Esquire March 2014

PAGE 114 PETER DINKLAGE AND YOU Everybody everywhere seems to want a piece of him. BY MIKE SAGER PAGE 144 LIFE WITH THE MAYOR, PART 1: ROB FORD WITHOUT SHAME Despite the crack, the epic outbursts, and the general madness, Rob Ford is still the mayor of Toronto. He explains where all this is going. BY CHRIS JONES PAGE 150 LIFE WITH THE MAYOR, PART 2: RAHM EMANUEL WITHOUT FEAR Teachers, public workers, voters—even nuns are fed up with Rahm. If things are really that bad in Chicago, someone needs to tell the mayor. BY NEIL STEINBERG PAGE 164 THINGS A MAN SHOULD KNOW ABOUT COOKING The essential lessons, including a guide to the one-pot meal, the simplest way to peel garlic, and why you might never again make a…

Inside: 95 Men, Women, Drinks, Jokes, musicians, movies, biblical figures, Notions, and a Handful of Bold Ideas That Define Our Time. Or at least this month. Scott Raab talks to the actor over lunch at the Greek Kitchen, a Goldblum favorite in midtown Manhattan. Scott Raab: I like this place. JEFF GOLDBLUM: "It's perfect for us, a small family place." Isn't that what Abe Vigoda says in The Godfather? "It's perfect for us. They got an old-fashioned toilet with the chain thing. We might be able to tape the gun behind it." James Caan says, "I want somebody very good to plant that gun." SR: "I don't want my little brother coming out of there—" JG: —"with his dick in his hands." SR: It's a great movie. JG: And II…

NOS.06–11 In any well-stocked modern liquor store, you'll find a shelf near the Scotches holding an odd assortment of malt whiskies in the Scotch style, but made everywhere from Austria to Australia, India to Indiana. "World whiskies," they're called: whiskies distilled (for the most part) from 100 percent malted barley in old-fashioned pot stills, just like they make in the Scottish Highlands. That's no coincidence: The vast majority of them are from distilleries whose construction was inspired by the single-malt boom of the 1980s and 1990s. (Before that, almost all Scottish malt whisky was used in blends.) There is, however, one clutch of bottles whose roots are much deeper. At the beginning of the last century, Japan was rapidly modernizing itself, following the model of another island nation of polite…

NO. 12 OTHER IMPORTANT THINGS IN NEED OF EARNEST CRITICISM Video games • crime fiction • potato chips • soup • grocery stores • contemporary baby naming • marijuana • very, very long blog posts • back-label whiskey-origin stories • parade commentaries • burritos • college football uniforms • hockey fights • Brad Pitt's approaches to grooming • weather NO. 13 I DON'T WANT TO INVEST IN A MOVIE UNLESS I KNOW IT'S GOOD. ARE THERE RELIABLE pornography reviews? Not really. With recent cutbacks, most major media outlets have had to lay off their porn bureau entirely, so I'm afraid that the golden age of Gene Fistkel and Rogered Ebert is long gone. Which is too bad, because we've never needed it more. You see, it's easy to judge the…

A LITTLE GIRL WALKS into a pet shop and asks in a sweet lisp, "Excuthe me, mithter, do you have wittle wabbits?" Delighted, the shopkeeper asks, "Would you like a wittle white wabby or a fuwwy bwack wabby?" The girl leans forward and says, "I really don't fink my pyfon giveths a thit." ABOUT THE JOKESTER: Annet Mahendru originally set out to use what she calls her "ethnic ambiguity" in the service of the United Nations. Born to Russian and Indian parents, the 24-year-old actress, who grew up in Afghanistan, Germany, Russia, and the U. S., speaks six different languages and was enrolled in NYU's International Relations master's program before she packed it in for acting. "I wanted to be a diplomat. And now with this first big gig, I'm…

MaHB NO. 19 THESE GREAT SENTENCES "It occurred to her that they were two children playing in a camper behind a house after school let out but before their parents came home from work. Randy tasted like mayonnaise. But was it not also true that they could say to each other with their bodies, I want this part to be over, I want to move on to the next part? With their bodies there were ways to leave the Airstream, home, Texas." —from All I Have in This World, by Michael Parker, about two strangers who buy a car together They say we crucify Jesus in every generation, but Hollywood does it lots more. Film barely had begun when they started making The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ in…