The Profile: Taylor Swift’s genius publicist & the man who exposed a nation’s therapy secrets

This edition of The Profile features Tree Paine, Pat Tillman, John Nelson, and more.

Good morning, friends!

I don’t know about you, but when I read a particularly great book or see a beautiful sculpture or enter a magnificent building, I think to myself: ‘How did they create this?’

I ask myself this every time. Sometimes, the curiosity overwhelms me enough to go Google it and dive deep into how something was created.

(For example, I recently learned that New York City’s Central Park is completely man-made. Workers moved nearly 5 million cubic yards of stone, earth, and topsoil, built 36 bridges and arches, and constructed 11 overpasses over the transverse roads. They also planted 500,000 trees, shrubs, and vines. The landscapes were man-made and all built by hand.)

This is why I was very excited to start reading a new book called, “The Work of Art: How something comes from nothing.”

Adam Moss, the former editor-in-chief of New York magazine, interviews more than 40 creatives on the nuts-and-bolts of their creative process. Inside, you’ll find the original outline that journalist Gay Talese used to write his iconic profile of Frank Sinatra and David Mandel’s whiteboard that details how the last season of Veep might end.

The books aims to answer the seductive question, ‘How do you make something out of nothing?’

For centuries, there’s been a certain mystique around the creative process. We’ve mistakenly attributed creativity to factors outside of our control. You may hear it referred to as a talent, a gift, or some sort of inexplicable genius that few people possess. But in his book, Moss dispels the notion that creativity arises from the divine.

He writes:

“My ambition for this book is secular — to try to capture the artist’s process in all its mundanity. If that sounds like a buzzkill, it isn’t: it’s an exploration of the human, not the godly, with its own more interesting drama.

“My aim is to render the experience of creativity — that is, the frustration, elation, regret, first glimmers, second thoughts, distress, and triumphs that lead to works of art. The thought when I began was, if I can strip creation of its romance, and break it down into discrete and concrete parts, could that help me (and you) to see art as a product of work, a structured mental process?

“And in that sense, to offer a way forward?”

As I write in the creativity chapter of my book, Hidden Genius, “the muse, the divine, the magic—it’s stuff we make up to avoid the grunt work that comes with being creative.”

Moss explores that grunt work in his book. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the minds of the world’s most creative people, and it explores the evolution of a novel, a painting, a photograph, a movie, a joke, or a song.

As you can imagine, the creative process is a journey — one with winding roads and endless drama. As Moss writes, “The journey from a thought to a work is a gripping saga.”

Never forget that every finished product once started as a very simple grain of an idea.

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PROFILES.

— Taylor Swift’s genius publicist [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— The hacker who exposed a nation’s psychotherapy secrets
— The man who gossiped too much
— The former NFL star who died at war
— The fast fashion empire

PEOPLE TO KNOW.

Taylor Swift’s genius publicist: The average celebrity publicist does not have fans. But Tree Paine, the power publicist who works for Taylor Swift, has become a Swiftverse cult figure. Fans post reverently about her PR machinations and share videos of her expertly attending to Swift’s needs: smoothing out Swift’s dress on the red carpet, leading Swift right past a scrum of reporters whose questions have not been approved, subtly offering Swift what appeared to be water at the Video Music Awards—a night when the star was filmed dancing in a manner that suggested inebriation. In a long career of riding high, Swift has hit the stratosphere. It’s Paine’s job to keep her there. (WSJ; try this link if you can’t access the article)

“The devil works hard, but Tree Paine works harder.”

The hacker who exposed a nation’s psychotherapy secrets: Aleksanteri ****Kivimäki had been a celebrity in world hacking circles for a decade. Years earlier he’d been convicted for a series of high-profile data breaches and harassment campaigns dating to his early teens. His latest alleged cyberattack, though, dwarfed those. It was the largest crime in Finnish history. Kivimäki was accused of hacking and attempting to extort a nationwide chain of psychotherapy clinics, and in the process publishing a trove of patient data to the internet. Along with typical identity fraud material, the dump had included the innermost secrets of tens of thousands of people, desires and deeds and memories that in many cases they’d only ever confessed to their therapists. The result was a national trauma that one prominent Finnish politician likened to a terrorist attack. (Bloomberg)

“In Finland, ‘everyone knows someone who knows someone’ whose therapy records were leaked.”

The man who gossiped too much: For nearly two decades, John Nelson published blind items about the Hollywood elite on the gossip blog Crazy Days and Nights, posting under the moniker “Enty Lawyer.” Nobody knew who Enty Lawyer was except for his wife, his brother, and a handful of friends. Then, earlier this year, his identity was revealed in the middle of a highly unusual legal dispute. (New York Magazine; try this link if you can’t access the article)

“You guys know that all of what I read is alleged. I don’t claim that any of this is fact.”

The former NFL star who died at war: When Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004, the news stunned his fellow Americans. He was perhaps the most famous American killed in combat since legendary war correspondent Ernie Pyle in World War II. The story of Tillman's death at age 27 — and of the aftermath of the tragedy — revolves around a series of inexplicable command decisions that, even today, confound his family and those who served with him. For the past two decades, his mom has led a fight for a complete account of what happened to her son, how the commanders made the decisions that she says led to his death, why the truth was manipulated and why those responsible were never held fully accountable for their actions. (ESPN)

“When he died, I think they thought it was an opportunity to glorify what happened to him, therefore using him as a recruiting tool.”

COMPANIES TO WATCH.

The fast fashion empire: Shein is the world’s most-Googled clothing brand, the largest fast-fashion retailer by sales in the US, and one of the most popular shopping apps in the world. Its website is organized into dozens of categories: women, curve, home, kids, men and beauty, among others, though the women’s clothing section anchors the site. There are hundreds of thousands of products available, and many of them are sorted into Shein’s collections. It is taking fast fashion to ever faster and ever cheaper extremes, and making billions from it. Why is the whole world shopping at Shein? (The Guardian)

“I can buy Christian-girl modesty clothing and borderline fetish wear.”

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