"I didn’t actually beg to get my table at the Waverly Inn. I had other people do it for me. And once inside, I must admit, I felt pretty damn good about myself," wrote Adam Platt in New York magazine in 2007: "There is no reservationist, and no telephone number for chumps from Syosset or Teaneck to call." Wrote the Times in 2008: "Insiders just call Mr. Carter’s office"—that's Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair—"directly but it is in fact possible to drop by the reservations desk at the restaurant and book a table for those netherworld hours before 6:30 or after 11:15 p.m." READ MORE

We are living in a weird time of magazine editor's letters! The April GQ editor's letter from Jim Nelson decries the Johnny-come-latelies of people caring about the Middle East. ("And Yemen Would Be... Where Exactly?") You tell 'em, buddy. And now, in his May issue, Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter goes big, trashing Bravo's Andy Cohen and CNBC host Larry Kudlow ("prime examples of the danger of trying to live in your own socio-economic comfort bubble and wanting to have a public voice at the same time") and then goes hog-wild on the subject of economic inequality—on the "danger of leaving overwhelming wealth and power in the grasp of a small minority." This is unexpected! (And it seems a little like EW writing an attack on the celebrity industrial complex? Which, please let them never do!) Meanwhile, the April's Town and Country brings editor Stephen Drucker's farewell letter; his chair is being given to Jay Fielden. And also, he writes: "We're privileged this month to visit the Lyford Cay Club, the easy-chic private community in the Bahamas that's the essence of the Town & Country life." (There's also a spread on "The Women of Santa Barbara." Yes, all of them! Kidding, just seven of them, including Baroness Léni Fé Bland.) Phew! It's so reassuring to find the expected.

Regarding the rise of publicist culture, and the death of reporting jobs, comes the news this morning that some time ago the Vanity Fair Proust Questionnaire became no longer administered by an actual live person on the phone or in person-but is instead delivered in print form to a celebrity's representative. Most likely via the tawdry communication form called "email." This news was revealed in an equally hard-hitting interview of Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter by Matt Lauer this morning, on the occasion of the arrival of a collection of the Questionnaires in book form.

Layoffs at Vanity Fair have been ongoing since yesterday-they're not centralized, which means that editor Graydon Carter need not be present. And that's handy, as the rumor that Carter was on a private plane is indeed said by staffers to be true. Well, while he was out, a trend emerged, according to a staffer, as department heads made their layoff choices. Of the 13 or so let go so far-with possibly a few more yet to come-only two were men. And of the 11 women let go, it's estimated that just three five of them were under 35. The overall office population, with some variation by department (photo and fashion are mostly women; editors are largely men), has a fairly even gender distribution. Although the one senior editor that was laid off was a woman.

Last night, delightful character Fran Lebowitz got cornered at Graydon Carter's party, and asked about McKinsey, the consultants who are making recommendations on how to overhaul the Conde Nast Magazine Empire of the Sun. Fran! "Why do you need to hire anyone to tell you what to do? If I owned a magazine and I needed advice, I'd ask myself. I don't understand this. I don't understand what their purpose is." THANK YOU, THIS IS WHAT WE ARE SAYING.

In response to my long-ass screed about Graydon Carter yesterday, a reader writes: "Great bit, and I'm reluctant to criticise because your précis of the Euro elections was great, but the Telegraph didn't just pay to get a jump on their rivals. The July the 1st release is going to be redacted. For 'safety' reasons many personal details and, most importantly, the addresses of MPs are being witheld. Without these it would have been impossible to uncover the repeated 'flipping' of the designated second home or its presence far from Westminster. READ MORE

Taking Graydon Carter's Vanity Fair editor's letters seriously is probably, on the whole, less pernicious than, say, taking anything Michael Wolff ever writes seriously. Carter doesn't need to be outrageous; he knows that attention will accrue to him no matter what he says (or doesn't), unlike Wolff, whose increasingly desperate pleas for attention will no doubt shortly result in a blog post about how only Michael Wolff has the courage to admit that black people are scary. That said, Carter's current missive irks the hell out of me. Because it's just plain wrong. READ MORE

Hey, we read that big article on S.I. Newhouse and family, the owners of Conde Nast, in New York magazine! READ MORE