VANITY FAIR

Dear Reader,

In a long-ago Vanity Fair, P. G. Wodehouse began a seasonal effusion, "Spring is here! What magic in those words." Very dithyrambic, Mr. Wodehouse, corybantic. "Flashback," in this issue, is rife with welcome sweet springtime, its breeze-tossed promises, its twittery challenges. And indeed, this March (famed not only for spring but for the Ides) Vanity Fair is filled with challenges.

Here is a photo essay by Helmut Newton. Its subject: the greatest theater-dance company in the world, Pina Bausch's Tanztheater of Wuppertal, touring America for the first time and previewing its main theme, a black-humor version of alienation, in our pages. Another challenge: Joan Didion's upcoming novel, Democracy; from which we chose a rich section-the writer writing about the book she would have written if she had not written the book you are reading. Here Joan Didion reveals the roots of her creation. Another revelation, a happy challenge to the cook and the fastidious eater, Mimi Sheraton's "A Pasta Star Is Born." It's toast brown and wonderful! And the most fascinating, heartwrecking challenge of all, in this issue, is Dominick Dunne's "Justice," a searing, almost day-by-day log of what happens to a father during the trial of the man who has put an end to his (that father's) daughter's life. This deeply subjective, utterly suspenseful history is central to a predominant theme in contemporary life: When is justice a miscarriage of justice?

Moving from the worrying abstract to the optimistic concrete: "Spring," The Old Farmer's Almanac tells us, "begins astronomically when the sun reaches the vernal equinox in Pisces at 5:25 A.M. EST on the 20th." Spring is a terrific challenge. Happy spring!

Editor in Chief