Esquire November 2013

Dayum. That Elsa Hosk is so fking bilaterally symmetrical. That makes me think she experienced low oxidative stress in the womb, meaning she is likely to be healthy, meaning she is likely to be fertile. So if I breed with her, I have a good chance of spreading my DNA. And that, my friends, is why Hosk is a woman we love. At least, so goes the argument of evolutionary psychology—perhaps the trendiest of scientific theories about humans right now. Evolutionary psychology says we are ruled by our unconscious caveman instincts. Big lips, big eyes, a small chin, and unblemished skin are all signs of youth. A low hip-to-waist ratio might mean better childbearing capacity. As for our attraction to breasts, one theory says they resemble the buttocks—the real Paleolithic…

DOUG STANHOPE SCOTT RAAB TALKS TO THE MOST FEARLESS MAN IN COMEDY ABOUT LOUIS C. K., METH, CHARITY, JERRY SEINFELD, DR. DREW, THE DESERT, AND LIES Late afternoon, the balcony of the penthouse suite at the Thompson LES hotel on Manhattan's Lower East Side. SCOTT RAAB: I thought you'd look haggard. You're not haggard. DOUG STANHOPE: I timed my meds right. SR: You want a bottle of something? DS: I got nine shots in my travel bag. You know that quart bag for your liquids? That holds ten shots of vodka. SR: Will that sustain you? DS: Yeah. SR: How old are you? DS: Forty-six. The first thing I think of when I wake up is how close I am to death. But then it gets better during the day.…

I stopped snarking about movies a few years back. No epiphany, no turning point, no defining insight, but in 2009, during an interview with Jeff Daniels, he talked about visiting a hospital and meeting wounded vets who loved Dumb and Dumber: "If it connects with people, and 25 out of 25 soldiers want to talk about it because it made them laugh? The defense rests." I more recently pondered this matter of art versus entertainment while writing a profile of Robert Redford (April), whose work as both an actor and director has long been derided and dismissed by film critics, beginning with the late Pauline Kael, who spawned hundreds of twits wasting millions of words mocking movies that don't meet aesthetic criteria wholly irrelevant to the filmmakers. Beyond a pro…

You just say Richard Pryor. You don't say stand-up comedian Richard Pryor. Or the late Richard Pryor. Just Richard Pryor. Hasn't worked in 20 years, been dead for 10, and he's still that big. So this is a review of Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World that Made Him (Algonquin, $26), a biography of Richard Pryor by brothers David and Joe Henry, who set out to make a biopic but ended up writing an addictively readable study of the path of this outsize talent who traveled the wide way through recent American history. Richard Pryor. You still know him. And you never really did. There were always two essential truths about Richard Pryor, depending on whom you listened to, even (no, especially) the man himself: He didn't take any…

A CORGI GOES TO A JOB-PLACEment agency to look for work. The man behind the desk says, "A talking dog! I'll fix you up with a job in no time." After a few minutes on the phone, he declares, "Here you go. You start at the circus on Monday." The corgi replies, "That's no good for me. I'm a plumber." ABOUT THE JOKESTER: Jaimie Alexander, the 29-year-old Texan who plays Sif, Thor's loyal sidekick, in this month's sequel, Thor: The Dark World, enjoys tackling most stunts, but she found one stunt a little unnerving: the use of her likeness to market the movie. "For Thor, there was a Slurpee cup that had my body attached to a straw. It's kind of inappropriate. You can drink out of me." So she…

We're well into the dark-spirit months, the time of year when G&T's and daiquiris and Trinidad gin swizzles yield to manhattans, sidecars, and old-fashioneds; when rum, gin, and tequila traditionally step aside in favor of whiskey, brandy, and more whiskey. Okay, the margarita is pretty much a year-round drink these days, and if G&T's fade there's always the martini, which knows no season. So really, it's only rum that gets lost in the seasonal shuffle. It doesn't have to. Rum is a shape-shifter: Whatever type of booze you prefer, there's likely to be a sugarcane-based analog, something with the same weight, texture, and intensity of flavor. That's not to say they're exactly the same (although some white rums are pretty damned difficult to tell apart from vodka), but when it…