"One of the most salient features of our culture," the Princeton philosopher Harry Frankfurt noted, "is that there is so much bullshit." Previous eras may have been distinguished by their enlightenment, their innocence, or their anxiety, but ours is indisputably the Age of Bullshit. On Wall Street and on Pennsylvania Avenue, in politics, business, and culture, bullshit is the murky sea in which we're all paddling to stay afloat. Here at Esquire, we know that "FAKE NEWS!" is fake news, and we stand firm in our conviction that mastery is better than bamboozlement, pocket aces preferable to wild bluffing. But since we can't always be all things to all people, sometimes a tincture of bullshit is just the thing to carry us through. Herewith, a syllabus for an advanced course in the art of B.S.

Money

Seven Lines to Drop While Dealing with a Finance Blowhard

By Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times

1. "Is Tesla overvalued?" (There is no right or wrong answer, so sit back and enjoy the show.)

2. Ask, "Is the _________ industry getting Amazoned?" (Ditto.)

3. When someone tells you they're selling a stock, ask, "Are you long or short?"

4. "I'm thinking about starting a family office." (The superrich don't use financial advisors anymore; instead, they are using "family offices" to manage their wealth.)

5. If someone tells you a stock is going to move, ask, "Is that on fundamentals or multiple expansion?"

6. "I don't give cash to charity; I only donate low-basis stock." (Giving cash is passé.)

7. "Why are you hurting yourself? I just do as Warren Buffett says and buy the index." (You can't go wrong if you invoke the sage.)

How to B.S. Your Way to a Seven-Figure Book Deal

By David Hirshey and Michael Solomon

1. Basic literacy is a plus, but not essential.

2. Write a novel about a magical world filled with one or more of the following: dying high school students, bondage enthusiasts, murderous wives, or drifters who solve crimes. Or: Write a one-paragraph nonfiction proposal about your hideous childhood, drug addiction, sex tape, or years as president.

3. Never use the word literary in your proposal. Publishers know that means selling five thousand copies—at most.

4. Assume the reader/editor/publisher suffers from attention deficit disorder. Don't be shy about using LARGE PRINT or blank space between chapters as a "design element."

5. Write a "selling blurb," attribute it to a best-selling author, and wait until after you have a deal to ask permission to use it.

6. Don't seek out the most accessible editor at the publishing house. The easiest person to reach has the least amount of money to spend.

7. Act needy and insecure—it's the only way a publisher can be sure you're a real writer.

8. Cite successful comparative titles in your proposal. Writing a book about organic bodybuilding? Sell it as "a cross between Hillbilly Elegy and The Handmaid's Tale."

9. Don't have a track record. If a publisher can check out the pitiful sales of your last book, you're looking at a low-five-figure deal.

10. Reconsider. Are you sure you want to write a book? Why not just land a TV deal based on your Instagram feed?

Food and Drink

How to Sound Like a Serious Gastronome

By Jeff Gordinier, Food and Drinks Editor, Esquire

1. When the bread comes to the table at a restaurant, ask the server, "Do you guys mill your own flour? Are you using ancient grains? And how long does the dough ferment?" (Bonus points for mentioning that Zachary Golper at Bien Cuit pushes the fermentation to something like sixty-eight hours.)

2. Sigh if you see burrata on the menu. Murmur knowingly that it's "totally played out."

3. At Mexican restaurants, be sure to casually reference nixtamalization. (Google it first.)

4. If you're at a restaurant with wood-fired ovens, ask the server about the logs—what kind of wood, and where the wood comes from. Withhold your approval unless the logs are "barn-dried."

5. If a dish arrives with a ton of colorful swirls and dots of sauce on the plate, say: "I mean, yeah, this is delicious, but the plating is so 2003." (Bonus points for identifying menu items that strike you as rip-offs of David Chang, April Bloomfield, Roy Choi, René Redzepi, or Jessica Koslow.)

6. Ramen houses are the perfect places for a mini-tutorial on the difference between French stock, which is clear, and tonkotsu broth, which is deliciously murky. Say: "It's all about how long you cook the bones."

7. At a Middle Eastern restaurant, be sure to note that "Michael Solomonov was way ahead of the curve."

8. Praise dessert, but don't finish your plate before reminding your mealmates that "nobody's ever going to top Claudia Fleming."

9. When you're walking down the sidewalk after dinner, point to a tuft of weeds and say, "The forager at Noma told me that's edible."

10. If anyone ever utters the word "foodie," wince in agony.

How to Win at Wine

By Alan Richman

If you want to go up against a sommelier, you must have a strategy. (You know about strategies, right? They're what the United States doesn't have when we conduct military operations in the Middle East.) You are confronting a man or woman who knows more about wine than you will ever know, and your mission is to act as though that isn't true.

It's too late to study the lesser-known regions of France—Jura, Corsica, Savoie—since the sommelier is one of most deeply learned restaurant employees you'll meet. But you might make an impression if you know something about Austrian pinot noirs. Start by learning that they go by the name Blauburgunder or Spätburgunder. If the sommelier is impressed, ask, "Whose pinot do you prefer, Ebner-Ebenauer's or Loimer's?" Unless the sommelier is a student of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, you'll be way ahead.

A grab bag of obscure factoids, ready to be dispersed, is another option. Sommeliers love obscurity, and they know more insignificant details about wine than sportswriters know about baseball. It was by this method that I once, and only once, awed a sommelier.

That delightful event took place at Lafayette, in New York, a few decades ago. The sommelier came by, we chatted about the menu, and he suggested a red Burgundy from the 1983 vintage. I felt a charge go through my body, unequaled since the astonishing moment in sixth grade when the lovely Olivia Biggs agreed to dance with me. I was ready.

"Wasn't there hail in the vineyards that year?" I asked.

Yes, there was. Hailstorms are the destroyer of crops, the harbingers of rot. The sommelier stepped back, bowed his head almost imperceptibly, and my preeminence was established. It was then, and remains to this day, my greatest triumph in wine. I've never run into that sommelier again, and I think I know why. I was Buster Douglas to his Mike Tyson. I doubt his pride survived such a humiliating blow.

Travel

London Like a Local

By Alex Bilmes, Editor In Chief, Esquire UK

Neighborhood to turn your nose up at: Notting Hill. (Any area that has had a romcom named after it is off-limits, unless you're an oligarch.)

Neighborhood to pretend to turn your nose up at while actually secretly loving: Hackney (London's Park Slope).

Neighborhood to proselytize about without ever actually visiting: Peckham (artisanal-cheese shops and Taiwanese-bun pop-ups, or so we've heard).

Neighborhood to loudly denigrate without ever leaving: Soho.

Famous restaurant a true local wouldn't be caught dead in: the Ivy.

Dish to pretend you love: offal.

Meal to pretend you hate: gastro-pub fare.

Where to say you shop: Knowing Savile Row and Jermyn Street won't cut it. Try Chiltern Street, in Marylebone, and Lamb's Conduit Street, in Bloomsbury.

What to complain about: the weather, gentrification, and traffic. (Never mind that you're likely contributing to at least two of those.)

What to cheer about: snagging tickets to a Premier League match at the Emirates (Arsenal) or Stamford Bridge (Chelsea).

Every bit as good as advertised: Tate Modern, Claridge's hotel, Mayor Sadiq Khan's handling of unwanted interference from overseas powers.

Avoid at all costs: Oxford Street, the Chiltern Firehouse.

Shanghai Like a Local

By Jiayang Fan, The New Yorker

Neighborhood to turn your nose up at: Xintiandi.

Neighborhood to pretend to turn your nose up at while actually secretly loving: former French Concession.

Neighborhood to proselytize about without ever actually visiting: Hongkou.

Neighborhood to loudly denigrate without ever leaving: the Bund.

Famous restaurant a true local wouldn't be caught dead in: The Shanghainese like to try everything at least once!

Dish to pretend you love: Everything's so good, you don't need to pretend.

Meal to pretend you hate: ditto.

Where to say you shop: Fuzhou Road, otherwise known as Cultural Street, for books, magazines, and old-timey records, and Shiliupu Material Shopping Market, on Dongmen Road, for bespoke clothing.

What to complain about: the price of good Western coffee!

What to cheer about: the soup dumplings at Jia Jia Tang Bao.

Every bit as good as advertised: Chinese foot-massage parlors.

Avoid at all costs: smoke-filled yellow cabs.

Paris Like a Local

By John von Sothen

Neighborhood to turn your nose up at: Bastille (home of frat-boy-bar/velvet-rope monstrosities).

Neighborhood to pretend to turn your nose up at while actually secretly loving: Montmartre.

Neighborhood to proselytize about without ever actually visiting: Canal St.- Martin.

Neighborhood to loudly denigrate without ever leaving: Le Marais.

Famous restaurant a true local wouldn't be caught dead in: Tour d'Argent.

Dish to pretend you love: andouillette. (It's cold intestines, not the andouille you know from New Orleans.)

Meal to pretend you hate: cheeseburgers.

Where to say you shop: Not stores—say you go to press sales or the showroom of your friend's boutique.

What to complain about: the Voie Georges Pompidou, the roadway running along the Seine that's been closed as part of Paris's war on cars, and the fact that nothing's open on Mondays (only tourists complain that shit's not open on Sundays).

What to cheer about: the first sun of spring, when the café terraces start bustling and the first flower dresses of the season come into bloom.

Every bit as good as advertised: the Louvre, and a Paris-versus-Marseilles nighttime soccer match at the Parc des Princes.

Avoid at all costs: the Champs-Élysées.

Culture

A Crash Course in Foreign Cinema

By A. O. Scott, Co-chief Film Critic for The New York Times

To many Americans, foreign movies evoke boredom, confusion, and that Gitanes-reeking blowhard from freshman year. But if you're reading this, you can handle subtitles. (And if you're wondering what happened to that guy: Hi!) Approach these films the way you would any other cultural pursuit: Go in search of sex, violence, and wisecracks, and stumble into art. The six essential movies in this starter kit, all released since 2000, ascend in order from the accessible to the difficult. Invoke them as needed.

IFC Films/Courtesy Everett Collection

1. Y Tu Mamá También

(Mexico, Alfonso Cuarón, 2001) Cheat sheet: Two young horndogs (Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna) flee Mexico City with an older woman (Maribel Verdú). Fun fact: The male leads see as much action with each other as they do with Verdú. Rent/buy on and iTunes.

Sundance Selects/Courtesy Everett Collection

2. Blue Is the Warmest Color

(France, Abdellatif Kechiche, 2013) Cheat sheet: Bittersweet coming-of-age story about two young women (Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux) who fall in, then out, of love. Tell parents it's: A sprawling, detailed consideration of love, class, and French Republican identity. Tell friends it has: A nine-minute lesbian sex scene. Rent/buy on and iTunes.

Snap Stills/REX/Shutterstock

3. Oldboy

(South Korea, Park Chan-wook, 2003) Cheat sheet: An unjustly imprisoned man seeks vengeance against the people who framed him. Live octopus consumed? Yes. Talking point: Is Park the Korean Tarantino, or is it the other way around? Rent/buy on and iTunes.

Sony Pictures Classics/courtesy Everett Collection

4. A Separation

(Iran, Asghar Farhadi, 2011) Cheat sheet: A middle-class Tehran couple break up. Talking point: Farhadi won the Oscar in 2017 (his second) for Best Foreign Film but skipped the ceremony to protest Trump's immigration ban. Rent/buy on iTunes.

Courtesy Everett Collection

5. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

(Romania, Cristi Puiu, 2006) Cheat sheet: Unsparing tour of the Romanian health-care bureaucracy. Talking point: The first great post-Ceaușescu film. Rent/buy on .

Strand Releasing/Courtesy Everett Collection

6. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

(Thailand, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010) Cheat sheet: Pastoral jungle love story and spiritual head trip. Plus monsters and motorbikes. Insider fact: For non-Thai speakers, the preferred pronunciation of the director's name is "Joe." Rent/buy on and iTunes.

How to Blow Jazz

By Ben Ratliff

Jazz is the spirit of hello. The greatest jazz record has to be the first jazz record, which is the Original Dixieland Jass Band's "Livery Stable Blues," from 1917. The best single figure in jazz was Duke Ellington, because he could go right up against your European composers, but after that it's Miles Davis. In fact, jazz never got any greater than Kind of Blue. Because jazz is really like Zen. Do I have it on vinyl? Of course—I have the 200-gram audiophile edition.

Jazz is the life force. But jazz is also about frailty. The best Charlie Parker was the "Lover Man" session from 1946, when he was feeling withdrawal symptoms. Billie Holiday was the most herself on Lady in Satin, when she had the least of herself left to give. Lester Young, Chet Baker, Sarah Vaughan: Look at the end of their discographies, not the beginning.

Pure spontaneity! When a jazz musician plays a solo, it is from the holy spirit to your ears. These people, they're not overthinking. Jazz isn't about ideas, it's about feelings. That is why you need to hear the third set, at 1:00 a.m., when they're already loose. That's the only way you can understand what they are really all about. I'm talking about Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Wynton Marsalis, Clark Terry. Bands always play a third set in the big New York City jazz clubs on Friday and Saturday. What? They don't? Since when? Herbie and Wayne don't play clubs much anymore? Wynton is too busy with Lincoln Center? And Clark Terry died??

Automotive

How to Test-Drive a Car You Can't Afford

By Bob Sorokanich, Road & Track

Do: Dress like you belong. Blazer and slacks is the go-to uniform for supercar buyers. Add a nice watch if you can, but no knockoffs. Dealers can spot a fake from across the parking lot.

Don't: Bring a buddy. This is a solo mission.

Do: Your research. Walk in knowing exactly which model and trim you want to drive—and the cars it compares to.

Don't: Walk or Uber to the dealership. That's a car thief's move.

Do: Drive up in the nicest car you can get your hands on, freshly washed.

If they ask: You work in finance. Stocks and equities, mostly. Act nonchalant and immediately change the subject.

If they fall for it: For Pete's sake, drive like a sane, responsible adult. You may have schmoozed your way behind the wheel, but you still can't afford it. Be careful out there.

Life

Bullshit: An Antidote

By Jake Tapper, CNN

As Told To Ash Carter

Professor Frankfurt noted that B.S. tends to bloom "whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about." But B.S. works best for victimless crimes. When the stakes are high, a gentleman plays it straight. The host of CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper has a few rules for plotting a course through an ocean of uncertainty:

1. Acknowledge what you know.

2. Acknowledge what you don't know.

3. Don't engage in idle speculation.

4. Bring in experts to talk about what the facts are.

5. Avoid "magic bullet" explanations, except when discussing the Kennedy assassination.

6. The more room you can make for nuance, the smarter you'll sound. Things are very rarely as simple as any partisan wants them to be.

7. Sometimes there can be authority in acknowledging the limits of what you know. That's an important part of credibility and trust.

A Five-Minute Guide to Five Millennia of Human History

By Kurt Andersen, Author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, A 500-Year History

My greatest achievement as a bullshitter came at age twenty-nine, when I convinced the editors of Time to make me the magazine's architecture and design critic, even though my formal training consisted in its entirety of one college course about suburbs and two on fine art. In that case, "fake it until you make it" definitely worked, and has encouraged me ever since to take on jobs for which I wasn't qualified.

For instance, although I lack any degree in history, I've lately made a good part of my living chronicling the past, first with historical fiction and now nonfiction. I have thus read a lot of history, and along the way picked up tricks for seeming historically fluent during conversations about current events.

Antiquity lends itself to impressive bullshitting because Americans know so little about any ancient history that doesn't involve Jesus. Greece is a better bet than Rome because it's more esoteric; even Donald Trump has probably heard of Julius Caesar by now. So instead of grumbling that contemporary America resembles late Rome—duh—better to suggest we may have reached our sell-by date because Greece's classical period, the golden age we know today, lasted only two centuries.

Similarly, when tensions between the U. S. and China come up, explain that Washington is Sparta and Beijing is Athens and you're terrified Trump will drag us into our own "Peloponnesian War in the Pacific." For an even more ambitious play, say with a smile that you're fine if the Chinese return to their past power and glory but worry we'll have to suffer through the Qing and Ming dynasties (militaristic, imperialistic) before we get to the Song and Tang (great science and art).

When Putin's adventurism or the dissolution of NATO comes up, an excellent gambit would be to express concern about "the entire Westphalian system"—a reference to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, a key precursor to a stable multinational modern Europe. On the other hand, deriding contemporary instances of peacemaking as "a rerun of Munich 1938" is a commonplace that will impress nobody worth impressing.

Likewise, so many people now fret that every geopolitical flashpoint—Syria, the Baltics, the South China Sea—is where World War III will be accidentally triggered, "It's 1914 all over again" doesn't get you much cred. Instead, try 1848, the year multiple democratic revolutions swept across Europe. I got a lot of mileage out of that during the Arab Spring, and it could work now as a catch-all for the populist electoral insurgencies rocking the West.

Finally, if you're willing to come across as a complete dick, anytime somebody expresses any social or economic or political hopefulness, you can shake your head and say, "Afraid I'm feeling pretty Spenglerian these days"—after Oswald Spengler, author of The Decline of the West (1922). "You know, 'Optimism is cowardice.' "

Fact Checker's Guide to Spotting B.S.

By Robert Scheffler, Research Editor, Esquire

"Unsourced quotations are always suspect." —Mahatma Gandhi. See? Real mercenaries don't brag. Car guys know their shit. Gun guys know their shit, but having to explain it pisses them off. The bigger the asshole, the more zealous the posse. Insisting that your name in print reflect your personal brand does not make you exceptional, it makes you ADi©K. It turns out you can survive a deadly tornado in a big-ass beer cooler.

Tech

How to Speak Silicon Valley

By Kevin Sintumuang, Culture and Lifestyle Director, Esquire

Don't you hate it when people call 360 video "VR"?

Everybody talks about the Apple HomePod, but I'm waiting for Alibaba's.

I'm so much happier since I've muted people on Twitter. You haven't done that yet?

The iPhone 7 camera feels a generation behind Google's Pixel camera—that HDR technology is the only good thing that came out of Google Glass, am I right?

That product flopped like the Apple Newton. No, wait, it was more like the Apple Pippin!

Ambition

How to Stay on the Ball

By Bob Costas

As Told To Alex French

When it comes to stuff on the air, you've got to do your homework and shoot straight. Vin Scully, as usual, put it best. He said that Laurence Olivier always said that great acting was the humility to prepare, but then the confidence to bring it off. But how does somebody who doesn't know anything about sports sound knowledgeable in casual conversation? As an icebreaker, try, "I think Gregg Popovich is the most underappreciated coach or manager of our lifetime." For football: "You know, Ben Roethlisberger doesn't have to throw as deep as he once did, because the YAC [yards after the catch] of Le'Veon Bell and Antonio Brown are so high." For baseball: "The stolen base and the sacrifice are almost lost arts, because analytics say that small ball is not the way to go." All those things are true. If you said them with some degree of confidence, you would sound like somebody who knew what they were talking about.

How to Conquer a Room

By Alessandra Stanley

1. Very few of us walk into a sea of unfamiliar faces with ease or ardor, so the smoothest path in—and out—of a party is to grab a bottle of wine or a plate of hors d'oeuvres to pass around. You instantly have a reason to approach strangers. If they seem unfriendly or boring, move briskly to the next person.

2. If you're a guest, act like the host. If you're the host, act like a guest.

3. When you're throwing a party, be sure to invite too many people, including some you barely know. Mix up the ages and social strata, dodge difficult guests, drink, and have fun.

4. It's okay to introduce people, but offer only bizarre biographical detail. ("Tom won't read any novel written before his date of birth" or "Leigh collects Soviet Christmas ornaments.")

5. Never ask people what they do for a living: They will almost certainly tell you.

6. Autobiography at a cocktail party is like onanism at an orgy.

This article originally appeared in the September '17 issue.