Hi {{first_name|friend}},
This fall, Hollywood invites you to go inside the demented minds of the men of the tech boom.
There’s Elon Musk, subject of a damning four-hour documentary that, despite his rumored attempts to squash and suppress its release, is slated to debut in theaters today.
There’s Mark Zuckerberg, pinned once again in Aaron Sorkin’s crosshairs in The Social Reckoning, his follow-up to The Social Network. It’s also in theaters today; this time, Zuckerberg is played by a robotic Jeremy Strong.
There’s Sam Altman, the subject of Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial, which was set to be released by Amazon MGM Studios before being mysteriously ditched in June; it’s now being shepherded to theaters by Neon and will come out Christmas Day. Altman is played by Andrew Garfield, who describes the role as almost a moral calling: “We need to shine the light as bright as possible at the nooks and crannies of people we’re giving all of our autonomy and power to.”
There’s also Sam Bankman-Fried. The convicted FTX founder will be the subject of The Altruists, out on Netflix November 19th (with Julia Garner in a fake schnoz as Caroline Ellison), as well as a new docuseries on Amazon Prime titled The Boy Who Stole Billions?
That might sound like too many guys, but there are so many more of these types that honestly deserve primetime exposés. Free idea: this guy!
Bye,
Your friends at Gloria
In 2024, aged 51, I found myself stuck in rut. Menopause, divorce, and dating had sucked the joy out of me. I was in yet another pointless situationship, but this time, it had an upside. He lived with a clinical trial doctor from Imperial College London, a global center of excellence for research into psychedelic therapy. Over breakfast one morning, this doctor blew my mind by saying there was growing evidence to suggest psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) could ease, amongst many other things, perimenopause.
It didn’t take long for me to buy into the idea. By this point – burned-out by parenting, hot flashes, vanishing youth, career plateau, and endless unwashed boxers – I was prepared to give almost anything a shot. And it wasn’t much of a leap of faith because, like many Gen X-ers who grew up with rave culture, I am not a complete stranger to psychedelics.
I signed up with Beckley Retreats, a leader in the field, and went to their Netherlands site for five days of yoga, mindfulness, breathwork, visualization, and two psilocybin “ceremonies”; all bookended by a six-week preparatory course and a two-month integration program. I emerged feeling positive, perhaps even serene. And I was not the only midlife woman there. According to Beckley, women make up 59% of all bookings, and 47% are 40 to 55 year olds. It’s no coincidence that “stuck in a rut" and “on autopilot" appear in these women’s applications 2.7 times more than those of other participants.
As estrogen falls in midlife, the serotonin system loses some of its tone, which contributes to mood changes, brain fog, sleep disruption, and even hot flashes. Psychedelic therapy essentially gives a strong nudge to the very system menopause has turned down.
My first ceremony began innocuously enough. Nine women awaiting our medicine while lying on daybeds swaddled in the type of bright white comforters you’d find in a five-star hotel. Despite the calm setting – a studio surrounded by lush green forest – we ate our disgusting, chopped-up shroom truffles with some trepidation.
I told myself, over and over again, to stay calm, to just marinate in the evocative music and enjoy the trippy show taking place on the insides of my eyelids. For a while, it worked. But before long, it felt like the flesh was melting from my bones. As the anxiety crept in, I struggled to surrender control to the shrooms. After some highly agitating internal discourse, I eventually let go and plummeted to the basement of my soul. Oh boy, was it dark down there.
After battling my demons and crying an ocean, I thankfully found myself soaring towards the sun, melting into its golden haze to become just another molecule in our beautiful universe. I was possessed by an understanding: that nothing, when it really comes down to it, has to be a problem. The realization felt so hilariously obvious that my tears turned into joyous laughter. Once I’d calmed down, after god knows how long (because by this point, linear time had all but disappeared), the next stage of my ceremony involved “meeting” the important people in my life. I apologized to the ones I’d wronged and accepted apologies from the ones who’d wronged me. ‘Cathartic’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Although it ended beautifully, it was far from easy. Taking 40 to 50 grams of psilocybin truffles (in the Netherlands, psilocybin can only be legally dispensed as truffles, with 10g roughly equaling 1g of magic mushrooms) is, for most, far from recreational. But it was 100 percent worth it – and there’s plenty of science to explain why my ceremony had such an impact.
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Cupertino. Image via Paramount+.
TO WATCH Maybe Musk or The Social Reckoning are too much for your sensitive nervous system right now, but you’re still in the mood for tech-world drama. How about the new legal procedural Cupertino, which is about a team of lawyers representing the “Davids” against the “Goliaths” of the Valley, and features Busy Philipps as the ex of an AI mogul who divorced her when she turned 40.
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TO LISTEN This is the chillest album. It’s from Hug, a group formed by musicians Devendra Banhart, Gyan Riley, and Noah Georgeson. Work to it, meditate to it, read a book to it — whatever!
TO BAKE We made this persimmon bread last weekend (had a few very ripe ones laying around) and it’s basically a cozy fall day in a loaf. Given that it took three bowls and then was eaten in a matter of hours, we’d double the recipe next time. Also, you could probably make it without the persimmons and it’d still be delicious.
Reflections on a decade of motherhood. • “Women aging in public.” • Ooh, this house tour. • Could the conversation about Cornell spur lasting change when it comes to campus rape? (Related.)
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