Culture

This is Wait, What?, a column that explains the seemingly incomprehensible. When I heard that a Russian oligarch known as “The Sausage King” was killed in the sauna with a crossbow, my first thought was: “Aw man, I miss going to the sauna.” (COVID-19 has put a stop to my favorite weekly habit, seeing as

It wouldn’t be quite that simple. Connery played Bond in two more movies. Enticed to return for 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever, he donated his considerable salary to charity. In need of cash after some bad real estate investments, he played him again in 1983’s Never Say Never Again for a rival Bond production made possible

Lawal says that the institutional resistance isn’t surprising. “What you find is a lot of the relationship between older people and younger people here tends to be built on systems that thrive on violence. When a system thrives on violence, the moment you try to eradicate that violence, it pushes back.” Yet, “young people rose

If you could transport yourself to a particular era or music scene, what would it be? Well, I’ve experienced plenty of scenes. But as I’ve often said, I would give up all of my albums just for a chance to see Howlin’ Wolf in person one more time. That’s what I think about more than

So, again, I really grew up on that movie and it’s something that I can still watch to this day. I don’t watch many of the movies I’ve done—and it’s not because I don’t like them, I love them all—but I can watch a little bit of Dead Presidents and still get that same feeling

The proliferation of COVID-19-“inspired” art is fast approaching. Returning TV shows are starting to incorporate the pandemic—this week’s season premiere of This Is Us took all of 90 seconds to mention “the virus.” But the real enemy will be the films and series that don’t just reflect these times, but directly fictionalize them. The idea,

There seems to be a sense in the book that, despite all of these differences, we’re all making these little lies together. I think that’s right. Maybe “optimistic” is not quite the right word, but there’s a sense of optimism in this book? I think that there’s a sense of some promise of something. And

By “we,” Trump means the Republican Party, which scored a victory on mail-in ballots before the Supreme Court just as Amy Coney Barrett was being confirmed. The five Republican appointees kept in place a ruling that confined the deadline for receipt of mail-in ballots to Election Day, as state law dictates—disregarding a judge’s order extending

A treasured scene for me: a late-middle-aged Bill Murray, in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, showing up at Scarlett Johansson’s hotel room door in an inappropriately youthful orange camouflage T-shirt, only for Johansson to burst out laughing. Murray retreats to the bathroom, turns the shirt inside out. And into the Tokyo night they go, undaunted.

To paraphrase Juelz Santana, Sean Pablo is 23 and lives a crazy life. He’s the heartthrob of Supreme’s skate team, known for his balletic 360 flip and badass grimace; he also rides for Jason Dill’s skate brand, Fucking Awesome. He travels all around the world with Supreme, having his photograph taken and filming for the

Switch is one of a number of artists at the forefront of the #EndSARS movement, which has brought Nigeria to a complete standstill in less than three weeks. Instigated by musicians Run Town and Falz, the protests kicked off with a march in Lagos on October 8th. Fueled by women’s organizations like the Feminist Coalition

As Oneohtrix Point Never, Daniel Lopatin has cut a striking figure through the last decade of electronic music. The 38-year-old’s career began in the underground noise scene, when he released synth-laden new age abstractions, and has taken him down fascinating paths not often traveled by avant-garde musicians, like touring with Soundgarden and Nine Inch Nails,

The Nautilus Maldives Despite the Maldives recently tightening entry requirements after a spike in coronavirus cases, the Indian Ocean archipelago is still one of the world’s most popular post-pandemic travel destinations – its glittering string of islands perfectly set up for social distanced travel. And if a tropical paradise complete with swaying palms and thatched

Three years ago, when Bryan Washington started sporadically tapping out the earliest draft of Memorial on his phone’s Notes app — while waiting for dinner to simmer, or between teaching ESL classes— he envisioned the self-proclaimed “queer traumedy” as a short story with limited appeal. After all, there wasn’t exactly a robust market for a

RAPPER WARRIOR NINJA (ERIC ANDRE SHOW, 2016) [embedded content] One clear influence on Andre’s standup comes from the Jackass crew of misfits. “Those guys are the best at what they do. They’re daredevils, but they’re likable,” he says. The inspiration is most obvious in the way Andre and the show’s guests constantly put their bodies

We talked about family, religion, music—Jersey law requires me to ask you about football and politics. I know you’re a fan of at least one of those things. But you seem to code switch between worlds and get along with lots of different people. I don’t think that I get along with lots of different

I’ve been lucky enough to win a championship at five or six other places. And they feel really similar. They really do, except for it’s just such a big stage and you just gotta kind of treat them all the same, you know? That’s like me saying I won a junior high writing contest and