Esquire articles from April 2008

Esquire archives from April 2008

The anxiety of the influence.(THE SOUND & THE FURY: This Way In)(Letter to the editor)(Reprint)
April 1, 2008... The Victoria's Secret Angels cover was based on a 2003 cover with Britney Spears, which was based on a 1993 cover with actress Angle Dickinson, which was reprinted from a shoot by photographer Frank Bez that ran in Esquire in 1966. While this...

If February's cover looked familiar, that's because we've done it before.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... If February's cover looked familiar, that's because we've done it before. It was the first of four iconic Esquire covers we'll be re-creating and updating to celebrate our seventy-fifth anniversay this year. WHAT YOU WROTE ABOUT: ...

Highlight from a letter we won't be running.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... "I burn your magazine. That's led to much fighting and near divorce." "You want to be half naked and hold hands." "I hope you fall in dog poop in your suits." "Do you think the Egyptian pyramids suck, too?"

The (dubious?) demise of Dubious Achievements.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2008... After forty-seven years, February marked the retirement (2) of what's become an Esquire institution: The Dubious Achievement Awards. When I first read Esquire as a sophomore in college, I was amazed by the impact Dubious Achievements had...

What real Americans think about America.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2008... Also in the February issue, writer Colby Buzzell drove from San Francisco to Bangor. Maine, to ask regular Americans--from Texan hunters to drunken football fans to a woman collecting cans--how they thought we were doing as a country ("State of...

Chilvary: an addendum and a diatribe.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2008... In case your manners around women were slipping, the February issue offered a primer ("The Esquire Guide to Chivalry Now"), including a map detailing appropriate behavior on a first date. A few suggestions for your map: 1) Walk in...

Esquire reader seeks same.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2008... Over the years, you've provided me with answers to many perplexing issues pertaining my relations with men, so I must turn to you with this dilemma: I'm a young lady in my early twenties, living in Washington. D.C. and I'm inexplicably...

Back story: fiction.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] To write a conceivable chronicle of Heath Ledger's final days, writer Lisa Taddeo visited the actor's neighborhood, talked to the store owners and bartenders who may have seen him during his last week, and read as...

Falsest modesty.(CONTRIBUTOR AWARDS)(Excerpt)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... "And that's how we made our second $100 million." --From Double or Nothing: How Two Friends Risked It All to Buy One of Las Vegas' Legendary Casinos, Tom Breitling's inspiring and jealous-inducing story of the entrepreneurial bravado that...

Most reverent rockers.(CONTRIBUTOR AWARDS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... "Awesome performance," he grinned broadly. "They prayed like three times in a twenty-minute set." --From a conversation overheard at a Christian rock concert by Daniel Radosh in his funny, revealing, and descriptively titled new book,...

Back to ourselves.(EDITOR'S LETTER)
April 1, 2008... EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE, somebody says something to you that is compelling enough to lodge somewhere in your brain and then come back to you years later, carrying with it the ring of truth. More than four years ago, I had breakfast with an...

The guy who gives out the Eskys.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] For the past six years, contributing editor arbiter of musical taste. And for the past four years, that's manifested Itself in the Esky Awards--our annual recognition of accomplishment in music. (This year's start on...

Two things to do on esquire.com.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Teach us about the fairer sex. We know a lot of women. Mom says it's because we're charming and easy to talk to; Dad thinks we just can't pull the trigger. Whatever the reason, even we haven't met enough of them to...

Esquire makes Canadians happy. Well, one.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2008... How would a gorgeous lady go about applying to be on the cover of your awesome magazine? I have dreamed of being on Esquire's cover for years. It's something on my bucket list. I am five foot seven and blond, with beautiful brown eyes....

Desnagging ties, tips for short guys, and a gift that isn't jewelry.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2008... My fingernails often snag on my silk ties and pull the thread out into small loops. How do I prevent this from happening, and is there any way to fix it when it does? DAVE ABRAMOWITZ Austin, Tex. Fashion director Nick Sullivan...

Elsewhere in the bin.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2008... When I reached the end of January's What I've Learned collection, I looked back. There were forty-nine men interviewed and only seven women. What did I learn? Esquire isn't listening to the right people. JEFF LUDLOW Oshawa, Ont. ...

Man's gotta eat: a preview.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Why we like the restaurants mentioned in this month's style feature (on page 132). ALLEN & DELANCEY Because the homemade bacon bread tastes as good as it sounds. ANTHOS Because they do a Greek version of...

Dubious & you: the milestones.(THE END OF DUBIOUS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... We expected the end of Dubious Achievements to be met with sadness, even anger. What surprised us was the nostalgia. You guys and Dubious have shared some special moments. First Dubious Achievements issue hits newsstands. 1961 ...

The vocabulary.(Man at His best)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... * MEMENTO MORI n: A Latin phrase that roughly translates into "Remember you will die," which can be used to cut the boastful down to size or place one's own life into elegant perspective. Best delivered with an Italian accent, squinty eyes, and...

The most brutal film ever made. Made again: Funny Games is a shot-by-shot remake of the original, which means its hard to watch but impossible not to.(Film)(Movie review)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Ten years passed before I could summon the courage to rewatch Michael Haneke's 1997 provocation Funny Games. I bought the DVD the week it came out, and it just sat on my shelf, mocking me--as maddeningly placid as...

The hall of cultural significance: the six most important performances this month.(Man at His Best: The Culture)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Olivia Thirlby in Snow Angels. The 21-year-old, who stole scenes as the best friend in Juno, is in a special place right now: youthful enough to play high schoolers but striking enough to invite lechery. In the bleak...

The under-rated oeuvre: Dennis Quaid.(Film)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... THIS YEAR, Dennis Quaid will appear in between four and 100 films. The run started with Vantage DENNIS QUAID Point and continues this month with Smart People. It has a solid cast--Quaid (a suddenly incapacitated professor), Sarah Jessica Parker...

This month in excessiveness.(Man at His Best: The Culture)(Brief article)(Book review)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The word the is just one part of the installation "Everybody always thinks they are right," one of dozens of sentences graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister illustrates in the book Things I Have Learned in My Life So...

Reminder of the month: death!(Books)(Brief article)(Book review)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] BIG INTO YOGA? cool. You're gonna die. Eating nothing but oats and acai berries? Excellent. You're gonna die. Whatever your name is, it's soon to be featured on the business side of a tombstone. Your ticket is...

A humble suggestion.(Opinion)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It must have been nice to live in a village by a river when everything was all about hunting and gathering. The sun rose and fell. Fires were kept lit. Sure, every day was a kind of stress--find some mushrooms,...

Things we won't be covering this month.(Man at His Best: The Culture)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The new cookbook Food 2.0: Secrets from the Chef Who Fed Google. Jelly Belly's new Extreme Sport Beans, jelly beans with caffeine. The new documentary Life After Tomorrow, about the rigors of child stardom for more...

What the hell is wrong with you people?(Man at His Best: The Culture)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Candid responses to a perplexing really--from an expert and a comedian [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] MAJOR HUMAN FLAW: Some people still don't believe in evolution. RESPONSE NO. 1 by Eugenie C. Scott, author...

Funny * joke from a beautiful woman.(Man at His Best: Culture)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] TWO WOMEN IN DUBLIN see two drunk men coming down the street. The first woman says, "Will you look at those two drunks?" The other woman says, "Well, at least your feller has brought you some flowers." And the first...

The Pulaski.(A CELEBRATION OF UTTER UTILITY)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THIS IS A PULASKI. It was invented by and named after legendary ranger Ed Pulaski, hero of the Big Burn of 1910. (Ask a Montanan.) It's been a staple of forest-fire fighting in the mountain west for close to a...

April dilemma No. 1: you've been April fooled.(Man at His Best: The Instructions)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Consultant: Peter Funt, host of Candid Camera [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] (1) Laugh. Even if it wasn't funny. Taking a joke graciously is an admirable thing and the fastest way to end the embarrassment. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Gardening: a delicate art.(THE INTRODUCTION)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] FOOD NEVER TASTES SO good as when you've nurtured it onto your plate Besides, it's cheap. Twenty-five bucks at the weekend farmer's market will get you a hundred seedlings--a garden's worth. Though a garden brings...

The egg-white cocktail.(DRINKING)(Recipe)(Table)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SURE, IT'S KINDA GROSS. You take a perfectly good cocktail, crack an egg, and let the white ooze into it. And then you drink it. But ever since the early 1800s, when the fashionable Parisian would get snockered on...

How to talk to a barber.(GROOMING)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... No other professional gives you as much control over his work as the guy who cuts your hair. You couldn't convince a doctor to remove your pancreas, but a barber? He'll do anything you want, including make you look ridiculous. Say you have one...

Snake oil.(THE ENDORSEMENT)(Product/service evaluation)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IT SEEMS like one of those potions they discontinued when people stopped balancing the humours or started living past the age of 27, but they still make liniment. Take Florida's Best APR (Arthritis Pain Relief): From...

Sex: why are women so much louder during sex? Is it biological or are they just doing it for the man's benefit?(Man at His Best: The Instructions)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Benefit?" I'm guessing that means the same as "love," but isemantics aside, biology has not thus far imbued the female body with any unique amplification capability. (You'll remember that Leonardo da Vinci's...

April dilemma No. 2: don't have time to get your pants hemmed.(Man at His Best: The Instructions)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Consultants: Esquire's fashion editors [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] (1) In front of a full-length mirror, fold your trouser cuffs under until your pants are the desired length. Then stand up and look in the mirror to make sure the...

Answer Fella: future humans, show cars, birds & old booze.(Man at His Best: The Instructions)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ESQUIRE'S ANSWER FELLA believes that there are no stupid questions, just stupid people who don't ask questions, fearing they'll look stupid. So ask Answer Fella anything. If he doesn't know the answer, he'll find out...

Gucci and the American man.(A GUIDE to LEATHER)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A GUIDE to LEATHER Ronald Reagan wore the loafers. So did Fred Astaire and Sidney Poitier. John Wayne and Sammy Davis Jr. carried the luggage, and Clark Gable, God love him, had someone carry the luggage for him....

Secondary skins: four worthy alternatives to everyday leather.(A GUIDE to LEATHER)(Buyers guide)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] EEL Eel-leather shoes ($545) by Fratelli Rossetti. Natural habitat: Eel-infested waters Key characteristics: Shiny and extremely delicate, eel is prized for a bold rectilinear pattern that's pieced...

Why does this shoe cost $900? The details that make for very expensive kicks.(A GUIDE to LEATHER)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [1] THE SHAPE: The eight-week process of hand-crafting a pair of J.M. Weston shoes begins with the last-maker. This guy--and it's almost always a guy--has trained for decades and can optimize the balance between form...

Anyone seen my $4.2 billion? There's a lot of money out there in the economy that people used to spend on CDs. The question is, where, exactly, did it go?(AMERICA)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Even if you know nothing about the music industry, you probably know this: People don't buy albums anymore. Everyone is aware of this, mostly because this phenomenon is reported on constantly. The soundtrack to High...

War: seventy-five years of storied history--in one easy page. This month: from Hemingway and Dos Passos on Spain to Michael Herr and John Sack on Vietnam to Colby Buzzell and Brian Mockenhaupt on Iraq, the history of Esquire has been in part the history of war in our time.
April 1, 2008... DECEMBER 1980: WORLD WAR 1 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] There we were: those million men, forlorn, upon a raft in space. But as to what had assembled us on that landscape: I had just to fall back upon the formula: it is the Will of God....

10 things you don't know about women.(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 1. We are not constipated; we just don't want to have sex. 2. The concept of premenstrual syndrome was invented by a woman in Iowa who was trying to come up with a way to call her husband shit-for-brains without...

Look at me! I'm a big strong boy! Steroids make you big and strong and throw a ball like Roger Clemens. Do you know what else happens? A firsthand account from a man who will never do it again.(journal)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The needles is twenty-one gauge, one and a half inches. A hog sticker. Forty of them arrived in a package from Greece. Ever received a package from overseas? You get that puff of air when you rip it open--air that's...

Esquire presents the 2008 Esky Music Awards: a celebration of all things musical (or at least the good stuff).
April 1, 2008... SURE, THE MUSIC BUSINESS is in the toilet. But music is thriving. We may,have fewer superstars,.but It'S easier than ever to find a band that speaks to you, or thirty bands. Or a hundred. Our fourth annual Esky Awards-compiled by Esquire's...

A few music-related discussion questions.(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... We used to stay up chain-smoking and discussing the social implications of music, not caring in the least about the industry's collapsing business model. To help redirect our foundering appreciation of music's cultural relevance, we offer this...

The accessibility meter.(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... The relative approachability of a few musicians you might not know. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] TOM PETTY-ESQUE (Love at first sight) JUSTICE French guys playing instantly gratifying electronica. OAKLEY HALL Coed, Neil...

The top ten car-commercial songs.(Table)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Ranking determined by: (quality of song/fan disapproval) x odds we,d buy that car fan disapproval 10. "Sky Blue Sky," by Wilco, for the 2007 Volkswagen Eos 9. "Our Country," by John Mellencamp, for the 2007 Chevy Silverado 8. "You...

The 9:10 to crazyland: George Clooney searches for George Clooney.(Interview)(Cover story)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] HE IS IN THE BACKSEAT OF A DARK SUV--coffee in hand, dressed in black, hair sharply parted-and is, for the first time in his life, reading his own Wikipedia entry. George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an...

Two nights ...
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] THEY ALL GATHERED at the front of the big new plane, John McCain and his ever-expanding circle of friends and advisors, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Governor Charlie Crist of Florida now among them, and...

39: a tribute: people dread thirty-nine. They fear forty, and so at thirty-nine they sulk. But you don't see Rachel Hunter sulking, do you? No. That's because she's one of a remarkable group of women turning thirty-nine this year who know its the age at which beauty and wisdom and experience collide to create ... well, you see the photo.(WOMEN WE LOVE)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Stay with me here. We'll return to the topic of Rachel Hunter's translucent lingerie in just a moment. But first, a quick detour into turn-of-the-century cultural ferment: Perhaps you remember studying the fin de...

How to sleep better.
April 1, 2008... It seems like it should be easy, sleeping. Lie down. Close your eyes. That's about it. Anal you've had a lot of nine to practice. So why are you so tired all the time? Why, even when you sleep through the night, do you sometimes wake up feeling...

The last days of Heath Ledger.(ESQUIRE FICTION)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IT BECOMES THEATRICALLY IMPORTANT, after you die, what your last few days are like. For me, it was just like any other weekend in my life. I didn't eat a last meal, I didn't jerk off any more or any less, I...

Man's gotta eat: especially when he works around food all day. We asked eight of New York's restaurant powerhouses to suit up in spring's sharpest tailoring, take a seat at their favorite restaurant, and dig into their favorite meal.(ESQUIRE STYLE)(Interview)
April 1, 2008... JOHN McDONALD [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Owner of Lever House, Lure Fishbar and Chinatown Brasserie, eating the mutton chop ($45) at Keens Steakhouse, 72 West Thirty-sixth Street; 212-047-3636. That's a lot of meat. I'm a major...

Leslie Nielsen: actor, 82, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.(What I've Learned)(Interview)
April 1, 2008... * It was a boy's name first. * One thing a person won't do when he's laughing is try to beat you up. * When I was a boy, I delivered newspapers on my bicycle at 64 below. The worst part is, I wanted to impress the girls, so I had to...

The man between war and peace.(U.S. Central Command, Admiral William "Fox" Fallon )(Interview)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] As head of U.S. Central Command, Admiral William "Fox" Fallon is in charge of American military strategy for the most troubled parts of the world, including the entire Middle East. As hawks in Congress and at the...

What they're thinking: functional MRI results.(This Way Out)(magnetic resonance imaging)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... LOU DOBBS [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] STIMULUS: A combo number 8 at La Taqueria Gomez: two beef enchiladas, two flautas, and a stuffed poblano. REACTION: Simultaneous activity in the hypothalamus and amygdala indicating a conflict of...