Category — Men

Having gone out of style in the 1980s, Table Hockey is attracting a new generation of fans, reports Will Connors in the Wall Street Journal (4/23/12). Table Hockey is where players use metal rods to move flat cutouts of players along slots in the table, manipulating them as levers in hopes of landing pucks in the opponent’s net. It was really popular in the 1970s but lost its mojo with the arrival of “videogames and the internet.” The game had survived, to some degree, among middle-aged men, who are now actively recruiting younger players to their ranks. Their pitch is “the sport’s human touch over videogames and smartphone apps.”

Mark Sokolski, 35, says young players are attracted to Table Hockey’s “real-life camaraderie” compared with the digital alternatives. “In videogames, there is no humanity,” he says. However, he showed no mercy when taking on 14-year-old Carter Campbell at the Canadian Table Hockey Championships earlier this year. “I’m gonna stomp this kid,” Mark said. And he did, 5-3 and 5-1. But, in fact, Mark, a middle-school teacher, had introduced Carter to the game in the classroom. Carter was a natural and soon “was beating all the kids his age, and most adults in town, too, at school and in local tournaments.”

Carter sees Table Hockey as a great equalizer. “I’m clearly not that athletic,” he says. “This is a a sport that I can play and I’m actually good at.” The Canadian event, held annually since 1999, drew a record number of participants — 120. Another tourney, the North American Championships meanwhile “drew players from as far away as Denmark and Norway,” and also broke the record for participation, with 48 players. Girls and women are still a rarity at Table Hockey tournaments, but Sue Elias, who says she’s “over 40″ is unintimidated. “One guy started to bleed during our game, he was trying to beat me so badly,” says Sue, observing . “But,” she adds, “I won.”

A Tony Award-winning producer and real estate developer has created an apparel line for men under five foot eight, reports Austin Considine in the New York Times (3/29/12). “My pants always had to be shortened,” says Peter, who stands 5′ 8″. He figures he’s paid hundreds or even thousands of dollars in “tailor taxes” because of his relatively diminutive stature. He also noticed that while there are plenty of retailers catering to big and tall men, there’s nothing comparable for the small and short — even though “more than a quarter of American men age 20 and over are 5-foot-8 or shorter,” according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

Peter thought it made no sense to “ignore a demographic that’s equally as large” as the “big and tall” category and so he’s introduced the Peter Manning line of men’s wear. “The look is classic American basics; straight-legged chinos, solid polo shirts, button-up shirts and crew-neck cotton sweaters. They are designed in part to make the wearer seem taller, like narrow-legged, low riding pants (nary a pleated pant in sight; shirts that, when untucked, hit shorter men just below the waist; and shorter-hemmed sweaters that don’t bunch at the waist.”

He also devised “a new size system, numbered 1 to 5, for top pieces like shirts and sweaters (a size 1, for example, fits men 5-foot-3 to 5-foot-5). Pants come in lengths as short as 27 inches.” Items are priced between $24 and $79.50 and currently are only available online. Peter hopes “to expand into department stores and offer more variety, like sportswear and accessories.” Mark-Evan Blackman, a 5-foot 7-inch assistant professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology thinks Peter is onto something, so long as the styles are right. Peter himself says there’s not a whole lot of mystery to it: “At the end of the day, I’m just designing what I want to wear.”

Michael Goldberg is so hooked on his favorite haberdashery that he’s formed a committee and is raising money to save it, reports Sumathi Reddy in the Wall Street Journal (3/9/12). “This venerable enterprise, which has existed for so long, is kind of a little bit of a victim of the new world,” says Michael, who is the executive director of the National Basketball Coaches Association, and is known to favor bow-ties. “Old-fashioned haberdasheries are closing all over the country,” he adds. “People are shopping differently. But he thinks there’s a place for a haberdashery, especially in New York, “where there’s a small cadre of people that really want to dress well.”

H. Herzfeld was founded in Hanover, Germany, but re-located to New York’s Madison Avenue after Hermann Herzfeld fled his homeland. His son, Wolfgang, later took over and expanded the business five times before high rents forced a moved to its current location on East 57th. Its present owner, Jonathan Cline, says business has been in decline (pun intended) for the past ten years. He says that it used to be that his business was a leading indicator of the stock market, but now it’s a lagging indicator. “What was isn’t anymore,” he says.

Over the years, Jonathan has amassed a database of 15,000 customers “whose names, contact information, sizes and preferences are painstakingly typed out and fill eight rolodexes.” But even H. Herzfeld’s most loyal customers are doubtful. “It was just a nice way of shopping, which has been lost,” says Richard Parkoff, a customer for 44 years. “I don’t know how much of that clientele is left that can sustain a business like that,” he says. Michael Goldberg’s committee, meanwhile, is “in the process of raising $150,000 in short-term capital to tide the business over.” And H. Herzfeld is “planning special events and to introduce some new inventory, even possibly (gasp!) a women’s line.”

Armand Olivier Bell pairs neckties with wine on Saks Fifth Avenue’s sixth floor, reports Lettie Teague in the Wall Street Journal (3/16/12). Armand “developed a love for Brunello and Barolo in Italy and a passion for Bordeaux while he was living in France.” He says he moved to New York in 1995 because he loves jazz. “When he came to work at Saks, he said it seemed natural to invoke his favorite wines when talking about his favorite ties.”

“Charvet is one of my favorites,” says Armand, noting the necktie’s fine, heavy silk. “You wear a Charvet on a special occasion — or for your first job in finance.” He recommends pairing it with Haut Brion,” because, “It’s a classic wine.” When it comes to Ferragamo ties, which “tend to be brightly colored, with whimsical patterns of tiny horses or dogs or sailboats or cupcakes,” Armand suggests “Sauternes .. or perhaps a simpler wine like Monbazillac.”

Gold is the most difficult color to pair with wine — or a suit, says Armand. “Perhaps a Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio — something simple, to tone it down,” he offers. When it comes to an Armani tie, Armand suggests, “Maybe an inexpensive wine from the Medoc. Armani customers are conservative,” he says. The Saks store brand, meanwhile “goes with everything.” Why doesn’t Armand pair any neckties with American wines? “We don’t have anything made in China,” he replies.

Mixed martial arts is the fourth most popular pay-per-view sport among men 18 to 34, reports Douglas Quenqua in the New York Times (3/15/12). Mixed martial arts is "where a fighter can use any style of combat — jujitsu, karate, boxing, wrestling — to subdue an opponent. Fighters wear minimally padded gloves and matches are held in cages so no one can fall out. The result is an often bloody, bone-breaking affair that, according to fans, leaves no question of who is the better combatant." Among guys under 35, it "has come to represent everything that boxing once did to their fathers and grandfathers: the ultimate measure of manhood, endurance and guts."

For them, it’s right up there with baseball, basketball and football, according to Scarborough Sports Marketing. For everyone else, "it ranks below horse racing and figure skating." Mixed martial arts first arrived in the US, from Brazil, in 1993. Its popularity began to grow in the late 90s with the release of Fight Club, a Brad Pitt film in which it is central to the storyline. At first it was outlawed by many states and "cable networks refused to carry the graphic fights, which for years were conducted almost entirely without rules. Such attempts to ban the sport only "fueled its rise," however.

Since it wasn’t possible to watch mixed martial arts on television, young men traded videotapes, giving "the sport the feel of a grass-roots movement." A network of fans trading tapes soon spread across the internet. Today, the sport is legal in "nearly every state that sanctions boxing" and "watching a mixed martial arts fight is as easy as setting your DVR." Tim Parrott, whose 10-year-old son is a fan, has no problem with the sport’s unvarnished violence. "These are the new superheroes for kids," he says. "People don’t wake up today and want to be Sugar Ray Leonard. They want to be Georges St. Pierre." Prof. Robert Thompson of Syracuse University says the sport has surprising appeal among his students. "This is not something that smart young people look down their noses at," he says.

Testosterone is becoming a more common ingredient in kitchenware — figuratively speaking, of course, reports Jesse McKinley in the New York Times (3/15/12). Lifetime Brands, a "giant housewares and kitchenwares company," believes that men are "increasingly active in house-outfitting decisions, despite the long-standing sense that the home is a female domain." The company’s Savora line of "sleek and stylish" utensils (image) were designed with men in mind. "It’s secs on a spoon," says Tom Mirabile, the company’s senior vice president for global trends and design.

It was one of many male-focused products on display at the recent International Home and Housewares Show in Chicago. Others included "a line of dude-friendly cookware and kitchen tools, including frying pans with tattoo-inspired design … The ultimate in macho kitchenware, however, may have come from Kikuichi Cutlery, whose company dates back to the 14th century, when it was making swords for a little group called the samauri. It was a good steady business model — but once swordplay dried up, so did the company’s bottom line." So, now Kikuichi makes kitchen knives.

A Kikuichi kitchen knife is made "in the same ornate style" as traditional samauri swords, "with delicate waves along layers of steel, emblazoned with the same logo from centuries ago: a chrysanthemum." (image) Other guy gear on display naturally included "a shiny, barrel-shaped barbecue" from Eva Sol (image), whose chief executive explained: "This should be a kind of furniture … And it should be nice enough that your wife would want it there." It meets its perfect match with a Mr. Bar-B-Q spatula, which comes equipped with both a bottle opener and a "small magnetic light," presumably for grilling in the dark (image).

"As Paris is to fashion … so are young women to linguistic innovation," reports Douglas Quenqua in the New York Times (2/28/12). The way some girls talk is "often seen as markers of immaturity or even stupidity," but linguists say they use vocal "embellishments in much more sophisticated ways than people tend to realize." Carmen Fought, a linguistics professor at Pitzer College says young women use certain inflections "as power tools for building relationships." Take, for example, "uptalk," or the habit of posing statements as questions. A 1991 study by University of Pennsylvania linguist Cynthia McLemore "found that senior members of a Texas sorority used uptalk to make junior members feel obligated to carry out new tasks. (‘We have a rush event this Thursday? And everyone needs to be there?’)."

Over the past 20 years, uptalk has spread across boundaries of both age and gender. "I’ve heard grandfathers and grandmothers use it," says linguist David Crystal of Bangor University in Wales. Linguist Penny Eckert of Stanford says one of her students observed Jamba Juice customers and "found that by far the most common uptalkers were fathers of young women. She theorizes that it’s "a way of showing themselves to be friendly and not asserting power in the situation." Linguist Mark Liberman of University of Pennsylvania says that "women tend to be maybe half a generation ahead of males on average" when it comes to verbal innovation. Currently on the horizon is the so-called "vocal fry, also known as creaky voice," which "has been gaining popularity among women since at least 2003."

The vocal fry is "a raspy of croaking sound injected (usually) at the end of a sentence." According to Ikuko Patricia Yuasa of Berkeley, the vocal fry is used to sound "more authoritative" but is also "used to communicate disinterest." As Mark Liberman explains: "It’s a mode of vibration that happens when the vocal cords are relatively lax … So maybe some people use it when they’re relaxed and even bored, not especially … invested in what they’re saying." The vocal fry apparently actually originated with British men, going back as far as 1964 "as a way to denote their superior social standing," which is, like, totally ironic. Then again, a 2011 study "found that while young people tended to use ‘like’ more often than older people, men used it more frequently than women."

As much as Lego would like to appeal to kids, it’s the grownups that seem to be its most ardent fans, reports Daniel Michaels in the Wall Street Journal (11/17/11). "We still see ourselves as a toy company, but the world is challenging us on that," says Tormod Askildsen, a senior director at Lego in Billund, Denmark. Early signs of this challenge happened in 1995, "when an adult fan modified sophisticated design software to create a virtual-Lego program, L Draw. In 1998, Lego introduced Mindstorms, a line of robot-building kits with motors, sensors and small programmable computers. It was aimed at kids under 13, but more than half its buyers were over 20," according to Tormod.

Soon after, Lego "learned that adults were hacking Mindstorms software to soup up robots." Five years after that, the company went bankrupt because it dumbed down kits by using big, preformed pieces that sapped creativity." It was adults who told them they had blundered. "Fans tried to tell us we were on the wrong track, but we said, these are adults and we’re a toy company," says Tormod. "Until then, Lego was a pretty closed, arrogant company." But now Lego is embracing its inner adult, to the point where it has anointed 13 grownups as Lego Certified Professionals.

This elite corps of Lego customers isn’t paid by Lego, but "acts as goodwill ambassadors" in exchange for getting bricks at wholesale. Sean Kenney, one of the chosen 13, actually “left a job at Lehman Brothers in 2002 to build Lego models full time.” He makes six figures from “clients including Marriott International, which this year commissioned models of several hotels.” Meanwhile, other adult fans are forking over upwards of $1,000 for a “5,992-piece Lego Taj Mahal" set. It’s not lost on Lego that grownups have more money to spend than kids, although this particular adult extravagance can cause family tensions. "We hear conversations about, ‘This is Daddy’s Lego," says Jamie Berard, a Lego senior designer.

Bill Probert, "a Lego enthusiast for the past 20 years" has created a 400 square-foot Lego metropolis, reports Susan Hodara in the New York Times (11/27/11). Bill is 54, so he realized his passion for Lego somewhat late in life. But his Lego city, built "with help from members of two Lego fan groups" — all members of "the international Adult Fans of Lego community (members call themselves AFOLS)" — is currently on display at the Stamford Museum and Nature Center in Connecticut.

It’s quite something: "Three railroad trains and two monorails activated by motion detectors travel across farmland planted with about 3,000 ears of corn, each consisting of 10 Lego pieces; to and from an airport where several planes are in flight; past a soccer field and campsite (you can see campers’ dinner roasting on a spit); and around a downtown bustling with shops, cafes , a five-story department store and hundreds of busy figures."

Bill also "included lots of unexpected details: a skeleton lying across a train track, an octopus hiding under a bridge, Star Wars characters dueling and other surprises." Bill calls his creation "All Aboard" and says that about 80 percent of the Lego pieces he used can’t be bought in stores anymore. "Some I bought years ago," he says, "and others I purchased on the secondary market." Bill says he plans to re-arrange neighborhoods and change other details to keep his cityscape fresh throughout its run, which will conclude on January 2nd.

"Oh for the days — not so long ago –when a boy’s world would have fallen to its knees before a new Ducati design," writes Frederick Seidel in the New York Times (11/6/11). Frederick is worried that "motorcycles — even superb and lovely Italian motorcycles from the land of Donatello and Bertolucci" are "being replaced as love objects, as arm candy, by other more contemporary show-off desirables." He is speaking specifically of electronic devices, and even more specifically of those made by Apple.

"The iPhone 4S, the iPad 2, the 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Air computers — these are the sleek gorgeousness young people go on about, have to have, and do have, in the millions," Frederick writes. "These machines, famous for the svelte dignity of their designs — and of course, far less expensive than a motorcycle — are a lens to see the world through and to do your work on. It’s their operating speeds that thrill. Young people cut a bella figura on their electronic devices." Above all, it is the young men — who used to buy motorcycles before a recession-induced coma — about whom Frederick is most concerned.

Instead of hankering after the latest sport bike — motorcycles that "perform with brio but have no practical point to make" — they are instead "standing in line outside an Apple store, patiently waiting to buy the latest greatness … They are buying a slice of what Apple does — and how it does it — and how it looks doing it. They are buying function but, just as important, they are buying glamour. The device enhances the buyer’s sense of self. It helps the person think and at the same time not think. Once, not so long ago," Frederick writes, "motorcycles did the same thing."