Spectator Life

This has been a busy offseason for the Chicago Bears, between the blockbuster trade that brought them D.J. Moore and also — more under the radar — their contract negotiations with cities in and around Chicago as the team considers leaving Soldier Field, the smallest NFL stadium. For months, those tracking the Bears’ decision-making felt that a racetrack in Chicago’s northwestern suburb of Arlington Heights had the inside track to host the storied football team. However, a confluence of bad timing and a progressive county assessor has allowed other cities to argue that the Bears should relocate to them instead.

I just caught the news that four pages in a notebook dated 2014 and stuffed into a couch cushion have been accepted as a valid will for the late singer Aretha Franklin. The jury that decided this enriched two of her sons and disappointed a third son, who was favored in an earlier will. This is what I call a legacy. But America is all worked up about another kind of legacy. I refer, of course, to the endearing habit of colleges and universities to give a leg up to the kinder of their alumni. Why do they do this? And why are so many people worked up over it?  These aren’t hard questions. Colleges have two reasons for their legacy programs.

First, it was rumored, and denied, that the Kardashians were on it. Then its usage spread all the way to Elon Musk. But now, are we seeing the real, tragic consequences of Hollywood's favorite slimming drug, Ozempic? Cockburn is devastated to hear of speculation that Christina Hendricks, also known as Joan from Mad Men, has succumbed to the latest celebrity trend. Hendricks, arguably the epitome of Rubenesque beauty in Tinseltown, caused alarm among fans online after posting a photo to Instagram following a dinner earlier this month. https://www.instagram.com/p/CuQszp2u_-M/?

Never trust a scholar of Sesame Street to know her legal terminology. Tamara Kay, a sociology professor at Notre Dame who studies the TV show's cultural transfusion around the world, is suing conservative student publication the Rover for its coverage of her abortion activism. Kay claims that two of its articles contained “defamatory and false statements.” The only trouble is that the Rover seems to be able to prove that what it published about Kay is true — and the paper has the receipts. Alas, another case of the decline of the American intellectual? The feud between the two began in 2022 when the Rover published an article on Kay’s comments at an abortion panel.

Johnston’s Gate isn’t the only entrance to Harvard Yard. For years, money, status and secret lists have opened back doors into Harvard University for a select group of privileged students. And the easiest way to open these doors? The right parents. According to the Harvard Crimson, over a third of the class of 2022 had a parent or other relative who attended Harvard. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action, the admission policy that has created America's aristocrats is starting to take some heat. Could legacy admission be the next to go? Three Boston-based advocacy groups say yes.

Quizzed on how best to assimilate a new culture, travel writer and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain once uttered the famous line: “Drink heavily with locals whenever possible.” I never met the man, but still I miss him and his deft writing. The Opening a Bottle series is about getting pickled with people far cooler than I am, in whatever city I’ve washed up in.  “What is it, love?” A British lady, tanned deep walnut, is curious, as are most passersby. I’m standing outside the imposing red façade of Red Chalet in the sleepy town of Armação de Pêra, in Portugal’s Algarve. She’s the third septuagenarian to greet me since I touched down. I smile to myself — some stereotypes exist because they’re true.

Being overweight, unless you’re a sixteenth-century Rubens model, ain’t the thing. But looking at America, where more than two-thirds of people are obese or overweight, you’d think thin is definitely not in. It’s well known extra pounds increase a person’s chance of heart disease, stroke and diabetes, along with the general discomfort of carrying around extra heft for which your frame wasn’t designed. Being overweight is also linked to increased cancer risk, and the New York Post reports: “In all, thirteen types of [cancer] were previously known to be associated with overweight body types — but now, that number has climbed to eighteen different cancers. And the risk of developing cancer begins when people are young — between the ages eighteen and forty.

Sunrise in Johannesburg, blazing a brighter red than I can recall seeing before. The orb seems unnaturally huge; burning my retina as it flashes through the thick canopy of leaves covering the largest manmade park in the world.  I’m looking out over the Koppies (“small hill” in Afrikaans) at one of Joburg’s most spectacular views, from Melville suburb’s highest point. Albeit, from behind a laptop. I’ve got a second coffee on the go at Pablo Guest House while attempting to carve out an itinerary for this last-minute jaunt. I’d jumped on a plane from Cape Town with Ashlee, a friend who grew up here. Her father lives in a looming school house stuffed with antiques, which she has the grand job of sorting through and selling on.

I have been pondering ways to rescue young Americans from the trouble and often the waste of the four-year undergraduate college education. Many young people as I recently pointed out are looking for alternatives. But there aren’t very many good ones. In what follows, I propose we put some of these discontented souls in a ship and sail them around the world. It is not entirely a new idea, and before I turn my rudder in that direction, I’d like to survey the horizon. Once, long ago, I was asked by the senior administration of my university to look after the playboy son of a wealthy European family who had decided to enroll in an undergraduate degree program. He was handsome, smooth, reckless and not very bright.

I’ve been pregnant for the better part of the last decade; fifty-four months to be precise. I recently started investing in refreshing my non-maternity or postpartum wardrobe. Everything I have from that stage of life is from when I was twenty-seven; and I’m definitely no longer able to pull off the same look from when I was in my twenties and childless. Now I’m a mom of six and inching uncomfortably close to forty.   In my research, I found the aesthetic I was shooting for, from a company called Son de Flor. Every time another conservative homeschool mom appeared in a dress I loved, it was one of theirs.   https://www.instagram.com/reel/CsJDbisgeC6/?igshid=Y2I2MzMwZWM3ZA== I was ready to pull the trigger on their summer sale...

NPR thinks Asian Americans should stand against the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action whether they like it or not. In an article published Sunday, NPR’s race and identity correspondent Sandhya Dirks argued that white conservative activists have used affirmative action to divide Asians from other communities of color for far too long. In fact, Asian students have nothing to lose by embracing the practice.  Per the article, Asian Americans became proxies for white privilege when affirmative action lawsuits brought by white students failed in 2013. To beat the legal system, Edward Blum, the head of Students for Fair Admissions, approached Asian students who he claimed had been hurt by biased college admissions.

Although he has been a harsh critic in the past, Cockburn would like to thank fashion icon and hair-game legend Kamala Harris for teaching him the key to achieving the perfect silk press. While Cockburn must admit he wasn’t familiar with the hairstyling technique, he doesn’t know how he lived without it for so long. To quote People magazine, it had him screaming “queen.”    The vice president shared her beauty secrets on an episode of Keke Palmer’s podcast Baby, This Is Keke Palmer on Tuesday. The two women spent most of the interview tackling America’s maternal healthcare crisis before turning to fun girl-talk which included Harris’s hair care routine.

Rockville, Maryland Hundreds of protesters rallied to protest a school board in one of America’s most liberal counties that plans to mandate the teaching of books they brand "sexualized" to public-school children as young as three years old in public schools. The rally-goers, almost all of whom were first-generation Americans or immigrants themselves, demanded that Montgomery County Public Schools restore their ability to opt out of a curriculum they say violates their First Amendment rights.

Celebrity chef John Mountain made headlines last week for banning vegans from his restaurant, Fyre, citing “mental health reasons,” reportedly because a vegan customer complained about Fyre’s lack of plant-based menu options. Meanwhile, a vegan landlord in New York City forbids tenants from cooking meat in his $5,750-a-month apartments. What’s the deal with vegans? Are they all self-obsessed, birdseed-eating eco-warriors who are only able to wash down “cheese” made of arrowroot with a massive dose of ego? Or are they disciplined, clean-living champions whose commitment to the cause merits our admiration and imitation? Had you asked me my opinion of vegans a few years ago, I would have scoffed and made a soy boy joke.

Amid the dusk light, there’s hushed, excited chatter. And then drums, lights, and orchestral tones. It’s 10:18 p.m. in Paris, and Pharrell Williams is debuting his first collection as creative director at Louis Vuitton, Spring-Summer 2024. Never mind that it is three quarters of an hour late — fashionably late — nobody cares. This is the biggest fashion event of the year, and we can wait. We’ve been waiting a year and a half already. This is a big deal. Lous Vuitton’s creative director is the biggest role in menswear, formerly held by the beloved, brilliant Virgil Abloh, who passed away from cancer in November 2021.

Have you noticed that everyone is forever doing his or her own thing these days? Walk down any city street: this person is buried in their phone, that person is wearing headphones and the person over there is smoking some once-illicit substance. Uniformity is out; individuality is in. This applies doubly — triply? — to styles and standards of dress. Once upon a time, a majority of the public agreed on one way to dress for work, another way to dress for a religious service or wedding, yet another way to dress for a dinner party. Suits were de rigueur for men in most professions, and, no matter the occasion, women wore gloves, hats, and stockings — not as a marker of social standing, because women from all classes did so, but as an acknowledgment of femininity.