I especially enjoyed the little segment below. Until September 11, 2001 I was an avid Jeopardy viewer. I was excellent. My friends and I used to frequent a "Jeopardy Bar" after work from which the twin towers could be seen and from which you could be ejected while the show was on for speaking in anything other than the form of a relevant question. I even beta-tested online Jeopardy. But when regular broadcasting returned, and I think that was not until mid-February 2002 when finally the fire at "the pile" was extinguished, I could not bear to go back to Jeopardy. I don't know why. It felt empty and pointless. Somehow, I found Trading Spaces which felt like a constructive replacement. I watched it faithfully for years until a certain Senator from New York threw her chapeau into the presidential race, and I switched to cable news.
by Jonathan Van Meter | photographed by Mario Testino
The private reception in the library’s restaurant, Forty Two, spills out onto a big deck that overlooks the sun setting on the Arkansas River. There are margaritas and Mexican food, and the whole affair takes on the air of a big family barbecue, with children running around, folks getting tipsy, and everyone going back for seconds. Chelsea is holding court with her friends, among them interior designer Ryan Lawson and Dan Baer, a deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor at the U.S. Department of State. Hillary is regaling them with stories. The conversation turns to the fact that Dorothy had a real knack for making a beautiful home, which then leads to the revelation that Hillary’s guilty pleasure, the thing she does when she really wants to take her mind off her work, is to sit with a big pile of interior-design magazines and flip through them. She also admits that she enjoys some of the reality shows on the subject. And then she says, “Chelsea, did I ever tell you about the first time I actually spoke to Lindsey Graham? He came up to me one day on the floor of the Senate and said, ‘Guess who called me?’ ‘Who?’ I said. ‘A producer from the television show Trading Spaces. They want you and I to trade places. What do you say?’ And I said, ‘I don’t think so!’ ” At that, she puts her finger to her dimpled cheek and exaggeratedly twists it a couple of times and then dramatically turns on her heel and saunters away. Everyone laughs while Chelsea convulses in a silent paroxysm of laughter and disbelief, with a look on her face that says, my mom!
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