Spectator Life

It’s a common lament each year — starting around October, people love to complain that the Christmas season continues to creep further and further into the fall. But for some, that creep is a welcome one. If that’s you, I know a place. At 3rd Avenue and 22nd Street in Manhattan, you can get your Christmas fill for around six months of the year — at least if you wander into the narrow German restaurant on the corner. You might almost miss it if you walk by during daylight hours. At night, it’s hard to miss. In this rather unsexy portion of Manhattan, Rolf’s has been a New York institution since 1968.

Twenty-five years ago I published an essay titled “Dogfish.” It was not about the little sharks that skim along the bottom of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and only rarely end up on the American dinner table. It was rather a fanciful way to draw attention to the brevity of the average tenure of the college president. Back then the average president served 6.7 years. The spotted dogfish, by contrast, was believed to live almost three times as long. A lot has changed in the intervening quarter century. For one thing, it is now believed that the natural lifespan of the dogfish is thirty-five to forty years, though some say eighty.  Meanwhile the average term of a college president has shrunk to 5.9 years.

Practical political wisdom says height is one of the few reliable indicators of electoral victory. In the case of Ron DeSantis, it explains why he is trailing behind 6’3” gargantuan Donald Trump. It also may explain why DeSantis is being accused of wearing four-inch lifts in his favorite pair of cowboy boots.   The Florida governor was confronted with a viral clip of his hidden heels during an episode of the Patrick Bet-David podcast this weekend but denied the allegation. “Those are just standard of-the-rack Lucchese boots,” DeSantis said, adding that he is indeed 5’11”.   https://twitter.com/ronfilipkowski/status/1719095369412284594?

Halloween traditions might hail from All Hallows’ Eve, the Christian celebration preceding All Saints’ Day, but that has roots in Samhain — a Celtic pagan festival. Long before Westerners carved pumpkins come fall, the Scots were sticking knives into "neeps" (turnips). Disguised children ("guisers") warded off evil spirits on the streets of Scotland centuries before brats in Gryffindor scarves demanded Twinkies.  There could hardly be a better place to spend the spookiest time of the year than Edinburgh, with its reliably moody weather and litany of imposing buildings. Those seeking to be truly disturbed need simply research the capital’s very real history of witch hunts, public executions and plague.

When New York City restaurants closed their doors in March 2020, Rahul Saito and his husband Howard Chang took a radical step. They brought the dining-out experience home, hiring Mitsunobu Nagae, then the chef de cuisine at the Michelin-starred Shun, to prepare weekly dinners in their Manhattan apartment.   The food was unfussy, yet profound. “There was a gazpacho, very simple, a cherry gazpacho,” recalls Chang, thirty-two. “It felt like something you could make at home, but the taste and depth was something I’d never experienced. That’s when I was like: This guy really has something.”   Inspired, Chang and Saito, who both have backgrounds in finance, approached Nagae, thirty-six, to suggest they open a restaurant together.

What do the likes of Warren Buffett, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Russell Brand have in common? They are all fans of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), a pseudoscientific hodgepodge of strange hacks and corny aphorisms supposed to change an individual’s thoughts and behaviors. NLP practitioners claim to have the power to help clients achieve desired outcomes. Comedian Jimmy Carr, currently touring the US, recently spoke about the power of NLP during an interview with podcaster Chris Williamson. Carr has also spoken about the power of NLP on other hugely popular podcasts. Like Buffett, Clinton, Obama and Brand, Carr has achieved unimaginable levels of success. But the idea that NLP can help you reach some higher plane of awakening is not rooted in solid science.

It would have happened on a Thursday, as it does every Thursday. Crowds of young men and teen boys would have lined up outside stores around the globe, in hopes of buying the latest drop from Supreme — the pugnacious streetwear brand which rose from New York skater shop to global multibillion-dollar fashion colossus and sold to fashion conglomerate VF Corporation for $2.1 billion in December 2020. Even if you don’t care about skating or streetwear, you would instantly recognize a white T-shirt slapped with their logo; a red box, with “Supreme” in Futura Heavy Oblique font inside. Celebrities love Supreme, the stylish (Hailey Bieber, A$AP Rocky, Kanye West) and the stylish-wannabes (Justin Bieber, Travis Scott, Jaden Smith).

If I’d known what a whole monkfish looks like, I would never have ordered it. It was only weeks later that I saw a picture of the horrid creature: small, wicked eyes, prehistoric head, skin like rusty medieval armor and a gaping mouth overflowing with jagged teeth. Truly the stuff of nightmares. We’d popped over the border from France into San Sebastián, Spain, for a bite of dinner, selecting a spot a stone’s throw from the Baroque exuberance of Santa Maria del Coro. The daily special was monkfish, and for some reason — perhaps an excess of sun that day — the image that came to mind was, inaccurately, that of the innocent red mullet. The daily special in a fishing town is bound to be fresh, so it seemed fair to give it a try.

How did we get to the point that on numerous American campuses devoted to “social justice,” many student groups openly celebrated a brutal Hamas attack that killed more than 1,000 Israeli civilians and saw many hundreds tortured, beheaded, executed in front of family members and set on fire?  How did we get to the point on campuses where any unwanted sexual contact, even if intended only as a non-violent romantic approach, is denounced as a crime against women and can lead to expulsion, yet student protesters celebrate the mass rape of Israeli women, including rape victims still bleeding from the violation or killed and stripped naked, being paraded through the streets of Gaza as howling mobs defiled and abused their bodies?

“You are Kevin?” “Pardon?” Embarking on a solo week driving around Mallorca, then losing my drivers license in transit? Not my finest hour. A fairytale wedding near the citrus grove-laden seaside town of Sollér brought me to the largest island of the Baleriacs. A chest infection, some big deadlines and three hotels to review an hour’s drive south of the venue inspired me to hire a car, so I could pootle around at my own pace. I realized my problem in Barcelona, waiting for my connecting flight. Paying for a coffee, I spotted my license was missing. I’d booked via OMIO (a journey planning site that pulls together trains, planes, ferries and coaches — I love that thing), which I quickly consulted to confirm the dearth of public transport on the island.

What happens to a fashion brand when the founder leaves? Or, to be more direct, what is Tom Ford without Tom Ford? That was the question hovering over Milan last month as the brand held its first runway show since the famed designer stepped down in April. The man on the marquee wasn't even in attendance; apparently bad weather left him stuck in London (there was a little thunder the day before, so it's plausible, if unconvincing). The House of Ford arrived with an enormous splash in 2006, creating enormous hype through its hyper limited, hyper expensive apparel, which Ford and business partner Domenico de Sole spun into obscenely lucrative accessories and perfume licensing deals.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is famous for many things, including his rather fetching mustache and his rather hideous wardrobe. Behind the chuckles and the wacky attire, however, lies a slightly darker side. The man who famously said that he was “proud to be part of a species where a subset of its members willingly put their lives at risk to push the boundaries of our existence” is now pushing the boundaries of our patience. Over the years, deGrasse Tyson has become increasingly condescending, rude and arrogant. He has veered from the area of astrophysics into other avenues, including, most recently, the trans debate. More specifically, trans women competing in actual women’s sports.

Ibram X. Kendi has done as he promised. In 2020, freshly anointed as the director of Boston University’s new Center for Antiracist Research (CAR), Kendi announced his intention to “transform how racial research is done.” Previously, “research” had been understood to involve collecting data, analyzing trends and gathering new insights through the careful application of sustained thought. But these expectations were hallmarks of white supremacy. This week, as allegations of wanton mismanagement emerge from Kendi’s staff, it appears that what it means to do “racial research” has indeed been transformed: it now entails taking vast sums of other people’s money, then using it to produce almost nothing. And in this, Kendi is an expert.

With all the focus on Russell Brand, it’s easy to forget that another comedian made headlines — for all the wrong reasons — last week. Two days before the world came crashing down on Brand, the New Yorker’s Clare Malone wrote a devastating piece on Hasan Minhaj.  Minhaj, according to the brilliant expose, has a history of fabricating narratives. What’s particularly disturbing is that his tall tales all appear to have a unifying theme: race. More specifically, racism directed towards him, an Asian American and Muslim American, and his loved ones. Much of the New Yorker piece focuses on Minhaj’s 2022 Netflix standup special, The King’s Jester, which was marketed as a biographical account of his formative years.

The Cerberus heatwave is as fierce as they said it would be. I feel like I’m being microwaved on a low heat, my phone hot to the touch inside my pocket. A friend and I heave suitcases into the imposing stone lobby of a.d. 1768, then slump on chairs, dizzy. A palatial, historic residence hidden in plain sight, I’m gratefully swallowed up by its high ceilings and cool shadows. We’ve navigated Italian roads (and road rage) from Catania to Ragusa Ibla in 107.6 degrees Fahrenheit to seek out one hotel, and one man: Ciccio Sultano.  Our month-long road trip through southern Italy is finishing in the late Baroque towns of UNESCO World Heritage Site Val di Noto, collectively rebuilt after a huge earthquake on January 11, 1693.

Deion “Prime Time” Sanders is not a household name. The reserved and introverted former NFL and MLB player has long avoided the spotlight, the media and shit-talking in general. This approach served him well during his first few phases of his life, allowing him quietly to find his way into the College Football Hall of Fame, the Pro Football Hall of Fame and to fat stacks of cash. After retiring from baseball and then from football, as he played both concurrently for much of his career, he decided to start building some name recognition for what has become his next act — coaching. He started small, quietly serving as head coach for his own Prime Prep Academy, a collection of charter schools in Texas.