The Problem With Zoom School

We're only a few weeks in. We can't keep doing this.

The Crushing Reality of Zoom School "Are you muted?" The first thing my five-year-old learned in kindergarten, set up at a tiny desk in the corner of our dining room, is to always stay muted. It's probably the wrong thing to teach a child, but not everyone remembers, and then life bleeds in. Zoom school becomes a portal into worlds you never see as a parent making awkward smalltalk at pickup.   You can hear a mom working a job doing collections for medical billing. Call after call.   A dad who calls his sister on speakerphone. They fight most days.   Grandparents asking how long it's going to take. There are babies wailing.   TVs, so many TVs, an endless buzz of TVs. The weather. The news. Game shows and talk shows.   Are you muted?   Of course Zoom school is a nightmare—with the lack of time to properly plan and the lack of funds to make anything work, how was it going to be anything else?—but every school option right now is. Depending on where you live, school has started as an endless navigation of web logins, unmutes, and dropped connections at home; attempts at confusing part-time hybrid schedules that help only the calendar industry; or the fuck it approach that has already lead to sick kids and teachers, with many more to come. Read the Full Story 'A Felony Just to Own': The Sleazy Story Behind Penthouse's Best-Selling Issue It's difficult to truly convey the frenzy that developed around Penthouse's September 1984 issue. Take it from those involved, though. Peter Bloch, Penthouse's then-executive editor: "It was the best-selling issue of Penthouse of all time. Hands down. A complete sellout in, like, two days." Richard Bleiweiss, Penthouse's then-art director: "The thing about this issue is, it became the biggest news story in the world." Leslie Jay-Gould, Penthouse's then-vice president and director of public relations: "The issue was beyond huge, was beyond anything. When it hit stands, I was fielding over a hundred calls a day. And then, two years later, the FBI came to the offices and took away all the issues. Yeah, it was a felony just to own." The stories continue here, courtesy of Lili Anolik's deep dive into one of the most controversial magazines ever printed.   Read the Full Story The Best Classic Whiskey Cocktails for Curing What Ails You There isn't much a good whiskey cocktail can't cure. And there are quite a few ailments in this weird, all-time-worst year that could use a touch of spiritual healing. For one, drinks both stiff and well-mixed have become our tether to the more social nights of years past, only now we're making most of them at home instead of entrusting a skilled bartender with our order. For another, a cocktail helps us mark the end of a day spent at home with the beginning of an evening...also spent at home. All courtesy of a whiskey bottle. The first months of this shutdown were marked by bright spring cocktails, and unabashedly buzzed cocktails escorted summer. Now, that chill in the air means it's high time to hunker down into a whiskey cocktail, the kind you can feel deep in your bones. Of those, there are many. Whiskey cocktails to buck you up, whiskey cocktails to calm you down, whiskey cocktails to fight off illness, and whiskey cocktails so historic your great-great-great-grandparents were happily sipping them back in the day. Bourbon or rye, scotch or Irish—all are represented here. Stock up on a bottle or three of whichever spirit is on your mind. Some Angostura bitters wouldn't be a bad call, either. These are whiskey cocktails to hibernate to. Read the Full Story On Remembering to Be Grateful on the Darkest Days The basic concept of the gratitude journal, corny as it may sound, is to write down three things you're grateful for every day. Sure, expressing gratitude in a time like this seems kind of sociopathic, we'll admit. But the gratitude journal doesn't have to be all about the big picture stuff. In fact, it's often more satisfying when you focus on the random joys from your day. "Fought—and won—with Spectrum on the phone about our internet bill." "Getting better at making chocolate chip cookies." Sometimes the entries are longer, like a whole page about the unexpected healing power of a weekly family Zoom chat. Sometimes they're as short as two words: "I voted!" or simply, "Pulled pork!" Esquire's Dom Nero reflects on how journaling has been his saving grace.   Read the Full Story Everyone Thought Appointment Television Was Dead. In 2020 It's Thriving. Culture commentators argue that appointment television has been dying a slow death for years, starting back when House of Cards came along as the first major streaming series, chipping away at TV as we knew it. And that's true. We digest a lot of television in hearty burps now: 13-episode binge watches that take the emotional investment of a year, crammed into one weekend. Even the online conversation that once united Shondaland fans or Walking Dead stans has transformed. Now, TV watching is the equivalent of annual pop culture one-night-stand—perhaps until just recently. Esquire's Justin Kirkland explains why there's never been a more necessary time to embrace appointment television again.  Read the Full Story The Grace and Ferocity of Michael Kenneth Williams New York, it's said, is over, dying or already dead, shortly to sink into the sea. But Michael Kenneth Williams isn't among the growing ranks of NYC pessimists. What would be the point of moving, anyway? The entire country is in crisis—and if he lived in California, he would have wildfires to contend with. To hear him tell it, there's reason to be almost hopeful in the face of coast-to-coast to catastrophe. There's nowhere to run, and we can only plant our feet more firmly in the ground we're standing on. "I go down with this ship," he says. To television viewers, the city that Williams is most closely associated with is Baltimore, the setting of The Wire, the show on which he played Omar Little in a performance so beloved that even President Obama name-dropped it. Now, amidst his standout performance as a 1950s Chicagoan on HBO's Lovecraft Country, Esquire's Gabrielle Bruney spoke with Williams about Black masculinity and why he's never been afraid of being typecast.  Read the Full Story   Follow Us     Unsubscribe  Privacy Notice   esquire.com ©2020 Hearst Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. Hearst Email Privacy, 300 W 57th St., Fl. 19 (sta 1-1), New York, NY 10019