Long before he began work on the prequel series It: Welcome to Derry, Andy Muschietti remembers trying to pick Stephen King's brain for new insights into Pennywise. That's when the bestselling horror legend revealed a surprising secret. It happened on the set of the sequel, It: Chapter Two, in the summer of 2018. Muschietti had already directed the blockbuster 2016 remake of It, which told the first half of King's 1986 novel about a shapeshifting evil that arises every 27 years to stoke rage and feast on fear. As the filmmaker was wrapping up the second half of the story, he toured King around the riverside Ontario town that was standing in for the picturesque-but-cursed town of Derry, Maine. Muschietti found himself peppering King with increasingly detailed queries about the history, rules, and logic behind the supernatural entity that liked to call itself Pennywise the Dancing Clown. |
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Through high school and college, I could talk about sex better than I could have it. Online, I was confident. In person, I froze. I'd lose erections, panic, retreat. Sexting and porn felt safer—predictable, without the risk of embarrassment. By my late 20s, I'd stopped even trying. I hadn't really had sex. One messy night at a college party, I fooled my friends into thinking I had, but in reality, I'd barely made it past awkward foreplay. I told myself it didn't matter, that I preferred women's pleasure anyway. Online, I could make them blush, moan, type "God, yes." I didn't need to be touched to feel desired. I spent years behind a screen, watching porn, tipping on OnlyFans, crafting sexts that read like love letters. It wasn't loneliness so much as safety. Words let me stay close without ever being seen. Once I stopped trying to prove I could perform, my body started working again. I dated and met women who were patient and curious, who didn't flinch when things stalled. One was married and in an open relationship. She treated intimacy like an experiment with honesty, lightness, and low stakes. For once, I didn't feel broken. Then another woman caught me off guard. |
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The story of how Union Square Cafe, the famous restaurant in New York, became as important to my family as it is to the national restaurant industry begins, in a way, before I was born. Even though my brother, sisters, and I were raised in what we considered a boring suburb of Hartford in the 1980s, my mother always subscribed to New York magazine. New York (the city) was a good two hours away without traffic, but a new issue showed up every week in the brass mailbox in front of our tidy house on a quiet street. I remember seeing stories about AIDS and Donald Trump and Yuppies, none of which I understood at age ten, but I paged through anyway. I think the magazine reminded her that the greatest city in the world wasn't too far away and perhaps afforded her an escape from packing lunches, driving to soccer practices, and chairing PTA meetings as she read about Broadway shows, new restaurants, and Upper East Side scandals. |
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At the end of August, I was sore and hoarse and exhausted and broke, and the most content I had been in ages. This is because, like so many men my age in the year 2025, I saw an Oasis reunion show. And like all men who had been there, I'm afraid I'm going to have to tell you about it. You know this if you have a middle-aged guy in your life, but the Oasis show was life-affirming, a chance to bounce and bellow with a stadium full of fellow fans, proof in these contentious times that even profound differences can be overcome. If Liam and Noel could patch it up, anything might be possible. It brought big choruses, bucket hats, and hope. It made us feel young again. |
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Just before the director Jon M. Chu premiered Wicked in theaters last fall, he had a surprise encounter while walking on the Universal Studios lot in Hollywood. Even on an average day at Universal, you're likely to pass by the Bates Motel, the stand-in for a certain time-traveling DeLorean, and a tram overflowing with tourists. It's a semi-surreal environment where one learns to expect the unexpected. But Chu was nevertheless stunned when he ran into Steven Spielberg—and the fabled director said he wanted to screen Wicked with him. "I want you to be sitting right next to me and I want to see it in Dolby Atmos," Chu remembers him saying. The man who directed Jaws and Jurassic Park isn't exactly someone you say no to. So Chu dutifully arranged to show his movie adaptation of the acclaimed Broadway musical to his childhood idol. They ended up talking for nearly an hour afterward, with Spielberg asking endless questions about how Chu had pulled off certain shots and effects. The idea that a maestro like Spielberg could be interested in how he made a movie remains hard for Chu to grasp. "There's no way he cared," Chu says, laughing and poking fun at himself. "But he believed that he cared and was listening and engaged." |
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Ever since its registration in 1926—and certainly since its watchmaking activities began in earnest in 1946—Tudor has lived somewhat in the shadow of its sister company, Rolex. However, ever since the firm's return to the U.S. market in 2013, a steady yet inexorable change has taken place: What was once merely the affordable alternative to one of the most well-known luxury brands in the world has since become a watchmaking phenomenon, with in-house movements, unique designs, and a tremendous catalog of popular models on offer. And while it may not have the ubiquity of Rolex, Tudor has become one of the most beloved watchmakers among the horological cognoscenti. Part of this has to do with relative affordability, to be sure: While Rolex has continued its transformation from (mostly) dedicated tool watch manufacturer to luxury maison, Tudor has remained in the former position, offering hardy divers and other models for well under $10k—and often under $5k. Sure, it makes some dressier pieces—but taken as a whole, the company is known for dive watches, chronographs, GMTs, and other models meant to be used hard. |
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