The Coaster Correspondence

VANITIES

More of the very expensive words of Edwin John Coaster, contributing editor

EDWIN COASTER October 1, 2001 Dear Graydon: O.K., so you're not returning my phone calls-I know the deal. Halberstam tells me you're miffed at me for appearing on Charlie Rose and "demeaning" your public comments about the end of irony. Permit me to clear a few things up, Gray. When I said that irony wasn't dead but that the age of the glossy monthly was, what I was trying to convey is that Vanity Pair is finding a new seriousness of purpose in these times, under your vigorous direction. When I said, "What the hell does Graydon know about irony anyway?," I was trying to make the distinction that py magazine trafficked more in satire, which is hardly the same thing. And when I said you have your head up your ass and should go back to Canada-well, there I simply misspoke. There. Are we friends now? O.K., on to practical matters. When are you going to run that "High-End Hookers of Manhattan" piece I turned in last August? And let's get me to Pakistan A.S.A.P. There's life in this old war correspondent yet Best,

VANITY FAIR PUNCH HUTTON ASSISTANT TO THE EDITOR 10/3/01 Dear Ed: Graydon has asked me to tell you that he is adamantly opposed to publishing your call-girl piece, especially since he never assigned it in the first place and knows you wrote it originally for the London Telegraph's Sunday magazine. As far as Pakistan, Graydon has already committed to sending other reporters, but you are more than welcome to go on your own time and money. Sincerely,

Peshawar, Pakistan 10/8/01 Graydon: This old correspondent's in his element again. choes of Saigon-the bombs falling, the whispers of intelligence and counterintelligence, the long hours spent drinking with ruddy Australian journos at the hotel bar. One of them, named Iaian Skint, is hooking me up with a guide named Ahmed, who says he can get me all the way to Kabul. Will continue this letter as I make my way. 10/10/01 It's night, and we are encamped in the no-man'sland between northern Pakistan and northeast Afghanistan. I peck away on my TJnderwood by the light of a goat that Abined has set on fire. We nibble flatbreads and gnaw on smuggled cheroots. I offer Ah~ed a swig from the bottle of Blanton's I picked up at the duty-free in Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands. Ne spits angrily on my Tretorns. 10/11/01 We are in Afghanistan! Abmed introduces me to Nadir, a lieutenant in the Northern Alliance, who is an English-speaking, Harvard-educated fellow who has read some of my books! There is a good side in this war, I'm realizing. Nadir tells us that we can get closer to Kabul if I cover myself head to toe aburka, pretend I'm a woman, and ride in the

Continental Peshawar, Pakistan back of a truck down a dusty road that heads southwest toward a Taliban flogging center. I thank him and tell him if he's ever in the Penobscot Bay area 10/13/01 Back at the hotel in Peshawar. The truck scheme didn't work out. Ahmed refused to dress as a woman, so I went it alone, bundled onto a truck with some two dozen burka'd women of all ages. One of them kept looking at me; I could see her intense, beautiful eyes burning through the grille of her burka-almost like a look of recognition, or even longing? Overpowered by those eyes, I couldn't resist, reached out, and pulled the burka off-and it was Sebastian Junger! "Goddammit, Ed!" he screamed. At that point the ladies started fluttering like agitated mynah birds, and the driver stopped the truck, saw what was happening, and forced us off at gunpoint, firing rounds into the air as he drove away. Portunately, we were able to find Nadir six hours and 12 miles later at the alliance encampment. Will write again soon. Best, Ed

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