Inhaltsverzeichnis für April 2015 in Esquire

... The first is the kind you can have. His name is James or Ryan. You call him at ten, after a date, and he'll meet you at a place that serves food late where you order beef tar-tare with a rye crisp that he will watch you eat. You'll have red wine and the sediment will dry in the cracks of your lips, but you won't be bothered about it. You drank white on the date that ended at 9:45, your lipstick never faltered, and when you laughed, you laughed like yoi were on film. The other is the kind you cannot have. His name is different every time. He could be the name of a city or a state. It could be David. He's tall but not as…

Man at His Best Of the Americans who have heard of beloved British star James Corden, I’d say roughly a third are fans of his sharp, sweet sitcom, Gavin & Stacey, another few saw him in The History Boys, a bunch know him as the Baker from the film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, a handful are devotees of his Hulu action-comedy series, The Wrong Mans, and one is CBS president Les Moonves, who loved Corden’s Tony Award– winning performance in One Man, Two Guvnors so much that he made him the new host of The Late Late Show. Another is David Letterman, who, apparently annoyed about a perceived delay in the start of that show, appeared on its interim version and gruffly suggested that maybe there was…

UTILITY SALT Specifically kosher salt Use: Primary seasoning and utility work, like blanching. It melts and becomes part of the soup, sauce, sauté, or roast. Why: Kosher salt’s larger granules were originally used in the Jewish practice of “kashering” meat because they adhere well and have enough evaporative power to draw out moisture without depositing an overdose of salinity. Kosher salt is so inexpensive you can throw a handful in pasta water, and it’s crisp and clean enough to use for building flavor. The recommendation: Diamond Crystal. A late-19thcentury proprietary evaporation process creates hollow, multifaceted crystals, fragile enough to crush between your thumb and index finger. As a result, the salt is less dense than other brands’, with lower salinity by volume, so it’s harder to oversalt. FINISHING SALT Generally…

MaHB ABOUT THE JOKESTER: Erin Richards enjoys a good prank. Like most budding masterminds, however, she prefers to be the instigator, not the target. It’s possible the Welsh actress has spent too much time with the flamboyant local criminals of Fox drama Gotham, where she plays the fiancée of Batman ally Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie): The 28-year-old actress is currently plotting revenge against McKenzie for a trick that led to Richards running around New York City demanding shopkeepers “Give me the diamonds!” (He told her the day of the show’s wrap party that she was expected to purchase gifts for a dozen crew members.) One possible payback scheme: getting Gotham’s writing staff to circulate a script in which his character dies. Wouldn’t that be a little, um, cruel? “I think…

Stress, such as the pressure brought about by having an audience, can constrict the bladder’s neck, causing momentary or even prolonged “hesitation.” (That’s the medical term.) But there are other possible constrictors as well, such as an enlarged prostate. If the problem occurs regularly, one would do well to avoid Sudafed and coffee, both of which send a mild dose of epinephrine to receptors in the bladder neck, causing it to tighten. And try not to wait too long to go— an overinflated bladder can’t push particularly well. In the most shy of times, if possible, go someplace where you can sit. It helps the pelvic floor relax. VISUAL RULE BUSINESS YOUR BUSINESS VISUAL RULE: FOOTWEAR…

THE ONE-MAN FRANCHISE Collective lifetime box-office gross: Somewhere between the GDPs of Cameroon and Liechtenstein. THE RETIREE Age: Too old for this shit. Mistake: Taking that one last job. Always looking for: The compression sock that vanished in the laundry, his family. THE SLEEPER Inspiring takeaway: No matter how fat, boring, or crazy, with enough lean protein literally anyone can headline a franchise. THE HOOLIGAN Nickname: Attractiveness + diminutive of Robert (Handsome Rob, The Italian Job; Handsome Bob, RocknRolla). THE LADY/K ILLER Lethality, ability to bend over and pick up lucky pennies: Hampered by leatherware. CHRI CHRI ? NOT AN ACTION HERO, TURNS OUT THE ACTION HERO MANIFESTO An action hero has to be able to die. Gene Hackman could die, but it really looked like he didn’t want to.…

FEATURING: MARIO CARBONE THE MAN : The chef and culinary empire builder opened his latest restaurant, Santina, in New York this past winter. For more on his style, in and out of the kitchen, go to esquire.com. THE CLOTHES : Less is more. The more you know, the less you need. Keep it simple, stupid. Minimalism has plenty of mantras, and they usually evoke images of boring black suits. There is another kind of minimalism taking root this spring and summer, though with clothes distilled to their most basic forms and then elevated with unexpected materials or colors (see: the Zegna and Coach finery at left). They’re still simple and versatile, but they’re also singular and distinctive, and when worn together in easy, five-piece outfits, they’re the only things you…

TOM DIGNES, WOODLANDS, TEX. Wait : So you want to wear socks that stand out, but you don’t want to look like you’re part of the trend of wearing socks that stand out? Sir, you’re either in or you’re out, and if you’re going to be self-conscious about it, stick with classic dark dress socks. Otherwise, own it. A friend of mine in London took to wearing one navy sock and one red sock with his navy suit every day. It was his thing, and he owned it, right up until they took him away in the ambulance.…

TRY IT TODAY AT DEAL.ESQUIRE.COM ON YOUR TABLET AND GET EVEN MORE GREAT STUFF ESQUIRE ’S BIG BLACK BOOK—FREE FUNNY VIDEOS! BONUS PHOTOS OF WOMEN WE LOVE! INTERACTIVE FEATURES DELIVERED BEFORE ISSUES HIT NEWSSTAND! THIS IS ESQUIRE DIGITAL Completely reimagined for your tablet: Experience our moving covers; watch a beautiful woman tell you a funny joke; take an interactive quiz; see exclusive outtakes from photo shoots; enhance your skills with instructional videos; get even more out of Esquire.…

Fully updated! And counterintuitive! Typography by Jon Contino We may be approaching Peak Whiskey. As with anything so fashionable, though, there’s suddenly a great deal of bullshit to wade through. The puffery has to do with things you can tell about a whiskey only from its label. It’ll tell you about a distillery founded in 1803, but not the Bahamian corporation that has owned it since 1997; about the master distiller, but not the fact that he doesn’t have a still; about 150-year-old traditions, but not the 20-yearold technology they’re actually using; about the forty-seven whiskeys in the blend, but not the cheap one that makes up 80 percent of it; about the rolling, stone-walled fields of barley (which they buy premalted from the same company everyone else uses) and…

There is, of course, plenty that men and women agree on these days, according to our survey—the merits of chivalry, the creepiness of a boss asking a woman to dress “sexy,” and, broadly speaking, what is acceptable sexual behavior and what isn’t. But when it comes to how men and women perceive one another’s actions and intentions— when we get into issues of frequency and degree—things get weird. It gets weird when we talk about sexual harassment—not because men and women define it differently (we don’t), but because women say they witness and experience it all the time and men tend to say they only hear about it. It gets weird when we bring up sexual violence—not because we can’t agree on what it means (we can), but because women…

SPOTLIGHT ON . . . Forty-two percent of women between the ages of thirty and forty-four describe themselves as a feminist, as compared with 54 percent of women in other age groups. Women aged thirty to forty-four are also less likely than women in other age groups to find pop culture demeaning to women, more skeptical of affirmative-consent laws, and more reluctant to call certain sexual encounters rape. Born between 1971 and 1985 and coming of age between the heydays of Ms. magazine and Jezebel.com, their worldview is distinct from women both younger and older. How come? Popular culture demeaning to women? YES 76% 30 to 44 YES 84% other women Afirmative-consent laws valuable and necessary? YES 43% 30 to 44 YES 56% other women “[These women] grew up during…

There are growing eforts, and countless creative ideas, to try to minimize alcohol’s role on college campuses and the part it plays in sexual misconduct. While there is only one known cause of rape— rapists—it is impossible to overstate the role that drinking to excess plays in putting everybody involved in potentially dangerous situations. Limit beer at sanctioned parties to cans, as UVA decided in the fallout from the Rolling Stone scandal. Ban hard liquor, per Dartmouth. Lower the drinking age so staf or security personnel could supervise parties. Open up sorority houses to take away fraternities’ home-field advantage. Encourage marijuana use. “I would never have [gone back to John’s room] if I had been sober,” Jane told investigators, and John says alcohol basically annihilated his better judgment. It’s hard…

WE’RE NOT THAT FAR AWAY from clubs and caves, the rule of tooth and claw. Men were meant to kill and to screw. That was our purpose. Think about how many millennia it takes other organisms to evolve, fins to feet, gills to lungs. Slowly, through societal, legal, parental programming, men will change. But in a very real way, we’re still wolves ranging the woods. Samurai were trained to imagine every horrible situation that might arise in battle. The sun at such an angle that it blinded them. Rain needling the ground and making their footing uncertain. A poisoned blade. A knotted muscle. A broken leg. An ambush. That way, when the worst did happen, they were ready, prepared for the worst-case scenario. As horrible as this may sound, I…

A COUPLE YEARS BACK, I QUIT MY JOB. When I first got this job, my father relaxed. After years of drifting, the boy he’d raised had finally accepted that, like most men, he needed a career so he could support his family. He was proud. And now I was leaving this job because I wanted to write full time and my wife had found a new job that could support us both. I was quitting, and we were moving, so she could become the breadwinner. I couldn’t tell my father this; I still haven’t. On my worst days, I wish to God we’d stayed. I miss getting off that elevator every morning and walking to the desk with a readymade sense of purpose. When I’m stuck in the house while…

SINCE I WAS A LITTLE BOY, I really wanted to be a man. I mean one of those “manny” men who rescue hostages. As you can guess by my use of the phrase “manny men,” something wasn’t working. I told my friends my favorite movie was Rambo, but the one I watched the most was Four Weddings and a Funeral; Hugh Grant’s best-man speech is what made me want to be a stand-up comedian. My favorite song was “Kiss from a Rose,” by Seal. And I cried during Titanic. Alone. Every time. At the end, even though Rose lost Jack, she did all the things she had never done before, like ride a horse and fly a plane. She found the courage to do what she wanted instead of what…

WITH COMMENTARY BY NICK SULLIVAN, ESQUIRE FASHION DIRECTOR, AND LAURA BROWN, HARPER’S BAZAAR EXECUTIVE EDITOR “You won’t see a guy in a vest unless he’s doing it on purpose. It’s kind of a substitute for the pocket square—our way of showing we’re making an efort and still keeping things simple.” —NICK SULLIVAN “With women, it’s not always about a little black dress. We want to be able to move and walk down the street and eat dinner and breathe in whatever we’re wearing, and with something like this, which has a bit of firtiness at the bottom and in the bodice but is still basic black, we can throw it on and be out the door. Please remember: Women are busy.” —LAURA BROWN FRIDAY, 8:30 P.M. ON HIM: Two-button sable-wool-and-mohair suit…

“MODERN RENEGADE” Brian, 30 He cares what other people think, but you’d never know. He shows off a little with his clothing and his car, but he’ll deny it. He’s optimistic about his life, but he’s not smiling. The Modern Renegade doesn’t smile—occasionally a grin, more often a simper. “SUBURBAN HUSTLA” Jim, 41 In a single evening, he— boom!—tightens the carriage bolts on the swing set, then— boom!—replaces a halogen on the CR-V, then—boom!— attends a therapy session for recent divorcés, then—boom!— over to Whispers for a little martini action, then—boom!— The Good Wife. Maybe a little Suits if he’s not too sleepy. “AARON RODGERS” Aaron, 31 His quarterback rating says champion. His eyes say focused. His attitude says, “I could really go for an iced tea.” “POET WHO CAN…

Over the last several months—probably since the Ray Rice video was released in September—I don’t think we as a culture have talked about any subject as much as we’ve talked about the state of relations between men and women. Whether it was President Obama announcing a campus sexual-assault awareness campaign. Or the Rolling Stone blockbuster that seemed to prove his point. Or the amazing follow up journalism in The Washington Post and on Slate that debunked the story and offered perspective on the “college-sexual as sault crisis.” Or the allegations at Florida State. Or the convictions at Vanderbilt. Or Bill Cosby’s many accusers. Especially Cosby. All we’ve been talking about for the last few months is the state of men and women. The state of men abusing women. Like many…

MaHB We must draw the line at Billy Corgan. But it’d be okay too if your point of demarcation was Kid Rock. It’s always been a little inane, but also fun, to argue about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On the one hand, it’s one of modern pop culture’s silliest and most sycophantic enterprises. Since its premise is based on weighing the unquantifiable, it tends to celebrate the industry of music better than it does the artistry that fuels it. Yet it’s the ultimate playlist— only it features definitive artists instead of songs. And it’s important that Professor Longhair and King Curtis have been immortalized by the same institution that recognized the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. As a bonus, it comes with a ceremony designed for completely manufactured…

MaHB In 2007, David Wondrich, our longtime drinks correspondent, published Imbibe! a biography of Jerry Thomas, who in 1862 wrote the world’s first bartender’s guide, joined with a history of the American art of bartending and its foundational recipes. Wondrich’s book went on to win a James Beard Award, and, more important, it gave 1,000 new speakeasies all over the world their look and menu. This month, he’s publishing a heavily revised and expanded version of the book. We thought we’d ask him what he’s learned these last eight years that inspired him to return to the book. > In 2007, when I told the story of Jerry Thomas, I focused on the mixology. That was the part of what he did I had the most information about. But he…

A Fragrance That’s a Perfect Fit For Every Man Your choice of scent reveals a lot about the man you are. Esquire, in partnership with ELLE, celebrates you finding your perfect fit during exclusive events in April where you can experience the world of Givenchy fragrances, including Gentlemen Only, Gentlemen Only Casual Chic, Gentlemen Only Intense, and PI For Men. Visit select Macy’s & Dillard’s Givenchy fragrance counters and receive a premium gift* with your purchase of a large size spray that’s perfect for you. Visit Esquire.com/promotions/givenchy for the full store list and event dates. *Qualifying purchase necessary, one gift per customer, while supplies last. GIVENCHY American Crew Daily Shampoo is back! If you are seeking a great shampoo that cleans your hair without drying it out, try a bottle…

BLACK. JONAS (V.O.) No one likes self-referential writing. INT. ESQUIRE MAGAZINE OFFICES--DAY The offices of Esquire magazine are bleeding-edge cool. Glass tables, matte-black chairs. Everyone is showing exactly a quarter inch of cuff. The editor JONAS (40s) is talking to one of his writers, ROB (30s). ROB What are you talking about? That’s the only thing everyone likes. Movies about movies; novels about novels; TV shows set behind the scenes of other TV shows. JONAS Magazine articles about writing magazine articles? (Rob looks at Jonas suspiciously.) ROB . . . You didn’t like it? JONAS I didn’t say that. ROB You didn’t have to. JONAS It was a little cute. ROB Cute? JONAS I mean, who would believe it? A top government assassin has a cover identity as a men’s…

For formal events, when is it appropriate to wear colored or patterned bow ties, and when do I stick to classic black? ADAM AUGUST HAMDEN, CONN. There’s a clue somewhere in the name “black tie,” if you know where to look for it. Technically it’s never appropriate to throw in patterns, except in, say, Vegas. But if you have gotten everything else right about your formal wear (cummerbund, patent-leather lace-ups, the works), you can stray from the straight and narrow a little and have some fun with a darker shade for your bow tie like burgundy or dark green.…

THE RESURRECTION OF THE GREAT A true voice of the wayback American sweatshirt comes through on a crackly telephone line from Alexander City, Alabama. It speaks in a southern drawl straight out of Big Fish and belongs to one Thomas Byron Saunders, an 80-year-old poet, farmer, and formerly the editor of The Russell Record, the now-defunct in-house newspaper of Russell Manufacturing Co. The company, founded by an enterprising Alabamian named Benjamin Russell in 1902, is widely acknowledged as the birthplace of the sweatshirt. According to fleece apocrypha, when Mr. Russell’s son, Benjamin Commander Russell, was playing football at the University of Alabama, he yearned for a more comfortable accommodation than the itchy wool jerseys hitherto worn by athletes. So in 1920, Bennie, as he was known, convinced his father to…

BEER Whiskey is made from beer. Boring, sometimes weird beer, but beer nonetheless. CASK STRENGTH Whiskey bottled at the (high) proof at which it came out of the barrel. More expensive, ounce for ounce, but if you’re willing to add your own water, you’re getting more whiskey for the price. CHILL FILTRATION When whiskey gets cold, some of its fatty acids congeal, causing it to look cloudy. Most makers filter them, even at the cost of slightly diminishing the flavor. COLUMN STILL Uses steam injection to strip the beer of alcohol and produces a cleaner spirit than a pot still does. Column-still whiskeys don’t need as much age, but they don’t get that depth of grain flavor, either. CONGENERS Chemical compounds other than ethanol or water that come through the…

SPOTLIGHT ON . . . The American South, that swath of states that runs from Texas in the southwest up to the Chesapeake, is home to a lot of men who describe themselves as a feminist. Just as many, actually, as you’ll find in most other parts of the country.* (And men in this region’s most culturally conservative states—Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama—are more likely than men in any other region to say that pop culture objectifies women and that sexual assaults have gone up over the past twenty years.) But unlike their neighbors to the north and west, southern men are still big on the more traditional ways of doing things. Compared with, say, the men of the Northeast, southerners are significantly less likely to say that it’s reasonable…

GROWN-WOMAN QUALIFICATIONS: Sarah Silverman’s favorite comedian and the woman who gave what Louis C. K. calls “one of the greatest stand-up performances I ever saw” appears on the Amazon series Transparent and stars in Knock, Knock It’s Tig Notaro on Showtime (premiering April 17) and the weekly podcast “Professor Blastof.” The forty four-year-old Grammy nominee’s album Live is available on iTunes. Are there more experiences unique to being a woman than to being a man? Is that why men don’t seem to want to watch movies about women? To be shut of to an entire demographic based on different genitalia and different experiences seems a tad archaic to me. I don’t have men in my life who are like, I can’t watch a movie about a woman. For the love…

Law-enforcement agencies have a terrible reputation among victim advocates for their unwillingness and/or inability to build a case against alleged sexual assailants. Among the eforts to fix how police departments handle sexual-assault cases, few show as much promise as Carrie Hull’s. A detective with the Ashland, Oregon, police department, Hull launched a program in 2013 called You Have Options, and she’s seen sexual assault reports to the police more than double (especially among the students at nearby Southern Oregon University) in just a year. You Have Options takes the best parts of what many colleges offer students—support, guidance, and the ability to set the scope and pacing of the investigation (hence the Options)—and combines them with the rigors of a full-blown police investigation. “It’s a training issue for law enforcement,”…

GROWING UP IN THE 1990S, it was clear that the world was a hostile place for women. My mom had to leave her job after a boss told her that women had to choose between having a career and having a family. On the soap opera she started watching during what used to be work hours, a man raped a woman and then married her. The soap opera got interrupted for the Clarence Thomas hearings, where Anita Hill testified that Thomas had harassed her and made her feel threatened, and then-senator Joe Biden presided over Thomas’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, because it couldn’t have been as bad as she said, right? So when, in graduate school, a professor looked at my chest and said he was reluctant to let…

I GOT INTO A CAB ONCE coming home from the Jane Hotel in New York at three in the morning. The night involved dancing on couches and pilfering drinks from other people’s bottle service. The driver decided to comment, “Single girl in the city. It must be fun.” “It’s all right.” “Like Sex and the City.” I could feel that the conversation was about to take a turn. “I bet you’re just looking for a foot-long dick and a tongue.” It was the strangest thing. He had managed to both sexualize me and objectify all men. He was titillated by my imagined desire, and it was such an errant projection— that a cartoonishly large penis was more important than the man who came with it. In that moment, I suddenly…

DOCUMENTARIES SOMETIMES show snippets of the social life of members of the Taliban. Seeing these dudes with their hipster beards all sitting there, chewing the lamb fat, and prefacing every remark, however banal, with “God willing,” watching the women come and go—not talking about Michelangelo but discreetly bringing more scoff and then disappearing—I ask myself a question that quickly becomes several questions. What is wrong with these blokes? And how did the idea that doing everything without women that can be done without them—if you want to have sex with them or hit them, their presence is necessarily required—ever take hold? More to the point, how is it sustainable? Wouldn’t at least one of these cats have an inkling that life might be more fun if women were around in…

A few months ago, a woman I know told me a story about her ex-husband, a musician with a glue-sniffing habit who once tied her to a bed facedown for two days and raped her. A cold story, told fatly, by one of my best friends, and I was beset. She had gone through torture at the hands of a truly lousy soul, and decades had passed, and I knew nothing. I’m not naive. I’ve read the statistics. I work at a college, where I’ve been trained in all things Title IX. I know what goes unreported, out of fear or shame or stoicism, and I know it’s nobody’s business unless a woman decides otherwise. But just how blind have I been to everything going on around me? I wanted…

Store Information For the items featured in Esquire, please consult the Web site or call the number provided. Style, p. 57: Ermenegildo Zegna jacket, shirt, trousers, and tie, zegna.com. Coach shoes, coach.com. P. 58: Hickey Freeman suit, hickeyfireeman.com. Eton shirt, etonshirt.com. Paul Stuart tie, paulstuart.com. Montblanc watch, montblanc.com. A. Testoni shoes, testoni.com. P. 60: Tallia Orange jacket, talliaorange.com. Eidos shirt, eidosnapoli.it. Ermenegildo Zegna chinos, zegna.com. Coach belt, coach.com. Jimmy Choo shoes, jimmychoo.com. P. 63: Vince jacket, neimanmarcus.com. Combatant Gentlemen sweater, combatgent.com. AG jeans, agjeans.com. Ray-Ban sunglasses, sunglasshut.com. Wolverine boots, wolverine.com. P. 65: Todd Snyder + Champion sweatshirt, toddsnyder.com. Scenes from a Marriage, p. 114: Gucci suit and vest, gucci.com. Calvin Klein Collection shirt, calvinklein.com. The Tie Bar tie, thetiebar.com. A. Testoni shoes, testoni.com. TAG Heuer chronograph, tagheuer.com. P. 115: Michael…

THE BIG BLACK BOOK SPRING/SUMMER EDITION 2015 Just in time for spring and summer, The Big Black Book is back with an all-new issue of expert style advice, how-to instruction, and trusted recommendations for looking and feeling your absolute best. ORDER NOW AND SAVE 25%* ORDER ONLINE: BBB.ESQUIRE.COM OR CALL TOLL FREE: 1-800-888-3579 THE GOODS Work suits, swim suits, summer sneakers, superior travel gear, luxury watches, lightweight coats, lightweight luggage, and tequila that tastes mighty, mighty fine. THE DESTINATIONS Where to eat in Jamaica, drink in Paris, surf in Fiji, stay in Dubai, and shop in London. Plus: one really simple way to impress a woman in New York City. THE KNOWLEDGE The rules of road trips, the art of packing, the science of staycation, and The Big Black Book’s…

There are quite a few smoked salts on the market, but many are too strong to be of broad practicality. We like to use a mild wood, like apple, for a lighter salt that won’t overflavor your food. To make a more robust salt for heavier blood meats, use hickory. WHAT YOU’LL NEED > 1 smoker > 1 bag applewood chunks > ½ cup coarse sea salt > 2 mesh colanders: 1 large, 1 small > paper towels METHOD > You need a low temperature (about 200 degrees) to smoke your salt or it can burn, so it’s efficient to try this recipe after a regular smoking session, when the temperature of the smoker is waning. > Construct a doubledecker sieve by lining the large mesh colander with a single…

1. HOW TO STYLE A LOOK A gentleman knows any dapper ensemble starts with the shoes. Your mother doesn’t show you this. Your boys, however, do. And their lessons don’t stop there. They also show you how a wellstyled look can be complemented with a well-crafted drink. 2. HOW TO HOST A good host is prepared to serve the perfect cocktail for any occasion. That means a Bloody Mary at brunch, a Mule at the barbeque, and a martini on guys’ night. Start with Ketel One in your cabinet and you’re always ready. You’ll thank us later. 3. HOW TO TELL A GOOD STORY Every gentleman should be able to come up with a short, sweet toast on the fly. Men know that the best story taps into nostalgia for…

The last sentence of Daniel Torday’s debut novel, The Last Flight of Poxl West (St. Martin’s, $26), is one of the great conclusions. Like the novel it completes, it is an elaborate and careful construction. It contains 149 words, 14 commas, 4 apostrophes, 2 em dashes, and, finally, a period. Every last one of those punctuation marks has been earned. Torday (a former editor at this magazine) has written a novel that does more than just build toward its final page. After unwinding a narrative that alternates between the unbelievable wartime memoir of Poxl West, a daring Jewish pilot, and his admiring nephew’s reckoning with it, Torday gives his dual protagonists the ending they deserve. It’s not a clean one, or a complete one, or an impossible one. It’s a…

FIVE EASY PIECES THE SUIT: Everyone needs a classic gray suit, sure. But to avoid the dullness that goes with classic and gray, opt for a subtle pattern, like the gentle windowpane of this Hickey Freeman number. It’s versatile enough to go with virtually any dress shirt, but the pattern shows you’re not just any old suit. THE SHIRT: A lot of us feel the need to fit into one of two categories: blueor white-collar. We prefer to blend the two. A thin-striped wide-collar dress shirt is a modern foundation piece with limitless potential. THE TIE: A silk tie? Too obvious. A cotton knit tie? Too casual. A silk knit tie? A silk knit tie. THE WATCH: You want one that looks serious but doesn’t take itself seriously. With this…

FIVE EASY PIECES THE JACKET: Deep down, we’re all on the same mission—to find the perfect leather jacket. The graband-run. The wear-withwhatever. Instead of the bomber or the biker, try a lighter-weight blouson. (Bonus points for an unexpected shade like midnight blue.) THE SWEATER: Why buy a V-neck sweater that must be worn with a collared shirt when you can get a crewneck that can be worn with anything? Go with a thin, breathable knit that looks and feels like a well-worn T-shirt. THE JEANS: Dark jeans are more accommodating to both weekend and casual work attire. Don’t go skinny and don’t get too relaxed on us. A simple tailored leg and a medium rise give you the perfect balance. THE SUNGLASSES: Wayfarers look great on everyone, all the time,…

THE ESQ&A NICK OFF ERMAN CHELSEA HANDLER MY Q&A PREP OWES MUCH TO BILL BELICHICK: Each variable in my control must be controlled. I watch tape, take notes, study online menus in advance, take more notes. I show up early to test sound levels and, if necessary, grease the staff. The cost— time, mainly, and anxiety—is far less dire than screwing shit up. I learned this over many years, repeatedly. None of it matters in the moment. There is only Chelsea Handler, stepping out of her Tesla as I step out of L. A.’s Hotel Angeleno to greet her. Only the meeting room on the sixteenth floor, and the fruit plate, and our two chairs close together at the end of a long table. In the moment, there is only…

GROWN-WOMAN QUALIFICATIONS: After executive-producing and starring in The House Bunny and What’s Your Number? the thirty-eight-year-old actress took the titular lead in the CBS sitcom Mom. Other credentials include raising a son and her six-year marriage to Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt. Why do you wear makeup when you’re prettier without it? Here’s the thing: If it’s applied properly, we are prettier with it. How long should we wait to text you after getting your number? Being thirty-eight years old and having been raised in the day of the page, I would say call instead of text. Are you a “cool girl” in the Gone Girl sense? From reading the book, my understanding is that “cool girls” are down for anything because they want to please their men—like, they…

GROWN-WOMAN QUALIFICATIONS: Rae is the thirty-year-old creator of the Web series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl and a book of the same title (in stores now). She is developing the sitcom Insecure for HBO and has been in “varying relationships of varying degrees of success.” What is a safe thing to say when you complain about your sister? If I’m venting to you, I don’t ever want you to agree with me or say anything negative. Just keep saying “Ah. That sucks.” Jennifer Lopez’s butt or Kim Kardashian’s butt? I’m always about that real, so J.Lo wins all the way. Everyone knows a sense of humor is a mate’s most important quality. What’s the second-most important? A cool temper. I don’t need you bothered by every little thing and…

Over the past year, California has enacted, and New York’s governor has proposed, affirmative consent laws for colleges that receive state funding, and these so called “yes means yes” statutes require unambiguous verbal agreement between two students before any sexual activity as well as between various levels of sexual activity. Setting aside how realistic such requirements are, these laws do little to obviate the he-said-she-said nature of most sexual-assault cases, and they also do nothing to clarify the “How many beers is too many?” guessing game, as Rebecca O’Connor of RAINN recently put it, that clouds whether someone is able to offer meaningful consent. Even going so far as to dictate that any alcohol consumption is enough to nullify consent would at least clear up the confusion that affirmative consent…

I RECENTLY CAUGHT a few scenes of the Lance Armstrong documentary Stop at Nothing and was reminded of the cyclist’s language about Betsy Andreu’s 2005 testimony that she and her then-fiancé were present in a hospital room when Armstrong informed cancer doctors that he was using a shit ton of performance-enhancing drugs. Armstrong’s retort? Come on, man. She’s a “crazy bitch.” That sure sounded familiar. How many guys have I heard write of entire relationships— child-producing marriages even— with the evocation of those same words: crazy bitch. Shit, I’ve probably uttered some version of it myself at some point, friends’ heads nodding in immediate recognition across the table, the rejoinder still the perennial go-to when a woman misbehaves. Or speaks an unwelcome truth, says no to an advance. Or when…

WHY WOMEN SHOULD TELL A COMIC FRIEND of mine asked me if she could run a line by me: “Bill Cosby is allowed to joke about rape. After all, he’s been through it.” “It’s funny,” I concluded. She shrugged: not funny enough. That’s the thing with rape jokes: They’ve got to be really good, even if— like my friend—you’re a survivor of sexual assault. We make light of these kinds of things to defuse their horror, but there is an upshot: It sucks to talk this much about rape, but, wow, how great is it that we’re talking about rape? There used to be just one narrative for survivors—that they’ll struggle with healthy sexual relationships, fear or hate men, and generally live the blemished half-lives of broken, internally ransacked people.…

I AM A PARTICULAR KIND OF WOMAN in America: healthy, white, single, heterosexual, childless, and at thirty-nine, still relatively young (though some may disagree). I feel pretty okay. I’ve been lucky. I have options. But modern American female options are not like selecting heads or tails in a coin toss. Our options bleed into one another; we may want a bit of that, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want this, too. I grew up in a small Alabama town wanting to live my life on my own terms—the right college, good friends, a challenging career, an exciting, adventurous life (and, if I so chose, a husband and family magically falling into place along the way). I achieved a lot of those things, yet I fnd I’m always wanting more—including…

THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 2014/10:16.A.M. I know what you did with the magazine. I suspected, and then I confrmed. How evil do you need to be? You’ll enjoy this: I am writing a memoir about these last three years. You are going to be in it. And there is nothing you can do to stop it. When she received this email, it had been a year since she had last spoken to the man who wrote it. But in that year, he had not relented in sending a steady barrage of e-mails to her—sexual, angry, menacing e-mails. Sometimes dozens a day, sometimes just one a day, a few days a week. They had once had a brief relationship, but now she feared him, and her family feared for her safety. And…