Esquire articles from December 2008

Esquire archives from December 2008

In case we haven't mentioned it, October was a big month for us: it marked our 75th anniversary.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In case we haven't mentioned it, October was a big month for us: It marked our 75th anniversary. To celebrate, we produced the , world's first e-ink magazine cover and declared the belated start of a new century. ...

Not counting Paul Cooney's, some of the most generous letters we've gotten in 75 years.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Letter to the editor)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Our anniversary issue was about looking forward, not back, so we highlighted people we think will be instrumental in shaping the coming years ("The 75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century"). Along with...

Context-free highlight from a letter we won't be running.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Letter to the editor)
December 1, 2008... "I once was fired for suggesting gremolata be put on a lamb dish." "May the great Liberal defecate on your dumb mag." "Guess what? You've just incurred the wrath of the NRA."

Correction.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Correction notice)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IT HAS COME to our attention that we omitted a Great Lake on a map included in October's Contributors section. We promise you this was inadvertent. If we were going to purposefully exclude a Great Lake, it would have...

Least frisky squirrel.(CONTRIBUTOR AWARDS)(Excerpt)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "I pulled the trigger and saw a chunk of meat fly from [the squirrel] like a small red bird. He seemed to explode. There was the sound of rain through the trees as bits of him fell back to earth." --From "Rhoda,"...

Jeopardy! (ESQUIRE IN THE MEDIA.(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... The week of November 24, the brainy and generous people of Jeopardy! will include a category based on Esquire's seventy-five-year history. In anticipation of the event, we asked them to create an extra set of clues (answers?) just for us....

Pit of the stomach.(EDITOR'S LETTER)(Editorial)
December 1, 2008... IT SHOULDN'T BE a surprise (but it always is) that there is one concern that trumps all others: money. The Dow drops 30 or 40 percent, and in an instant, every other crisis in our culture pales in comparison, even after it rebounds. A...

Recognizing the recognition of our contributors.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] AT THE SIXTIETH Primetime Emmy Awards in September, our own Digital Man, Barry Sonnenfeld, was awarded his first prime-time Emmy (as opposed to the daytime Emmy he got in 1985) for his work on the ABC show Pushing...

Things you can do with your flashing cover.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... To produce our e-ink cover, we worked with consulting firm Nicobar Group and E Ink, the company responsible for the technology behind the electronic displays used in the Sony and Kindle electronic readers. The limited-edition run of a hundred...

Unless, of course, you didn't get one.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Letter to the editor)
December 1, 2008... Congratulations on your seventy-fifth anniversary. My father was a subscriber in the fifties and sixties, and I have been reading since the early eighties. As a subscriber, I wanted to thank you for not sending me the edition with the wonderful...

Great dresser, Great man.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Kenyatte Nelson)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... THIS SEPTEMBER, we presented the five finalists for 2008's Best Dressed Real Man in America competition. Live on the Today show, we announced the winner: Kenyatte Nelson (right), a thirty-one-year-old brand manager from Cincinnati. Along with...

Elsewhere in the bin.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Letter to the editor)
December 1, 2008... The shrub recommended in your "Ask a Landscaper" column (Man at His Best, September), Prunus laurocerasus Schipkaensis, or cherry laurel, sounds exactly like what I need to close in our driveway for privacy. But I live on Cape Cod and can't...

The selective update: Bryan Anderson.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SINCE APPEARING on our cover in January 2007, Iraq war veteran and triple amputee Bryan Anderson got to meet Mickey Rourke. Gary Sinise, too, but that doesn't matter quite as much, because Sinise isn't starring in...

Barry, only smaller.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Barry Sonnenfeld)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... THE INSPIRATION for this month's Digital Man Gift Guide (page 111) was the 1960s stop-motion special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, But instead of starring Rudolf or an elf who'd rather be a dentist, our version is hosted by a seven-inch...

Those responsible: Daniel Boulud.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... THIS MONTH'S Man at His Best includes a special contributor: renowned French chef and restaurateur Daniel Boulud, who was kind enough to lend his palate to the Esquire Chili Cook-off as a visiting judge. Although you won't find chili on the...

Reader of the month.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Letter to the editor)
December 1, 2008... I'd never read your magazine before, because I have other things to do, and, to be brutally honest, I thought it was going to be rubbish. But a few weeks ago, my flight home was delayed, and in my desperation, I searched for a magazine of...

Something to do at esquire.com.(This Way In: THE SOUND & THE FURY)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Figure out what to do when you're not at esquire.com. Like read. In case you find the idea of entering a library without a definite game plan daunting-or even if you don't--we've gone ahead and compiled a list of the seventy-five books we think...

The vocabulary: (terms and ideas you will encounter in the pages that follow. Great for conversation.).(Man at His Best)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... * the great bedraggling n: A PERIOD THAT BEGAN IN THE MID-2000s WITH THE PROLIFERATION OF EASILY UPLOADED WEB VIDEOS, WHICH HAVE MADE FAMOUS PEOPLE SEEM UNATTRACTIVE AND NONFAMOUS PEOPLE REALLY UNATTRACTIVE. (SEE PAGE 50.) [FIGURE 1...

How Harvey Milk was finally assassinated: in Milk, Sean Penn and Gus Van Sant dignify the pathetic death of an important man.(Film)(Movie review)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Harvey Milk had a superhero's name, and in a lot of ways, in the most important ways, he led a superhero's life, but you probably haven't heard of Harvey Milk, because he was denied, until now, a superhero's end. ...

Books we won't be curling up with this holiday season.(Man at His Best: 1 The Culture)(Bibliography)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Scared of Santa: Scenes of Terror in Toyland, by Denise Joyce and Nancy Watkins (Harper Paperbacks, $10). Fleece Navidad: A Knitting Mystery, by Maggie Sefton (Berkley, $24). Holiday with a Vampire II, by Merline Lovelace and Lori Devoti...

The hall of cultural significance: the five most intriguing performances this month.(Man at His Best: 1 The Culture)
December 1, 2008... SUCCESSFUL USE OF AN OVERUSED SETTING [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Holocaust, as the backdrop in Defiance, the story of three Jewish brothers (led by Daniel Craig) who flee to the Belorussian wilderness, join the resistance, and build an...

The endorsement Sunrise Earth.(TV)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... What happens is: The sun rises. It's dark when the show starts, and it's light when it ends. It appears on the network HD Theater. The filmmakers feature one location at sunrise. The camera's mostly static, and there's no narration. For one...

The New World: the 1,037 beautifully photographed buildings in The Phaidon Atlas of 21st Century World Architecture are a testament to everything that is right and really wrong in architecture today.(Books)(Book review)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Architecture, especially the sort that lies far from the shadow of America's recent cultural and economic stagnation, is the best bellwether of innovation, a representation of the relative health of the imagination...

The 5 best songs you (probably) didn't hear this year.(Music)(Sound recording review)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2008... * "JINGLE BELLS," Julian Koster It's been said that the violin is the closest instrument to the human voice, but we're going with the singing saw. In a perfect world, Koster's ultracreepy take on this yuletide standard would be in heavy...

Funny joke from a beautiful woman.(Man at His Best: 1 The Culture)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... As told by GRETCHEN MOL WHY SHOULD you never tell a joke while ice fishing? Because the ice will crack up. ABOUT THE JOKESTER: Gretchen Mol seems confused about what "sexy" is ("funny" too, but that's why we have the disclaimer)....

What's with all the ugly people having sex? (A thousand words about our culture).(Man at His Best: 1 The Culture)
December 1, 2008... Anyone who's spent any appreciable amount of alone time in front of a computer lately knows that the culture of instant accreditation, in which a million blog posts are added to the Internet each day and everybody is a mouse click away from...

The Esquire chili cook-off.(Man at His Best: 2 The Instructions)(Recipe)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I USED TO BE RELIGIOUS about chili. I had a favorite recipe, yellowed with age and stained with red. I had a dedicated pot. I had rules about no beans, and which meats, and how many of what kind of peppers--and any...

Drinking serious rums.(Man at His Best: 2 The Instructions)
December 1, 2008... When we think of rum--if we think of rum--we generally think of little umbrellas and Coke and a whole lot of woo-hoo! (exclamation point included). Rum has become a fundamentally unserious beverage. And that's too bad, because rum is simply...

The angry German: on drinking among the Americans.(Man at His Best: 2 The Instructions)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] (Note: This article is best read aloud in a German accent.) MY DEAR AMERICANS, You will be happy to hear that the Angry German has applied for U.S. citizenship. It will take a few months to go through, which...

Sex: it seems like a lot of guys in pornos are going completely bare. Please don't tell me this is getting popular.(Man at His Best: 2 The Instructions)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] All right, but don't blame me when you're the laughingstock of the town orgy. Have you stopped to consider, hippie, that there might be reasons--wise, conventional reasons--for this practice you're so quick to...

Minor catastrophe no. 72: you're falling asleep in a meeting.(Man at His Best: 2 The Instructions)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Consultant: Rafael Pelayo, M.D., Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] {1} Chew gum. Even a simple activity can be enough to keep you engaged, as long as it doesn't involve bubbles. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] {2}...

Answer Fella: ear hair, exhaustion, flights of emotion & aging.(Man at His Best: 2 The Instructions)
December 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...

The 7 greatest: five years ago, we named "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold," by Gay Talese, the greatest story Esquire ever published. Here, the other six.(SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS OF STORIED HISTORY--IN ONE EASY PAGE. THIS MONTH)
December 1, 2008... NOVEMBER 1960 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Yes, America was at last engaging the fate of its myth, its consciousness about to be accelerated or cruelly depressed in its choice between two young men in their forties who, no matter how close,...

The change agent.(ESQUIRE INNOVATION)(Italo Zucchelli)(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Italo Zucchelli is the creative director of men's wear at Calvin Klein. He is also one of the most innovative minds in the fashion business. Here, on the occasion of his brand's 40th anniversary, he talks. ...

The next forty: Zucchelli looks to the future with new takes on classics.(Man at His Best: 3 Style)(Buyers guide)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] (1) "This fabric changes color depending on body heat. When it's very cold, it's black; when it gets warmer, it turns green." Thermocolor trench coat ($1,550). (2) "This shows how you can take something as familiar...

Aquascutum U.S.A.: how a 157-year-old British brand is remaking itself in 2008.(Man at His Best: 3 Style)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [STEP 1:] NEW DESIGNER The company recruited Savile Row renegade Nick Hart to design a line of men's suits, and Hart's off-kilter take on traditional tailoring calls to mind the edgy sartorial style of '60s-era London. (See: Michael...

The packable Zegna coat.(THE APPRECIATION)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It seems like a solution in search of a problem: Whose raincoat is such an unholy burden that they need to fold it up and zip it into a little package? But the fact is that most unworn raincoats are kind of a pain in...

Rayon and milk protein.(PAIRING OF THE MONTH)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The good people of Japan always seem to get the best technology before the rest of us, and for a time they were the sole beneficiaries of Uniqlo's Heat Tech series. These T-shirts and polos are made from a mixture of...

A new kind of warm: and four ways that help you get it when....(ESQUIRE INNOVATION)(Buyers guide)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... IT'S SNOWING Moncler waterproofed classic English wool flannel and then stuffed it with the company's famous goose down. Layer it with wool and cotton. Down-filled wool jacket ($1,700) by Moncler; zip-front lamb's-wool sweater ($65) and cotton...

On caring for extremities: a few guidelines for protection from the toes on up.(Man at His Best: 3 Style)(Buyers guide)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] One good pair of wool socks is better than two layered cotton ones. Wool socks ($21 for et of two) by L.L, Bean. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Snowball fights are for kids. Unless the other guy starts it and your...

Um, what just happened? The world's not coming to an end. But when we emerge from this economic hellhole, we'll be a different country--one in which our entire financial system will look roughly like it did in 1978.(finance)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] We can get complex about this if you want (no, thank you), but what happened to the global economy is disarmingly simple: Free money makes you stupid. It was true in Japan during the 1980s, when bar drinks...

Why I'm happy: amid the rubble of this crisis are a few cherished axioms that deserved to die letting the dust settle occasionally--which Greenspan lacked the courage to do--will separate the viable ideas and reasonable expansion plans from the interest-only loans and Starbucks.(finance)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Here's how repulsed I've been by the inane decoupling of risk and reward in the financial markets over the past five years: I quit. I spent a decade clawing my way into prominence as a financial journalist and...

The sexiest car in the world: that's what a Jaguar should be. The XF is a good start, but whether Jag's elusive new owner agrees is anyone's guess.(cars)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Jaquar is one of the most enigmatic car companies on the planet. By that I mean nobody seems to know exactly what Jaguar means here in the twenty-first century. Is Jaguar a curvaceous BMW alternative (the XK coupe...

Lord Dumpling's magical water machine: Dean Kamen has invented many, many things. Now he has an idea that could save tens of millions of lives. But no one cares.(PROFILE)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Here comes Dean Kamen on a Segway, zipping down the hill of his private island like something out of a Bond movie. He floats past his private helicopter. Past his amphibious landing craft. His lighthouse rises up...

Esquire presents a very Barry Christmas.(GIFT GUIDE: The Digital Man)(Buyers guide)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In retrospect, I'm wondering if my Christmas wish list this year should have included more sweaters, woodburning stoves, canning techniques, and other tools for self-preservation in tougher times. On the other hand,...

The biggest man in the room: Vince Vaughn looks a lot like Vince Vaughn, only bigger. He's also usually the funniest and best liked. So what's Vince Vaughn so afraid of?(Interview)(Cover story)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] He's tall enough to have to duck through doorways, as he just did, and wide enough to spend a lot of time walking sideways through tight spaces, like this steakhouse. He wears a pair of old-school Nike sneakers that...

Scenes from movies not yet made: there's no such thing as a new story--there are only stories that have yet to be told.(style)
December 1, 2008... Starring Best & Brightest actor Michael Sheen * in seven fictional roles of his own creation. Stories and stage directions by Best & Brightest writer BEAU WILLIMON * Soundtrack by POP LEVI, WHITE DENIM, BLITZEN TRAPPER, OREN LAVIE,...

Best and brightest 2008: politics: culture: science: technology.(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... The world looks troubled. And yet there are reasons for hope. A new president. A new century. A new start. And these two dozen dreamers: They are making water from air and oil from algae. They are using mosquitoes to prevent disease, cell...

Burying Frank Gehry: Joshua Prince-Ral is waging a holy war against the sculptors, starchitects, and fey theoreticians of his profession. And in the process, he's actually building things.(Best and Brightest 2008: CULTURE)(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The written history of Western architecture dates back more than two thousand years, to Vitruvius Pollio's De Architectura; architects have spent the past millennium debating whether his three fundamental goals...

Science the way it's supposed to be: bubbling cauldrons, toxic substances, insane and dangerous ideas--whatever happened to that kind of science? Take a look at Mark Roth in his lab in Seattle. It's mad. It's heroic. It's ... (Best and Brightest 2008: SCIENCE.
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] There are things you should know about, just because they're weird. Did you know that people with diabetes exhale rocket fuel? It's true, but it's weird, right? And spontaneous combustion. That's true, too,...

3-D Web browsing.(INNOVATIONS)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Duck under an arch at Stonehenge. Fly over the Egyptian pyramids. Examine in detail a tile of the Taj Mahal. All from your desktop. A new Web program uses user-generated 2-D photographs to create 3-D images, mapping...

How to fix the future: water: rather than trying to solve the world water shortage through conservation, some radical entrepreneurs are doing something ingenious--making more of it.(Best and Brightest 2008: TECHNOLOGY)
December 1, 2008... THE WORLD HAS a shortage of drinkable water but a flood of politicians, hippies, and bumper stickers continually telling us about it. Either we're not listening or all their conservation directives to flush less aren't working, because the...

Writing in tongues: John Wray has written three novels-each astoundingly different, each cementing his place as one of our most astonishing and relevant young writers.(Best and Brightest 2008: CULTURE)('The Right Hand of Sleep', 'Canaan's Tongue', 'Lowboy')
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] There is a thing called voice. It's the thing--that simple, rugged tone--that makes a Cormac McCarthy novel unmistakable. The knowing, reflective style that Philip Roth has braided into twenty-five novels. It's what...

Tapan Parikh, 34: the real hundred-dollar laptop is a cell phone.(Best and Brightest 2008: CULTURE)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] With more than 80 percent of the global population having access to cell-phone service, the network for a technological revolution in the poorest parts of the world is already in place--it just needs to be harnessed,...

Dave Arnold food hacker: every art needs its scientist. Now cooking its own.(Best and Brightest 2008: CULTURE)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] You're thirsty. You have just tried a crunchy handful of one of Dave Arnold's edible experiments--homemade pork rinds that taste like fatty Cracker Jacks--and now you'd like something to wash it down with. The easy...

Esther Duflo, 36: Does foreign aid work? With MIT's poverty action lab, we can now answer that question.(Best and Brightest 2008: CULTURE)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Picture this: You're the head of an aid agency working to improve conditions in an impoverished African nation, and you've got $50 million to spend as you see fit. So you pick a hundred struggling schools and supply...

Toward a future in which pixels and code and computers will make you cry and feel and love: video-game programmer Jason Rohrer's solitary and stubborn quest to save our twenty-first-century souls.(Best and Brightest 2008: CULTURE)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] What if, back in the day before TVs were in every waiting room and bedroom and bar, before the perpetual buzz of blue background noise changed the way we think and speak, before the easy escapism of M*A*S*H and Wolf...

Iron man suit.(INNOVATIONS)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It looks like a Hollywood invention. But it's not. Yoshiyuki Sankai, a professor at the University of Tsukuba in Japan, has developed a bodysuit that melds man and machine, letting its wearer lift anything from a...

Lunatic: Reggie Watts began his career as a singer in various bands in early 1990s. Then he started being himself. Crazy. Absurd. And the people laughed. They re still laughing.(Best and Brightest 2008: CULTURE)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] He arrives onstage with enormous amber rings dripping like tree sap from his fingers, his Afro a Miracle-Gro spider plant. Sometimes he's painted a pinkie nail pink. He might be wearing a ridiculous sweater. ...

Beau Willimon, 31, playwright: the most promising young dramatist in America.(Best and Brightest 2008: CULTURE)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... All great drama is about negotiating with loss, but the losses in political drama are something else. The egos are titanic. The ambitions are stratospheric. And only the sharpest playwrights can cut through all the pathos and bullshit to find...

No-electricity fridge.(INNOVATIONS)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... More than a billion people lack access to electricity and refrigeration, which means they also lack access to important vaccines that need to be kept cool. Nonprofits are pouring millions into developing vaccines that don't need refrigeration,...

The new cartographers: Four innovative mapmakers who are helping to reinvent the scope, the purpose, and the very idea of maps.(Best and Brightest 2008: TECHNOLOGY)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] By training, they aren't really cartographers at all. They're architects, designers, and machine-learning specialists who are mining human behavior to build maps that are more about people than places. Like...

The day the men died ... and other stories comic-book renegade Brian K. Vaughan is bringing to Hollywood.(Best and Brightest 2008: CULTURE)
December 1, 2008... Brian K. Vaughan is a weird guy. Just crazy, the stories he comes up with, like his graphic novel Y." The Last Man (pictured). It takes place in a world in which all the men have died of a mysterious plague. There's a battle for the last...

The persistent primitive dream of an implacable scientist and his army of mosquitoes: for decades scientists have been chasing a genetically engineered vaccine that would prevent the one million deaths that occur from malaria every year. Stephen Hoffman thinks he's found a better one--in the mosquitoes themselves.(Best and Brightest 2008: SCIENCE)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SO YOU LIVE IN A HOT PLACE. It swarms with Anopheles mosquitoes. Indonesia. Venezuela. Ghana. Florida, thirty years from now, after global warming has pushed the mosquitoes north. You work outdoors in construction....

Jon Favreau, 27, speechwriter: fresh out of college, just in time to make history. (Best and Brightest 2008: SCIENCE.
December 1, 2008... On the night of the New Hampshire primary in January, a young man of twenty-six stood at the back of the crowd in the Nashua High gym and watched his boss deliver a speech conceding defeat to Hillary Clinton in the day's election. And even...

How to fix the future: algae oil: it's plentiful, it's homegrown, and it could help clean up the environment while powering America--every light, car, plane, and factory in it.(Best and Brightest 2008: TECHNOLOGY)
December 1, 2008... Forget wind power or solar power or all the other promising but frustratingly incremental solutions to America's energy crisis. The answer, instead, could be algae. It's plentiful and, like corn and soybeans, can be processed into oil and gas...

The last broken heart: for eternity, once a heart cell died from a heart attack or heart disease, it was gone forever. Until Hina Chaudhry figured out how to make new ones. (Best and Brightest 2008: SCIENCE.
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] First thing that happens when you have a heart attack, an unlucky part of your heart turns white. The blood's stopped pumping to that spot, so it becomes pink-speckled bloodlessness, coarse and cool like grapefruit...

Self-mending rubber.(INNOVATIONS)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Imagine a flat tire that repairs itself. A basketball that never goes flat. Children's toys that can't be broken. All of these things could one day be possible thanks to the advance of synthetic rubber that self-heals like Silly Putty. Unlike...

True believer: the Internet of the future will be smarter, more focused, and more fun, because Benjamin Palmer likes it that way.(Best and Brightest 2008: CULTURE)
December 1, 2008... There's an irony there. Benjamin Palmer looks nothing like a corporate savior. His skin is wan, his hair greasy, like he's been up all night, every night. Yet, Palmer, thirty-four, is the hipster geek large companies like Nike, HP, Mars, and...

Michael Sheen, 39, actor: he doesn't just bring characters to life. He re-creates history.(Best and Brightest 2008: CULTURE)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It takes stones, playing a public figure in a movie. You've got the inevitable side-by-side comparisons on You Tube, the inevitable harping about how you got it all wrong, the inevitable What, was Rich Little busy?...

Omer fast and the news: how one man takes the history of our time and makes it art (as if art mattered).(Best and Brightest 2008: CULTURE)
December 1, 2008... It's not clear what kind of artist Omer Fast is. He doesn't like the term "video artist"; even the term "artist" makes him cringe. So the thirty-six-year-old Fast, who was born in Jerusalem, educated in the United States, and currently resides...

Seth Jones, 36: the question was so obvious, nobody thought to ask it: how does terrorism end?(Best and Brightest 2008: CULTURE)
December 1, 2008... Seth Jones has the answer to the million-dollar question. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Through his work as an analyst for the Rand Corporation, he has found that 40 percent of terrorist groups are defeated by police and intelligence...

Forgotten inventors: the unsung men and women who changed our lives forever.(This Way Out)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Martin Cooper (1973) Invented excuse "Sorry, I'm losing reception" during one of first cellphone calls when his friend started telling him a dream involving Teddy Roosevelt and his ex-wife making waffles...