The end of the world was near. Everyone realized it was coming, so the only question was: How? Preparations had to be made. People needed to know. And time was running short. Stranger Things, the Netflix series about supernatural terrors that overtake a quiet midwestern community in the 1980s, was drawing to a close. It had become a pop-culture juggernaut of unspeakable scale, adding all the more weight to its looming fifth and final season. Hawkins, Indiana, the setting of the story, does not actually exist, but the people who have spent the past decade bringing it to life onscreen formed something akin to their own tight-knit small town. Their world, in a sense, was ending too—and they were the ones responsible for making sure it went out with appropriate bangs, whimpers, and all-around spectacle. Apart from scores of actors and camera operators, there are countless behind-the-scenes workers like builders, painters, electricians, and greenskeepers in a holding pattern. The whole world was waiting to see how Stranger Things was going to end, but this caravan of workers, centered in and around Atlanta, needed to find out first. For that, they all looked to the identical twin brothers whose imaginations had given birth to Stranger Things: Matt and Ross Duffer. But the twins had difficulty providing all the answers. |
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Ben Stiller grew up surrounded by show business. His parents, the legendary comedy duo Stiller and Meara, worked stages across the country from Ed Sullivan to the Sunset Strip. It was a golden age for television and he witnessed much of it from the front row of a live studio audience. "I was hanging around the places that kids weren't really supposed to hang around," he tells Esquire. "I remember my parents playing Vegas and being at the casinos with them and being told to back away from a roulette table because I was eight or nine years old and then kind of backing into the bar and the bartender saying, 'Well you can't hang out here, either.'" As a fully-grown adult he's had no trouble finding space to fit in. Acting, writing, producing, directing—Stiller has accrued multi-hyphenate success through four separate decades. In fact, he welcomed his 60th birthday in early December, busier than ever. |
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Landry is a hack who isn't even entertaining the way Louisiana hacks often are. Not that he doesn't try. He posted his acceptance of this lunatic posting online from a shrimp plant on the bayou. His explanation or why he was chosen was... interesting. Not to be pedantic, but the only reason Landry's Cajun ancestors are in Louisiana because they were forcibly removed from French Canada by imperial Great Britain beginning in 1755. This "Great Upheaval" happened at least in part because greedy bastards from Britain's New England colonies lusted after the Acadian lands in Nova Scotia, and wondered why "aliens" were allowed to own land in what was a British colony. One would think that someone with such an obvious grasp of historical facts as Governor Landry demonstrates would at least take note of the irony of the position he's taking here. Also, not for nothing, but Greenland has its own shrimp, thank you very much, and has no need of Louisiana shrimp, which are probably 30 percent petrochemicals by now anyway. |
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For the Dubai noob, the city quickly lives up to its reputation as a sparkling metropolis, its streets jammed with minty Lambos and Rolls Royce Phantoms. Now a hub of hospitality as well as a major shopping destination, the city has matured into a pivotal spot on the luxury lover's world tour. So, you can bet it's a great spot for watches too. The Burj Khalifa, its most famous early landmark, rises 2,700 feet and change from what was once sand, towering over the center of downtown Dubai. The park laid out around its base is the new site of the city's Dubai Watch Week, a gathering of watchmakers and collectors unlike any other on the watch circuit. The event showcases 90 brands in a purpose-built, 18,000 square-meter venue. Despite the expansiveness of the location, what is immediately striking about DWW is the size of the exhibitors' open booths—small by comparison to those imposing edifices at Watches and Wonders, which convenes annually in Geneva. But in Dubai that relatively small scale is a strength; it makes for an intimate and accessible affair, despite almost 50,000 visitors over the five days. |
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Yes, Bari Weiss is bad at her job. But don't let that distract you from what the U.S. is doing to Venezuelan deportees. Did the faux-journalist in charge of CBS News, really believe that this segment wouldn't leak once she stepped in and spiked it? Was someone at CBS sharp enough to make sure the segment went out on the feed to Global News in Canada before Weiss took her hatchet to it? These are interesting questions, but in the face of the brutality depicted and described in the segment, they are terribly minor ones compared to what we all should be asking about: What is being done in our name in El Salvador? |
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The more we test mattresses, the more we realize what we actually want is simplicity. The mattress needs to be great, and the buying process needs to be simple. I think Ostermoor—the topic of this review—understands that more than any other brand on the market. And to top it off, it's got a 170-year history other DTC brands could only dream of. The 170-year history thing might seem like a gimmick, but it's not. Ostermoor was founded in 1853 in downtown Manhattan as a little family-run horsehair mattress maker. It's changed hands, and sure, this current iteration of Ostermoor is a direct-to-consumer rebrand that's not dissimilar from the big-wigs of the DTC mattress world. But the brand is still very much a family operation. I met the current owner, Amy Ding, who bought the brand and re-launced it with her father in 2024—Ding and her father make up the entire ownership structure. These mattresses are not focus-grouped to death. Instead of doing the normal rebrand, white-labeling, and introduction of dozens of "unique" mattress models, they built on the brand's expertise and simplicity. They kept the same Ostermoor-owned factory in Massachusetts, and they kept the lineup curated. There's three mattress and three down accessories—pillow, topper, duvet. If you care for accessories, the down mattress topper won an Esquire Sleep Award in 2025. |
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