OMG Natalie Portman is here! Photo: Getty Images
The Guardian did a funny except maybe unintentional thing this week wherein they profiled Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter — in the exact style of a Vanity Fair celebrity profile. “Even early on he was adept at crafting an image,” the writer explains, pausing to describe Carter’s “impeccably tasteful” office before going on to say that, despite his grand stature, dude is really, like, down-to-earth. “I don’t go to parties. I’m social but I’m not a socialite person,” says Carter. “I walk down the street and people don’t go, ‘my God, there he is.’ I lead as normal a life as you can lead in New York City.” Graydon! He’s just like us! Except when it comes to the Waverly seating chart, which Carter apparently does himself, every day, even if, we hear, it means infringing on a few minutes’ worth of editorial meetings. For this very important project, he uses skills honed through years of Oscar parties. “I’m a very shy person but I forced myself during the Oscar evenings to go out and be engaging to people and make them feel comfortable,” he tells the paper. “And then you learn how to seat people. Life is all about seating and lighting.” But of course it’s not just about seating and lighting! It’s about separating the wheat from the chaff, weeding out the undesirables, not letting any dorks on the volleyball team. In other words: Exclusion!
Because, according to Graydon: “It’s not what you put in, it’s what you leave out.”
And who. “If you walk into the Waverly Inn and the first person you saw is Simon Cowell you’d go, ‘OK I get this place now’. Everybody else could be fantastic but … I don’t mean to pick on Simon Cowell but if he was the first person … it’d be a different restaurant….”
That’s funny. Because if we walked into a restaurant and saw Simon Cowell, we’d think, “British people with buttwads of cash? Graydon Carter probably hangs out in a place like this.”
Vanity Flair [Guardian]
