Culture

1922 saw its fair share of shocks in the literary world, among them the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses, Sinclair Lewis’s Babbitt and T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. But perhaps the strangest book-related event of the year didn’t involve any writing at all, at least not as performed by human agency. Instead, the author was a ghost. The setting was a darkened room at the Ambassador Hotel in New Jersey’s Atlantic City, where on the warm Sunday afternoon of June 18, 1922, Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame sat down between his wife Jean and the celebrated escapologist Harry Houdini to hold a séance. The first two of these individuals were advocates of spiritualism, the last of them a skeptic.

In the lobby of the Holiday Inn Chantilly, there’s a leak in the ceiling. Next to the pail collecting the drips sits Stormy Daniels, her client and a haunted doll called Susan. This is a normal — and paranormal — afternoon for the world’s most notorious porn star. In the time since her hush-money imbroglio with President Trump, Daniels has dedicated her time to directing porn, making some for her OnlyFans, reality TV show appearances… and the supernatural. Her latest venture sees her reading tarot for clients who book with her online. This is what has brought Cockburn to the fringes of the Exxxotica DC convention. “I usually do these up in the room,” Stormy explains, festively dressed in a red-and-black checked shirt and a snowflake necklace.

There’s a perplexing debate buzzing online about where babies come from, and liberals are highlighting the fundamentally warped way they view human life and relationships. Author Gabrielle Blair is making waves for her groundbreaking discovery that if men stopped ejaculating inside women, we would have fewer unwanted pregnancies and abortions (though Blair, herself a Mormon mother of six, believes “women that want or need an abortion should be able to get one whenever they want or need one”). In promoting her new book, Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think about Abortion, Blair has been advocating for free vasectomies and for a “social campaign that talks about the reality of vasectomies.

Northern Virginia is a wasteland. Twenty or so miles due west of Washington, DC you'll find a series of nondescript neighborhoods, with no distinct identity, no true town centers, a barely broken chain of outlet stores and closed restaurants. The stretch of highway leading from Arlington to Dulles Airport is the urban equivalent of an ellipsis: a “loading” screen of locales. There could be no more suitable place to host the most conventional of conventions. And conventions can be frightfully dull. Cockburn would know: his lengthy tenure with The Spectator has seen him grace the stalls of CPAC, AIPAC, the RNC. He is far too familiar with the jangle of elevator musak, the freebie fridge magnets, the plastic press passes. When it comes to corporate America, he has seen everything.

Madison Cawthorn, the one-hit-wonder congressman from North Carolina who was defeated in his primary earlier this year, used his final address on the House floor yesterday to condemn “soft metrosexuals.” In the spirit of not kicking a guy when he’s down (Cawthorn will be gone by January), let’s cut him some slack and acknowledge that, melodramatic language aside, his speech made a valid point. Social media is to blame, at least in part, for weakening American culture. “America is weak,” Cawthorn declared. “Her sons are sickly, and her daughters are decrepit. Our country now faces the consequences of enabling a participation trophy society. We’re no longer the United States. We’ve become the nanny state.

I’ve often thought that a candid fly-on-the-wall documentary about the production of the Harry Potter films would be considerably more entertaining than any of the lackluster pictures themselves (Alfonso Cuaron’s excellent Prisoner of Azkaban duly excepted). Alan Rickman’s recent diaries suggest that the sets were unhappy, frantic places where actors were seldom allowed to create memorable characters and where the focus on the juvenile performers meant that one of the finest British ensemble casts ever assembled often functioned as little more than expensive set-dressing. Yet more than a decade after the final film, the actors continue to command headlines, some of which is thanks to Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling’s views on the trans issue.

“Why don’t more men take their wives’ last names?” asked the Washington Post in a recent piece about a Maine husband who took his wife’s name. And why is it less common for a woman to keep her existing last name, which accounted for only about 20 percent of marrying women in 2015? Amazingly, even in our progressive era, women are still choosing to assume the names of their husbands. It’s obvious what side WaPo comes down on. Their article quotes an author who labels women taking their husbands' last names “bizarre and anachronistic.” It quotes the mother of another husband who took his wife's name, praising her son’s decision for “subvert[ing] the dominant paradigm.

America is enduring a mental health crisis, and you need go no farther than your local Barnes & Noble bookstore to see evidence. I was an avid journal-keeper for years and love all things paper, so I get a little giddy perusing the “stationery and gifts” section. Last weekend, however, rather than being energized by the prospect of filling one of those gorgeous, gilded, supple leather books with my most brilliant thoughts and sweetest sentimentalities, I was left feeling sad about the message sent by so many of the journals, planners, and gifts for sale. Judging from the featured items, you’d be led to believe America is a nation of depressed, exhausted, anxiety-ridden alcoholics. And for the most part, you’d be right.

Peroxide blonde hair, black sullen eyes and teeth like Pez candies. That hardly sounds like the face of a dream man. But Pete Davidson is not just any man; in the last ten years he has transformed from a nobody New York stand-up to every woman’s favorite plus-one. Davidson is a contested sex symbol. Women spend their Saturday nights salivating at Saturday Night Live, thinking about how they'd offer up their firstborn for one date with the comedian. Men, on the other hand, think we’re mental. They just don’t get Pete’s appeal. So, gents, I’d like to tell you what it is about Pete. I’ll start with the obvious: it has been well-reported that the comedian is well endowed. Ariana Grande once tweeted, then deleted, "ten inches," but she was probably just being nice.

Ladies and gentlemen, he’s done it again. Pete Davidson is reportedly dating Emily Ratajkowski: model, businesswoman and certified stunner. The news isn’t that shocking to Cockburn after seeing the string of babes Davidson has dated in the past. The list includes Ariana Grande, Kate Beckinsale, Margaret Qualley, Kaia Gerber, Phoebe Dynevor and most recently Kim Kardashian. Pete’s whirlwind romance with Kardashian ended earlier this year after just nine months together. Thank goodness Skete got rid of his tattoos dedicated to Kim that read, “My girl is a lawyer,” and also the initials of Kim and her four kids; KNSCP, representing North, Saint, Chicago and Psalm.

Bella Hadid ate burritos today, in case anyone was wondering. Kourtney Kardashian had a smoothie and Paris Hilton had a facial. These snippets of celebrity lives have become so accessible through social media that many of us see these characters more than our family members. But lately, along with recipes and promotions of their new album, fans are increasingly seeing too much. Just this month we’ve witnessed Kanye West’s chaotic downfall, which has now — thankfully — resulted in him vowing to take a month of silence after spurting antisemitic hate for the past few weeks. Lately I’ve seen Madonna’s breasts more than my own — though thankfully I've not yet taken to licking water out of a dog bowl.

Brearley is an all-girls day school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side with a $150 million endowment and an unparalleled history of academic excellence. Its alumnae are among the most capable, accomplished and charming women on the planet. Its graduates include publisher Dorothy Schiff, arts patron Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, and actresses Ann Baxter, Téa Leoni, and Jill Clayburgh. The list of Brearley’s serious, soignée women is long. Legendary English instructor Frances Taliaferro was an essayist and book reviewer for Harper’s magazine. Head Priscilla Winn Barlow ranks among the great educators of her generation. The place has always had a dash of marching suffragette and limousine liberal, but hey, this is Gotham, not Grover’s Corners.

There was a time in recent memory (i.e., my childhood) when on October 31, kids dressed up in whatever costumes they wanted, roamed their neighborhoods at dusk and even past dark, accepted candy from strangers, and had an innocently fun time trick-or-treating. Their parents were aware of this Halloween tradition and approved of it, as did most Americans. Fast-forward to now, and Halloween is just another enjoyable tradition-turned-casualty of pretend progressive paranoia.

After weeks of media speculation, Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen have announced that their divorce is finalized. Cockburn is not one to celebrate the demise of anyone’s marriage, especially when children are involved. He thinks very highly (theoretically, at least) of commitment, fidelity, happily ever after, and all that. But morality aside, Cockburn can’t help but be convinced that Tom Brady is getting the better end of this divorce deal — by far. Here’s the thing: Gisele had the dream life. She was wife to a hot, filthy-rich husband whose job it is to play a game for 18 weeks out of the year. She also got to be a mother without ever having to worry about many of the things that stress out most mothers: cooking, cleaning, paying the bills.

Maybe it was all those drinks he guzzled after demanding the restaurant comp them, but James Corden forgot for a whole week that his wife has a food allergy. He used this clever excuse to try to explain away his alleged “extremely nasty behavior” that got him banned from Balthazar’s in New York, a swanky French restaurant. Keith McNally, Balthazar’s owner, labeled Corden "the most abusive customer" in his establishment’s 25-year history. McNally detailed on Instagram two accounts of abuse Balthazar’s staff received from Corden. One involved the comedian supposedly finding a hair in his food and insisting afterward on free drinks as compensation, with an added threat of bad restaurant reviews.

Being an eclectic chap, Cockburn has sampled his fair share of music. And he’s not ashamed to admit, contrary to Al Michaels’s suggestion that Taylor Swift only appeals to teenage girls, that he considers himself a “Swiftie” — not least of all because Swift makes repeated reference to one of his favorite activities: drinking alcohol. Swift just released her new album, Midnights, along with an official music video to accompany her catchy and oh-so-clever song, Anti-Hero. The video tells you all you need to know about Swift’s preferred method for dealing with her problems. Though she never mentions booze by name, she appears in the video taking shots and desperately shaking the last drop from a bottle of wine directly into her mouth.