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      6 Hidden Shops in New York Worth Visiting

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      You didn’t come to New York to wander fluorescent aisles hunting for someone to unlock the fitting room. You came for the locked-door city — where nothing’s labeled, the elevator grumbles and whoever buzzes you in has already decided how the afternoon should go.You might leave with a sterling silver carabiner, a fossilized dinosaur foot or a record that makes everything else on your shelf sound flat. Or maybe it was just a book you didn’t know you were missing until it looked back at you.But don’t bother dropping by. These places don’t do foot traffic. You email. You call a landline. You wait. Maybe you DM. There’s no signage, no small talk, no piped-in jazz. What there is: hand-forged armor, prehistoric bones with six-figure price tags, music that’s never been digitized, a jewelry showroom with the logic of a toolbox, and — if you’re buzzed in — a private library (with all the books for sale) that reads like someone’s inner filing system.This isn’t retail. It’s an invitation-only obsession. And if you knock with purpose, that helps.889 Broadway, Union Square, ManhattanGlobus WashitsuA kimono-styling class at Globus Washitsu, near Union Square.Up a nondescript elevator near Union Square, through a quiet hallway and a final sliding door, is something few New Yorkers expect to find above Broadway: a Kyoto-style tatami room meticulously built by the investor and longtime Japanophile Stephen Globus. Think shoji screens, hinoki beams, seasonal scrolls — nothing here is an approximation. It’s the real deal.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Rapper Silentó Gets 30 Years in Prison for Fatal Shooting of His Cousin

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      The songwriter, whose real name is Ricky Hawk, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and three other charges in relation to the killing.Silentó, the rapper known for his viral hit “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae),” was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Wednesday after pleading guilty to charges related to the fatal shooting of his cousin.The rapper, whose real name is Ricky Lamar Hawk, pleaded guilty but mentally ill to voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, possessing a firearm while committing a crime and concealing the death of another, District Attorney Sherry Boston of DeKalb County said in a statement.Mr. Hawk, 27, was arrested in connection with the shooting of his cousin, Frederick Rooks III, 34, in the early hours of Jan. 21, 2021, after the police found him bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds in a residential neighborhood in Decatur, Ga., seven miles northeast of Atlanta, according to a police report. Emergency workers pronounced him dead on the scene.Several people nearby heard gunshots, and security footage from doorbell cameras showed a white BMW S.U.V. fleeing the scene a few minutes after the gunfire, according to the district attorney’s office. A relative of Mr. Rooks told officers that he was last seen with Mr. Hawk, who had picked him up in a vehicle that matched the description.After he was taken into custody on Feb. 1, 2021, Mr. Hawk told investigators that he had shot Mr. Rooks, according to the district attorney’s office. Mr. Hawk initially faced a murder charge, which was dropped as part of the plea agreement on Wednesday.His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.On the day of his arrest, Mr. Hawk’s publicist at the time said that he had been “suffering immensely from a series of mental health illnesses” in recent years.Mr. Hawk became famous in 2015 while he was still in high school through his single, “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae),” which started a social media dance craze. Tutorial videos have millions of views, and the official music video has been watched about 1.9 billion times on YouTube.In 2019, Mr. Hawk went on the interview show “The Doctors” and described his struggles with depression.“Depression doesn’t leave you when you become famous,” he said. “It just adds more pressure.”“I don’t know if I can truly be happy,” he added on the show. “I don’t know if these demons will ever go away.”With a plea of guilty but mentally ill, the state’s Department of Corrections is responsible for evaluating and treating Mr. Hawk’s mental health needs, according to Georgia law. More

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      Brian Wilson, Songwriter and Leader of the Beach Boys, Dies at 82

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      Brian Wilson, who as the leader and chief songwriter of the Beach Boys became rock’s poet laureate of surf-and-sun innocence, but also an embodiment of damaged genius through his struggles with mental illness and drugs, has died. He was 82. His family announced the death on Instagram but did not say where or when he died, or state a cause. In early 2024, after the death of his wife, Melinda Wilson, business representatives for Mr. Wilson were granted a conservatorship by a California state judge, after they asserted that he had “a major neurocognitive disorder” and had been diagnosed with dementia.On mid-1960s hits like “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” “California Girls” and “Fun, Fun, Fun,” the Beach Boys created a musical counterpart to the myth of Southern California as paradise — a soundtrack of cheerful harmonies and a boogie beat to accompany a lifestyle of youthful leisure. Cars, sex and rolling waves were the only cares.That vision, manifested in Mr. Wilson’s crystalline vocal arrangements, helped make the Beach Boys the defining American band of the era. During its clean-cut heyday of 1962 to 1966, the group landed 13 singles in the Billboard Top 10. Three of them went to No. 1: “I Get Around,” “Help Me, Rhonda” and “Good Vibrations.”At the same time, the round-faced, soft-spoken Mr. Wilson — who didn’t surf — became one of pop’s most gifted and idiosyncratic studio auteurs, crafting complex and innovative productions that awed his peers.“That ear,” Bob Dylan once remarked. “I mean, Jesus, he’s got to will that to the Smithsonian.”Mr. Wilson’s masterpiece was the 1966 album “Pet Sounds,” a wistful song cycle that he directed in elaborate recording sessions, blending the sound of a rock band with classical instrumentation and oddities like the Electro-Theremin, whose otherworldly whistle Mr. Wilson would use again on “Good Vibrations.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Beach Boy Brian Wilson’s 12 Essential Songs

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      The Beach Boys leader, whose death was announced on Wednesday, was a brilliant writer, arranger and producer whose ambitions propelled his band — and contemporaries like the Beatles — into the future.The gimmick of the Beach Boys was to package the 1960s California dream in pop singles that wed up-tempo guitar songs with multipart harmonies. The reason the group endured was Brian Wilson, the group’s resident genius, who died at 82. Wilson wrote, arranged and produced most of its catalog. (He also sang and played bass.) As he exhausted the possibilities of the group’s original approach, his music grew more ambitious.Although his sonic experiments frustrated some of the Beach Boys’ fans (and other members of the group), it also resulted in an uncommon body of work, documentation of Wilson’s lifelong quest for musical beauty and grace. Even when Wilson spent years caught in the riptide of drug abuse and his own psychological struggles, his music was his life preserver — it provided solace for both him and his listeners.Hear 12 of his greatest tracks. (Listen on Spotify and Apple Music.)The Beach Boys, ‘Surfin’ U.S.A.’ (1963)Wilson borrowed the music of Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” like it was a buddy’s T-Bird and took it for a joyride, with new lyrics about surfboard wax, huarache sandals and the ecstatic mood of a teenage crowd. What made the single irresistible: the Beach Boys’ five-part harmonies on the chorus, which felt like California sunshine to anyone within earshot of a transistor radio.The Beach Boys, ‘In My Room’ (1963)Becoming the Beach Boys’ full-time producer and creative force, Wilson wrote one paean after another to the pleasures of being a teenager in California, but his music was also suffused with melancholy: “In this world I lock out all my worries and my fears,” he sang of his own bedroom. He deployed his falsetto for the first time in these sessions, accentuating his emotional frailty.The Beach Boys, ‘California Girls’ (1965)As Wilson told the tale, the inspiration for “California Girls” came from his first acid trip: After spending some time marinating in self-doubt with a pillow over his head, he went to the piano and played “bum-buhdeeda” cowboy music for an hour. That loping rhythm became the bedrock of one of the Beach Boys’ defining hits. The lyrics, by Wilson and his bandmate Mike Love, elided the song’s psychedelic origin in favor of clean-cut California hedonism.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Brian Wilson’s Life in Photos

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      Brian Wilson (top right) posing with the rest of the Beach Boys during a photo shoot in 1962. The band released its first album on Capitol Records that year.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesBrian Wilson (center, with bass guitar) as the Beach Boys rehearse at home in 1964 in Los Angeles.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesBrian Wilson in 1964 staring intently at sheet music while playing the piano. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesWilson (far right) performs on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in September 1964. Just months later, he decided to quit touring to concentrate on songwriting and recording.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesWilson, with the bass guitar, holds a copy of the 1963 Beach Boys album “Surfer Girl.”Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesBrian Wilson (center) and the Beach Boys perform during an appearance on the Christmas episode of the TV show “Shindig!”Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesWilson with his first wife, Marilyn Rovell.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesBrian Wilson directs from the control room while recording “Pet Sounds” in 1966 in Los Angeles. The album is now widely regarded as one of the greatest in pop music history.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesWilson (left) poses for a portrait with the rest of the Beach Boys in 1967.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesWilson shares food with his dog.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesBrian Wilson (far back left) poses with the rest of the Beach Boys on a sailboat in 1976. The group had a nostalgia-fueled comeback in the mid-70s.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesWilson performs in 1976.Ed Perlstein/Redferns, via Getty ImagesThe Beach Boys receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1980.Lennox Mclendon/Associated PressWilson plays the piano at Wembley Stadium in London in 1980.Terry Lott/Sony Music Archive, via Getty ImagesWilson (left) with Dr. Eugene Landy. Landy was a psychotherapist who helped Wilson in his recovery from drug abuse, and then became a dominant presence in his life before being blocked from contacting Wilson after an intervention by the musician’s family.Ebet Roberts/Redferns, via Getty ImagesBrian Wilson (rear center, in purple) Beach Boys appear on a 1988 episode of “Full House” that helped introduce the group to a younger generation.ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content, via Getty ImagesWilson photographed at home in Beverly Hills, Calif., in 2004.Marissa Roth for The New York TimesWilson (seated, center-right) during a performance of songs from the album “Smile” in 2004. The album featured music from the famously abandoned album of the same name from the 1960s.Karl Walter/Getty ImagesWilson performing in 2006.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesWilson accepting the best historical album award for “The Smile Sessions” onstage at the Grammys in 2013.Kevork Djansezian/Getty ImagesA barefoot Brian Wilson in 1988.Ann Summa/Getty Images More

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      Did Bob Dylan Help Announce an Album From MGK?

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      The pop-punk star’s trailer for “Lost Americana” features a familiar voice narrating about a “quest to reclaim the authentic essence of American freedom.”“‘Lost Americana,’” the familiar voice intones, “is a personal excavation of the American dream.” So begins a few sentences’ narration over a trailer released online Tuesday for an upcoming album by the artist MGK, formerly known as Machine Gun Kelly.And darned if the narrator does not sound exactly like Bob Dylan.It seems that Dylan, 84, the Nobel laureate and firmly canonized member of the American musical scene, has lent his voice to promoting the pop-punk musician’s first LP since “Mainstream Sellout” in 2022.Neither artist has publicly offered confirmation. A representative for MGK did not reply to a request for comment. A representative for Dylan said the artist is on tour and was not available.The trailer features grainy, home video-style footage of MGK — an insouciant onetime rapper who has since branched out to country, pop and pop-punk — pursuing such analog activities as riding a motorcycle, smoking cigarettes and hanging out with friends. The voice advertises the album, due in August, as “a love letter to those who seek to rediscover: the dreamers, the drifters, the defiant.”So what would bring together a tattooed musician, actor and model known for making tabloid headlines for his onetime relationship with the actress Megan Fox and … Bob Dylan?Dylan and his music have been known to pop up in surprising places — like ads for the Bank of Montreal, IBM, Chrysler, Cadillac, Victoria’s Secret and Pepsi. (Though he often doesn’t show up where you might expect — like the Nobel Prize ceremony where he was being honored, or an episode of “Saturday Night Live” on which the actor Timothée Chalamet performed his music.)Dylan and MGK have demonstrated an affinity for each other. MGK’s latest single, the jittery genre mash-up “Cliché,” features the lyric “Baby, I’m a rolling stone” — arguably a reference to the title of Dylan’s most famous song.In February, Dylan posted a video of MGK performing the rap track “Almost” on his Instagram. MGK’s response: “you having a phone is so rad,” he commented. (“Times they are a changing yo,” added another commenter.)The trailer’s director, Sam Cahill, posted it on his own Instagram account Tuesday with a caption that MGK echoed in his own feed: “Trailer narrated by …” (Cahill did not reply to a request for comment).The narration describes MGK’s new work but sounds exactly how a Dylan fan — or Dylan himself — might describe Dylan’s output: “a sonic map of forgotten places, a tribute to the spirit of reinvention and a quest to reclaim the authentic essence of American freedom.”The narrator adds, “From the gold neon diners to the rumble of the motorcycles, this is music that celebrates the beauty found in the in-between spaces where the past is reimagined and the future is forged on your own terms.”Or maybe that is just a coincidence. As someone once said, “Well, we all like motorcycles to some degree.” More

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      Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Defense to Analyze ‘Hotel Night’ Texts With ‘Jane’

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      The music mogul’s lawyers have started walking his former girlfriend — now a government witness — through a voluminous history of text and audio messages.Sean Combs’s former girlfriend, who has said she was subjected to a pattern of degrading sex marathons with male escorts, will take the stand for her fifth day of testimony on Wednesday at the music mogul’s federal trial, as his lawyers seek to portray her as a willing participant in the encounters.On Tuesday, the defense’s cross-examination of the woman — who is testifying under the pseudonym Jane — delved into lengthy, emoji-filled text exchanges surrounding the encounters, which the couple referred to as “debauchery” or “hotel nights.”Prosecutors say Mr. Combs coerced Jane into these nights, and she has testified that they left her feeling disgusted, used and sometimes physically sick, saying that Mr. Combs tended to be dismissive when she voiced her aversion to them.While questioning Jane, the defense highlighted messages from Mr. Combs in which he appeared to be solicitous about what she wanted to do sexually; once, in 2021, he asked her about her own sexual fantasies, writing, “we don’t have to be debaucherous lol.” Jane testified that she often read “undertones” of expectation in her boyfriend’s messages, leading her to be agreeable or try to cater to the kind of voyeuristic sex that he often requested.“I know my partner and what he likes and what he wants,” she testified.The trial is scheduled to have a delayed start on Wednesday, but when testimony starts in the afternoon the defense is expected to parse more messages that help chronicle the couple’s volatile relationship, which lasted from 2021 to Mr. Combs’s arrest in 2024.Mr. Combs is facing charges of sex trafficking Jane and another former girlfriend, Casandra Ventura, who testified at the start of the trial. He is also facing a charge of racketeering conspiracy, which includes allegations that he ran a criminal enterprise that helped facilitate sex trafficking, among other crimes.Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His lawyers have denied that the mogul coerced the two women into sex, and they have asserted that members of Mr. Combs’s staff, including security guards and high-ranking employees, were members of lawful businesses — not a criminal conspiracy.Under questioning from the prosecution, Jane described the drug-fueled nights of sex as “performances” and said she continued to participate to please Mr. Combs and to secure time alone with the man she loved. But in 2023, the dynamic shifted when he began paying her $10,000-a-month rent in Los Angeles. She testified that Mr. Combs started to use the house as “leverage” for her to continue participating in sex with escorts.And she described a violent brawl with Mr. Combs in 2024, when he was under criminal investigation. She testified that afterward, when she had welts and a black eye from his blows, he demanded she perform oral sex on an escort despite her protests. She said she took the Ecstasy pill he gave her and complied.Olivia Bensimon More

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      The Pint-Size Singers at the Met Opera Children’s Chorus Tryouts

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      The Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorus has long been an elite training ground for young singers. Getting in requires grit, personality and a soaring voice.The Metropolitan Opera’s stage door, a plain entrance hidden in the tunnels of Lincoln Center, routinely welcomes star singers, orchestra musicians, stagehands, costumers and ushers. But a different bunch of visitors arrived there on a recent afternoon, carrying stuffed toy rabbits and “Frozen” backpacks.They were children, ages 7 to 10, dressed in patent leather shoes, frilly socks and jackets decorated with dinosaurs. They were united in a common mission: to win a spot in the Met children’s chorus, a rigorous, elite training ground for young singers.“This might be the biggest day of my life,” said Naomi Lu, 9, who admires pop singers like Taylor Swift and Katy Perry. She was knitting a lilac friendship necklace to stay calm as she waited in the lobby. “I feel nervous and excited at the same time,” she said. “You could say I’m nerv-cited.”Anthony Piccolo, the director of the Met’s children’s choir, auditions a group of hopefuls.Alexander Zhou waits his turn.Skye Yang.Singing in the shower or in a school choir is one thing. But these students, who came from across New York City and its suburbs, were vying for the chance to perform at the Met, one of the world’s grandest stages, a temple of opera that presents nearly 200 performances each year. Chorus members have a chance at roles like the angelic boys in Mozart’s “The Magic Flute”; the Parisian kids in Puccini’s “La Bohème”; or the street urchins in Bizet’s “Carmen,” to name a few.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More