Table of contents for August 2017 in Esquire

This past spring, thousands of millennials in flower crowns and artfully ripped denim gathered in the California desert to hail Coachella’s unlikeliest hero: a 59-year-old in baggy pants and a wrinkled polo. Composer Hans Zimmer strapped on his guitar (rather than grabbing a baton and a tux) and stunned the crowd with a 66-person band that played selections from his many classic scores, from films such as Inception and The Lion King. It was his friends Pharrell Williams and Johnny Marr who urged him to “stop hiding behind the screen.” Zimmer was awed by the live experience. “It’s not just you and the musicians on the stage, it’s the audience that completes the music.” Now he’s taking the surprisingly psychedelic show on a 45-date tour. He’s also enjoyed viral videos…

The beach is not my natural element. Tell me I’m going to London and I dream of martinis. The Bahamas? I think of how uncomfortable sand is. But I’ve lived through enough beachless seasons to know that avoiding them is no way to summer. If you get through September without breathing in some salt air, life just feels kind of flat. There’s a richness in the contrast of lazy and busy days—it’s apt that the glare of the ocean sun makes virtually all phones annoying to use. Mother Nature is telling you to be alone with your thoughts. Would it hurt to ponder the curvature of the earth where the sky touches the sea for a while? Email and Facebook will still be there in the fall. Pro-level beach fans…

1. The Seventh Function of Language By Laurent Binet An affectionate send-up of an Umberto Eco–style intellectual thriller that doubles as an exemplar of the genre, filled with suspense, elaborate conspiracies, and exotic locales. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27 2. New People By Danzy Senna If a woman sabotages her own life but there’s no one around to hear her, does she make a sound? That’s the question underlying this taut novel about a couple grappling with guilt, race, and desire in the late ’90s. Riverhead Books, $26 3. The Locals By Jonathan Dee The Pulitzer-prize finalist’s latest work focuses on a small town touched by the New American Values: greed, paranoia, and spite. No wonder it’s been billed as the Hillbilly Elegy of novels. Random House, $28 4. Lights…

“MAKE AMERICA LOVE AGAIN,” the ad blared through my news feed over black-and-white photographs of pre-Pill couples courting at the sock hop. A few taps later, the website for tech start-up Eve informed me with only a hint of irony: “Modern dating is in crisis. We thought there should be an app for that.” It’s been five years since Tinder disrupted the dating game, allowing millennials to summon potential partners like taxis and Chinese takeout. Then came the backlash. Think pieces decried a wasteland of empty promises and one-night stands. One article blamed Tinder for the “dating apocalypse,” prompting an infamous Twitter tantrum from the brand. Books like Aziz Ansari’s Modern Love wrestled with our hookup-happy culture’s “paradox of choice.” Stock prices wavered. Mobile dating was in need of a…

Guys dressing for the gym today have two options: threadbare college tees and bottomof- the-drawer basketball shorts or hyperbranded compression gear that looks like something Spider-Man would wear to the Olympics. Designer Neil Barrett wants better for you, so he’s launching Blackbarrett, a line for active guys who still want to look like adults. “A lot of people don’t want to be walking billboards,” Barrett says of his understated collection. You won’t find any screaming logos here, but Barrett’s work has its own trademarks: tailored cuts, a monochromatic palette, and striking graphic accents. Unlike his core collection, these clothes are made for breaking a sweat. “I’ve been designing everything to the ergonomic shape of the body,” Barrett says, noting that every piece, from lightweight tees and knits to running shorts…

NOLET’S® SILVER GIN NOLET’S Si lver is a modern-style gin inspired by 325 years of Nolet fami ly experience. Featuring botanicals never before used in gin— Turkish rose, raspberry, and peach—NOLET’S Si lver is redef ining the gin category. Experience this f loral and fruit-forward gin today. NOLETSGin.com THE REVOLUTIONARY WEBER IGRILL 3 THERMOMETER The Weber iGri ll 3 is designed to help you deliver perfect grilling results every time on your Genesis® II. A sophisticated digital thermometer that lets you monitor your food through your smartphone. The App helps you plan your barbecue, delivers real time information on how your food is doing and sends you notif ications. Find it at weber.com FIND YOUR #TEXASTODO Texas has it all. Unique f lavor. Breathtaking scenery. Chances to play cowboy, or…

Summer’s loosenedup dress codes are as confusing as they are liberating. Does a linen suit call for the same brogues as a wool one? And what shoes should you really wear with shorts, anyway? Enter the suede shoe: the perfect bridge between laid-back sneakers and formal footwear. Even better, the material— particularly in unlined versions—is lighter than finished leather and supremely comfortable (a godsend to guys who go sockless in summer).…

Jimmy Iovine told me, “Never forget what got you your first check. That’s the thing that’s going to get you your next check and the check after that. You gotta stay focused. Don’t let the girls throw you off. Don’t let your friends throw you off. There’s gonna be a lot of things that come at you from different ways, but they can’t write the check. And if you keep building your business? Then you’re the guy who can write the check.” My dad was always on me about contracts. And it was just like, “Man, contract? Fuck a contract.” And there were certain times when I’d ignore it, and I got burned. When I had my first song in the top ten, Juicy J told me, “Yo, you want…

A f ew weeks before Bill Maher nearly blew up his career for the second time, a middle-aged man named Billy Martin warmed up the audience that had come to watch a filming of Real Time with Bill Maher. Martin, Maher’s head writer, stood on the L.A. soundstage where Real Time is broadcast live on Friday nights, the same one used by The Price Is Right. He asked if there were any conservatives in the audience, which skewed white and rowdy. A guy in a Tommy Bahama– style shirt raised his hand. “How was the drive up from Orange County?” Martin asked. The crowd laughed, unaware that Martin would use the same joke the next week. He finished his routine by urging a standing ovation for Maher, who blew a…

* It’s pronounced glen-ER-kert. We went to Scotland to ask. Tip the Scale Blow the pattern up for a can’t-miss statement, or shrink it down for a subtler effect. Country Living Glen plaid shows up mostly in two shades: earthy browns that channel the pattern’s rustic roots . . . City Slick . . . and cool, classic grays that blend seamlessly on city streets.…

There are many ways to gussy up a gin and tonic—bars in Spain, for example, are known to garnish it with cracked coriander seeds. But it’s summer, when upgrades should be easy; just try a better gin. Sipsmith London Dry is becoming widely available across the Atlantic, and we love it because it’s stunningly dry, with a complex, delicately spicy finish that turns your G&T into more than a simple thirst quencher. $33; sipsmith.com…

Victor Demarchelier Photographer of “Elba’s Ease,” page 50 Credentials: His work has appeared in Town & Country, Harper’s Bazaar, and more. On shooting Idris Elba: “Idris was great, very easygoing, handsome, intelligent, and smart to work with.” This summer you’ll find him: Likely in the South of France with his wife. Best advice: “Do what you love to do and you will be successful in life.” George Pendle Author of “The Masochist’s Marathon,” page 90 Credentials: His work has appeared in The Guardian, Cabinet, and others; author of three books. This summer you’ll find him: In Rensselaerville, New York. Which feels: “Plucked out of the pages of Tom Sawyer.” Worst date: “Being invited back to a girl’s place for a cup of coffee. And then being given a cup of…

It begins in an elevator and ends in a river. One of the year’s greatest fight scenes happens about two thirds into Atomic Blonde, a thrumming spy thriller set in the days before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Agent Lorraine Broughton, played by Charlize Theron, gets tossed down stairs in ways that would put dollar signs in a chiropractor’s eyes. At one point, she uses a hot plate and a corkscrew as weapons. She appears close to death throughout what looks to be one long take. If it seems uncannily visceral, that’s because it is—the choreography was so intense that a trained stuntman had to work the camera. You may feel like you need an ice pack after watching the thing. For director David Leitch, a former stuntman himself…

In 1934, the novelist Chester Himes—who eventually counted Ian Fleming, Patricia Highsmith, and Henry Miller among his fans—filed “To What Red Hell?,” the second of eleven stories he published in Esquire, from the Ohio State Penitentiary. It describes a gruesome prison fire, not unlike the one Himes himself had witnessed a few years earlier, in which more than 300 of his fellow inmates burned to death. “Himes had no illusions,” his friend and sometime rival Richard Wright later said. “I doubt if he has ever had any.” In the comprehensive new biography Chester B. Himes (W.W. Norton, $35), Lawrence P. Jackson charts the jagged trajectory of his subject’s career. After serving seven years of a 20-year sentence for attempted robbery, Himes wrote a handful of provocative social-realist novels that failed…

I winced when I saw it. The first thing out of the Blue Apron box was kale. I consider myself neither an enthusiast nor an antagonist when it comes to kale, whose stiff green leaves, as we all know, can magically teleport antioxidants through the air. Kale is fine. It just wasn’t what I wanted to eat for dinner. I’d be cooking kale for dinner, though, because I had enrolled myself in the latest system-disrupting model for feeding the human race and (in my curmudgeonly view) stripping us of our ability to do anything for ourselves: meal kits. These days, everyone I know seems to be drinking the cold-pressed meal-kit Kool-Aid—my friends, my colleagues, even my mother, whose home-cooked dinners of Provençal roast lamb and French apple pie probably go…

You don’t have to be the lucky owner of a pool or hot tub to appreciate the pleasures of an outdoor shower. Sure, from a purely practical standpoint, this is where you’ll hose off after a day at the beach or an afternoon toiling in the yard. But when the heat of summer kicks in, don’t be surprised if it quickly becomes your go-to shower. (Once you’ve bathed under open sky, it’s easy to get hooked.) This barely there model from Fantini—which is just hitting U. S. showrooms now and, yes, costs more than an average bathroom renovation—offers both a rain shower and a hand spray. And you can set it up pretty much anywhere; the teak and brushed stainless steel are designed to brave a range of elements—even salt…

1 Trade in your TIE for some OUT-THERE NECKWEAR It’s almost unfair the way a small addition can upgrade an otherwise boring outfit. Take the neckwear at right. All you’ve got to do is hit the sweet spot between a cinched tie and an open collar, and suddenly the rest of your clothes are punching way above their weight class. Yes, it takes some guts to pull this off. But fortune, and fashion, favor the bold. And with three ways to try it out, you’ll find a fit no matter your style literacy. Soon you’ll project the panache most guys only get after a year abroad (with none of the pretension!). It’s not exactly cheating, but it sure feels like it. Beginner The new summer scarf is richly colored and…

It wasn’t easy surviving New York’s boiling summers after a lifetime in perennially temperate London. When I first moved to the city, I wore a dress shirt, tie, and jacket in the fetid hellhole of the subway and kept a fresh shirt ready at work. If I could have sat barechested in my office to cool off, I would have. Instead, I sat shirtless in the restroom. Anything to tip the needle back from thermonuclear. For a time, I thought lighter clothes were the answer to extreme heat. After all, designers often tout their superfine cloths as the pinnacle of summer sophistication. But that’s bullshit. The thinner the shirt, the quicker it sticks to you. The fabric darkens into sweaty pectoral Rorschachs, leaving you clammy and uncomfortable. When even your…

The first time I used a blow dryer, it was an emergency. I swear. I’d been caught in a downpour and entered our office’s greenroom soaked. (I cover finance and occasionally appear on-air in our TV studio.) First, I picked up the device and trained its business end on my socks. Then, making sure the coast was clear, I aimed it at my mane. My hair is typically a thatch that springs up like scissorteased ribbon. Soon it looked more like a windswept Pomeranian. Volume for days, but messy. Could I harness this power? I planned to answer that question in a weeklong experiment. Most men avoid blow dryers—they can feel cheesy, vain, girlie—but experts swear by them. “It’s great for volume, control, and frizz,” Julien Farel, stylist to guys…

AT PASCACK HILLS HIGH SCHOOL, EARLY 1970S As a teenager growing up in New Jersey, Maher says, “I used to go to school with a knot in my stomach.” AT THE COMEDY STORE IN HOLLYWOOD, 2003 Maher still does stand-up two weekends a month, and comedy remains his ticket to relevance, fame, and a small fortune. WITH DAN SAVAGE AND ANN COULTER, 2016 Maher’s longtime friendship with Coulter—he helped launch her career in the 1990s—has both dismayed and impressed his admirers. WITH MILO YIANNOPOULOS, 2017 Maher says Yiannopoulos reminds him of “a young, gay, alive Christopher Hitchens.”…

Is it something in the water? Or those broad plains of the Great Plains, the summerlong humidity, those winds—“when the nets would stand out stiff as proud flags,” in the words of David Foster Wallace, “and an errant ball would blow clear to the easternmost fence, interrupting play on the next several courts”? What can be said without equivocation is that Nebraska, not normally considered a hotbed of tennis (even Wallace, though he was referencing the same geography, had Illinois on his mind when he wrote the above), has given the men’s pro-tennis tour two of the finest players of this youngish century. The first was Andy Roddick, who remains the last American to achieve the number-one spot in the Association of Tennis Professionals world rankings (for three months in…

The Esquire Men’s Grooming Collection is a complete line of products that clean, nourish, strengthen, and style hair regardless if it’s short, long, or ahem, a little of both. Formulated with proven ingredients to stimulate hair growth and exfoliate the scalp— all without harsh chemicals and parabens—the collection features expertly developed products and powerful tools for every hair type and style. Wash, style, repeat. AVAILABLE AT UTLA: http:// www.ulta.com/brand/esquire-grooming…

Seven years ago, Bong Joon ho, one of South Korea’s most celebrated directors, was driving through the streets of Seoul when an idea reared up in his mind: It was an animal, four stories high, an introverted beast whose size belies its air of vulnerability. That creature would become the basis of Bong’s latest film, the Netflix feature Okja, a dizzying sci-fi satire with a tone and tenor reminiscent of his 2013 movie Snowpiercer. Starring Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, and Steven Yeun, Okja tells the tale of the Super Pig, a gargantuan swine engineered by an agrochemical giant to feed a greedy world that’s gobbling its way through the food supply. The pigs are raised in arable bliss by doting artisanal farmers (a marketing narrative orchestrated to sell…

This is the car that revenge built. Quick history: In the ’60s, Ford was in talks to purchase Ferrari, but the Italian carmaker rebuffed the deal. Supremely miffed, Henry Ford II sought to kick the prancing horse where it would hurt most by winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans, an endurance race Ferrari had dominated that decade. And so the original Ford GT was created solely for that purpose, bringing home the checkered flag in 1966, 1967, 1968, and, for good measure, 1969. The company pulled out after that, satisfied that it had delivered one of the most memorable up-yours in corporate history. Off the chain: Oh, the courage it takes to swallow your shame and ask, “May I borrow your charger?” Never utter those words to complete strangers…

Space has been a longrunning motif in Grizzly Bear’s music. Their first album, Horn of Plenty, was famously recorded in frontman Ed Droste’s (below) tiny apartment; their second, Yellow House, in his mother’s (yellow) house. Now the long-awaited fifth album, Painted Ruins—full of soaring harmonies and hard-driving bass lines—breaks through those walls, begging to be played in the great outdoors. The band has literally grown apart, having dispersed across the country, and has grown up: Currently in their mid-30s, Grizzly Bear’s four members have confronted marriage, fatherhood, and divorce. It’s impossible not to hear the passage of years in songs heavy with regret and longing, and others that unfold like frustrated one-sided conversations. “Were you even listening? Were you riding with me?” Droste sings in “Wasted Acres.” Painted Ruins continues…

THE ESQUIRE DERBY 2017 AT 21c MUSEUM HOTEL This spring, Esquire headed to Louisville on Derby Weekend to host the first-ever Esquire Derby – an invitation-only, star-studded Oaks Night Gala with celebrity entertainment and guests from movies, music, business, sports and politics. The event was held at the 21c Museum Hotel in Louisville in partnership with King Sixteen. Guests enjoyed worldclass hors d’oeuvres by 2016 Esquire Best New Restaurant, Proof on Main, and craft cocktails were curated by Proprietors LLC.…

“There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots,” the saying goes. It’s not quite true. Patek Philippe has two in its archives— striking pilot’s watches from the 1930s (one of these is headed stateside for Patek’s “Art of Watches” exhibition at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York, July 13 to 23). Now you can get the next best thing: the Ref.5522A, a limitededition stainless-steel timepiece inspired by the vintage originals. The first pilot’s watches were essentially oversized tool watches, a design that falls outside Patek’s dressier métier. But early reviews suggest there’s a big luxury market for a less-than-dressy watch. The Ref.5522A brings a contemporary American sensibility to those ’30s pilots: The original 56mm case has been reduced to a more wrist-friendly…

34, Lo ndo n a nd Ho n g Ko n How it all began: I was born in London, so I think at the root of it, my style is very English. It’s understated but definitely more dressy. Where I went to school, we had to wear uniforms until we were 16, then a suit was permissible. So I asked my dad, “How do you wear a suit?” And it just kind of spiraled out of control from there. Neighborhood watch: When I sing karaoke, which is often, I usually do Britpop stuff. It’s really hard to sing, but I love Pulp. And I’ve seen Jarvis Cocker near my apartment in Hackney, in London. He’s always walking by when I’m at the pub, and I always want to chase…

Cold Comfort Some cologne nuts store their bottles in the refrigerator, knowing a fragrance can go sour when exposed to too much heat and sunlight. In the summertime, I do the same for a simpler reason: It feels good to spray on something cool. And if you’re using a true eau de cologne (which is half as strong as your average fragrance), there’s no need to be trigger-shy when spritzing. —J. R. Game Over Sit at any major airport for more than five minutes and you’ll notice the Kanye-inspired uniform of the “creative class”: split-seam hoodie, slim-cut denim, minimalist leather sneakers, all in washed-out neutrals and black. It’s become a way not to stand out but to look like just another mook—the 21st-century version of a late- ’90s Paulie Walnuts…

Men’s jewelry is a tough sell. You hear it and you think gold chains snaking through chest hair. Thick rings squeezed on thicker fingers. Anklets. But the good stuff—if you know where to find it—never feels ostentatious. It feels like it belongs on you. Evan Yurman, son of New York jeweler David Yurman and now chief design director at the same company, works in that mode. “Jewelry for men can’t just be goodlooking,” he says. “Guys like to wear something that has meaning.” Evan started early in the family business (his chores were in the workshop, sorting stones and clipping castings), but it didn’t become a career until he was out of college. A woman at a party told him it was a shame he had no sisters, that all…

One morning this past February, a female active-duty Marine was standing in line at CIF, a cavernous supply warehouse at Camp Lejeune. It was a little past ten o’clock, and the weather outside was clear and gusty, typical of winters among the sand pines of coastal North Carolina. The woman—call her Judy—was checking into a new unit. She’d come to CIF to collect her standard issue of combat equipment. While Judy stood among the rows of stacked body armor, Kevlar helmets, and camouflage hiking packs, an infantryman named Brenden McDonel, who was standing a few places behind her in line, pulled out his phone and started surreptitiously taking her photograph. Mc- Donel didn’t know Judy, but that didn’t keep him from posting the pictures to a private Facebook group called…

STORE INFORMATION For the items featured in Esquire, please consult the website or call the phone number provided. The Big Bite, p. 21: Tom Ford Beauty nail polish, tomford.com. The Code, p. 29: Patek Philippe watch, patek.com. Tom Ford sunglasses, tomford.com. P. 30: Blackbarrett sweatshirt, shirt, pants, shorts, leggings, and backpack, saks.com. APL sneakers, athleticpropulsionlabs.com. G-Shock watch, shopcasio.com. Nike socks, nike.com. P. 34: Officine Générale jacket, mrporter.com. Officine Générale shirt, officinegenerale.com. Drake’s scarf, drakes.com. Finamore shirt, axelsltd.com. Charvet kerchief, charvet.com. Caruso jacket, shirt, and cache-col, 646-757-3041. AG trousers, agjeans.com. P. 35: Caruso hat, 646-394-9561. Borsalino hat, borsalino.com. Opinel pocket knife, opinel- usa.com. P. 38: Esquivel shoes, esquivelshoes.com. Helbers shoes, barneys.com. Armando Cabral boots, armando-cabral.com. Hermès loafers, hermes.com. Common Projects boots, bergdorfgoodman.com. P. 40: MP Massimo Piombo jacket, mpmassimopiombo.com. Rowing Blazers…