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November 25, 2023
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No. 228
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In This Week’s Issue
PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Jensen Davis investigates the brutal, cultish parenting program that teaches evangelical Christians how to beat their children into submission …

SOCKS AWAY!

Our Holiday Gift Guide for Men is here! Inspiring, carefully curated, and just glorious ideas for the menfolk in your life …

THE GODFATHER OF FILMMAKING

As a young film-school graduate, Francis Ford Coppola helped open the film-studio gates for Scorsese, Lucas, and Spielberg …

HAUNTED SCHOOLHOUSE

Charles V. Bagli traces the hulking arc of P.S. 64, in New York’s East Village, from school to community center to boarded-up real-estate nightmare …

BUZZ KILL

WASPs once ruled the roost. Now they’re more likely to be found in the gutter. Michael Knox Beran learns that the former dominant class’s inherited wealth has either run out or been the cause of their downfall …

NOT O.K., COMPUTER

Can A.I. replace the Hollywood screenwriter? No way, says the hugely successful screenwriter Scott Z. Burns, who believes computers will never be able to replicate the film scribe’s brain …

VAN GO!

Steve Garbarino hitches a ride in the new escape vehicle du jour—the van. Whether it be the luxurious Sprinter or the best-selling Drifter, #vanlife has become the chosen hashtag for those wanting to get away from it all …

BUT, WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

When Maria Callas missed her note … millennials’ timepiece of choice … the bulletproof luggage that will last a lifetime … the new book Chloë Sevigny is crazy about … brace yourself for a plunge in the Irish Sea … behold, the queen of facials! … Denmark’s crown jewel … FAWI? Acronyms for adults (that’s Fell Asleep Watching It), right this way …

But First …
Issue No. 228

The View from Here A.I. might be able to save us from the next pandemic—but can it do anything to save Hollywood from mediocrity?

By Scott Z. Burns
Read On
Barry Blitt’s Sketchbook
The Cult Around the Corner

The Parent Trap For nearly 40 years, and with the support of a Christian evangelical mega-church, Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo have preached a shocking and damaging parenting program to thousands of Americans

By Jensen Davis
Read On
Gift Guide

Our Holiday Men’s Gift Guide Is Here!

Chris Black, Derek Guy, Nick Foulkes, and others help you find the best gifts for men, including barware, watches, outdoor gear, and more
Read On
Real-Estate Wars

Bleak House, New York–Style For a quarter-century, artists, activists, and plutocrats have been battling over the future of a former public school in the East Village. Is the end finally in sight?

By Charles V. Bagli
Read On
Air Supply

A Very AIR MAIL Holiday: Gifts for Him

As the gift-giving season approaches, show your affection for the male figures in your life with AIR SUPPLY’s selection of dapper delights and handsome heirlooms
Shop
Photo: Jack Robinson/Hulton Archive/Getty Images (Beatty)
Beauty and Wellness

Eye of the Beholder First, Marcia Kilgore created Bliss. Then the serial entrepreneur moved on to FitFlops. Her latest game changer? The subscription service Beauty Pie. Our intrepid beauty-and-wellness columnist is along for the ride

By Linda Wells
Read On
Small Talk
Five seconds before the first Turducken.
Five seconds before the first Turducken.
The Watchman

Neo Is the One Millennials are crazy about “neo-vintage” watches, which re-create the overlooked styles of the 80s and provide rare value too

By Nicholas Foulkes
Read On
Book Excerpt

Emperor of the New Order How a promising young director gave up a comfortable life in Hollywood—and gained true creative freedom for a new generation of filmmakers. An exclusive excerpt from The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story

By Sam Wasson
Read On
Small Talk

Acronyms for Adults Only How to keep up with the texting shorthand your elders use to confound you

By John Ficarra
Read On
Drama Queen

We All Make Mystiques The unforgettable night in New York when Jackie Kennedy watched as opera’s greatest diva sang Tosca and bungled the high C

By John Mauceri
Read On
Best
Visit Gohar World Gohar World is to tableware what Bode is to fashion. Co-founders and sisters Laila and Nadia Gohar value craftsmanship, tradition… Sparkle Mckenzie Liautaud Good things come with warnings or—in online-shopping parlance—item descriptions. Shoe “runs large. Order a size down.”… Stay Royal Mansour I recently returned to Marrakech for the first time in nearly 15 years. Much has changed, including the hotel scene… Scroll @alexandras_list In her 25 years editing British Vogue, Alexandra Shulman explored every inch of style territory. Now a columnist… Read Digital Party Consuming the news can be exhausting. And while it’s our civic duty to keep on keeping up, that doesn’t mean reading for pleasure… Sip Yes Society The Oregon-based wine-maker Maggie Harrison, of Antica Terra winery, has enjoyed a long-standing reputation as a rebel… Visit Gohar World Gohar World is to tableware what Bode is to fashion. Co-founders and sisters Laila and Nadia Gohar value craftsmanship, tradition… Sparkle Mckenzie Liautaud Good things come with warnings or—in online-shopping parlance—item descriptions. Shoe “runs large. Order a size down.”… Stay Royal Mansour I recently returned to Marrakech for the first time in nearly 15 years. Much has changed, including the hotel scene… Scroll @alexandras_list In her 25 years editing British Vogue, Alexandra Shulman explored every inch of style territory. Now a columnist… Read Digital Party Consuming the news can be exhausting. And while it’s our civic duty to keep on keeping up, that doesn’t mean reading for pleasure… Sip Yes Society The Oregon-based wine-maker Maggie Harrison, of Antica Terra winery, has enjoyed a long-standing reputation as a rebel…
Small Talk
Design for Living

Carry On! Globe-Trotter loyalists are their own breed. A trip to the factory, in the English countryside, explains why

By Rachel Johnson
Read On
Book Reviews
Michael Knox Beran On

Flight of the WASP: The Rise, Fall, and Future of America’s Original Ruling Class

by Michael Gross
Read On

Murder, They Wrote

by Lisa Henricksson
Read On
Inside Story

Finding Albert Ballin How a German-Jewish businessman helped make possible the emigration of 1.5 million Jews from Eastern Europe—then largely disappeared from history

By Steven Ujifusa
Read On
The Literary World

Hollywood Beginning Sarah Blakley-Cartwright’s new novel captures the actor’s mindset so incisively that Chloë Sevigny and Busy Philipps are early fans

By Maggie Lange
Read On
Small Talk
Listen

Inside the Night Jackie Kennedy Stared Down Onassis’s Mistress On this week’s podcast, John Mauceri discusses an evening—and two divas—he’ll never forget

Read On
Open Book

Wave to the Camera A new book of photos by the big kahuna of surfing photography, Jimmy Metyko, captures early-80s Southern California in all its Point Break glory

11
Top, searching for secluded peelers in Northern California; above, Hawaiian surfer Montgomery “Buttons” Kaluhiokalani goes right.
Surveying the sunset surf.
Top, a camper van parked near the trail leading to Hammonds Reef, a beloved Santa Barbara spot; above, the California surfer Willy Morris is seen tucking into the barrel, thanks to Metyko’s Scott Preiss water housing (an underwater-camera case).
Top, board-maker Al Merrick with one of his twin-fin designs; above, veteran Santa Barbara surfers Davey Smith, a goofy-footer known for pioneering the 1970s floater maneuver, and Steve Hanson, during a road trip in Northern California.
Tom Curren, the Santa Barbara surfer whose event wins are second only to Kelly Slater’s, rides a tri-plane-hull twin in the Channel Islands.
Top, California surfers Dino Bortoli, Steve Morris, and Willy Morris wait for low tide in Morris’s first car, a 1967 Buick Skylark they called the “Gray Ghost”; above, portraits of Curren wearing a T-shirt given to him by Metyko.
Curren, photographed behind the old Channel Islands factory with a board airbrushed by the artist Bernie Tsao.
Top, Willy Morris and Steve Morris eat with their parents; above, the George brothers—Greg, Matt, Sam, and Mike—pose for a Surfer-magazine story.
Top, a photo of Willy Morris that first appeared in Surfer magazine’s inaugural “Hot 100” list, a ranking of the world’s best young surfers; above, board-maker Russ Short contemplates his paddle out.
The California surfer Kim Mearig with a young fan.
Top, the Santa Barbara wharf in February 1983, after a winter storm caused a six-week shutdown of the area; above, board shaper Matt Moore stands over an 18-foot basking shark.
Read On
Wheels of Fortune

Get Out of Town! These days, the stylish millennial’s favorite means of escape is a gas-guzzling Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van with all the fixins

By Steve Garbarino
Read On
Highlight
Among the 77 works on view in the Royal Academy of Arts exhibition is Edgar Degas’s 1898 pastel Dancers on a Bench.

A Lasting Impression

If you close your eyes and think of Paris during the Belle Époque, the City of Light does not appear in the amber tones of faded photographs, although cameras were much in use by that time. It is scenes of everyday life, rendered in the bright colors and liberated brushstrokes of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists, that form our collective memory. This visual monopoly, in fact, is a significant triumph of the Impressionist movement. READ ON

Read On
Small Talk
“I don’t like losing control and murdering people, but I’ve grown quite partial to the hat.”
“I don’t like losing control and murdering people, but I’ve grown quite partial to the hat.”
Buff in a Cold Climate

Ye Old Forty Foot In a small promontory jutting into Dublin Bay sits a freezing-cold, utterly irresistible watering hole where locals swim and socialize

By Bruce Handy
Read On
Close-up

Asher Liftin The 24-year-old art-world darling, whose fans include David Geffen, stages his first solo show in New York City

By Clara Molot
Read On
Travel

Copenhagen’s New Rival With stellar restaurants, irresistible shopping, and charming hotels, Bornholm is becoming Denmark’s most appealing vacation spot

By Mary Holland
Read On
The Seasoned Traveler

Nancy Silverton The chef, baker, and author behind The Cookie That Changed My Life reveals her travel routine

Read On
Marcellus Hall’s Sketchbook
Turkey Lurkey time at Grand Central.
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Issue No. 228
November 25, 2023
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Issue No. 228
November 25, 2023
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