In this piece, Pat Cassels sits in a sauna watching a dancing duo clad in dazzling, crystal-studded spandex unitards—an awesome spectacle, by all accounts. Cassels finds himself here to cover the inaugural Aufguss World Masters, which is, as he writes, “a blend of dance, sport, theater, therapy, and aerodynamic manipulation so odd it could only come from Germany. I was witnessing, for lack of a more succinct description, competitive sauna–ing.” It’s fascinating, it’s fun, it’s hot. Enter the sauna.
Despite the competition’s judges and rules, to the uninitiated aufguss might seem strange—even silly. “The first time I saw it, I thought I was watching a Will Ferrell movie,” Talmadge told me. Yet it arrives at a uniquely opportune time to tap into American culture. Attendance, revenue, and employment at spas in the States are all up. The International Spa Association calculates that nearly 200 million people visited one last year, spending a record $22 billion. In such a market, could aufguss, already a hit in Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands, catch on in the States like so many Scandinavian phenomena before it? Could it be the next ABBA? The next democratic socialism? The next pornographic cinema? The World Masters, in fact, strikes me as an oddly perfect fit for the United States. There’s something distinctly American about turning relaxing into a sport—as if wellness were subject to capitalist rules of competition. Or have we become so accustomed to anxiety and dread that simply calming down feels as challenging as completing an Iron Man?
More picks on subcultures
The Last Resort
“At Bombay Beach, a half-ruined former vacation town on the edge of the Salton Sea, absurdist philosophers, artists, and everyday townsfolk have undertaken a postapocalyptic experiment in radical living.”
The Game Is Played With Great Feeling
“How Pokémon can save the world, one Pikachu at a time.”
The Case of the Lego Bandit
“Playing with Star Wars Lego bricks made them famous. Then a mysterious crime drove them apart.”
“I Feel Like a Survivor”: Inside the Funeral Industry’s 2021 National Convention
“After a busy year, morticians let loose at their annual gathering in Nashville.”
Inside the Secretive, Semi-Illicit, High Stakes World of WhatsApp Mango Importing
“Customs restrictions, high transport costs, and a short shelf life have made the world’s greatest mangoes — grown in Pakistan — difficult to come by in the U.S.”
Meet the Fearless Women of the Lone Star Mower Racing Association
“Sammie Neel, 62, has seen plenty of crashes, bruises, and burns in her twelve years of racing. She once raced around a track at a monster truck show in the tiny town of Leona, where she flipped and wound up pinned beneath her mower, which she nicknamed ‘Love Mowtion No 9.’”
