitly what they need to do to climb out of their self-inflicted Hell of recurrent election beat-downs is perfectly trenchant and very much needed. Beginning way back, from Carter, then Mondale, then Dukakis, to now losing twice to the real life version of the sh*t demon from Dogma, your clarity of thought needs to be adopted. The Dems need more candidates like Kamala Harris, only not sent into the fray wearing leg weights and given a truncated campaign in which to fight. In the words of James Carville, “the Democrats need to stop bringing tissue paper to political knife fights.” What’s it gonna take!? Thank you so much for offering FRESH HELL. Very much looking forward to all you will write in 2025! Happy New Year!
Thans so much for this. And deighted Fresh Hell is landing well with you. God knows what awaits us in 2025 but let's pray at least some of it is good. Happy Hpolidays Tina