AN EVEN OLDER AND MORE GRIZZLED MAGAZINE editor than I once told me that sometimes the job is less to be the manager of the team than a cheerleader. Rather than raging from the dugout at the poor positioning of the players, better to stand decorously on the sidelines in an overcomplicated outfit, shouting encouragement and kicking your feet in the air, if you still can, and let the heroes on the pitch get on with the business of being brilliant without interference.
The cover story of this issue is one of those happy occasions where I can take no personal credit at all.
The writer Simon Garfield came to me with the idea of following Elvis Costello through all 10 nights of his recent residency at the Gramercy Theatre, in Manhattan, with the ambition of building an unusual profile of one of the all-time greats of pop music — a man whose energy and ambition seem undimmed, more than four decades into his astonishing career.
Simon had already arranged the whole thing with Costello and his people. All I had to do was say yes. I said yes. And then find a photographer who might like to go along for the ride. I called another Simon, Simon Emmett, who also said yes, and then I introduced them, and left them to it. That call was pretty much the extent of my contribution.
Off they went to New York, under their own steam, with, as I say, no help from me. Here I stayed in London, sending them the occasional cheerleading email and getting on with other stuff of vital importance. (Funny how one forgets so quickly, but I don’t doubt that, whatever I was up to, it was integral to Esquire’s future success.)
The resulting story, which also owes an unpayable debt to Costello himself, provides, I think, a rare encounter with a remarkable man: funny, sharp, uncompromising and, in his own way, as cool and commanding as anyone who ever stood on a stage.
In our era of blandly scripted Zoom interviews and dismal promotional junkets, it is a pleasure to be able to bring you a substantial conversation with a giant of pop culture, plus a set of photos that capture the self-possession — and the gleeful mischief-making — of a master showman and songwriter, independent of the PR spin cycle and untethered from the productflogging content-factory farm.
But don’t thank me. Just sit back and enjoy the show. I know the Simons did.
Other stuff that had nothing to do with me: Miranda Collinge’s terrific piece about Ken, “boyfriend” of Barbie. Miranda’s idea, prompted by the fact that this summer we are to be treated (time will tell if that’s the word) to a big-screen Barbie movie, starring Margot Robbie as the leggy doll and Ryan Gosling as her gelded beau, was to get beneath the plastic of an uncomfortably freighted icon of anti-masculinity. What makes Ken tick? (If, indeed, Ken t
