{"id":342,"date":"2009-04-13T12:59:37","date_gmt":"2009-04-13T17:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/?p=342"},"modified":"2009-04-13T12:59:37","modified_gmt":"2009-04-13T17:59:37","slug":"graydon-carter-cafe-sociologist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/13\/graydon-carter-cafe-sociologist\/","title":{"rendered":"Graydon Carter: Cafe Sociologist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Canadian-born wordsmith, editor, author, film producer, and restaurant entrepreneur <strong>Graydon Carter<\/strong> proves that the American Dream is more powerful than any other.\u00a0 I first met Graydon in the mid-1980s, when he, <strong>Kurt Anderson,<\/strong> and <strong>Tom Phillips<\/strong> were launching <strong><em>Spy<\/em><\/strong> magazine. It was a brash, bold, satirical look at the excess of the Reagan years. Graydon and <em>Spy<\/em> made fun of nearly every rich person or celebrity, and absolutely every symbol of the ostentation of the era. <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong>, famously dubbed a \u201cshort-fingered vulgarian,\u201d was their favorite target. They were the gadflies of the New York establishment, and they did it brilliantly.<\/p>\n<p>Almost 30 years later, Graydon could almost be a target of his former magazine, were it still in existence. He is the editor of\u00a0 the glossy <strong><em>Vanity Fair,<\/em><\/strong> which not only chronicles the lives and lifestyles of the rich and famous, but also helps define the elite with its annual New Establishment issue. He also owns the ultra-exclusive and hip Waverly Inn (no phone number for reservations\u2014you must know Graydon).<\/p>\n<p>Now he is orchestrating the resurrection (appropriate word for Easter Monday) of Midtown Manhattan\u2019s <strong>Monkey Bar<\/strong>\u2014the 21st-century equivalent of the famed <strong>Stork Club<\/strong> or <strong>El Morocco<\/strong> of the mid-20th century, which catered to, if not created, cafe society. Graydon is the conductor of the modern equivalent of cafe society, and he seems to be loving every moment. On my visit, the Monkey Bar was swinging, with writers (<strong>Fran Leibowitz<\/strong> among them), society stalwarts (<strong>Jennifer Creel<\/strong> and <strong>Paul Wilmot<\/strong>), reviewers (<strong>Tim and Nina Zagat<\/strong>), a few Hollywood stars (<strong>Donna Dixon<\/strong>), and, of course, the maestro himself present. What\u2019s more, the food is really good and the environment clubby, decidedly un-ostentatious chic. Yeah, I would say Graydon Carter is living the American Dream, and his way\u2014not bad for a middle-class boy from Ottawa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Graydon Carter<\/strong> and <em>Spy<\/em> made fun of nearly every rich person or celebrity, and absolutely every symbol of the ostentation of the era. <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong>, famously dubbed a \u201cshort-fingered vulgarian,\u201d was their favorite target. They were the gadflies of the New York establishment, and they did it brilliantly. Almost 30 years later, Graydon could almost be a target of his former magazine, were it still in existence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[100,110,104,105,95,106,96,102,107,99,98,103,108,109,97,101],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":359,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions\/359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}