Esquire articles from February 2009

Esquire archives from February 2009

What the hell just happened? As we move into the next era of American history, let's take a moment to look back eight years and see how we got ourselves here.(Viewpoint essay)
February 1, 2009... There is this thing we do. It's a small thing. It's a formality, at worst an annoyance. We do it every time we buy a computer or a device requiring software. We do it when we download software online, and then when the software is updated. We...

What now?(Brian Williams and Curtis Sittenfield)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... On the cusp of a new America era, we asked a dozen influential citizens--from Senator Jim Webb to Stephen King--a simple question: Where do we go from here? (Answers at right throughout the issue.) WHAT NOW? BRIAN WILLIAMS ANCHOR...

This way in: the sound and the fury.(Vince Vaughn)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... Vince Vaughn graced the cover of our December issue, which we called our Genius issue, and which we think will change the world. At least the people inside could. WHAT YOU WROTE ABOUT [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Best and Brightest ...

The genius of the genius issue.(THIS WAY IN: THE SOUND AND THE FURY)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] December was our seventh annual Best and Brightest issue, a celebration of twenty-eight extraordinary builders, hackers, and innovators who will change the way we live. Thanks for reminding me of the substance...

We like when you like what we like.(THIS WAY IN: THE SOUND AND THE FURY)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Running throughout the November issue--and still eliciting letters--were endorsements of minor things we consider important, like Nicorette for nonsmokers, a pen, and a treasured baseball mitt. Scott Raab's...

Everything you need to know about dressing, abridged.(THIS WAY IN: THE SOUND AND THE FURY)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] * Buy light-gray undershirts; they don't show through light-colored dress shirts. * Shoulders cannot be altered. If the jacket doesn't fit there, it never will. * A small, high notch on your lapel, right at...

If nothing else, she'll admire your optimism.(THIS WAY IN: THE SOUND AND THE FURY)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2009... My flimsy forearms have been holding me back my whole life, and after reading Halle Berry talk about how much she loves big forearms ("The Sexiest Woman Alive Is Halle Berry," November), I realized they might also be the sole reason I haven't...

Jesse Walker's grandpa's Martini recipe.(THIS WAY IN: THE SOUND AND THE FURY)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2009... Although I never knew the technical term for it, rinsing (Man at His Best, November) was how my grandfather taught my mother to make martinis. He knew drinking straight vodka could get you labeled an alcoholic, but a vodka martini like this one...

And Nick Rudie's recipe for the perfect summer evening.(THIS WAY IN: THE SOUND AND THE FURY)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2009... It's about damn time you introduced Rule No. 187: More bocce (3) (Man at His Best, November). It's an integral part of the perfect summer evening. To yourself, add seven friends, one hot grill, three or four pounds of meat (preferably red),...

Two Germans: one angry, both generous.(THIS WAY IN: THE SOUND AND THE FURY)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2009... I was perplexed to learn the Angry German has decided to apply for American citizenship (Man at His Best, December). Since naturalization will effectively disqualify him from writing his column, I, a German who has lived in the U. S. for more...

Elsewhere in the bin.(THIS WAY IN: THE SOUND AND THE FURY)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2009... I love you, Esquire, really I do, but I just can't afford you right now, so I let my subscription lapse. Thanks for everything, and please don't take it personally. I'll be back for you as soon as possible. This is not goodbye. MELISSA...

How to (maybe) date Halle Berry.(THIS WAY IN: THE SOUND AND THE FURY)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Berry likes big forearms, which you (like Efrain, above) may not have. To get them, fitness expert Joel Harper recommends doing these Simple exercises three times a week on nonconsecutive days. [ILLUSTRATION...

So. What now?(THIS WAY IN: EDITOR'S LETTER)
February 1, 2009... A FEW MONTHS AGO, on the cover of our seventy-fifth-anniversary issue, we announced that THE 21ST CENTURY BEGINS NOW. What we meant by that was that we as a culture had delayed our entry into the new century for a number of reasons, one of...

Those responsible: Dominic McGill.(THIS WAY IN: THE SOUND AND THE FURY)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... To complete one of his earlier pieces, an illustration of the second half of the twentieth century, artist Dominic McGill needed a sixty-five-by-eight-foot scroll. So we were pleased when the work we commissioned from him, a visual...

Something to do at esquire.com.(THIS WAY IN: THE SOUND AND THE FURY)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... Take our advice. We Like a lot of things--Irish whiskey, minor league baseball, the musical efforts of Cheryl Wheeler. We also like telling people about these things, even when they haven't asked, which is why we've launched a new blog, the...

The vocabulary: terms and ideas you will encounter in the pages that follow. Great for conversation.(MAN AT HIS BEST)(Glossary)
February 1, 2009... HUMOR-SEX COVARIATION n: The degree to which the qualities of sexiness and funniness move in tandem in female comedic performers. (SEE PAGE 29.) [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] dodo n: A large, flightless bird that was once common to the Indian...

Steven Soderbergh: the guy's prolific. And he's tireless. And he's brave. And he's original. And his work is electrifying. Also, he's kind of intense.(MAHB: The Conversation)(Interview)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] NO ONE DOMINATED the film festivals at Cannes and Toronto last year quite like Steven Soderbergh. Che, his two-part, four-and-a-half-hour epic biography of guerrilla god Ernesto "Che" Guevara, was immediately hailed...

Pop music for men: Franz Ferdinand's new album is dance music for people who are into that sort of thing and--somehow--a revelatory set of 12 songs for those who aren't.(MAHB: Music)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] FRANZ FERDINAND know how to turn a spectacular pivot. Their new album is a wholesale reinvention of their sound--music that lives up to the considerable promise of the first time we saw them stop and turn on a dime:...

Better than we anticipated.(MAHB: Music)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... Ben Kweller's new country album, Changing Horses; Stanley Crouch's jazz recommendations on TheDailyBeast.com; Norman Cook's collaborations with Iggy Pop, David Byrne, and Emmy the Great under the name BPA (Brighton Port Authority); "Lunch Will...

The accessibility meter.(MAHB: Music)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... Five songs we enthusiastically endorse, ranked in order of how quickly you start moving your head ACCESSIBLE INSCRUTABLE "Dreamer K'nann: When this MC claims "the hardest place on earth," he's not kidding--he's Somalian. There's...

The funniest woman on television: an appreciation of Kristen Schaal's character, Mel, on Flight of the Conchords.(MAHB: Television)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] JEMAINE CLEMENT and Bret McKenzie, the two men who created and star in Flight of the Conchords, are the third and fourth funniest things about the show. Much of the time they play straight men to other, funnier...

Why we clap, killer fans, mean critters & cold relief.(MAHB: Answer Fella)
February 1, 2009... 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...

Hot wings: a critical view: an hour and a half, a lot of chicken, and a singular lesson: when it comes to wings, look to the Koreans.(MAHB: Food)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WHAT DO WE TALK about when we talk about wings? The now-classic buffalo wing, a paragon of bar-food excellence and the subject of passionate devotion for purists who, hailing from upstate New York themselves, have...

The best cheap booze.(MAHB: Drinking)(Product/service evaluation)
February 1, 2009... GOOD LIQUOR is surprisingly inexpensive if you cost it out. A shot poured from an $85 bottle of ambrosial 18-year-old Scotch comes out to less than you'd pay for a pint of Bud Light in most bars around the country. And that's with more than 16...

New music, everywhere: Sonos will change the way you listen to music. But only if you it out of your closet.(MAHB: The Digital Man)(Product/service evaluation)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] YOU CAN'T IMAGINE how many of my friends are amazed when I show them what the Sonos multiroom music system actually does. Like me, usually they've heard about it, but they don't get why I need a box to connect my...

Sex.(MAHB)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Q: Regarding one-night stands: Should I stay the night? Seems rude to assume she wants me around, but I don't want to seem like a jerk for taking off. If I do take off, when? Right after the sex, right after she...

Funny joke from a beautiful woman.(MAHB)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... A PIRATE walks into a bar with a ship's wheel on his penis. The bartender says to him, "You know you've got a ship s wheel on your penis?" And the pirate says, "Argh, I know. It drives me nuts." ABOUT THE JOKESTER: Noa Tishby starred in a...

The essential: the J.M. Weston cap-toe Oxford.(Style)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The world's gone mad--this much we know for sure. And with dress codes and definitions of casual and formal turned upside down and inside out, a man needs one pair of shoes that he knows he can wear everywhere. This...

How to wear a tie (when you don't have to) you're off the clock but want style with an exclamation point. Here's how to get it.(Style)(Buyers guide)
February 1, 2009... [1] The Knit Tie Give your work shirts a rest and pair a knit tie with a casual cotton shirt (one made from, say, chambray). The shirt's texture will complement the tie's knit while a good pair of unpressed chinos keeps things low-key....

Ask Nick Sullivan: the Esquire fashion director will now take your questions.(Style)
February 1, 2009... I just bought my first tuxedo, and I wanted a classic style. The jacket is single-breasted with notch lapels, the shirt has a wing collar, and the pants have cuffs. Have I done anything wrong? --Jason Shaw, St. Louis Park, Minn. There...

The wide world of cuff links: because no man can survive on one pair alone.(Buyers guide)
February 1, 2009... PHEASANT Best for: Your NRA meeting. Or your PETA meeting. Anything casual, really. Sterling-silver-and-enamel cuff links ($595) by Jan Leslie. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] BLACK SQUARE Best for: Galas, balls, anywhere with an open...

The Blacksmith: jewelry designer Evan Yurman talks blackened steel and pirate's gold.(Profile)(Biography)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] TODAY IS NOT A GREAT TIME to be in the men's jewelry business. Or you'd think that, anyway, what with the belt-tightening, the priority shifting, the bottom-line watching, and all the rest of the gloom and doom that...

What's so bad about socialism anyway?(A Thousand Words About Our Culture)
February 1, 2009... [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] [FIGURE 2 OMITTED] [FIGURE 3 OMITTED] [FIGURE 4 OMITTED] [FIGURE 5 OMITTED] ROLAND BARTHES, the French theorist and semiotician, once wrote that sex is everywhere in America, except in sex. For the past...

First coach: Michelle Obama's brother, Craig Robinson, once used a game of hoops to vet her boyfriend Barack. Now a head coach, he's using basketball to see whether a bunch of kids who went 6-25 last season have any, well, hope.
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It's 5:55 A.M. in the Pacific Northwest. I'm watching an extremely well connected bald man yell at an extremely bad basketball team. The well connected man is a Princeton graduate; seven days from this morning, he...

The real America: turns out Obama's from there after all. And that won him the election.(THE DATA)(Barack Obama)
February 1, 2009... If Bill Clinton was the first black president, then Barack Obama might be the first urban one. He is the only American president in recent history to seem unembarrassed about claiming a personal residence in a major American city. Instead,...

Someday we'll all look back on this and laugh and Jim Cramer, the "completely tortured," totally crazy, kind of vulnerable, most influential Cassandra of the meltdown of world capitalism, will laugh the loudest.
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Jim Cramer was nine years old when he found God lurking in the stock tables in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, and he has talked in tongues ever since, riptides of words--on TV and radio, online and in...

The hopes and dreams of comedians.(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Barack Obama becomes the first in a string of 44 consecutive black presidents.--Joe Mande That we, as a people, can totally eliminate animal abuse. Then later domestic violence.--Anthony Jeselnik That...

Waking up every day.(THINGS WE'RE LOOKING FORWARD TO)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... I'll admit that I feel a lot more alive since the banks started to fail. It's a blood-in-the-ears thing, the faint pulse of panic that drives every day. And it's not vindication. I can't really say I told you so, because I didn't see it coming....

Better odds.(THINGS WE'RE LOOKING FORWARD TO)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In good times or bad, craps cannot be beaten. Never forget, the dice are law, two nasty little lumps of mathematical certainty. Still the best bet in Vegas is on a craps table, the odds bet where--when the bet is...

Looser clothes.(THINGS WE'RE LOOKING FORWARD TO)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] For the past few years, a man could be forgiven for thinking that some fashion designers really had to be joking. The rib-crushing fit of certain suits, the tourniquetlike taper of so many skinny jeans, all those...

Once-in-a-lifetime investments.(THINGS WE'RE LOOKING FORWARD TO)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... It's mystifying how eager people are to invest at the top and how afraid they are to invest at the bottom. That should be exactly the reverse, of course, especially when the asset has real value. While everyone's crying about the battered world...

The resurrection of Lake Vostok.(THINGS WE'RE LOOKING FORWARD TO)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Lake Vostok is the holy grail," says John Priscu, one of America's leading Antarctica researchers. His Russian counterpart, Valery Lukin, agrees. The U.S. made the first flight to the moon, he told a reporter last...

The rays.(THINGS WE'RE LOOKING FORWARD TO)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... In the quiet of Tampa Bay's clubhouse after the Rays had lost the World Series, James Shields, who would have pitched Game Six, made a prediction: "This is the best group of guys rye ever played with," he said. "We're going to be around a long...

The bandage dress.(THINGS WE'RE LOOKING FORWARD TO)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] After living through gauchos, we deserve something like this: the bandage dress, which our friends at Marie Claire predict will finally trickle down from the runway to regular women later this spring. Originally...

More of this woman.(THINGS WE'RE LOOKING FORWARD TO)(Malin Akerman)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... Malin Akerman can do funny (The Heartbreak Kid), charming (The Brothers Solomon), and sexy (see right). But she hasn't done any of it enough. Not yet, at least. Next month the Swedish native stars (in mostly latex) in Watchmen, a comic-book...

The return of in-flight dignity.(THINGS WE'RE LOOKING FORWARD TO)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] No one likes to see suffering. It's why there aren't tours at a veal farm, why Virginia is separate from West Virginia, and on airplanes, why there's a curtain between first class and coach. But after years of having...

A new way to feel happy.(THINGS WE'RE LOOKING FORWARD TO)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... For about forty years, our approach to treating depression has been pharmaceuticals. The problem is, about 20 percent of patients--millions of people in the U.S. alone--don't respond to them. But there's an alternative on the horizon. It's...

A handy calendar of upcoming events: the next twenty-five years of pop culture, science, wallpaper, and more.(Calendar)
February 1, 2009... 2009 January/February * The first 100 days of Obama--and the last 100 days of commercials marking the transition to digital TV. April 24 * Chappelle's Show co-creator Neal Brennan's first major-studio solo attempt, a comedy...

Joe: he considered quitting the Senate before he was ever sworn in, after a devastating family tragedy. And then he was supposed to be finished back in 1987, done in by a scandal that would hardly merit mention today. Then he dropped out of the presidential race last year, having gone almost unnoticed by voters. And then--darndest thing--destiny finally came calling.
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] FIVE WEEKS AFTER the election, just as the press has started saying that the man who will soon ascend to the vice-presidency has been muzzled, or gone missing, Joe Biden sits behind the desk in his Senate office...

And now please join us in giving a warm Esquire welcome to the lovely ... Anna Friel.(A Woman We Love)(Interview)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] She breezes into an L.A. coffeehouse in a leopard top, rainbow leggings, and shiny black knee-high boots. Which is enough to momentarily stun the barista in the middle of steaming milk. But he's not gawking at Anna...

The laughing man: it's funny, the nicest guy in a political party of not-very-nice guys--Mike Huckabee--is also its most unbending cultural samurai.(Interview)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] EARLY ON IN THE 2008 presidential race, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee received the endorsement of conservative pundit Stephen Baldwin. And now, ten months later, Baldwin is reaping his reward. Baldwin is the...

A change (of clothes) we can believe in.(A style: manifesto for 2009)(Buyers guide)
February 1, 2009... WHEN PEOPLE IN MEN'S FASHION talk about change, they usually talk about little things. Fits, fabrics, finishes--you know, little things that, depending on whether you are familiar with the oeuvre of Martin Margiela, may or may not matter to you...

We Strive for Five! The Esquire customer satisfaction survey.(THIS WAY OUT)
February 1, 2009... WE HERE at Esquire aim to please. Our writers, our editors, our researchers, our art directors, our photographers, and our interns--everybody on the whole shorthanded staff--all work damned hard to make sure that when you open our magazine,...