Table of contents for October 2018 in Esquire

You probably noticed that our cover doesn’t look like the other ones on newsstands this month. For our 85th-anniversary issue, our design director, Raul Aguila, and our cartoon and humor editor, Bob Mankoff, asked the cover artist, Ed Steed, to imagine one that brought to life this issue’s theme: “Sane Advice for Crazy Times.” Steed, a British cartoonist who has previously contributed to Esquire, spent three weeks sculpting 85 clay figurines. There’s the somber graduate, the robot, the punk rocker—all just as hard to categorize as our difficult, breakneck-pace moment in time. “I miss ’em,” he says. “Every day I woke up and saw these little faces look back.”…

A Cultural Guide to Just Enough of Everything When John Tesar pointed them out to me, I recoiled. The shape of the lobes looked familiar, but the surface of each one was the color of a baked potato. Splotched with greenish-white mold and resting on racks in the chef’s refrigerated aging room at Knife, his steakhouse in Dallas, they looked like incubating eggs that were about to crack open with baby velociraptors. An hour later, I was eating one. And it was delicious, with a rusty, funky richness so fat-bottomed and long-lasting that it seemed deviant. Those blobs, you see, were aging foie gras—some of them more than a year old. Tesar hadn’t begun serving slices of the duck-liver flavor grenades yet at Knife, but he was thinking about it.…

• Haruki Murakami’s latest, the epic Killing Commendatore, marks the return of a master. • Finished on his deathbed, The Flame distills Leonard Cohen’s extraordinary life into sketches, lyrics, poems, and private diary entries. • Esquire contributor Wesley Yang dissects pickup artists, school shooters, and tiger moms, among other contemporary phenomena, in the incisive, unsentimental The Souls of Yellow Folk. • Bob Spitz’s exhaustive and evenhanded Reagan (featuring hundreds of interviews and unprecedented access) provides the most thorough account yet of the Iran-Contra scandal. • The magnetic entrepreneur Casey Gerald—a beautiful writer, as it turns out—chronicles his own unbelievable journey from public assistance to Ivy League football to the conference circuit in There Will Be No Miracles Here. • For We Are the Nerds, Christine Lagorio-Chafkin got complete access to…

Even the most fundamental wardrobe essentials can use an update every so often. With that in mind we turned to Tommy Hilfiger, who knows a thing or two about American sportswear icons. This season, time-honored outwear shapes become conversation starters with the addition of striped accents or crafted in heritage patterns. The rugby is reimagined as a sweater, trousers have a bit of slouch and are offered with matching sneakers for street cred. These are pieces that feel necessary and right now, but ones you’ll also be wearing for years to come. MADE TO MATCH A traditional color palette brings it all together. Military coat ($790), Rugby sweater ($230), Knit collar sweatshirt ($260), Climbing pant ($230), Plaid sneakers ($200), all by Hilfiger Collection. EXPERIENCE SHOPPING TOMMYNOW SNAP APP AVAILABLE IN…

After an amicable divorce, I moved next door to my ex-wife and kids and downsized from a 4,200-square-foot house to an 850-square-foot bungalow. The storage realities of my new home mandated some serious editing: retaining the things I loved the most, ditching the duplicates, and giving away the rest. That’s when I adopted a “one in, one out” policy, meaning whatever I acquired had to replace something I already owned—from shirts to shoes, from cars to surfboards. My then-girlfriend, and now-wife, Kristopher, is a stylish pragmatist whose design discipline favors curation over consumption. Her editorial rigor when it comes to “stuff” became the Tao of our household. A decade later, even after moving to a bigger place, I still stick to this rule. Whatever I buy has to replace something…

TOM DIXON 59, London His look, defined Eclectic is overused. Chaotic, maybe. Borderline eccentric. I’m quite keen on Comme des Garçons and Uniqlo, army surplus, and good-quality English shoes from Church’s. Strong suits I picked up a bag of Paul Smith’s personal suits from his house a couple years ago. We’re the same size, and his wardrobe was overflowing, so his wife insisted that he get rid of some. I made off with a good haul. Original influencers There are hundreds of designers that I think are amazing, but I look more at engineers or sculptors than industrial designers. The Buckminster Fullers or the Noguchis of this world are probably a bit more influential than the great product designers. Guy-friendly design I like robust things; I like rough things. I…

“AS SIMPLE AS SHOWING UP” JOE BIDEN ON SPANKING THE GRIM REAPER Forty-seventh vice-president of the United States; former senator; author of Promise Me, Dad You’ve said, “Through purpose, you can find your way through grief.” How can someone identify purpose in a time of confusion and immense pain? There are a lot of people going through a lot worse than what I’ve gone through. The way they get through it is that they have people reach out, embrace them, give them solace. By being open to that solace, you can find a purpose. If you have a purpose, if you have a responsibility, sometimes it allows you to just keep pushing through and get focused, not on yourself or not just on the part of your soul that is…

“I THINK THERE’S GReAT RESPITE FROM THE STORM, SO TO SPEAK, WHEN YOU GO INTO A MOVIE ThEATER.” HiS CaREER HAS SPANNED almost five decades, so maybe it’s his television work you love, like Justified or his current Netflix show, The Ranch, or maybe it’s his film work, like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (his first credited film role) or Tombstone or The Big Lebowski. But no matter which project springs to mind, what comes with it is the sound of Sam Elliott’s voice, the best deep drawl in Hollywood. It sounds like America, like oak and rye and the Fourth of July, and it’s because of that voice, and that mustache, and that shock of thick white hair, that Elliott has long been associated with a sort of…

A BRIEF MONTHLY EXPANSION ON A TOPIC EXPLORED IN THE ISSUE The smile is the facial expression someone makes that lets you know they haven’t been to their Botox person lately. It typically indicates happiness, one of the many human emotions experienced only by women. The act of smiling requires 42 more muscles than the act of registering numb indiffierence, but you never hear anyone say, “Hey, your face is really ripped.” Smiles are usually identified by the upward curve of the mouth; however, it is possible for people to smile with their eyes, especially if they’re British and would rather not show their crooked, brown teeth. Fake smiles are usually characterized by the person’s eyes being open, the person being next to you in an elevator, or the person…

When I reach him by phone in Paris, the bestselling author Yuval Noah Harari declares free will an illusion, human rights a fiction, and democracy on the verge of obsolescence—all in a single breath. “We are all the outcome of neurological and biological processes in our body and brain,” he tells me with his eventoned, Hebrew-inflected diction. “You cannot choose your desires freely.” The most appealing aspect of Harari’s authorial voice is the insouciant serenity with which he guides us through the science-fiction world that big data, bioengineering, and artificial intelligence are about to bring forth. It is also the most frightening. Harari, 42, whose academic specializations are medieval and military history, is the author of two multimillion-selling books—Sapiens, which has been translated into nearly 50 languages, and Homo Deus—that…

Part of the fun of watching sports is yelling at the announcers, and for the past 30 years, nobody has been in the crosshairs quite like Joe Buck, the lead play-by-play man for Fox’s NFL and MLB broadcasts. As Hank Azaria’s degenerate sportscaster, Jim Brockmire, put it directly to Buck in an episode of IFC’s Brockmire: “Joe Buck, it’s nothing personal—I just happen to hate your stupid face.” He’s not alone. We hate Joe Buck because he’s the son of legendary St. Louis Cardinals announcer Jack Buck and has his father to thank for his early success; because he tries too hard to be funny; and because, as his second wife, broadcaster Michelle Beisner, said before meeting him, “He just looks like an arrogant prick.” But is Buck really the…

When you think shearling, you probably first think of fighter pilots. Back in World War II, the Royal Air Force popularized shearling-lined bombers made from heavyweight sheepskin to keep fliers toasty in subzero temps. (Tom Hardy wore one well in Dunkirk.) Or maybe you think of Marlon Brando’s brooding, bloodied longshoreman in On the Waterfront. Or Ralph Lauren in full cowboy layers, leaning up against a fence on his Colorado ranch. In every case, the jacket tugs at the tension between a tough-guy exterior and the fact that with its supersoft fleecy lining, this is also just about the coziest thing you could pull on. A piece that versatile never really goes out of style, but shearling is back in the spotlight this year, both on high-end runways and at…

Fall isn’t everyone’s favorite time of year—there’s the shitty pumpkin beer, the weight gain, the flu. But it’s also boot season, so we’ll call it even. Chances are you’ve already got a standard brown or black leather pair knocking around, but suede’s texture works with the heavier fabrics you wear in the fall. (Shiny shoes next to a pair of tweed pants? Not so great.) And because the finish has more depth, it lets you go off-color, too—tawny tans, chocolate browns, and shades of blue gray are all fair game. See? Fall isn’t so bad. Now pass the pumpkin beer. KEEP ’EM CLEAN • • • There’s an old rockabilly song that goes, “You can do anything, but lay off my blue suede shoes.” Clearly they didn’t have the right…

The whole point of plastic watches like the Swatch Graftic is that they look unapologetically plastic. They say, “My other watch is a Rolex.” Even if it isn’t. $75; swatch.com The Timex New England is about as honest and unpretentious as it gets: a simple three-hand 40mm timepiece with a vintage-inspired black dial and matching leather strap. $57; timex.com The Tissot Heritage Banana Centenary Edition pays homage to an elegant, early art deco watch of the same design first produced in 1916. $375; us.tissotshop.com The eye-popping Seiko Prospex SNE499 dive watch looks much more expensive than it is, which for us is the single best definition of great value. $450; seikousa.com It seems like a new company selling retro-style tool watches opens every day, yet you still have to search…

Writers talk endlessly about the books that influenced them when they were young. I’m here to speak about a book I wish I’d had when I was young, one that arrived too late for me. It’s a book about race and hatred, and about the city where I grew up. Reading it made me feel like I’d been flayed—and worse, it reminded me that I was directly and miserably implicated in bad deeds. I spent the second part of my childhood, from 1972 until 1983, in Naples, Florida, a beautiful city on the state’s Gulf coast. The beaches are white sand; the coconut trees are (click) idealized coconut trees; girls have sun-kissed limbs and, in wintertime, in my memory, the ghosts of last year’s bikini lines. It was not, in…

To hear Lewis Hamilton, the best Formula One racer of his generation and possibly of all time, describe it, the origin of his collaboration with Tommy Hilfiger sounds a lot like a rom-com meet-cute: “I was coming out of the Plaza”—as in the Plaza hotel, the legendary luxe digs on Central Park in New York City—“you know, where Home Alone 2 was set. I was about to get into a car when I heard someone shout my name. I turned around, and it was Tommy. We’d never met. I was shocked that he knew who I was. He sent me some clothes after that, and we kept bumping into each other at different events: the Met Gala, the TommyNow shows. And every time I saw him, he was like, ‘You…

JAKUB “I was Mr. President Trump’s foot man from when he was young. Not footman like on ‘Downton Abbey’--you impressed I know that show? No. A man who does the foot. He liked his foots massaged. Mr. Trump Sr., he pay me plenty to keep son’s foots moist. Those Trumps, they like soft foot.” SERGEY “Mr.--I mean President Trump … he ask me to handle labor relations at casino. Very classy casino. Closed now due to closure. So not so classy now, but still classier than other closed casinos. I handle problems with bothering workers. They now happy. The way Lenin and Stalin now happy! Sorry, I always make joke.” HINKELL & JANKOV “Hinky and Janky,” as they were known around Trump Tower, are Mr. Trump’s trusted foreign-affairs experts. Starting…

Back when I first met Mary and Eden times were better. They were trying to start a family then. And months later, on that night in the Hamrin Valley, I was sitting next to Eden and luckier than him when our Humvee hit a pressure plate, killing me and everybody else, him barely surviving. Ever since then I’ve been around too, just on that other side, seeing all there is, and waiting. Three years have gone by and my friend’s spent every day of it laid out in that burn center in San Antonio. I could give you the catalog of his injuries, but I won’t. Not because I don’t think you could stomach it, but because I don’t think it’d really tell you much about what type of a…

One of the cooler aspects of my job is being able to invite interesting people I’d like to meet to Esquire’s office for a visit. There are two reasons I have a steady stream of talented actors booked on the calendar: One, our extraordinary entertainment features director, Emily Poenisch, is clearly one of the most persuasive people on earth, and two, what true genius wouldn’t want to check out the headquarters of the legendary magazine whose eighty-fifth anniversary we’re celebrating in this issue? The purpose of these get-togethers is to gut-check our own instincts about the people we’re excited about, by making sure that whomever we get behind isn’t just a cipher with a square jaw who can memorize lines—but someone with heart, soul, a sense of humor, character, brains,…

TV already had a golden age—the flowering of live television that lasted from the mid-1950s through the early 1960s. But it was nothing like this, the golden age we’re in now, dubbed the era of “Peak TV” in 2015 by John Landgraf, CEO of FX, under whose aegis the channel has aired, among other shows, Justified, The Americans, Fargo, and Atlanta. Everywhere we turn there are shows so fine, so well written and performed, that they have bled talent from the movie business. But nothing lasts forever, especially not golden ages, which, paradoxically, are most often undone by their very success. The movie studios’ last golden age, the era of New Hollywood, ran from the mid-1960s to the beginning of the 1980s and was buried by its own blockbusters—Jaws, Star…

Maybe you’ve noticed a new species of puffer jacket on the streets: thinner but just as warm, with a cut that follows the body and a finish that catches the light. It actually looks cool. For this, you can thank the outerwear wizards at Herno. The name may be new to you, but the company isn’t. It dates back to 1948, when a former airplane worker named Giuseppe Marenzi set up shop on the shore of Italy’s Lake Maggiore. At his last job, Giuseppe had made plane fuel with castor oil; that same oil was also used to waterproof raincoats. He contacted his supplier and quickly switched careers from aviation to outerwear. The company later expanded to more luxe garments like double-faced cashmere topcoats. By the ’60s, Herno was sold…

Since he founded his own label in 2011, Todd Snyder’s put forth a view of Americana that’s homegrown (he’s from Iowa) but also conceived through the prism of distance. It’s as if he approaches American style from the perspective of an Italian, British, or Japanese designer. It’s that prism, more than anything, that gives his brand legs. Snyder kicked it up a notch this season, cooking up a transatlantic souffé of slouchy collegiate style suffused with rebellious Savile Row rocker. He made his tailoring softer and looser, laid texture on texture, and threw in sporty track pants and bombers. The result would look at home in London or Tokyo—but could only have been made here, under Snyder’s perceptive eye. SHOP TALK WORN AGAIN • • • Filson opens its much-awaited…

It’s the razor’s edge of male vanity: Pluck and preen too much and you end up seeming more mannequin than man. Which isn’t to say you should let yourself go. Instead, look for products that make you handsomer without making it obvious. Think of these as the secret agents hiding out in your Dopp kit—there to give you cooler hair, better skin, and a brighter smile subtly enough that friends can only say, “There’s something different about you….”…

DESIGN THAT MOVES Introducing Descente, an active apparel company that champions the power of sport and beauty of simplicity. With minimalism as a core philosophy, every product is designed to move freely, naturally and beautifully, in seamless harmony with your body in motion. Learn more at Descente.com IF YOU WANT TO FEEL GOOD, DO SOMETHING GREAT Enactus is the world’s largest experiential learning platform dedicated to creating a better world while developing the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders. Join business leaders and innovators, changing the world for good. Start here > Enactus.org THE ESQUIRE MEN’S GROOMING COLLECTION A wide array of expertly crafted tools and useful products formulated with ingredients proven to stimulate hair growth and exfoliate the scalp-all without harsh chemicals and parabens. Shop the complete line at fine…

Or, as one wag dubbed them, “Hair Force One.” All arrive via identical dark vans to the White House every morning at 5:00 a.m. sharp, as they did for many years at Trump Tower. Trained in Eastern Europe, they operate on the president during his “Executive Time” like a Formula One pit crew. You should see them--in and out in an hour! Sometimes Mr. Trump even lets them do Mrs. Trump’s hair. But only when they are done with him! Mr. Trump keeps their passports locked in a vault in Trump Tower for safekeeping. Each man has his specialty. WOJTEK PREPARES THE ACTIVATOR FLUIDS THAT LIGHTEN PRESIDENT’S HAIR WITHOUT DAMAGE. SASHA IS IN CHARGE OF FLUID HAIR PAINTING. “BETTER THAN FOIL! PRESIDENT GETS TO LIE ON BACK WHILE HAIR IS…

STORE INFORMATION For the items featured in Esquire, please consult the website or call the phone number provided. The Code, p. 45: Ralph Lauren jacket, ralphlauren.com. Polo Ralph Lauren trousers, ralphlauren.com. P. 46: Vince jacket, vince.com. P. 48: Herno coat, 212-226-1432. P. 52: Fratelli Rossetti shoes, fratellirossetti.com. Wolverine boots, wolverine.com. To Boot New York boots, toboot.com. George Cleverley desert boots, mrporter.com. Mark Nason Los Angeles Chelsea boots, marknasonlosangeles.com. Grenson derbies, grenson.com. Gucci scarf, gucci.com. P. 54: Golden Bear + Todd Snyder jacket, toddsnyder.com. Todd Snyder turtleneck sweater and trousers, toddsnyder.com. Ben Sherman boots, bensherman.com. Todd Snyder coat, shirt, and trousers, toddsnyder.com. Smooth Operator, p. 89: TommyXLewis track jacket and pants, tommy.com. P. 90: TommyXLewis parka and sweatshirt, tommy.com. P. 91: TommyXLewis shirt, T-shirt, and jeans, tommy.com. Sam Elliott Abides, p.…