Politics & Culture Editor at Washingtonian. Previously: Features Editor at Fast Company and fastcompany.com. Have also written about culture and entertainment for the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Esquire, New York magazine, Rolling Stone, The Awl, and Men's Journal, among others.
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Contact: RobBrunnerNYC at gmail.com
Latest
Not long ago, I had a craving for a prune Danish. There was a time when dried-plum pastry was a special-occasion favorite, a mainstay of the bagel-and-lox spreads of my youth. Prune was my favorite Danish back then-every bit as good as the cheese variety and far superior to bright-hued fruit competitors like lemon and (yuck) blueberry.
The last pay phone in downtown DC sits in an assuming box fixed to a squat pole on the sidewalk in front of the new Cheesecake Factory on H Street, Northwest. If you've ever walked by, you probably didn't register it. You almost certainly didn't try to make a call.
THE FOLGER’S DIRTY BOOKS With Project Dustbunny, the Shakespeare library is using technology to study its collection. It’s part science, part science fiction.
A mention in the latest George Pelecanos book is earning local author Eyone Williams, who wrote Lorton Legends, new attention.One of the most requested books at the DC Jail's library is something it doesn't even carry. The jail's full-time librarian, Danielle Zoller, is asked
This summer, my family and I moved into a new house. We didn't know much about it at first-just that it was built in 1914 by Washington developer Harry Wardman. This was no minor detail: Wardman was the leading builder during a local development golden age.
Antiques Roadshow premiered on PBS in 1997, and as the program grew into a hit, curators at the National Portrait Gallery started to notice an uptick in correspondence. The notes came from viewers who'd been digging around in their attics and come across things they believed would be perfect for America's attic.
"Sucking up," Mark Leibovich wrote in his 2013 book, This Town, "is as basic to Washington as humidity." This seems especially true in 2017, when the President's yen for flattery has turned the practice into a hallmark of his administration. Though sycophancy obviously knows no political party, the current regime tends decidedly toward the adulatory.
Hamdi Ulukaya never planned to move to America, much less start a yogurt business that would make him a billionaire. Things so easily could have been different. He might have gone into Turkish politics or the family cheese-making business, perhaps even married the hometown girl who his mother claimed would be perfect for him.
You've probably never heard of the movie that I'm most excited to see this summer. It's titled "Thumbscrew," and was directed by a shadowy auteur named Stanislas Cordova, a secretive genius whose dark art films are intensely studied by rabid fans known as Cordovites.
Features
It was 9:30 on a Friday morning, and David Chang was already furious. The Momofuku Group founder was at one of his dozen-plus restaurants, Má Pêche in Midtown Manhattan, for a meeting with chef de cuisine Ian Davis and three sous-chefs.
"I bet no CEO of a company has said this to his team," Shake Shack leader Randy Garutti tells a roomful of employees. "I want to challenge you to put us out of business." It's less than 30 minutes before the 11 a.m.
"Ready to eat well?" asks Anthony Bourdain. The chef turned TV star is leading the way toward a pair of narrow seats at the New York outpost of a Michelin-rated Tokyo yakitori joint called Tori Shin, a tightly packed establishment that's Bourdain's kind of place: little-known, deeply authentic, and a bit unusual.
Reviews
"Vans" The Pack | 2006 Berkeley, California rappers the Pack made their footwear choice clear in 2006 with the song "Vans." The track caught the attention of Too $hort, who signed them to his imprint. MTV refused to play the video for the song, though, claiming it was essentially a commercial for the product.
"Vans" The Pack | 2006 Berkeley, California rappers the Pack made their footwear choice clear in 2006 with the song "Vans." The track caught the attention of Too $hort, who signed them to his imprint. MTV refused to play the video for the song, though, claiming it was essentially a commercial for the product.
Check out our review of Thurston Moore's New Album The Best Day on Rolling Stone.com.
Miscellaneous
For the past eight years, I have worn a totally boring beard-an uninspiring band of quarter-inch-long salt-and-pepper fuzz. Eric Bandholz, the founder of a men's-grooming company called Beardbrand, is way too nice to ever say so, but I know the truth: It's a dad beard.
Your new album, Vulnicura, is an account of breaking up with your longtime partner. How does working on such emotional material affect your process? This has probably been the most impulsive album I've done. I just had to listen to my gut, what felt right.
When the call came, Michele Ganeless didn't want to pick up the phone. Stephen Colbert was on the line, and the Comedy Central president had a feeling it was bad news. "There was a moment of, 'I don't know that I want to have this conversation because I'm afraid of what it's going to be,'" she recalls.