My ‘piece of the week’

I haven’t nominated a ‘piece of the week’ before and I don’t know if I will again tbh. It might become a regular thing on here. It might not. Depends how I feel.

Exciting this, isn’t it?

Anyway, even though it’s only Thursday I am going to take the audacious step of nominating this week’s ‘piece of the week’ to be a Vanity Fair review of Donald Trump’s restaurant.

Before you read that, some background. There has been a longstanding and amusing feud running between Graydon Carter and Trump, and I will paste a chunk of an editor’s letter by Graydon from a 2015 issue of Vanity Fair below so you understand how it began.

“The myriad vulgarities of Donald Trump—examples of which are retailed daily on Web sites and front pages these days—are not news to those of us who have been living downwind of him for any period of time. I first encountered Trump more than 30 years ago. Back then he was a flashy go-getter from an outer borough eager to make his name in Manhattan real estate. Which he succeeded in doing in the only way he knew how: by putting his name in oversize type on anything he was associated with—buildings, yes, but also vodka, golf courses, starchy ties, and even a sham of a real-estate school. Most people who own private planes include their initials as part of the tail number. Not Trump. On his campaign jet, a Boeing 757, his name runs from the cockpit to the wings—in gold letters, 10 feet high.

Like so many bullies, Trump has skin of gossamer. He thinks nothing of saying the most hurtful thing about someone else, but when he hears a whisper that runs counter to his own vainglorious self-image, he coils like a caged ferret. Just to drive him a little bit crazy, I took to referring to him as a “short-fingered vulgarian” in the pages of Spy magazine. That was more than a quarter of a century ago. To this day, I receive the occasional envelope from Trump. There is always a photo of him—generally a tear sheet from a magazine. On all of them he has circled his hand in gold Sharpie in a valiant effort to highlight the length of his fingers. I almost feel sorry for the poor fellow because, to me, the fingers still look abnormally stubby. The most recent offering arrived earlier this year, before his decision to go after the Republican presidential nomination. Like the other packages, this one included a circled hand and the words, also written in gold Sharpie: “See, not so short!” I sent the picture back by return mail with a note attached, saying, “Actually, quite short.” Which I can only assume gave him fits.”

Lol.

And then today, Trump tweeted the below.

screen-shot-2016-12-15-at-3-26-39-pm

If you were president elect of America you might decide that something like, say, the evacuation of Aleppo warrants more attention today than a review of your shitty restaurant. But yet again, like an actual giant baby, Trump has confounded us all by choosing instead to bleat about a magazine editor on social media.

HERE is the review, by the way. It is excellent.

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