There was a time when vacation meant relaxation. You ditched the office, wilted into a hammock, and let a margarita convince you the sun loved you back. Work was the villain; leisure was the cure. But something in the cultural wiring has shorted. A breed of very successful, very restless people is spending four to five figures and hard-earned PTO on suffering. According to Tom Marchant, cofounder of luxury travel company Black Tomato, demand for "meaningful challenge" has surged. Company data shows a 42.9 percent increase in bookings for its "Get Lost" experience, in which clients navigate remote deserts in Morocco, mountains in Mongolia, or the polar wilderness in Norway—often without knowing their destination in advance. Travelers rely on survival training, basic equipment, and themselves. The company also designs punishing expeditions to places like the Mitre Peninsula at the southernmost tip of Tierra del Fuego, a place so inhospitable it might as well exist on another planet. An ex–Royal Marine commander oversees the psychological breakdown—for $15,000 per person. "People want 'earned transformation,' " Marchant says. "They want to come back different, not just rested. In an age where everything can be optimized or virtual, there's something profoundly appealing about raw, unmediated challenge." |
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In 1983, Apple was in the throes of developing the Macintosh computer, and Steve Jobs needed to rally his staff. "It's better to be a pirate," he told them, "than join the navy." It's a dictum to which Jonathan Anderson, the newly appointed creative director of menswear and womenswear at legendary French fashion house Dior, seems attuned. "The most important thing to decide is whether you are a leader or a follower," he tells me from across a large table in his airy Paris office. It's December, and we're in Dior's menswear headquarters in the 8th arrondissement, not far from the Arc de Triomphe and Place de la Concorde. Anderson is fresh off the Eurostar, having just been crowned Designer of the Year at the Fashion Awards in London for the third consecutive time. |
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I met my wife in Argentina. The flower shop was closed, so I went to the bakery. If the flower shop had been open, I never would've met her. You never know how reality is going to coincide with your dreams. You're optimistic, and you go from there. What is it that Michael Caine says? "You don't retire. The business retires you." So until they wipe the drool away... Virginia's the last station before heaven. |
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Tom Junod is considering the epitaphs of seditionists. We're wandering the rows of Marietta Confederate Cemetery, not far from his home outside Atlanta. The sun is inching down, and the grounds are deserted. Tom has no ancestors buried here—he grew up on Long Island—but he's lived in the South for a while and spent years driving past these graves. "I've never been here and it's ..." He looks around, absorbing the scene. "You can definitely write about this in some way." We're wrapping up two and a half days of conversation, and I'm finally about to bring up the stuff I've been politely avoiding. How do you write honestly about one of your heroes, about a man who has inspired and intimidated you in equal measure? Tom Junod's name was once synonymous with Esquire and, really, with men's magazines, period. His byline sits atop some of the most profound and provocative stories that Esquire and GQ have ever published. Like that make-you-cry Mister Rogers profile that became a Tom Hanks movie. Or "The Falling Man," his search for the identity of a single person who plunged from the World Trade Center on 9/11. Presidents, preppers, pit bulls, pornographers—no topic seemed beyond Tom's reach. He ran toward them all, often with success, sometimes with scandal. |
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It has been reported that there are monthly prayer meetings being held at the Pentagon. Frankly, were I an employee there, I would conduct a prayer meeting at my desk for the entire working day. However, these are one of the badly damaged brainchildren of Secretary of Flex Pete Hegseth. And this week he chose a preacher man named Doug Wison to lead the prayer meeting. Let's meet him, shall we? Wilson presides over the Christ Church, a congregation located in Moscow, Idaho, which should be a very loud warning siren to those of us who a) lived through the White Punks in Camo days of the 1990s and b) thoroughly read the brave reporting of David Neiwert down through the years since. As an outright white Christian nationalist, Wilson is very much of that tradition. |
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If you've been doing this work for a long enough time, there are interviews that stick with you—usually it's an image, something a person said, or just a passing bit of kindness—even if they seemed totally unremarkable at the time. For me, the actor Eric Dane, known for his standout roles in Grey's Anatomy and Euphoria, was one of those interviews. He died on Thursday afternoon, nearly a year after announcing that he had been diagnosed with ALS. He was 53.
I jumped on a Zoom with Dane in June 2022, a few months after the Euphoria season 2 finale. He played a tyrannical father on that show, but in real life, Dane was a total delight. Our whole chat was hilariously genial, so much so that the headline was literally, "A Friendly Conversation With Eric Dane." What I saw in Dane was a man who talked about his struggles—his fight with addiction, working far away from his family, losing his father—just as openly as his NBA Finals prediction. (He had the Warriors in six games, which proved true.) He taught me that wearing your heart on your sleeve doesn't have to take a Herculean effort, or some big, remarkable show. It's okay to bring your whole self to the table, and people can take it or leave it. Dane's idea of masculinity was quiet, confident, and kind. |
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