On the subject of art, you’ve heard the skeptic standing in front of, say, an Alexander Liberman “Circle Painting,” ponder, “Well, I know what I like. But is it art?” Or is it just a circle that a Montessori geometry teacher may have rendered in oil on canvas with a protractor for a brush? When is a urinal a urinal, and not a Duchamp “readymade,” and so on?

The Waverly Inn may very well be the new Café Society, but we don’t see anyone lying around in settees there. Least of all its star chef John DeLucie, who likes a meal you can eat with one fork and has a story or two to tell in his upcoming memoir, The Hunger.

Nightly they come, exiting chauffeured limos and Maybachs, rushing by the paparazzi, and entering a Bilbo Baggins-sized door into the magical labyrinth called The Waverly Inn. There’s no need to name them. “They” have all been there, whether strolling from neighboring West Village brownstones (“Hey, Hah-vee! Can we get one shot?”), or “just in” from Los Angeles. Cannes. Sundance. Turks. Rehab.

Peasants uprise by eating and drinking there a lot.

For fear of sounding like Russ Smith, the Maryland crab-obsessed former editor and columnist of the New York Press, I will begin with talking about “my wife and I.” My wife Maddy and I have been pining not just for the fjords but for a Mexican restaurant in the West Village-SoHo zone that isn’t too purist, isn’t too cheesy -- the latter, literally. In all of Manhattan for that matter. We like La Esquina in SoHo. We love the enchiladas and the watermelon margaritas at West 14th Street’s El Rey del Sol (but it’s a dump, Miss Davis). God bless Tortilla Flats in the West Village for its Velveeta-y chile con queso and the enduringly sweet staff. But how long can you worship Ernest Borgnine and Bingo, while suffering James Brown and those uproarious bridal showers where some dog in a “squinchie” and pleated denim shorts takes off her top, and then weeps.

The fabled Chateau Marmont, on the cusp of its 80th year in business, has its ghosts, and they contribute to its distinct flavor. But it’s the colorful staff within Hollywood’s favorite country club that makes it one of the most magical hotels in the world. From the gatekeepers to the groundskeepers, here, a rare formal sit-down portrait that closed the grounds one spring day before the tiki torches flickered and the stars came out to play.

The Big House: Back row, from left: Frank Romero, Mario Bonilla, Steven Amador, Carlos Hernandez, Carl Hubbard, Demetra Verrios, Amanda Grandinetti (director of food and beverage), Nicole Kovacs, Daniel Devereaux. Middle row, from left: Gerardo Carreon, Jesus Moreno, Jesus Anguiano, Baltazar Anguiano, Luz Diaz, Oliver Favre, Keilana Smith, Nicholas Cochis, Federica Carrion (director of sales), Jose Acorin (“Big Jose”), Jose Aquino (“Little Jose”), Nat Gunter (director of wine), Graham Miller, Steffanie Sampson-Thomas, Dalia Ermann, Ray Montoya, Stinson Carter (bartender), Anya Varda (with sunglasses). Front row, from left: Noemy Navarrete, Ana Mendoza, Lula Anguiano, Carol O'Brien (director of human resources), Romulo Laki (the singing waiter), Philip Pavel (general manager), Jesse McBride, Seulgi Oh, Will Carter (social butterfly).

From Wilmington, Vermont to Topanga Canyon, California, test-driving the tiny two-seater.

The real danger of driving Mercedes-Benz’s twee new half-car, the e e cummings-named smart fortwo, isn’t that a strong wind on the highway can make you hold that wheel very tight. It’s the buffoons who honk and yell at you as if you’re Woody Allen in Sleeper. Or John Malkovich on the New Jersey Turnpike. “Hey Malkovich! Think fast!” Clunk. Going 65 miles per hour, heading from New York City to a friend’s house in Vermont, one douche actually started yelling at me to open my window. Like an idiot I did. And it was about the fourth time I had done it earlier in the day in the city. I do not learn.

Everyone has a place they travel to that is often more of a home than their actual one. No surprise to those who have heard me rave about it—some say, to extremes—that the Chateau Marmont is mine.

At least I’m not alone. Owned and operated by André Balazs for the past 18 years, and months from its 80th anniversary, the hotel strictly protects its illustrious guests’ privacy. Leaking “names” is forbidden. But a regular inhabitant there cannot help but meet and often befriend others in residence, famous or not. And over the years, many have told me their tales of extended stints, and how the Gothic castle on Sunset has taken them in.

Actor Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman traversed the globe in Long Way Round. Their next mission—captured in this summer’s documentary Long Way Down—took them from the top to the bottom of South Africa by motorcycle. Here, an exclusive taste of the turf.

McGregor, taking a break from his motorcycling, Simien Mountains, Ethiopia.

When we finished Long Way Round,” says Charley Boorman, son of Deliverance director John Boorman, “Ewan [McGregor] and I went back to our offices and pulled out a map of Africa. I think we had already decided before we came back from our trip that we were going to do Africa.” Says McGregor of their mission, “'One of the things that we wanted to do was to show the true and real side of Africa, all its many faces. We think of famine and we think of wildlife, and Africa’s got everything in between. What we found was that every country had its own identity, and is very, very different from the last.”

The shark was the showboat in Jaws, until it sank. But the circa 1975 clothes that Captain Quint, Matt Hooper, and Chief Brody wore aboard the Orca live on as rugged essentials for any real man.

The Academy Awards went to best Sound, Film Editing, and Original Score for Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, but to our line of thinking, best Costume Design should also have taken an Oscar. Yet awards presentations aren’t known for rewarding subtlety, and so, in a year heavy with period film nominations—The Four Musketeers, The Man Who Would Be King, and Barry Lyndon, the latter, which won the 1975 Oscar—it’s no surprise that the effortless Martha’s Vineyard-by-way-of-Manhattan style of Jaws’s lead characters went unnoticed.

Steve Garbarino (left), Editor-in-Chief of BlackBook magazine, is moving on to a position as Editor-at-Large of Maxim. Garbarino has been instrumental in making BlackBook a notable, inspirational player in a crowded media space. Ray Rogers (right) has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of BlackBook effective following the close of the August issue. The magazine’s former Features Editor worked hand-in-hand with Garbarino over the past two years to build the BlackBook brand. Rogers brings a formidable background in journalism, including a ten-year history at Interview magazine, and key positions at Manhattan File, OUT, and In Touch Weekly.

The Sundek surf trunk returns for another ride.

Before surfers began wearing “jams” that ran to their shins, like so many beach-going basketball players, wave riders favored a shorter, knee-high, butt-hugging, hip-hanging look (along with their feathered hair).

The brands and their labels were legend, and whichever you chose, you had to own every color. That is, if you were a part of surf culture from the ’70s through the ’80s (or your parents owned a beach house and you were trying to fit in with the local rats).