My Ladies' Night Inside a High-End Members-Only Sex Club |
As a rule, if you get invited to the sex party, you go to the fucking sex party. That was our consensus when we received the invitation to attend a masquerade at Snctm, a members-only club that promises sexual freedom, erotic theater, and maybe even group sex with some of the wealthiest hedonists on the planet. Founded by Damon Lawner in Beverly Hills in 2013, Snctm now hosts events in the financial capitals of the world: New York City, Los Angeles, Moscow, Miami. Watch the preview clip on the site, as my friends and I did—mood lighting! Penetration! Blow jobs in black tie!—and it becomes apparent that this is more than performance art: guests are invited to share in the perversion. As a squad of women, most of us bisexual, all of us with cultivated kinks of our own, we were skeptical of the club's potential for freakiness. The rules clearly catered to the gender binary: Single men must be members. Couples and single women can attend a one-off as non-members, though only after submitting an application that must include "clear, recent" photos and descriptions of their fantasies. Coupled men must also pay for event tickets. Women accepted to the "lady's [sic] guest list" attend for free. Like most of Snctm's soirees, as the company likes to call its parties, this one would be black-tie for men; women could choose between evening wear or just lingerie. With all the opportunities for inclusive, exploratory sex in New York City, how liberating could a cis-gender-leaning, ticketed event really be? |
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| Michael Imperioli Can Keep a Secret |
Michael Imperioli leans across the booth at Cafe Fiorello on the Upper West Side, his thick eyebrow raised, the pupils in his hazel eyes narrowed. "I'm very good at keeping secrets," he says with a conspiratorial smile. "You could tell me the worst thing you've ever done in your life, something that you're afraid people will hate you for and I'll never ever tell. Go ahead!" I laugh nervously and try to turn the conversation back to him. We are two weeks out from the finale of The White Lotus and Imperioli will absolutely not budge, no matter how I try to coax him, into giving me a clue about who ends up dead in the final episode. He's been here before. He was privy to the end of the most talked-about, most polarizing finale in television history: The Sopranos. The HBO show that made Imperioli a star treated the last episode in 2007 as a state secret: They stopped having full read-throughs, stopped giving scripts to guest stars. Though his character Christopher Moltisanti died a few episodes before the finale, producer David Chase told the actor how it would all end, that it would just cut to black. And the actor did not tell a soul. "I don't get why people want to know—why they want to have you spoil the whole thing," he says with a shrug. So instead, Imperioli and I spoke again on the phone late last night, moments after his character Dominic Di Grasso boards the plane back to the states with his father (F. Murray Abraham) and son, Albie (Adam DiMarco), surviving the deadly checkout day. |
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Say Hello to Your Now and Forever Coat |
A big coat is a big step. This is as it should be, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating for the coat-seeker in real time. The hours I've spent poring over details, researching histories, shrugging my shoulders in and out of knee-length toppers—let's just say that while it worked out in the long run, I wouldn't necessarily wish it on you, dear reader. Which is great, because if you keep reading, you'll learn that my struggle needn't be your own. I've found a timeless, versatile, and supremely comfortable overcoat that you can acquire now, no research required. So let my loss—of time, and briefly, of sanity—be your gain. Just pick up Todd Snyder's balmacaan before winter's icy grip captures us all. You'll be glad you did. As Todd Snyder's site will dutifully inform you, the Balmacaan has a backstory. The coat is named for a Scottish estate near Inverness, where it first appeared in the 1800s. Apparel history is always spotty—turns out 19th century Scottish tailors weren't keeping records in anticipation of Wikipedia's arrival—but the accounting of the Balmacaan's origins is pretty consistent across platforms, which means it's likely accurate (or at least a compelling tale). And even if you haven't logged considerable time in the country, you likely already know that it's notorious for cold, wet weather. So should it come as any surprise that a distinctly Scottish overcoat is particularly well suited to the worst months of the year? It shouldn't, and doesn't. But it's still nice to be able to relay the history over a pint at the pub, should you ever find yourself in that position. |
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Avatar: The Way of Water is All Shock and No Substance |
There's this TV. It's perched high on the back wall of my favorite bagel shop. Depending on the day and the time, it'll be playing anything from a cartoon like The Amazing World of Gumball to a Netflix deep cut. This TV bothers the living shit out of me. Someone—the TV's manufacturer, the bagel shop owner, who knows!—has the frame rate jacked up so high that poor Gumball seems to blur through his cartoon neighborhood. This has a name, by the way: the "soap opera effect." Our dumb human brains are so used to watching TV and movies at lower frame rates that anything considered high looks bizarrely unreal. Avatar: The Way of Water, in theaters today, feels like watching The Amazing World of Gumball, in 3-D, on the TV of my local bagel shop. Certain scenes run at a whopping 48 frames per second—double the average—which director James Cameron has said creates a "heightened sense of presence." For me, it creates a heightened sense of not being able to see what the hell is going on. Here's a game for your Way of Water screening: is it a Na'vi or is it Sonic the Hedgehog? |
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Shaq Isn't Holding Anything Back |
When he really wants to get a point across the netscape over Zoom, Shaquille O'Neal leans forward in his tall blue-leather office chair to separate his towering frame from the shelving with the four Emmys behind him. His chin is down slightly, head at a bit of a tilt, as he peers into the camera like it's an actual tube. "The quicker I got through whooping everybody in the school, the quicker you know Shaq's the man," he said when I asked about his bullying other kids growing up. "So now, if you fear me, you're not going to talk about me. That's what I wanted." He leans back again, stroking at his salt-and-pepper beard or putting an index finger to his temple as he rounds out an answer. I knew Shaq bullied kids at school because he talks frankly about it, and the moment he knew he had to stop, in a new docuseries on his life out now on HBO. The fourth and final episode of SHAQ premieres Wednesday, after two winding episodes on his professional playing career—following an occasionally slow exploration of his early life in Episode One—already hit over the last month. Throughout the series, the all-time big man is candid about his various personas: baller and brawler and businessman, the most dominant player in basketball history, ally and antagonist of Kobe Bryant, Inside the NBA panelist and Krispy Kreme franchisee and EDM DJ, son to a drill-sergeant father whose methods Shaq believes made him who he is today—methods that these days might be considered abusive. (Or, as Shaq calls it: "the a-word.") |
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Congratulations, dear reader: we've made it through another great year in books. Whether you read like the wind this year or fell short of your goals, there's always something about the holiday break that inspires a return to reading. Luckily, there's a whole year's worth of literary riches to tuck into your suitcase. Whether you're looking to understand our current moment through rigorous nonfiction or escape it through otherworldly plots, 2022's crop of titles offers something for readers of every persuasion. Our favorite books of the year so far run the gamut of genres, from epic fantasy to literary fiction, and tackle a constellation of subjects. If you want to read about spaceships, talking pigs, or supervillains, you've come to the right place. Check back with us in the new year, when we'll start rounding up our favorite books of 2023. In the meantime, happy reading! |
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