Innholdsfortegnelse for November 21-December 4, 2022 i New York Magazine

1 For New York’s latest cover story, Kerry Howley visited Britney Spears’s hometown to discover why the pop star’s father forced her into a yearslong conservatorship (“The Curse of Kentwood,” November 7–20). Julianne Escobedo Shepherd commented that Howley “is consistently brilliant at transforming feature reporting into narrative art, which makes this incredibly sad and infuriating story of patriarchal control that much more impactful.” Dominic Dean wrote, “A lot has already been said about the background to Britney’s conservatorship, and most media has moved on, but this deep dive into the family story is a very powerful piece of reporting, and worth reading. Warning: It is dark, even darker than you think.” Vanity Fair’s Erin Vanderhoof said the feature “really draws out the most discomfiting part of Britney’s conservatorship: common abusive…

SBF: THE VIRTUE WAS THE CON ONE OF THE CRUCIAL prongs of Sam Bankman-Fried’s big con was his co-opting of the press, which turned out to be very easy for him. Manipulating journalists was a cinch—so few of us know how to write about anything to do with crypto—and he threw money all over an industry that’s notoriously cash starved. Now, any members of the mendicant media who have ties to him or helped launder his phony philosophies are acting sheepish, pointing fingers, or insisting they barely knew the guy. Fortune magazine put SBF on its cover this year, asking, “The Next Warren Buffett?” Now the author of that story, Jeff John Roberts, confesses, “I was charmed by his nerdy affect as SBF, unkempt in a T-shirt and bushy hair,…

ONE MORNING in March 2021, I got a call from a former CIA officer named John Maguire. Maguire had once been an important person at the Agency. He was the man the Bush administration called on the day after 9/11 to take command of a team that operated clandestinely in Iraq. Since his retirement in 2005, he’d provided me with solid information on topics ranging from money laundering to gunrunning—he was a clearinghouse for information about criminal activity and geopolitical hot spots worldwide. On the phone that day, Maguire told me an incredible story about a billionaire venture capitalist in Whitefish, Montana, named Michael Goguen. In 2013, he said, Goguen and another CIA veteran, Matthew Marshall, had founded a private security firm later named Amyntor. It was the start of…

The Journal Entry I Always Return To By Hanif Abdurraqib I AM SOMETIMES precious about the private journals of writers or artists being made available to the public, yet I am enthralled by the journals of Octavia Butler for their aesthetic qualities, how they are often written with what seems to be haphazard exuberance, all caps, a flurry of underlines and exclamation points, different colors of ink, edits and redirections. Removed from the cleanliness that a finished draft can demand, there’s a thrilling freedom that echoes off the page, particularly in the pages where Butler is manifesting a future for herself or laying out her desires. This tone has, in part, granted these journals a new life on the internet in recent years. Portions of them are posted on social…

DREW THOMAS Senior finance associate, Hell’s Kitchen Are you having fun? Honestly, this is the most Gossip Girl–esque thing I’ve gotten to do in my life. I’m on the governor’s campaign team, so I started the night checking people in. But by 9:30, I was freed and finally got to be Blair Waldorf—in this insane venue, all the lights, camera, action. Right out of the gate, Schumey won, so that was a good palate cleanser, then Tish, then I saw Erik Bottcher, my City Council member for Hell’s Kitchen. He’s famous because he’s 40 and just really, really handsome and tall. My staff sometimes teases me, like, “Oh my God, it’s your husband.” So that was fun. But I also saw two people I had ghosted. Traditional New York gay…

BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER / LEE PACE / FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE / CRITICS / TO DO LOURDES LEON, WHO LIKES to go by Lola, has gotten three separate “Wassup?”s from passing skaters in the hour we’ve been sitting by the open window of Kiki’s, a Greek restaurant frequented by downtown kids and tourists in the Chinatown-adjacent wedge known as Dimes Square. (Heard of it?) “Oh my God, this area,” she says, flashing a peace sign at the latest one and rolling her eyes. “I keep seeing people I know. Ugh!” She looks over at a gentleman clutching a hardcover book like a Greek dramatist at a nearby table of three. “Is that guy reading aloud?” she mutters. “I’m gonna throw up.” The model-choreographer-dancer and, more recently, singer—she just released…

AT AGE SEVENTEEN I was the first art director of Screw, the pioneering underground “sex review” that helped trigger the 1960s sexual revolution. It was cofounded by the outrageous Al Goldstein, who was a trusted friend … When Al and Jim Buckley founded Screw, nothing—not Hugh Hefner’s Playboy or Ralph Guinzburg’s Eros or Barney Rossett’s Evergreen Review—had yet come close to addressing sex with such unvarnished candor and biting wit. Al was an equal-opportunity exploiter of men, women, and art directors, but his raunchy humor raised the bar for porn from socially unredeemable smut to ironic social commentary. Sure, Screw was shocking, offensive, and downright obscene—but, as the motto on its early covers announced, it was “Best in the Field It Created.” (Princeton Architectural Press; out now.)…

IT’S POSSIBLE THAT you don’t fully understand what Sam Bankman-Fried did or what transpired at his company FTX. This may help. Explain it to me like I’m … 5 years old. A silly-haired wizard sold magic beans. The villagers loved it! Until they stopped believing in magic and demanded their money back, only to find out that the wizard had already spent it. Explain it to me like I’m … 10. A really smart guy owned a bank. He was also a terrible poker player. He used made-up money to buy his way into a high-stakes game and then he lost, so he paid his casino tab by robbing his own bank (allegedly). When his customers heard about his gambling losses, they stormed the bank to pull their money out,…

SBF: THE VIRTUE WAS THE CON THERE HAS NOT been a bad actor in history,” says Rocky Schwartz, “who hasn’t been able to couch their conduct behind some meaningful and generally positive ideology.” It’s 9 p.m. at a bar in Kips Bay. Schwartz, 29, is drinking Sprite and pondering the role her philanthropic movement might have played in the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s empire—and the boomerang possibility that his downfall is about to wreak financial and reputational havoc on her field. She’s the executive director of Effective Altruism NYC, which is funded by the Centre for Effective Altruism, which is in turn supported by a $14 million grant from Bankman-Fried’s foundation. Or at least it was. Schwartz says she’s still hopeful that the good of EA can be quarantined from…

SBF: THE VIRTUE WAS THE CON THEY WERE AN odd pair, Sam Bankman-Fried and Lauren Remington Platt: the philosophical nerd in desperate need of a proper haircut and the coiffed, gown-ready fashion-show fixture whose most recent Instagram on her now-locked feed, from July, is of her embracing and wishing a happy 88th birthday to Giorgio Armani. In February of this year, SBF tapped LRP to serve as FTX’s head of global luxury partnerships, a job “essential for the next phase of growth of our team’s partnership and branding focus,” as SBF put it in a press release. Remington Platt couched her contributions-to-be in high-minded platitudes about bringing gender parity to the crypto-bro scene. “Only 7 percent of women are investing in cryptocurrency, and that not only has financial implications but…

IN OCTAVIA E. BUTLER’S novelette “Bloodchild,” a quantum of humanity fleeing Earth finds sanctuary on a distant planet—but at a price. The native Tlic, a species of intelligent aliens, establish the Preserve, where humans can work, marry, and raise children without interference; in return, some humans are implanted with eggs by Tlic females, whose larvae must feed on living flesh. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction in 1984, “Bloodchild” won Butler the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Award for Best Novelette—a sci-fi triple crown. Narrated by a young human host who begins to question the whole arrangement after witnessing a gruesome larval delivery, the story represents Butler at the height of her powers, patiently unfolding the consequences of an upsetting moral premise with horrific serenity. The author herself viewed “Bloodchild” as…

ANNA SUI DESIGNER “This always makes me think of Mick Jagger’s long red scarf in Gimme Shelter. It’s very dramatic, frames the face nicely, plus is functional, warm, and in my favorite color.” EMMA STRAUB AUTHOR “I love Virginia Johnson scarves. I have at least four of them: orange flowers, pink camels, blue sharks, frogs. Color makes me happy, and in the wintertime I tend to dress like a preschooler. These help.” FRECK VREELAND DIPLOMAT “Blue is my favorite color because it reminds me of the Majorelle blue of my beloved Marrakech. This was a Christmas gift from my godson, so it’s extra special.” MARGARET AUSTIN CO-FOUNDER OF OUTLINE “I bought this a couple of years ago at Collyer’s Mansion on Atlantic. I was immediately drawn to its colors. Sometimes…

IF YOU’RE BUYING A GIFT YOU HOPE THEY’LL USE FOREVER, cross-check it against the buy it for life sub-reddit. Community favorites include Zojirushi’s rice cookers and Canada West boots. ERIN SCHWARTZ Every Friday, TikToker Emma Ungaro posts vintage designer bags she’s spotted on resale sites. Turn on notifications and grab one for the purse snob in your life. JENNA MILLINER-WADDELL UPDATE THEIR OLD JEWELRY. The concierge service Spur Jewelry will turn an heirloom like a brooch into a chic necklace (from $650). J.M.W. COSTCO SELLS GOOD JEWELRY. I’ve got my eye on their 18-Karat-Yellow-Gold Round Hoops ($350). DOMINIQUE PARISO Costco also, surprisingly, sells Mason Pearson hairbrushes. The “handy” version retails for $175, but Costco sells it for $93. LAUREN RO I love to give a proper bayberry candle ($22). During…

SBF: THE VIRTUE WAS THE CON IT’S EARLY NOVEMBER. You’re into crypto. It has probably been a rough few months—prices have fallen and some seemingly solid projects recently collapsed. You’ve got some assets tied up with FTX, the crypto concern founded by Sam Bankman-Fried. It’s one of the largest exchanges on earth and is run by a heavily connected industry heavyweight, a media darling with an interest in philanthropy who collects celebrity endorsements and investments. Soon, however, warning signs start flashing. FTX is in free fall. SBF is tweeting nonsense. You’ve finally realized you have to pull your money off FTX, but when you try, you see it’s too late. The exchange has frozen withdrawals. Customer service isn’t responding, your apps aren’t even working anymore, and press coverage is confusing,…

IF YOU GO to Crystal Springs Uplands School, it’s both difficult to truly succeed (as in exceeding expectations) and difficult to fail. You know the kind of place. The floor is so high, the net is so secure. You’re born with a feeling your intelligence is a gift to society, a confidence that you can do no wrong. Everyone’s parent is either a Stanford professor or a tech mogul or Steve Jobs, whose son attended the school at the same time as Sam Bankman-Fried, who graduated in 2010. “There was one kid who was like the youngest global chess champion ever when he was, like, 11 years old,” one SBF-era alumnus of Crystal Springs Uplands School told me. (This was Daniel Naroditsky, class of ’14.) “Another girl from the school…

THE LEGAL ONSLAUGHT facing Sam Bankman-Fried has only just begun, but it’s already a doozy. The revelations in the wake of FTX’s demise have been filled with red flags for prosecutors who specialize in financial crimes. A massive amount of money has apparently evaporated, and nothing approximating a decent explanation has been offered by SBF or anyone else. There are early but classic markers of criminal fraud: the secret back door he reportedly created to move customer deposits to his hedge fund, Alameda Research, which appears by itself to have resulted in more than $1 billion in lost customer funds; billions of dollars in recently discovered “loans” from Alameda to Bankman-Fried and other company executives; the lack of financial records across the sprawling corporate FTX family; and apparent misrepresentations to…

OCTAVIA ESTELLE BUTLER WAS NAMED AFTER TWO OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN HER LIFE: her mother, Octavia Margaret Guy, and her grandmother, Estella. Her grandmother was an astonishing woman. She raised seven children on a plantation in Louisiana, chopping sugarcane, boiling laundry in hot cauldrons, and cooking and cleaning, not only for her family but for the white family that owned the land. There was no school for Black children, but Estella taught Octavia Margaret enough to read and write. As far as Butler could tell, her grandmother’s life wasn’t far removed from slavery—the only difference was she had worked hard enough and saved enough money to move everyone out west during the Great Migration, to Pasadena, California, in the early 1920s. Octavia Margaret worked from an early age;…

BEST OF NEW YORK For a Selection of Brooks Brothers CROWLEY VINTAGE, 147 Front St., Ste. 303, Dumbo; @crowley_vintage AUTHOR AND FOUNDER of WM Brown magazine Matthew Hranek first shopped at Crowley Vintage when it opened in 2017 in Gowanus. In 2020, owner Sean Crowley expanded to Dumbo, where he now sells everything from yacht-club-worthy blazers to vintage ashtrays from the Stork Club and crocodile cigar cases, and Hranek followed. “Sean has a very good editing eye when it comes to the more preppy, trad side of vintage,” says Hranek, whose favorite purchases to date are a Savile Row double-breasted, gold-button blazer ($250) and a ’50s striped oxford ($60) from Brooks Brothers (which partnered with Crowley last year for its online vintage shop). “There’s no digging when you’re there,”…

I NEVER WOULD HAVE LEFT. I’d always thought that I’d be carried out feet first down that polished wood stairwell with its Arts and Crafts wallpaper. For 27 years, I had lived in this two-bedroom on the second floor of an 1854 brownstone on West 9th Street in Greenwich Village. I wrote three books there and churned out more magazine stories than I can count. I loved to give small parties where I would announce that tray tables had to come down when dinner was served (airplane joke); I never had a proper dining table. Instead, I found huge vintage linen napkins that would spill over to the floor when a plate or small tray was placed on a guest’s lap. I had a fire going all winter—until, about five…

IN THE OPENING scene of Lee Pace’s first major screen credit, 2003’s Soldier’s Girl, his character, Calpernia Addams, introduces herself in voice-over: “You may think that I’m the center of this story—the main character, as they say—but I’m not.” The film is based on real events: Calpernia is a trans woman who falls in love with an infantry private stationed at Fort Campbell. Her first lines are at least a touch disingenuous. You wouldn’t need to say them unless there was some tension over who the center was. “I admit I’ve always craved the spotlight,” Calpernia says. “I’m the rhinestones of this story.” This year, Pace received the third annual Vulture Festival Honorary Degree, a very unaccredited honor given to those whose work we like so much we just have…

Twenty-five things to see, hear, watch, and read. NOVEMBER 23–DECEMBER 7 MOVIES 1. See Hunt Presidential assassins in South Korea. In select theaters, December 2. Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae’s directorial debut is this knotty spy thriller set during South Korea’s ’80s military dictatorship. It’s got more intrigue, shoot-outs, and double crosses than two hours should be able to contain. ALISON WILLMORE BOOKS 2. Read Stella Maris Quantum panics. Knopf, December 6. Sixteen years after The Road, Cormac McCarthy has emerged with a pair of new novels. October’s The Passenger deals with two siblings’ darkly interconnected dynamic; Stella Maris, its shorter companion and exegesis, is made up mostly of conversations between one half of the pair, who is a profoundly gifted mathematician, and her therapist in a psychiatric hospital. EMMA…

TO FIND THE MANY HUNDREDS OF GIFTS you’re about to encounter, we did not merely scan our favorite websites for new products or even just select some of the nicest things we’ve written about on the Strategist over the past year. Of course, we did all that, but then we dug even deeper. A team of dedicated editors worked for months falling down dozens of rabbit holes to find new (or else sufficiently obscure) gifts that you likely won’t find recommended anywhere else. Among other nutty tactics, we scanned every single account that a particularly stylish Danish e-commerce site follows on Instagram (then shopped on those stylish Danish sites); slunk around on all manner of sub-Reddits; pored over a year’s worth of all the obscure newsletters we subscribe to; begged…