Esquire articles from February 2007

Esquire archives from February 2007

This way in.(THE SOUND AND THE FURY)
February 1, 2007... "For those of us African-Americans who have ascended, do we get T-shirts so the rest of the world knows to separate us from the offers?

The calm.(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2007... This was the best Best & Brightest ever. No. this was the best Esquire ever (if a bit lacking in breasts). I couldn't put it down; one great article led right into another. Even Gorgeous George came off as sincere and not as a crazed liberal...

The storm.(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2007... In his essay ("The Manifesto of Ascendancy for the Modern American Nigger," December), African-American writer, film producer, and director John Ridleg argued that rioting in Cincinnati in 2001 overshadowed the apex of African-American...

V Siennas boy toy.(This Way In: THE SOUND AND THE FURY)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... At this month's photo shoot with Sienna Miller (page 68), the star ended up canoodling with a two-year-old capuchin monkey we hired as a prop. Here's an exclusive look at her new manlike companion: NAME: Simi OWNER: All Star Animals...

One word.(Editorial)
February 1, 2007... WE OFTEN HEAR that the power of the written word has waned. For a fresh perspective, though, you have only to consider the response to John Ridley's essay in our December issue. Of course, some of the reaction centered on a single word in the...

Okay, back to the Levity.(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2007... In his December column, Chuck Klostermon wrote about how YouTube is bringing back rock virtuosity. Klosterman makes the brave, insightful assertion that Poison songs are better than Frank Zappa songs. Huzzah! I'd like to thank him for...

Making you irresistible.(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... If I am going to buy only two blazers, what colors and styles will maximize my formality and female irresistibility? Darren Keith Fort Myers, Fla. Go get 'em, tiger! Fashion director Nick Sullivan's advice: For ultimate...

Elsewhere in the bin.(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2007... In December's Leisure Meter (Man at His Best), you erred tremendously in allotting only five hours for Thomas Pynchon's new book, Against the Day. As a Pynchon fan, I wholeheartedly approve of urging people to buy the book, but five hours isn't...

An Esquire special investigation.(This Way In: THE SOUND AND THE FURY)(Interview)
February 1, 2007... THIS MONTH, editorial assistant David Walters writes about flying from New York to Los Angeles with twenty Victoria's Secret models (Man at His Best, page 36). For him, it was, you know, fantastic. But what did the models think? We spoke to...

Useful advice from a beautiful woman.(The Front: MAN AT HIS BEST)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... As told by COBIE SMULDERS How to get wax out of carpet: Place butcher's paper on the wax, shiny side up, cover the butcher's paper with a paper bag, and then press the paper bag with a hot iron. The wax lifts right off. ABOUT THE...

The leisure meter: how to allocate your free time this month.(The Front: MAN AT HIS BEST)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Seeing The Number 23, a film about a man (Jim Carrey) whose growing obsession with a book that seems to mirror his life causes him to find numerical coincidences involving--not surprisingly--the number 23. 1 hour, 33 minutes Entertaining...

Monster imports.(The Front: MAN AT HIS BEST)
February 1, 2007... WITH THE REALITY-TV CRAZE fostering unprecedented interest in documentaries, foreign films have become the true ugly stepchild of the movie business. Maybe you'll never be interested in plotless films by auteurs with unpronounceable names like...

Common.(Q&A)(Interview)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... CHICAGO'S notoriously nonviolent poet-emcee picks up a 9ram in Smokin' Aces, the new crime caper from Narc director Joe Carnahan. As Sir Ivy, Common is the ultimate right-hand man, fending off hit men (and women) to protect his mob-informant...

Quiz: the you-tube critics.(THE FRONT: THE SCREEN)
February 1, 2007... NOW EVERYONE CAN SHARE their thoughts on whatever movie they happened to stumble into last night. Thanks, YouTube! Can you even tell what film these vloggers are talking about? Match the review with the movie. (1) "It was one of those...

Just a guy on a plane: one writer. Twenty models. Six hours. What happens when a dream comes true.(THE FRONT: WOMEN)
February 1, 2007... WHEN I WAS SIX, I was morbidly obsessed with the Make-a-Wish Foundation. With its help I could shoot baskets with Larry Bird, and all I had to do in return was die. So I hoped for the worst. Eighteen years later, I had a new wish, one I was...

The hand-finished dress shoe.(STYLE: OBSESSION OF THE MONTH)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... ONCE THEY'RE ON YOUR FEET, you don't see your shoes much. Other people do. But can quality be judged from their vantage point? If you wear these hand-hewn wing tips, will anyone notice? The will notice. For this season, Milanese designers....

The most underrated pant: despite its salt-of-the-earth connotations, America's official trouser has its nuances.(THE GUIDE: STYLE)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... KHAKI RULE #1 Never give your khakis a cuff. Never roll the cuffs up to your calves like clamdiggers unless you are actually digging for clams. Cotton trousers ($98) by Bills Khakis. KHAKI RULE #2 Khaki is Hindi for "dust." Pure,...

The chapped man: Esquire's grooming expert on the dry season.(MAINTENANCE)(Buyers guide)
February 1, 2007... Problem: Chapped Face Solution: Hugo Boss Healthy Look face lotion I$25; boss-skin.com) It smells too much like caulk, but that dissipates. Otherwise, it's one of the best moisturizers I've tested--superlight and fast absorbing. ...

Tim Hamilton.(A NAME YOU SHOULD KNOW)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... THE PHRASE "UNIQUELY AMERICAN" can mean many things, not all of them good. Fortunately, Iowa-grown designer Tim Hamilton has picked through casual men's fashion from the '50s, '60s, and '70s--the period when the U.S. became a man, you might...

Some other guy's shirt.(THE GUIDE: STYLE)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Rufus is shirt designer April Singer's husband and apparently her muse. She named her label after him. His namesake shirts are nothing if not versatile: Their slim European cut suggests worldliness, the funky patterns are suitable for your...

Helmut Lang.(THE COMEBACK)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... HELMUT LANG MAY HAVE EMERGED from Vienna, but it was in New York that his deceptively simple urban style made him an icon in the fashion world. When his label shut down two years ago, his many fans were crushed. But the company is back, with...

The Ray-Ban wayfarer.(THE COMEBACK)
February 1, 2007... Blues, J. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Goosen, J. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Crocket, S. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Bender, J. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Dimmick, L. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

A concise guide to patterns: remember when your grandfather used to wear plaid on plaid? Don't do that.(THE GUIDE: STYLE)(Table)
February 1, 2007... A Concise Guide to Patterns Remember when your grandfather used to wear plaid on plaid? Don't do that. BY THE BOOK ALTERNATIVE KEEP IT SIMPLE CONTRARY TO by pairing a minor ...

The digital man awards: our gadget guru's favorite tech toys of 2006.(THE GUIDE: THE DIGITAL MAN)(Buyers guide)
February 1, 2007... (1) Canon HV10 high-clef video camera The Canon is a 1080i high-def camera that is as compact as any of the old Hi-8 cameras, but the images from this thing are sharp and contrasty and the colors are saturated and clean. It also shoots...

The five-minute guide to oysters.(THE GUIDE: FOOD)
February 1, 2007... Despite its perfectly reasonable desire to protect its fleshy treasure, an oyster is nothing short of shuckable in the right hands. Just coax apart the shell and the oyster presents itself, damp and salty, resting in a pool of its own briny...

Eat your genes: DNA testers claim they know your hidden hereditary flaws--and how to overcome them.(THE GUIDE: THE BETTER MAN)
February 1, 2007... Here's a way to feel bionic: Test your genome for deficiencies, then compensate by loading up on foods that, when converted to energy, can fill those exact gaps. A few easy adjustments and you'll live to be older than Andy Rooney. Or at least...

Ask Dr. Oz: free advice from a medical professional.(THE GUIDE: THE BETTER MAN)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Why do I hate vegetables? And what should I eat instead? It could be your parents' fault. Taste buds are inherited, not developed, and about half the population gets them in one of two extremes: There are supertasters, who have a higher...

The sanitary man: the handler.(MAN AT HIS BEST: The Better Man)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... GOD KNOWS who might have sneezed/coughed/drooled on my computer when I wasn't looking. Luckily, I was able to type this article without touching my keyboard. You see, there's this gadget called the Handler. You attach it to your key chain. When...

Will cloned humans have souls? Plus: chips & dead elephants.(THE GUIDE: ANSWER FELLA)
February 1, 2007... 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 who does or who has a...

Life after halftime: Moose Johnston, Islamic death squads, and the art of the second career.(Chuck Klosterman's: AMERICA)
February 1, 2007... JAZZ-AGE DRUNKARD F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote many trenchant thoughts in the somber days before his 1940 death, but few remain more famous than this one: "There are no second acts in American lives." It is the kind of sentence that defines an...

10 things you don't know about women.(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... 1. A woman never gets a Brazilian for her own benefit. Imagine shock therapy on your genitals and you come close to understanding the pain and humiliation. So next time, give her a big, fat reward. All night. 2. There is no such thing as...

The need-to-know basis: knowledge is power. Information is gold. Giving away/either of them too soon is just plain stupid.(INFLUENCE)
February 1, 2007... A SIGN HUNG IN A WINDOW seems simple enough. You pass them every day on your way to get coffee. FOR LEASE. FOR SALE. SOR RENT. Someone's left, or failed, or simply moved on. Change peers out from a shop window, an article of faith, and for the...

Into the void: when baseball season began last year, Chris Snow was a baseball writer with one of the most prestigious jobs in his business. Then he leaped into another world.(THE GAME)
February 1, 2007... IN HIS OLD LIFE, in the life Chris Snow chose to stop living, he would have spent last night chasing cars in southern California, trying to keep pace with Japanese gyroball pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka and the Boston Herald. Wiping sweat from his...

Girl on fire **: life is not quite as messy for Sienna Miller as it appears in the tabloids--or on this page--but it has its juicy little dramas. And distractions. And chaos. Just not in the way you'd expect.(Cover story)
February 1, 2007... Sienna Miller is insisting she's the "biggest fucking klutz in the world," and while the claim is endearing, you take it as just another case of a beautiful actress claiming some flaw to make her seem more real, like she was ugly between the...

How we have sex now: the act is as old as mankind itself--but internet porn and the sex swing are significantly newer. So Esquire teamed up with Marie Claire magazine to commission a candid, modern survey of America's sexual habits, desires, and taboos. Here, the salacious data ...(THE STATE OF SEX)
February 1, 2007... FREQUENCY How many times a week do you have sex? Men Women 5 times or less 90% 94% 6 to 9 times 5 5 10 times or more 5 2 On average 2.6 times...

How to get some on February 14th.(THE MILF MEMO)
February 1, 2007... Recipe for Valentine's Day: Take a piece of construction paper and a red crayon. Draw a heart on the paper, the more crooked the better, and inside write BE MINE with your left hand, or your right if you are left-handed. Fold the paper over,...

Clothes on.(THE ENDORSEMENT)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... SOME PEOPLE like costumes when they have sex. The maid. The nurse. Role-playing. I never got that. Mingling the craft of acting with the sexual congress seems, well, unwise. But clothes? Yeah. Leave the little T-shirt on, push the panties to...

The Oedipus complex.(PSYCHOSEXUAL THEORY OF THE MONTH)
February 1, 2007... "It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father."--Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams This from a cokehead who smoked twenty...

Clothes off.(THE ENDORSEMENT)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... ONE NIGHT you find yourself lying there with a woman's head on your belly, her eyebrows mere inches from two fairly obvious pimples, not to mention the rogue hairs about your left nipple. Worse, her hand is pinned beneath the little sag in your...

An open letter (re: sex) to the readers of Esquire from the editors of Marie Claire *.(THE STATE OF SEX)(Editorial)
February 1, 2007... Gentlemen: We know it hasn't been easy. First came Sex and the City, all heels and Cosmos and dirty talk and Rabbit Habits. Then came thong flashing--underwear as outerwear rising up like a dorsal fin from our denim-clad asses. Then came...

Are you getting laid tonight?
February 1, 2007... You've had a greet time. She says you really "get" her. But will you get her? Start with a score of -10. Add or subtract points for every yes answer. 1. Does she have to go home and get to bed early? (-5) 2. Does she have to go home to...

The sexual etiquette guide.(THE STATE OF SEX)
February 1, 2007... What can I assume is in the standard sexual repertoire? A hundred years ago, you wouldn't be getting oral sex, right? Today it's standard. What else? It's premature to assume that sex was much different in past generations. The mechanics...

Dick Van Dyke: actor, 81, Los Angeles.(What I've Learned)
February 1, 2007... > I did pretty well because I knew how to tuck. Of course, there's the tripping over the ottoman in the opening of the show. But I didn't realize how many different kinds of falls I did in that show. At this banquet recently, they showed a...

How the attorney general of the United States became Saddam Hussein's lawyer: the dictator's time is up. Ramsey Clark, meanwhile, soldiers on.
February 1, 2007... The plane comes in high and circles down, the way all planes do at the Baghdad airport these days. Two giant armor-plated GMC SUVs meet him, manned by American soldiers with M4 rifles and helmets with earphones. They drive fast past the...

The napkin project.(Short story)
February 1, 2007... It's an old story, we figured. Someone, in a bar somewhere, scribbling on a napkin in the failing afternoon light; the kind of story or list or note that might be crammed in a pocket and pulled out years later to tell something deep and...

"Give this man an Oscar": Whitaker. Affleck. Beach. Luke. Hounsou. If the Academy actually rewards fearless and brilliant acting (and style), these gentleman should get their speeches ready.
February 1, 2007... FOREST WHITAKER BEST ACTOR THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND Three-button cotton suit ($1,595) by Calvin Klein Collection; cotton shirt ($550) by Giorgio Armani; leather loafers ($495) by Santoni. THIS IS A REINVENTION of Forest...

Dubious achievements 2006: reality strikes back!
February 1, 2007... OCCASIONALLY IN THE HISTORY OF HUMAN ENDEAVOR, order is restored after a period of chaos and fear. The year 2006 was not such a time. But almost! When the barb of reality struck, it struck, hard: The corrupt were overthrown, the self-righteous...

So you've obtained a baby!(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... MATCH THE FAMOUS BABY OF 2006 WITH ITS FAMOUS MOM AND METHOD OF ACQUISITION METHOD * [Obstetrical] ** [Legal] BABY (1) Jayden (2) Shiloh (3) David (4) Suri (5) Johan Riley Fyodor Taiwo Samuel (6) Daisy...

Other recently cancelled books.(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... IF I DID IT BARRY BONDS [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IF I DID IT VLADIMIR PUTIN [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IF I DID IT TOM CRUISE [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I SHOULD'VE DONE IT SIR PAUL McCARTNEY [ILLUSTRATION...

Our ever-expanding lexicon.
February 1, 2007... 'shu-ger 'tits n., transferred epithet: woman, usually reserved for informal occasions; cf. Gibson: What do you think you're looking at, sugar tits?

State of the union 2006.(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... 1. Senator George Allen of Virginia, speaking at a reelection campaign rally. 2. Michael Irvin, referring to Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo on a radio show. 3. Mayor Ray Nagin commemorating Martin Luther King Day in New Orleans. 4....

Tuesdays with reality: he was missing for a few years, but he's back. We met with reality recently at his rented condominium near Dupont circle in Washington, D.C., to talk about it.(DUBIOUS ACHIEVEMENTS 2006)
February 1, 2007... ESQ: So, how are you? Reality: Ah, you know, you get this age, you have your good days, you have your bad days. ESQ; What's today? Reality: Tuesday! ESQ: That's good. Reality: Gotcha! ESQ: You got me. Reality:...

Who said it? The world's ears are always open. Match the notable figure with the notoriously overheard comment.(THE VIGILANT MIC)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... (1) [Referring to accusations that the president of Israel sexually molested several women on his staff.] "Say hello to your president.... He turned out to be quite a powerful man. He raped ten women. I never expected it from him. He surprised...

A year of recalls.(DUBIOUS ACHIEVEMENTS 2006)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Exploding Dell laptop batteries [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] E. coli spinach [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Republic Majority [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Kramer [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] JonBenet's killer [ILLUSTRATION...

The threat matrix 2006.(DUBIOUS ACHIEVEMENTS 2006)(Table)
February 1, 2007... THE THREAT MATRIX 2006 Not so fond Fond Jews but for Doesn't wear of the Jews the wrong reasons underpants George * Bush Kim Jong II Iran ...

The dubious achievements of an average man.(This Way Out)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... I CUT MY UPPER LIP while shaving with a Mach3 razor. I RENTED the film Paint Your Wagon thinking it would be cool because Clint Eastwood was in the cast, when it's actually a lame Clint Eastwood musical comedy. AFTER A CABDRIVER...