April 8, 2026

"I was walking with my girlfriend when we saw him. Shirtless, in late-afternoon sunlight, J.F.K., Jr., was playing Frisbee, wearing nothing but black athletic shorts..."

"... tennis shoes, and droopy white socks. This was the Ivy League. Nobody worked out. (Nobody I knew, anyway.) And so I wasn’t prepared for the muscularity, the anachronistic virility, on display. John’s physique was so classically ideal he might’ve been throwing a discus instead of a Frisbee and been carved out of stone. You looked for the defect in him and you couldn’t find it. There had to be something wrong somewhere, but it would take a magnifying glass to detect. Most of his clan had inherited the freckled, rabbity Kennedy looks. John, lucky in everything, had received the enhancing admixture of dark, French Mediterranean, Bouvier blood. I mentioned it was 1979. Bisexuality was undergoing one of its periodic upticks. I’d fallen into some confusion on that score myself. But I had a girlfriend now. That wasn’t what was going on. The urge I felt wasn’t to possess. It wasn’t even to resemble. It was to draw near. To be allowed to draw near...."

Writes Jeffrey Eugenides, in "My Unrequited Love Story with J.F.K., Jr./I knew John F. Kennedy, Jr., not that well and not that long, but enough to have experienced the gravitational pull he exerted, like some great big moon"
 (The New Yorker).

81 comments:

Iman said...

WTF

Kai Akker said...

Hey hey! Wait a sec.... My navel is cool too! And it once saw Jimi Hendrix! Pass me that keyboard....

PS in the discussions here on JFK Jr's fatal flight, has anyone mentioned that he pleaded all day with Carolyn to get over there so they could take off in solid daylight? But she wouldn't and supposedly dissed him about it?

The last dis.

CJinPA said...

Reminds me of 1999's "Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye" by Mickey Kaus, a parody of the type of JFK Jr. pieces like above.

It's behind a Slate paywall, but enjoy this:
I first met JFK Jr. at a fancy party for his magazine in a swank Fifth Avenue apartment. It was the sort of apartment he could have lived in, if he’d wanted to, but he chose to make his home in the gritty industrial area of TriBeCa. John was wearing one of his trademark tailored suits. I made eye contact and smiled. I thought I saw the flicker of a responsive grin cross his face. He wheeled around, turning his back to me, and started to talk to someone on the other side of the room, a malnourished blond woman who had been trying to get his attention. I instantly recognized this as something his mother, Jackie, must have taught him. Who else could have disciplined him to show such natural grace and reticence, coupled with the noblesse oblige to talk to those you might otherwise prefer to avoid?

Kai Akker said...

---- Bisexuality was undergoing one of its periodic upticks. I’d fallen into some confusion on that score myself. But I had a girlfriend now.

Establish the credentials of confusion. So meaningful to today's readers. And a little bit cool, yanno? Worth a shot, at least! Now back to the Kennedy stuff.

Ted said...

"Like some great big moon..."

So his shorts were droopy too?

n.n said...

Trans.

gspencer said...

"You looked for the defect in him and you couldn’t find it."

Yeah, difficulties passing tests and flying planes usually don't show up on a quick visual scan.

Temujin said...

Leftist Americans and their never-ending, never-sated thirst for Kennedys.

MadTownGuy said...

I'm getting a 'moon' vibe today.

Saint Croix said...

Elaine's out. And Kramer, too!

Howard said...

There were dozens of contributory factors that resulted in JFK Jr entering a classic death spiral, the lateness of the departure was on of them. To me, the most significant factor was his lack of solo pilot in command hours.

Final Experience Level: Of his roughly 350 total hours, about 100 were solo, meaning over 250 hours were likely with an instructor or in authorized training.
AOPA
AOPA
+1

AlbertAnonymous said...

The Professor's reading softcore gay porn now?

rehajm said...

ELAINE: Hello.. (Pulls a wad of bills out of her purse, and starts to count it up)
GEORGE: (Shocked) You caved?!
JERRY: It's over?
GEORGE: You're out?
JERRY: Ohh-my-God. The Queen is dead.
(Elaine sets the bills down on the counter)
GEORGE: I figured you'd cruise. At least through the Spring.
JERRY: What happened?
ELAINE: It was..uh.. John-John.
JERRY AND GEORGE: Ohhhhh.. John-John.

Aggie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Limited blogger said...

Camelot being refreshed this soon before 2028 election?

Aggie said...

Too bad, out of Kennedys.

Aggie said...

There's always Schlossberg, he kinda looks like a Kennedy. Sure, he's an obnoxious flake, but he's related, and his middle names are Bouvier Kennedy. We can squeeze it all in, but the ballots will have to be Landscape.

rehajm said...

Too bad, out of Kennedys

…there’s plenty of em left. I’ve told the story of the creepy red headed one that walked into my usual Starbucks one morning. The lusty buzz from the college educated white women…the duck and cover from the panties snapping off…I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t witness it…

Goldenpause said...

Sigh. Another writer in search of a subject for an article. The New Yorker must really be desperate for copy if it published this slop.

Eva Marie said...

Three thoughts about JFKjr
1. Rush Limbaugh liked him and he was a good judge of character.
2. I watched Love Story, the biopic about JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. (Side note: if they trimmed it down to two hours, it would make a terrific movie.)
One thing that came through - and matches my own memory - is how JFKjr actually did ride his bike around Manhattan and walk through Central Park. This was after the murders of John Lennon and the Jodie Foster stalker who attempted to murder President Regan. That took courage. In his case, trying to lead a normal life when he would have been such a trophy for the crazies took courage.
3. The interest in JFKJr gives us a peek into the battle within the Democratic Party. Do they go back to their roots or do they destroy whitey once and for all?

gspencer said...

A lot of unwarranted confidence leading to arrogance along with the absence of wisdom of knowing when to say No,

JFK Jr PLANE CRASH - Setting the Record STRAIGHT!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj-4jf3e5_A&t=2197s

Peachy said...

It was such a tragedy when he and his wife were killed.

He was a rising star in the political world if he wanted it.
I often wonder if he would have allowed himself to be consumed by the corrupt communist Elizabeth Warren left?

J Scott said...

All I could hear was Grandpa Simpson. "So I was bisexual of course, which was the style at the time."

gadfly said...

For his sake, it is good that Jeffrey Eugenides is a prize-winning writer of fiction. But the subject of his second novel, "Middlesex" dealt with intersex, that took him nine years to write.

What started as simple story about a hermaphrodite, went way off the rails into Eugenides personal Greek family background. People have been quick to point out, there are many similarities between Eugenides and his fictional protagonist. They both have Greek heritage, they were both born in Detroit, and grew up in the middle-class haven of Grosse Pointe (Eugenides grew up on Middlesex Boulevard - "There it was all those years, emblazoned on our street sign: my title"). Both end up living in Berlin. Jeffrey Eugenides points out that he is totally male, with a wife and kids.

Birches said...

Speaking of Kennedys...I went and checked out Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt's Instagram the other day. I genuinely think her siblings and her (the legitimate ones, anyway, lol) love each other a lot. They enjoy being together. Maria and Arnold must have done something right, and not being in MA probably was a big part of that.

Ann Althouse said...

The sentence that accounts for the word "moon" in the article title is: "... I knew the guy. Not that well and not that long, but enough to have experienced the gravitational pull that he exerted, like some great big moon, causing tides of excitement and longing to flow around our campus every time he crossed the green."

Keep in mind that Eugenides is a highly respected novelist.

Wilbur said...

Peachy said...
He was a rising star in the political world if he wanted it.
I often wonder if he would have allowed himself to be consumed by the corrupt communist Elizabeth Warren left?
-------------------------------------------------

Is there any reason to think not? Who in that party is not afraid to display some sense on 80/20 issues? Fetterman? Who else?
The pressure to kneel to the CHEKA is strong.

bagoh20 said...

Those little hormonal reactions in your head are not special or important to anyone else.

bagoh20 said...

They sure have gotten a lot of mileage out of that made up analogy to a myth and some relatively good genes.

Quaestor said...

That shit reads like Highlights for Children serialized Thomas Mann.

"I’d fallen into some confusion on that score myself." Stop mincing words, Eugenides, your promenade is minced enough already; you had a woody for John-John. Face it, you're a homo.

Alexisa said...

"took him nine years to write."

[ Larry Correai has entered the chat ]

Ted said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ted said...

AA: I don't know if you're referring to my comment, but that was the point of my joke -- to take the highly respected novelist's fanciful moon metaphor and pretend he was referring to the sillier meaning of "mooning." (And I thought "droopy white socks" was humorous on purpose.)

But to paraphrase E.B. White, I've dissected the frog and the frog has died.

hanuman_prodigious_leaper said...

Nobody works out?
Don't they have River boat races?

Quaestor said...

Imagine John-John today. Having escaped death by having the uncharacteristic wisdom to become a second-nature IFR pilot before venturing over the North Atlantic, he's 66 years old, pauched out like Uncle Ted, twice divorced, and pushing an online version of his vanity magazine project. (Too bad you're dead, george.com is available.)

Narr said...

Cumalot.

Not an oldster. said...

So much for the ceasefire bibi and israel didn't want...

You fellas jaw on about how hot a legacy man who died years ago twings your boomer heartstrings tho

Quaestor said...

What's the deal with this Kennedy tradition of drowning attractive single women in salt water?

gspencer said...

John-John's last mumbled question,

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b52dbde4b09c18186752fd/1556289591508-EQARS4C1NP2J02AZWBEF/Farside.jpg

Peachy said...

He was good looking - but no one tops Tom Selleck.

Peachy said...

"The pressure to kneel to the CHEKA is strong. "

Indeed!
Modern American CHEKA is the rise of the evil prevalence of the white left female. Soviet Maddow - team captain.

mccullough said...

Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant,

Lucien said...

Democrats love them some royalty and dynasties. When they’re done with their “No Kings” marches and protecting “Our Democracy” they dream of Dead Kennedys, muse about Michelle Obama, speculating about what Chelsea Clinton is up to these days, asking whether America is Ready for Sasha or Malia.

Alexisa said...

What's with the censorship?

RigelDog said...

Memento Mori. JFK Jr was indeed an awesome combination of masculine beauty, Q, and mystique.
I had the jarring experience of seeing a photo taken of his body still in his seat in the plane underwater.

wildswan said...

It's sad to see the kind of people who were attracted to, buzzing around tthis young man, this Kennedy. His father, President Kennedy, at that age, was in the Navy fighting a war, commanding a PT boat. He had to display other qualities than his good looks to be successful in his environment But this young man had no great effort required of him in his life and was surrounded by sycophants and people languishing over at his good looks. And gushing. He drowned in honey before he ever fell into the water.

Paddy O said...

"The euphoria of JFK. Jr was directly connected to our ambivalence about the science that made it possible."

Alexisa said...

What's with the censorship

Not Illinois Resident said...

Went to college with an incredibly handsome guy, convivial company and warm personality, absolute babe-magnet, but not particularly book-smart and struggled to pass college courses. No, it wasn't JFK Jr. My friend didn't have a former US president for a dad, but he sure reminds me of JFK Jr.

Amadeus 48 said...

Easy, stomach. Don't turn over.

William50 said...

My admiration of the Kennedy family died with JFK.

imTay said...

That description sounds like the beginning of Goodbye Columbus.

n.n said...

Left-wing ideology.

Mike Yancey said...

“ You looked for the defect in him and you couldn’t find it.”
HE’S A KENNEDY!

Roadkill711 said...

"My admiration of the Kennedy family died with JFK."

Oh, yeah, the ongoing and mindless Kennedy fandom. He (JFK) has continually been ranked by so-called historians in the top 5 or 10 US Presidents of all time, but let's have a look at his actual record of accomplishments:

- No significant legislation, and, in particular, anything to do with black civil rights
- The failed Bay of Pigs invasion
- Watched passively as the Berlin Wall was constructed
- Sicced his nepotic AG (RFK) on MLK and other civil rights leaders
- Increased our involvement in Vietnam, including the coup and overthrow of Diem
- Serial philanderer
- Drug abuser, keeping his poor physical health from the public
- Almost got us into nuclear WWIII

So yes, other than that, very admirable guy.

Roadkill711 said...

The only reason his visage is on the half-dollar coin is because he managed to get assassinated by a feckless communist. Maybe we should have a Garfield or McKinley coins.

Ralph L said...

he's 66 years old
He was a week younger than me, so 65.

Maureen Callahan's Kennedy scandal book "Ask Not" claims he crossed the path of an airliner that night with his radio off, so no one could warn him. Suppressed at the time, if true.

I remember his sister Caroline made the Official Preppy Handbook in 1980 for not allowing a synthetic fiber near her body for over a decade. Why do the Kennedy women age in the face so badly--smoking to stay thin?

Blair said...

That's frickin ghey dude...

Saint Croix said...

I think there's estrogen in the milk. Come on, New Yorker. AOC is alive and rocking! You're seriously going to write about dead people?

AOC is on the roof!

gadfly said...

John F. Kennedy, Jr. was exactly three years old when his father was buried, as his father's funeral took place on his third birthday, November 25, 1963.

He was "John-John" back then and I observed him that day standing outside the fencing surrounding JFK's first burial location in Arlington.

NKP said...

“The lusty buzz from the college educated white women…the duck and cover from the panties snapping off…I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t witness it…”

Maybe it’s really true - If you got the right stuff, “ You can just grab ‘em by the …”

FWIW, my daughter had a casual social relationship with JFK, Jr and found him genuine and good to talk with, one-to-one. She’s the last person to be in awe of “celebrity.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Huh. I was under the impression he always wore jeans for play and exercise. Just another man in shorts now.

Tina Trent said...

Who cares that he had "the courage" to walk through Central Park? It was his people and his politics that made it unwalkable.

Just one more line to add to D.A. Morgenthau's expansive corruption: hiring this lazy dimwit over qualified people who had no trouble passing the bar, while joking that he knew what he was doing by hiring him could have gotten him impeached.

CarolMR said...

Jackie's father was only 3/16 French. JFK, Jr. didn't get his dark Mediterranean good looks from the miniscule French blood he had. I remember that in NY there were rumors that Jr. was going to run for office but as a Republican. He was disappointed in what the Democratic party was becoming.

Cappy said...

Stunning and brave!

AMDG said...

I know a guy who was good friends with him. By all accounts he was a good guy.

Jackie was intent on keeping him as far away from his cousins (Bobby’s kids) as possible.

Kirk Parker said...

> Eugenides is a highly respected novelist.

By whom? Anyone outside the literati even heard of him?

Kirk Parker said...

I. talking about the people Flannery O'Connor refers to here:

“Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”

Tina Trent said...

He would have never run as a Republican. I was involved in politics at an early age in NYState and so closely followed George Magazine and JFK Jr. All he had going for him was his cupidinous mafia family. They would have killed him themselves if he tried to run Republican. Period.

Tina Trent said...

ImTay, precisely. One of the most racist books of the post-war years, with sick, dehumanizing hatred aimed at the Shikas of the world.

Quaestor said...

Trina Trent writes, "All he had going for him was his cupidinous mafia family."

And the looks. All Democrats long for Kennedy comparisons and will spend hoards of cash and small eternities grooming like demented apes to attain them, even the women, real and imaginary, e.g., AOC's leporine gnashers. To his credit, John-John came by them naturally, unlike Newsom who spends about a grand a month maintaining the illusion. BTW, love your style, Trina Trent.

Tina Trent said...

Thanks Questor. BTW, I'm Tina, not Trina. Way back when I was a Democrat, I met a Kennedy once at the Jefferson-Jackson banquet. I was easily the youngest attendee there (much later I married a man who went to school with him and confirmed his behavior). So, merely based on my age, I guess, a similarly youngish legislator approached me and asked if I could find them some cocaine. I have never bought cocaine. I did not nor do use cocaine. So that is my only Kennedy story, quite likely not the only one of its type.

Tina Trent said...

OTOH, Jimmy Breslin wrote a beautiful column about the backhoe driver who dug Kennedy's grave. I always gave it to my students to explain the event and how to be a journalist.

PigHelmet said...

I once published a piece in GEORGE, about an attractive lady who was running for governor of WV (my home state), and I have been on a creative writing faculty with Eugenides, so I feel that I am somehow implicated in the paragraph that spawned this post. It is not a comfortable feeling.

Quaestor said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Quaestor said...

Trina Trent -- a plausible DC character name, probably Bruce Wayne's erstwhile. A hotwired TV journalist with Lois Lane's drive but without the penchant for stowing away aboard villainous Bloodwing's mega yacht.

Narr said...

I met Algore jr once. He's short.

Narr said...

I also have shaken hands with Xi Jiping. He's not short.

Quaestor said...

So sorry, Tina. Force of habit. I was once madly in love with a CaitrĂ­ona, a girl who slightly resented her folks for giving her that Erse name because she was constantly having to spell it for clerks and factotums. So, she was Trina to friends and lovers. Like you, Trina was a Democrat, though I doubt she ever recovered. The only things we could agree on were me (wink) and horseflesh.

MadisonMan said...

I consider this New Yorker bit part of the effort to get JFKJr's nephew (I think?) elected.

Grundoon said...

I am from flyover country. In what country did all this happen?

Post a Comment

Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 2 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith.