Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2018 i Esquire

No one can knock the utility of a backpack, but unless it’s done very, very well, it can feel about as juvenile as a backward ball cap and some Big League Chew. Dior’s Kris Van Assche smartly elevates this versatile standard: starting out with a basic nylon form and then superimposing the dark, enigmatic work of French artist François Bard. The painter, who portrays contemporary subjects in layers of oil and glaze, has put his pieces on Dior shirts and skateboards as well. But it’s the pack that makes the strongest statement. A statement like “Sure, I’ve got some stuff to schlep around, but I also know how to pronounce chiaroscuro.”…

The navy suit anchors every man’s closet. Simple, flattering, and universally appropriate, it moves from work meetings to weddings to weekend outings with ease. Which is why you see it all over the place. But you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to make the navy suit your own—you just have to infuse it with some personality. Are you into knits? Layer one in under your jacket for an added element. If you’re a guy who likes patterns, use them to energize an otherwise buttoned-up look. You could even go for a high-low approach with sneakers and a graphic tee. With navy to ground you, you can get away with breaking a few rules. Here’s how to get it right. 1 SET THE TONE NAVY IS ALMOST A NEUTRAL, MEANING…

Westworld has seized our minds by capturing our anxieties in this cultural moment, when we’re not sure who is who or where reality ends and tech begins. Plus: Robots are awesome. And the cocreators of one of television’s most entertaining and philosophical shows are a seemingly mild-mannered married couple with kids, Jonathan Nolan (who cowrote The Dark Knight and Interstellar) and Lisa Joy (previously a writer and producer on Burn Notice). We talked to them about success, staying sane at home, and, of course, robots. Adam Grant: What’s it like to work together as a married couple and as parents? Jonathan Nolan: We’ve turned it into a family affair. With separate careers, you’ve had a bad day, you go home, and your partner’s had a great day: They kind of…

(A) STOP DOING IT. (B) TELL THE BANK ABOUT THE GLITCH. (C) LIVE THE LIFE YOU’VE ALWAYS DREAMED OF. THIS IS THE TRUE STORY OF THE MAN WHO CHOSE C—THANKS TO MORE THAN 1.5 MILLION BUCKS IN “FREE” CASH. The greatest adventures happen when you least expect them. And on July 15, 2010, Luke “Milky” Moore never thought one of the greatest in recent memory was about to start for him. Then again, not much ever went down in Goulburn, Australia, his sleepy hometown two hours into the barren brown hills southwest of Sydney. Goulburn’s biggest claim is its roadside attraction, the Big Merino, aka Rambo: a fifty-foot-tall concrete ram with a proportionally huge and hideous scrotum. For the twenty-three thousand locals, the main pastime is “slapping the pokies”—playing the…

An ATM is a vending machine for cash, paper currency that can be used to buy goods and services when you run out of Amazon gift cards. It stands for “automated teller machine,” teller being the old Dutch word for “a person whose job is to tell you your account is overdrawn.” ATM machines, as they are incorrectly called, are located in banks—financial institutions where you and the boys are going to do one last job before retiring to an honest, humble life in Mexico—but they may also be found in bodegas or in Charles Koch’s bathroom. The first ATMs appeared at Woodstock in 1969 and dispensed bandannas, cigarettes, and feral kittens, which were once considered acceptable payments for weed at 2:00 a.m. Today, they typically dispense $20 bills, the…

All the U.S. men’s soccer team needed to qualify for this year’s World Cup was a lousy, stinking draw against the 99th-ranked team in the world, Trinidad and Tobago, to avoid the ignominy of watching the tournament on the couch. The job of preserving our nation’s last shred of soccer dignity was left to smirking retread Bruce Arena, who hadn’t managed the USMNT since 2006, when Christian Pulisic, the only American player worth a damn, was seven years old. But who needs dignity? Thousands of passionate fans traveled hither and yon chanting “I Believe That We Will Win,” only to watch their team play with an unearned bravado not seen since Anthony Scaramucci was red-carded from the White House. Maybe next time we should just play Trinidad or Tobago—but not…

In the folklore of my family, there is one night that remains legendary. We had traveled to Cancún, the gabachos-in-big-sombreros Mexican resort city that was built on the concept of a never-ending spring break, to celebrate New Year’s Eve with the proper measure of ridiculousness. I don’t remember much about it, but my siblings do. They remember gazing out at a dance floor in a nightclub after midnight and seeing me, then in my early 20s, writhing around in a manner that was perhaps meant to summon the spirit of Quetzalcoatl, the Mesoamerican deity usually depicted as a feathered serpent. My brother and sister could find me in the crowd because I had managed to climb on top of a giant amplifier, which meant that my euphoric contortions were on…

Oh, to be young and have corporations jockey for your bitcoin. When it comes to cars, the newly post-collegiate have always been a slippery demographic companies have tried to capture by any means possible—they will soon be in the market for pricier midlife-crisis-mobiles, after all. The Volkswagen Beetle became America’s best-selling import in the ’60s and early ’70s thanks in part to its adoption by the youthful free-love set. Kia’s languid sales skyrocketed after it launched an irreverent marketing campaign with dancing hamsters that targeted millennials. Mercedes-Benz has stopped sponsoring German soccer and started pouring marketing money into esports. (What’s that? Ask a teen.) And now Volvo hopes to grab a slice of the emoji pie with its hip new XC40 compact crossover. Not just through a bold design and…

One surefire way to generate fashion buzz right now? Find some unassuming footwear, ask a designer with scads of cultural cachet to “reinvent” it, then sit back and watch the Instagram likes roll in. On the surface, Rick Owens’s collaboration with Birkenstock is no different. What could be more edgily perverse than handing over an old-school orthopedic brand to an industrial Goth provocateur? Except that the two are so spiritually aligned that it doesn’t feel like a stunt. Owens has always prized comfort and utility, even when his runway shows raise eyebrows. And the kicks in this collection aren’t intended to scandalize. Instead, Owens respectfully updated classic styles (tweaking details like straps and buckles, bringing in rich materials like calf leather, suede, and felt), then quietly stepped back. You end…

1. Waffle knit: Hard to find in a sweatshirt, but worth the hunt for a killer vintage look. 2. Prewashed: You don’t want to look too pristine, so find a shirt that’s already been through the ringer. 3. Cable knit: It’s not just for winter. 4. Slub: Natural variations in the thickness of the yarn lead to lumpy bits called slubs. They lend jackets an organic, imperfect look. 5. Piqué: A loose knit that lets air circulate better than tighter, flatter weaves. 6. Crumpled: A cotton blazer with some pucker hits the right relaxed note.…

HERE’S THE BAD NEWS: EVERY MAN, if he lives LONG ENOUGH, IS LIKELY TO DEVELOP PROSTATE CANCER. HERE’S THE GOOD NEWS: Often, you CAN LIVE WITH IT. But how to go about screening for and treating it—OR NOT—is a source of massive confusion. So we asked DR. SAMIR TANEJA, a trailblazer in urologic oncology, and a few of his colleagues to share the newest approaches toward beating ONE OF THE TOP KILLERS OF MEN. SO WHAT'S THE PROSTATE, ANYWAY? A gland in the male reproductive system the size of a Ping-Pong ball, situated below the bladder and in front of the rectum. Its main purpose is to produce the milky-white part of semen that armors sperm before the big swim. WILL I GET PROSTATE CANCER? Most likely, if you live…

His YouTube Lectures Have Been Viewed by Tens of Millions. Rapt Young Men Pack Halls to Soak in His Speeches, Which Tell Them to Stop Whining and Take Some Damn Responsibility for Their Lives. IS THIS MIDDLE-AGED CANADIAN COLLEGE PROFESSOR THE PHILOSOPHER OUR TIMES NEED—OR A DANGEROUS ANTI-PC PROVOCATEUR IN TWEED CLOTHING? I. “WHAT AM I EXACTLY?” Here in a guest cottage at the summit of a high hill in northern California, the tenth stop on a three-continent tour to promote his new book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, Jordan Peterson has broached the topic that never fails to move him to tears. The emotional burden he bears as a virtual father figure to millions of wayward young men. For a moment, he resists, falling silent and…

Some of Hollywood’s biggest films have sprung from Esquire: Art director Robert Benton and editor David Newman wrote Bonnie and Clyde (1967); The Misfits, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and All the Pretty Horses began as short stories in Esquire by Arthur Miller, Truman Capote, and Cormac McCarthy, respectively. Next, Tom Hanks will play the lead in an adaptation of Tom Junod’s 1998 profile of Mister Rogers. In 1978, we published a feature that introduced America to mechanical bulls, a Texas honkytonk called Gilley’s, and a restless twenty-two-year-old refinery worker named Dew Westbrook. Written by Aaron Latham, “The Ballad of the Urban Cowboy: America’s Search for True Grit” is one part love story—detailing the relations between Dew, his ex-wife, and his new girlfriend—and one part documentary. Two years later, Hollywood turned it…

A thug on a motorcycle gets a wedgie. A man’s face is smashed into a crotch. But the funniest aspect in Deadpool’s bullet-time opening sequence might be the credit for the writers: “The Real Heroes Here.” When Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese received a Writers Guild Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2017, critics did a collective spit-take. (Past winners include the writers of Brokeback Mountain and Schindler’s List.) But look beyond the pull-my-finger humor; Deadpool is a thinking-man’s superhero movie with fourth-wall breaks, deep cultural references, and the nonlinear structure of an art-house film. It became the second-highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time and garnered a Golden Globe nod for Best Picture—Musical or Comedy, helping to usher in the era of smart, no-holds-barred comic adaptations like Logan and…

• • • For those who remember the potato-skin frenzy of the ’80s, one of the bar snacks at True Laurel in San Francisco is bound to summon bacon-studded sense memories. Courtesy of chef-owner David Barzelay and chef de cuisine Geoff Davis, it’s a fluffy Yukon Gold spud that’s roasted, deep-fried, sliced open, and then stuffed with a pornographic pile-on of flavor: “Miso butter, housemade crème fraîche, bacon bits made with Benton’s bacon, shaved katsuobushi, a bunch of nutritional yeast for its cheesy umami, scallion, and smoked salt,” Barzelay told me. (Katsuobushi are those wispy flakes of tuna that sway in an invisible breeze.) Never before has a tuber been so tubular.…

Porsche Passport From $2,000 a month. Available in Atlanta. Up to 22 Porsche models that you can drive for unlimited miles and swaps. It definitely beats renting. Book by Cadillac $1,800 a month with no commitment. Available in New York, Dallas, and L. A. You can swap vehicles up to 18 times in a 12-month period—think CTS-V for joyriding, Escalade for the family road trip. Canvas From $379 a month, depending on subscription length and miles driven. Available in San Francisco’s Bay Area and West Los Angeles. You choose among used Fords.…

• • • Brazilian-born Alberto Santos-Dumont was an aeronautical pioneer and bon viveur so high on altitude that in the 1890s he hosted regular “aerial dinners” in his Champs-Élysées home; his guests had to climb stepladders to reach their seats. Louis Cartier dined there often, and after Santos-Dumont complained that checking his pocket watch in flight meant he had to briefly let go of the controls, Cartier devised a timepiece he could wear on his wrist. The Cartier Santos, created in 1904, was a nod to the skies over Paris, where Santos-Dumont regularly appeared. The design and shape of the watch are meant to recall the city as seen from above, with its grand boulevards and its soaring iron giant, the Eiffel Tower. The Santos has been a top-seller for…