Welcome back to the Weekend Press! Today, Niall Ferguson will make you love soccer. Kat Rosenfield on the cowardice of Olivia Rodrigo. River Page has two drinks with Trump’s tourism tsar. Will Rahn on Steven Spielberg’s new alien epic. And more!
But first: Josh Code reports from Christian Men’s Camp.
When I first saw a promotional reel for 252 The Weekend, a retreat organized by the New Jersey megachurch Transform, I almost mistook it for a trailer for a new season of Survivor: dramatic music, stone-faced men staring into fire, men carrying logs, men climbing over walls and crawling under netting. And I wondered: Is this actually about getting in touch with God—or is it just a chance for dudes to be dudes?
There’s much talk that a religious revival is happening in America, especially within Gen Z, but some have questioned whether the newly holy are authentically interested in God, or just superficially attracted to the ever-multiplying influencers and apps and podcasts that are springing up to make Christianity hot again. Does packaging religion to appeal to a certain set of people make it any less meaningful?
That’s the question I set out to answer last weekend, at 252, which I attended alongside 580 men, most of whom were from suburban New Jersey—where a man can’t exactly roam a ranch on horseback or even pump his own gas. They were locksmiths, electricians, landscapers, jujitsu fighters, auto parts sales associates. They were also, it turned out, men who hadn’t cried in years, had never heard their fathers say they were proud of them, and had no idea how much they needed a weekend like this.
Together they danced, sang, prayed, and competed in a field day for grown-ups. One boy’s name was engraved on a sword. Men kept saying “iron sharpens iron.” A couple of them got baptized in iron tubs, but the Holy Spirit was often hard to discern. Nevertheless, there was something profound about it all. Because the obstacle course, the bench press, the sheer testosterone of it all, gave the men permission to be vulnerable. After all, it’s okay to cry when you’ve just benched your own body weight 28 times. —Josh Code
The World Cup has just kicked off on American soil, and some of us may be asking ourselves: What do Europeans see in soccer? Our resident Scotsman, Niall Ferguson, explains in this week’s Things Worth Remembering. “We do not go to football to munch on hot dogs,” he writes. “We do not watch football to experience pleasure. We go to suffer.” To illustrate his point, he recalls Nick Hornby’s “Fever Pitch,” a memoir that makes the definitive case for the beautiful game.
“People around the world have been continually bombarded with this narrative that America is unwelcoming. That America is unsafe. That America is superexpensive. It’s total and utter bullshit.” So says Nick Adams, the first-ever “special presidential envoy for American tourism, exceptionalism, and values.’” The Australian-born media personality met River Page for two drinks in Washington, D.C., this week—and explained why the World Cup’s going to be “amazing,” why his nomination to be ambassador to Malaysia fell through, and why Trump gave him the job of “being the brand ambassador for the United States.”
If you have a Gen-Z girl in your life, you’ll know that her messiah—Olivia Rodrigo—just released a new album. It was, Rodrigo admitted, supposed to be about a loving relationship, but when that relationship fell apart, she rewrote it to be about how the romance was doomed from the start. This, writes our culture critic Kat Rosenfield, is “an almost shocking act of cowardice,” from an artist known for unflinchingly sharing the messiest of teenage emotions. By editing her feelings like an Instagram caption, Rodrigo is erasing her past happiness from the record and affirming her generation’s idea that love isn’t real.
As the Trump administration drip-feeds us UFO files—the third batch of which landed Friday—the likelihood that we have extraterrestrial neighbours in this universe feels greater than ever. So Steven Spielberg’s alien movie has arguably landed at the perfect time. But the movie we got, argues Will Rahn, isn’t really about aliens at all. Instead, it’s proof of what happens when a world-renowned director gets tripped up by his own fame. “Some have theorized over the decades that Spielberg is a certain sort of idiot savant: that he lives entirely in his own head,” Will writes. “Disclosure Day lends fresh support to this hypothesis.” Don’t miss his review.
Second Thought
In the latest episode of Second Thought, Suzy Weiss sits down with the Roastmaster General, comedian Jeff Ross—who explains why a well-crafted insult is the ultimate sign of respect and the last bastion of truly free speech in our culture. In their conversation, he reflects on the best burns he issued to Joan Rivers, Justin Bieber, and Charlie Sheen—and tosses out a brand-new one for Suzy herself. Listen to the episode wherever you get your podcasts, or watch the YouTube vid below. And if you want to keep up to date with everything Suzy does (this week, she gave a company that wants to train robots to do the cleaning full access to her apartment)—don’t miss her newsletter!
Knock Knock, It’s Cupid!
A new batch of ads from single Free Pressers is live on our site. Click here to meet a midwife in New Mexico; a vegan master of divinity in Virginia; or an athletic outdoorsman in Florida. Your special someone could be just one email away! If you’d like to take a chance at Free Press love, write a paragraph that defines you, including your age, where you live, and what you’re looking for, and send it over to Cupid@TheFP.com.
We’ve published a lot of stories worth catching up on this week, from Caitlin Flanagan’s review of Jill Biden’s memoir, to Larissa Phillips’s latest personal essay, about her summers spent working at restaurants in Nantucket . . .
How should you spend the rest of your weekend? We asked our colleague Danya Jacobs for her recommendations…
🏃Run. . . the Central Park loop before the city wakes up. As a born-and-bred New Yorker, it is mildly embarrassing to admit that I did this for the very first time this week, and it completely shifted my perspective on how peaceful the city can be. It turns out this city does sleep, but only between the hours of 5:30 and 6:00 a.m. If you’re not in New York, find a park nearby and get your run finished before anyone has the chance to hit snooze. It’s a meditative experience.
📺 Watch. . . Obsession, a supernatural thriller in theaters now. It’s buzzy, gory fun; I found myself laughing quite a bit between the jump scares. Some are reading this film as a cautionary tale about how dangerous men are to the women they love, but I saw it pretty differently. (And so did Kat Rosenfield: Read her recent review!)
🍦Skip. . . the two-hour line for whatever new, overhyped frozen yogurt spot is currently hijacking your Instagram feed. The obsession with queueing up has officially devolved into insanity. If you want froyo, do the sensible thing: Go to Pinkberry. You will wait approximately four seconds at the register, get your food, and actually enjoy your weekend.
Last but not least: When we asked our art director Clara Grusq for the most beautiful thing she saw this week, she chose this photo of David Hockney at work in his studio in the mid-’60s. The British artist, who died this week at age 88, was a pioneering force in the Pop Art movement and one of the most influential artists of the last century.
That’s all, folks! Have a great weekend.
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Headlines to entice and articles to disappoint on the weekends — ho hum.
I ran a rock band camp for over ten years and every summer a school teacher or foster parent would tell me a particular student was disruptive or troubled. But I never saw such behaviors because the wonderful teaches I had directing the bands established open communication with each student and created a safe space for the teens to relax. Instead of leading sad, parallel lives disassocited emotionally from the parents or guardians, these kids found real connection to nurturing adults. I found this article heartbreaking to know that so many men carry such pain into their adulthood. Finding connection that recognizes this pain is what faith, recovery, and love is all about.