EDITOR'S LETTER

TUNE IN

The great thing about writing an editor's letter is that readers write back.

Since I started this page in September I've received a ton of mail from every square of America's patchwork quilt. I sometimes feel like a radio ham flicking between stations, tuning in, between the static of unfamiliar handwriting, to the aggressive comments of a Chicago yuppie, the courtly compliments of a Louisiana socialite, the ten-gallon enthusiasm of a Texas realtor, the crisp cadences of an opinionated Boston Wasp.

Come in, Angel Corpus Christi of San Francisco. . .I'm glad you dig Stretch the limo driver's contributions. Can you hear me, Birdie Bloch of New York City? "Circus freaks" seems a bit strong for Sylvester Stallone and Brigitte Nielsen on the November cover, but perhaps "Rambo with Bimbo" might have been a better caption. Over to you, Don Dondero in Reno. No, charity is not my motive in publishing Susan Sontag. Norah Wood of Flint, Michigan? Thanks for telling us we're smooth, bright, and delicious. Connie Oksol of Minneapolis? Obviously I can't agree that the men we feature are mediocre, bigmouthed, old coots. Stay tuned, Mrs. Smith of Seattle, Bob Colacello has plenty more royal stories like Gloria von Thum und Taxis, and I have plenty more like "The Mouse That Roared." Bill X. of Longboat Key, Florida? I'm sorry V.F. is sabotaging your sex life. Perhaps you should choose a less taxing moment in the day to read it. No, John L. Brooks of Cleburne, Texas, I don't play tennis.

Not all the voices are full of money, by the way. Describing Vanity Fair's demographics last September, I noted that our average subscriber was 33.9, with a median net worth of nearly $150,000. This unleashed a storm of complaints from upwardly mobile octogenarians and other exceptions to the rule who now fear they're eccentric for liking the magazine so much. That's certainly not what I meant to suggest. V.F. is edited for a sensibility as much as for an age group. You can have dowager's hump at twenty-seven if you read the wrong magazine or be a swinging Vanity Fair reader at seventy-five.

Most gratifying of all, perhaps, was a long letter from the real and the mythical Peoria, where it seems we play con brio. Mr. Roger Osborne, a twenty-seven-year-old academic at Bradley University, describes how V.F. articles have turned him on to Paul Bowles and Harold Brodkey, diverted him with the photos of Women You Want to Sit Next To, intrigued him with the inside story of Claus von Biilow. Like many readers who live far from metropolitan action, he tells us that for him V.F. is an intellectual food parcel, bringing the whiff of the first night to shopping-mall isolation.

So let's unwrap January.

This is a juicy issue, all right. Christopher Byron's riveting expose of how decisions are made by the top brass at Time Inc. will be eaten up by anyone who's ever stumbled down the labyrinths of a big corporation. Specifically, it is the story of a launch that bombed. Three years ago, with much hype and hullabaloo, Time Inc. unveiled plans for a new magazine called TV-Cable Week—a project that consumed $47 million and a staff of 250. On page 66 you can read how the project proceeded inexorably from birth to belly flop. Byron himself worked at Time Inc. for thirteen years as a foreign correspondent and served on the doomed ship TV-Cable Week as a senior editor. He is now an assistant managing editor at Forbes magazine, and doesn't expect to be Time's Man of the Year.

Also in this issue there's Robert Mayer's strange narrative about an Oklahoma murder mystery, in which dreams and fantasies mesh with the sinister disappearance of a young woman that has never been explained; and Marie Brenner's pungent profile of presidential hopeful Jumpin' Jack Kemp. Add the seasoning of a picture postcard from Mustique, in which batty aristocrats calypso on a Caribbean beach, and you have a sustaining winter mixture.

Is it any wonder David Bowie is doing high kicks on the cover? In fact, he's acting out his spring-heeled role in the British movie Absolute Beginners, which is coming soon to a cinema near you.

Meanwhile, be assured I devour your letters as eagerly as you devour V.F.

Over and out.

Editor in chief