Portraits from Kabul Before the Fall

A look at the people of Afghanistan and their culture in the months before the American withdrawal and the Taliban takeover. [Image] [Image]( Portraits from Kabul Before the Fall In February 2021, the photographer Robert Spangle traveled to Afghanistan to document the way ordinary men dress. Spangle, 32, is a street-style photographer. A decade earlier, however, he was twice deployed to Afghanistan as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps. When he arrived in Kabul, the capital was relatively peaceful. The withdrawal of U.S. troops was looming, but the government was holding peace talks with the Taliban. "People were holding their breath," Spangle said. "This question was hanging in the air: will this peace last or will the Taliban takeover?" Spangle spent the next two months documenting the lives of everyday Afghan men, young and old, on the crowded streets of Kabul and in the fields where the sport Buzkashi is played. The pictures offer a glimpse of a people and a culture in the moments before everything changed, when life on the streets of Kabul was still relatively normal. “Anyone who has known Afghanistan has no surprise at the outcome,” Spangle said. “That the last act has been a poorly planned disaster is because so few, for so many years, knew Afghanistan at all.” There are myriad places to volunteer or donate to help the Afghan people—some of which you can find [here](—including the [International Rescue Committee](, which is trying to raise $10 million to bring help to the country. --The Esquire Editors [Read the Full Story]( [Image] [Image]( Wrangler's $25 Western Shirt Is a Classic You'll Turn to For Years to Come Earlier this summer, I got bit by the craft bug. I'm not really a DIY guy, unless you count cutting the scratchy tags off of shirts, but for some reason I wanted to take on a project. My grand plan was to buy a denim shirt, and a bunch of patches off of Etsy, and iron them on all over the place. Because I'm not a DIY guy, it ended up just being two yellow flower patches on the shoulder of the shirt. I like it! But what I really got out of the project was an appreciation for the canvas. The shirt I bought for this project was a snap-button Western shirt from the granddaddy of all snap-button Western shirtmakers, Wrangler. Just say that out loud. "Wrangler." Don't you kind of feel like you know how to ride a horse all of a sudden? Anyway, I've suddenly found myself reaching for it multiple times a week—as I have, in the reality of the past two years, become accustomed to wearing the same thing twice in a week. (Don't worry, I'm still showering.) The best part about it is, my new weekly routine of wearing the shirt doesn't have to end when summer does, because it's tailor-made for fall, too. All-in, it's one of the best purchases I've made in recent years (especially considering said purchase was only $25). Here's why. [Read the Full Story](  [Image]( All the (Seriously Great) Luggage to Buy on Amazon Right Now As an editor, half of my time is spent combing through the depths of the Internet to find the coolest products, and the other half is spent writing about said cool products. (Yeah, my mom can't believe this is my job either.) On most occasions, my days include wading through the never-ending sea that is Amazon. The online retailer seems to have everything and anything, from super-soft sweatpants for under $25 to unbelievably marked down Airpods. And with so many items in the mix, a couple of gems can slip through now and then. So imagine my surprise when I was looking through the luggage section, because Amazon has me all excited to shop, and I found great prices on some of the most sought out luggage brands in the traveling game. Samsonite hard-shelled cases, London Fog underseaters, and duffle bags worthy of seeing places besides the locker room of my gym are just some of the items up for grabs. Since I'm not one to keep this kind of thing a secret, I had to let this be known, and violà , here we are. Ahead, 20 of the best deals from Amazon's luggage selection. Here's to waiting anxiously in the TSA security line again. [Read the Full Story]( [Image]( It’s Time to Redeem Prometheus Every so often a film comes along with the capacity to break a friendship in half. Those of us who saw Prometheus in 2012 may understand what I mean. The exploding head, the inexplicable pale giant, the unresolved mysteries of humanity’s origins—it all left me enraged. Where is the Xenomorph?! Listening to a friend outside the theater insist that Prometheus is an excellent film, that it’s an intelligent film, one that I might just not necessarily understand, well, it drove me up a wall. And it made me want to blast my phone, and our friendship, into the vacuum of space. I thought he was full of shit. Almost 10 years after the release of Prometheus, Disney, now having acquired 20th Century Fox, shows no interest in revisiting the audacious, black-goo-infested world of the 2012 prequel. They announced in December last year that Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley will be shuffling the Xenomorphs onto television, promising an Alien show set on Earth that will somehow combine the horror and action of the first two films of the original quadrilogy. So the questions posed by Prometheus will remain unanswered. At least, that's what I thought until I finally revisited the film for my podcast this summer. I realized that we've all been watching Prometheus the wrong way. We went into it expecting to find the origins of Weyland-Yutani, the Xenomorph, and based on what we learned from the (unforgettably promising) trailers, perhaps even humanity itself. We thought we didn’t get them, so we called the movie disappointing. But to quote Elizabeth Shaw, “We were wrong. We were so, so wrong.” [Read the Full Story](  [Image]( The Best Books of 2021 (So Far) Summer may be winding down, but have no fear: there's still time to reach your summer reading goals. Whether you're looking to read more, read outdoors, or cross a big literary project off your list, the final push toward the finish line begins now—and we've got you covered with the very best books of the year. 2021 has so much to offer for your literary diet, meaning that even if you’re missing the normal rhythms of social life, you'll have plenty to keep your mind occupied. Our favorite works thus far come from authors both emerging and established, meditating on everything from life online to life in the intersections of identity. Set everywhere from the all-too-real world to the distant past, and even peering into the speculative future, these books offer escape, education, and spiritual enlargement—whatever you’re looking for. [Read the Full Story]( [Image]( The Friend His wife was just thirty-four. They had two little girls. The cancer was everywhere, and the parts of dying that nobody talks about were about to start. His best friend came to help out for a couple weeks. And he never left. [Read the Full Story](  Follow Us       [Unsubscribe]( | [Privacy Notice/Notice at Collection](  esquire.com ©2021 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Hearst Magazines, 300 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019   Â