A SECT OF enlightened individuals lives among us. Their beliefs encompass shamanism, a 2012 doomsday scenario, obscure psychedelic drugs, mysticism, yoga, UFOs, crop circles, occasional communication with Mayan deities and the lingering suspicion that Obama is part of a robot conspiracy. Writer Daniel Pinchbeck headlines the movement, known as Next Age. He sells hundreds of thousands of books and travels around the world, lecturing at festivals and countercultural conferences. I met him a few months ago at his favorite East Village hang, a pirate-themed espresso bar on East Ninth Street and Avenue C to discuss the movement, drug use and what it will be like when the “end of the world” approaches. Read more Read it in print

I knew it was weird when my invitation to the “no boys allowed” office party was sent via text message and followed by a grainy picture of a shirtless guy with a banana sticking out of his fly. I had just started interning at a PR firm for school credit, trying to make my way through the swirl of city life in my second year of college. Despite my better judgment and the strictly female invitation, I went to the party and brought a friend, as well as a male intern at the firm who was finally allowed to come. After about seven shots of leftover-from-someparty Svedka, I was beginning to get as drunk as my co-workers. Seeing as how my first conversation with the boss, let’s call him Alan, was about how coincidental it was that I was from the same small California town that he and his wife were just recently married in, I wasn’t expecting him to try to fuck an employee about half his age. But then he started going on about how fond he was of the interns. Read more Read it in print