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American Scandal


Long before Jeffrey Epstein was exposed as a highfalutin pedophile, there were other crimes that staggered belief. There’s the Tuskegee syphilis study, in which a group of scientists in the 1930s deliberately withheld treatment from infected African-American men; or the greed and negligence that led to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska. American Scandal, a podcast on Wondery, has covered all of those horrors, and now it’s Enron’s turn: the narrator, Lindsay Graham (no relation to the senator, but he does sound a little like Rod Serling of The Twilight Zone), reminds us that even business tycoons who are not sexual predators can do a devastating amount of damage. (wondery.com)

Drive

1983 Mercedes-Benz Wagon


If ever there were a vehicle that could make you feel like it is possible to transform all the pleasure of a day at the beach into a car ride, this one might be it: marine-blue exterior, sand-colored leather interior, and plenty of glass to let the sunshine in. Heaven. The 300TD is also a reminder of what autos were like before they all began to look like ’roided-out video-game creations, made to appeal to the tastes of 14-year-old boys. This is old-world elegance. (stuartparrcollection.com)

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Sticks & Stones


On October 27, Dave Chappelle will receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. The award’s namesake couldn’t have predicted how humor would change in the century after his death, or how America would, for that matter. Chappelle, on the other hand, is so deeply versed in the controversies of our age—and his eye so attuned to the strangeness before us—that he can’t help but point out the hypocrisy, lunacy, and sheer absurdity of it all. In his latest Netflix special, Dave Chappelle: Sticks & Stones, he lets his cut-through-the-B.S. voice run wild in a way that Twain would have surely appreciated. Whether your virtue-signaling, trigger-word-fearing friends will appreciate it, well, that’s an open question … (netflix.com)

Organize

Symbol Audio Record Stand


For musicheads, vinyl is still the peak of audio formats. It’s also an obsession that leaves you shelling out for the perfect hi-fi gear, impossible-to-find Jonathan Richman records, and vinyl-cleaning machines that cost as much as a meal at Per Se. But being more aurally attuned than visually astute, album enthusiasts sometimes skimp on the storage side of things. That’s where the Unison Record Stand from Symbol Audio comes in, which lets you display your albums with the same pride and care you give to books. Best of all: it comes with a vibration-reducing turntable platform, so you can slam dance without the record skipping. How many bookshelves can make that boast? ($1,995; symbolaudio.com)

Eat

Kyani & Co.


Akhtar Nawab, the man behind Alta Calidad in Brooklyn and Otra Vez in New Orleans, traveled to Mumbai and discovered haleem. As he told us, “Kyani & Co. is one of Mumbai’s oldest restaurants, where we all went for breakfast after a morning at the fish market. It’s a very old-world place, with British and Portuguese influences. The most interesting thing I ate, hands down, was a dish called haleem. It’s like a warm pâté, but in this case it is made from an unlikely set of ingredients: wheat, lentils, ghee, yogurt, lots of spices and chilies, and lamb. It requires both mastery of technique and a level of refinement for such a rustic dish.” (No Web site—hey, it’s 115 years old! Pick up the phone: +91-22-2201-1492)

Issue No. 10
September 21, 2019
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Issue No. 10
September 21, 2019