The coroner said the manner of death was suicide, with “blunt or injury to the head, trunk and extremities.” The dead man’s coworkers probably heard the crunch of breaking bones as his body hit the floor from stories above in the Amazon warehouse. It’s a strange sound, human bones cracking, hard to place, and it only becomes disgusting once you realize what you’ve heard.
A good New York City summer is filled with music. I sit backstage in the green room, supporting my closest friend as they prepare to go onstage. Another act, a popular young DJ, is being interviewed by the venue’s social media team. He pauses to seek assurance from the crew looking on that there will be plenty of zero-proof Heinekens available during his set. Someone confirms, and I’m instantly curious.
I know her face, and so do you. I know how her Breck-girl blowout falls around the gold cross at her throat. And I know the way she enters a room and approaches a podium before casting a sanctimonious gaze. Melissa Rein Lively, founder of America First PR, describes in Marie Claire the Trump woman as “elegant, powerful, hyper-feminine,” adding, “Femininity is our weapon, and by being beautiful and elegant, you can get a lot more out of life than you can by looking like crap.”
Before TikTok crowned legions of influencers, taste was ruled by a singular aristocracy: the magazine editors. In his debut book, Empire of the Elite: Inside Condé Nast, the Media Dynasty That Reshaped America, author and New York Times media correspondent Michael Grynbaum pleads the case for cultural gatekeeping in an era of algorithmic overwhelm and creative chaos. And what gatekeeper has wielded greater influence over the collective consciousness than the media conglomerate Condé Nast, which once, as Grynbaum reminds us, “had a foothold in nearly every sphere and phase of American life”?