Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2014 i Esquire

PAGE 92 TOM HARDY SAYS THINGS MOVIE STARS WOULD NEVER SAY AND DOES THINGS MOVIE STARS WOULD NEVER DO Two days in London with the odd mix of ego and low self-esteem that has become Hollywood's new hope. BY TOM JUNOD PAGE 100 CAN OUR COUNTRY STILL LEARN? Senator Elizabeth Warren wants to teach us how not to make the mistakes we seem doomed to repeat. BY CHARLES P. PIERCE PAGE 59 QUIET. THE WOMEN ARE TALKING.A brief interruption in the testosteronic proceedings: We ceded seven pages of this issue to the editors of Elle. Just handed them over and asked them to tell us what women really want men to know. Like what they're thinking when we're fighting and if it's okay to send them away for the weekend.…

NO. 09 TV IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE REST OF US For those of us who don't mind flat TVs, there's still good news: This year brought substantial across-the-board improvements in image quality, both in terms of dynamic range (the distinction between the lightest and darkest pixels) and color saturation. And unlike most technological improvements, you'll actually see the difference. —P. M. DO YOU REALLY NEED YOUR TV TO BE CURVED? WHAT ABOUT YOUR PHONE? TURNS OUT CURVES OFFER A FEW MINOR ADVANTAGES AND ONE MAJOR ONE: AESTHETICS. 08 Flat was the next big thing. In the early 2000s, we couldn't handle the slightly distorting convex glass of tube television. We needed it to be flat. A few years after that, we didn't want tube televisions at all. We wanted plasmas and…

NO. 17 ANSWERS TO POTENTIAL QUESTIONS 1. Mull-EH-fuh-CENT. 2. Yes, awful, awful title. 3. No, you're thinking of Rachel McAdams. Elizabeth Banks is in Walk of Shame. 4. The band's name is tUnE-yArDs, yes. 5. We're thinking "Tune yards," but we're not entirely sure. IF WE COULD JUST PAUSE FOR A MOMENT TO NOTE WHAT BELEAGUERED CHARACTERS ON SMART TV COMEDIES ARE ACTUALLY COMPLAINING ABOUT "I got kids and work. It's hard sometimes, but boilerplate misery—alone in the world, might as well be a maggot sucking a dead cat's face. What's the point?" "You're ex-Marine. You served overseas. My mother's in town, and that's sort of like my Afghanistan." "I've been out with so many sluts that I don't think I can go out with nice girls anymore." "I fell…

If you're good at refolding paper road maps, you're probably old enough to remember diner food. Not maniacally sourced, "reimagined" American classics, but bona fide farm-free diner food served with watery coffee in cups so thick it was like drinking out of a flowerpot. During their chrome-and-neon glory days, diners pioneered the open kitchen because speedy service required constant communication between the waitresses and the cook, which they did in a lingo all their own: "Adam and Eve on a raft" was two poached eggs on toast, a "cowboy with spurs" meant a western omelet with french fries, and "mystery in the alley" was a side of hash. Waffle House, the legendary southern restaurant chain that never closes, has been famous for turning complex menu items into short orders since…

The Smell Your body has two different types of sweat glands: apocrine (found in places like your armpits, groin, and, oddly enough, eyelids) and eccrine (everywhere else). Eccrine glands are constantly active, regulating your body temperature through the release of an inoffensive mix of water and salt that evaporates on your skin. Your apocrine glands, however, activate in response to emotional stresses, like adrenaline and sex. When you're worked up, so are they. Unfortunately, bacteria love the oily, sticky sweat apocrine glands secrete, and they break down its proteins into the acid compound at the root of bromhidrosis, or body odor. The good news is there's an enormous market dedicated to covering whatever unpleasant odor you might experience. We like [1] Axe Peace Fresh deodorant stick ($4; axepeace.com), which smells…

In February of this year, three editors from Esquire went to Detroit to assess the state of the American car five years after the great trauma—the bankruptcy and government bailout that transformed the industry and upended two of the Big Three American car companies—and just weeks before the eruption of the GM safety scandal, a problem that reflects the hangover of past management that plagued the industry for years. Our intention was to drive every American car and truck, talk to lots of people, and see what that told us about the state of the automotive industry. In three days. And the carmakers miraculously said yes. Here's what we learned: First, you can't actually drive every American car. Despite the downsizing of these companies, there are more models of cars…

She has come to remind us who we are, or at least who we once were. She is the only one warning that conditions in the financial sector are in some ways worse now than before the collapse of 2008. Her message has gained her many powerful enemies. And it has a lot of people very eager for Elizabeth Warren to run for president. SIR THOMAS MORE: WHY NOT BE A TEACHER? YOU'D BE A FINE TEACHER. PERHAPS, A GREAT ONE. RICH: AND IF I WAS WHO WOULD KNOW IT? MORE: YOU, YOUR PUPILS, YOUR FRIENDS, GOD. NOT A BAD PUBLIC, THAT … OH, AND A QUIET LIFE. —ROBERT BOLT, A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS, ACT I The best teachers are the ones who…

THE NEXT SEVERAL PAGES are about five men who seem to be anomalous right now: impassioned musicians in a time of wan covers, insipid pop songs, and Coldplay-esque indie bands who seem more interested in palliative hooks than in stirring emotion. These men sing and rap about things at stake. And they earnestly ask us to listen. Beg us, almost. Taken together, these men present the five stages of a career. Frank Turner, from the UK, is a former punk singer turned balladeer. You've probably never heard of him. Kid Cudi, at thirty and in the midst of the successful release of his third album, talks about growing up after some, uh, distractions took him away from his remarkable gift for making concept albums. He's figuring out how to be…

Lunch, Union Square Cafe, downtown Manhattan. INSIDE: 25 MEN, WOMEN, BOOZE, JOKES, TV SHOWS, MOVIES, NOTIONS, AND A HANDFUL OF BOLD IDEAS THAT DEFINE OUR TIME. OR AT LEAST THIS MONTH. SCOTT RAAB: I just got back from Ireland. CHRIS O'DOWD: Oh? Where were you? SR: Not far from Westport. CO: Oh, I love it up there. That's a great spot. Matt Molloy's pub is there. SR: We drove out to Achill. You ever go to Achill? CO: I used to go there a lot as a kid. That road out to Achill is gorgeous. It feels like it's the edge of the world. SR: I'd like to live there. CO: That's one of the nicer areas. And not far from where I'm from. I actually spend more time in…

Small Business is Humbling My Four Mistakes NO. 12 SMALL-BUSINESS MISTAKE NO. 3.5 In some ways, it's the single most important to avoid, if only for its power to screw up the rest of your life: Don't ever sign a personal guarantee for a business loan—and that includes putting up your house as collateral. If a lender insists, walk away. Trust me on this. —K. K. Here's what happens when you write about money: You think you know a little bit. Five or six years ago, the world collapsed. And there I sat with a great job and a pile of cash. So I went shopping. First, I bought a print shop in Hoboken, New Jersey—a mom-and-pop place on the main drag ("An Investment Like No Other," February 2010). Then…

A GUY IS TELLING HIS FRIEND that he is scheduled to be operated on tomorrow. "Oh, what type of operation is it?" the friend asks. "This sounds a little odd at my age, but I'm going to be circumcised." The friend, trying to be reassuring, replies, "Well, I had that done a week after I was born." The guy asks, "Did it hurt?" "Hurt? I couldn't walk for a year." ABOUT THE JOKESTER: Katie Lowes was about to become Connie Britton's personal assistant when Scandal came calling. The 31-year-old actress had done just about every other side job in Hollywood, but the Nashville and Friday Night Lights actress encouraged Lowes to go out for another round of auditions instead of working for her. It was advice well-taken: Lowes landed her…

It's been 80 years, give or take, since Italian tailor Vincenzo Attolini devised the single greatest improvement in men's clothing since the invention of pants. Motivated by the sticky heat of a Naples summer, Attolini removed sweat-inducing padding from a suit jacket and bequeathed mankind the unstructured blazer. These days, countless brands have their own take on it, and, like sex and pizza, it's kind of hard to find a bad one. A close fit in the arms and torso is key, and if you want a bold color or pattern, so much the better. Lord knows you've got options. From inside out: By CH Carolina Herrera ($850); Etro ($1,280); Bonobos ($348); Eidos Napoli ($695). DRESSING UP DRESSING DOWN A TALE OF TWO JACKETS BOTH ARE BLUE AND WHITE AND…

IT'S A TAKEOVER! ELLE IS INVADING THE PAGES OF ESQUIRE TO BRING YOU THIS ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE MODERN WOMAN WRITTEN WITH LOVE, AFFECTION & BRUTAL HONESTY BY THE MODERN WOMEN OF ELLE THE FEMALE GAZE WHAT ARE WE REALLY THINKING? I. THE RANDY COMMUTER "I'm reading my book, I'm reading my book," I chant in my head as the BART train rumbles toward San Francisco. But the truth is, all I'm doing—all I can do—is check out the chino-clad package inches from my face. I steal a glance upward to check out the man attached to this conspicuous body part. He looks like he's chewing on a worry, his jaw muscles clenching and releasing. "Oh, so serious," I think, part concerned mom, part belittling dominatrix. "Someone must have some…

TOM HARDY IS NOT A MOVIE STAR. This is not a judgment. Right now, at least, it is simply an observation, a statement of fact. Tom Hardy is an English actor, London-born, thirty-six years old. He has been the star of—the lead and titular character in—two movies made in England, Bronson and the upcoming Locke. He has costarred in three American movies, Warrior, This Means War, and Lawless, alongside actors like Joel Edgerton, Chris Pine, and Shia LaBeouf. He also has been directed by Christopher Nolan in two movies of global prominence, Inception and The Dark Knight Rises. In Inception, he is a member of Leonardo DiCaprio's supporting cast, part of an ensemble, billed beneath Joseph Gordon-Levitt and called upon to lend the proceedings a kind of amoral integrity. In…

> Let me take a moment to think about that. No … no, I have never been anywhere where people didn't know me. > The head talks to the heart and the heart talks to the feet. > I was born in a city called Três Corações, which means "three hearts," in the state of Minas Gerais. Just before I was born, we received electricity in our house. So my father said, "The electricity came when you were born, so I'm going to name you after Thomas Edison." But they took the i out, and that's how my name became Edson. > There are many athletes who have impressed me over the years. But the one who impressed me the most was my father. That's because I was looking at…

Two-button wool-and-silk suit ($3,325) and cotton shirt ($445) by Giorgio Armani; silk tie ($165) by Paul Smith Accessories; suede shoes ($350) by Mark McNairy New Amsterdam. Two-button wool suit ($2,020) and cotton shirt ($415) by Dolce & Gabbana; silk tie ($190) by Marwood; steel El Primero watch ($8,500) by Zenith. START WITH A LITTLE BIT OF STRUCTURE The first thing you're looking for is a jacket without a lot of padding or structure to trap body heat. Both of these jackets offer a little help in broadening and shaping the shoulder, but otherwise, the silhouette is all natural and supremely, defiantly comfortable. Two-button three-piece wool suit ($4,995) by Ralph Lauren Purple Label; cotton shirt ($295) by Ralph Lauren Black Label; cotton-and-silk tie ($255) and linen pocket square ($110) by Brunello…

I know the novel you're looking for. It's the thriller that also has interesting sentences. It's the one with a driving plot but fully realized characters as well, the one that flows like it was plotted by Dennis Lehane but feels like it was written by Jonathan Franzen. The high-end potboiler. The literate page-turner. It's a surprisingly rare breed even though it's so obviously the novel we all want. Fortunately, there's Bret Anthony Johnston's Remember Me Like This (Random House, $26). The most interesting books of the past couple years have been fusions of the literary and the genre: high-art science fiction and reappropriated westerns and so on. Remember Me Like This is a similar beast. It has all the features of a trashy psychological thriller, but with all the…

SEXUAL POPULARITY OF FOODSTUFFS NO. 13 DOES THAT MINT TRICK FOR ORAL SEX REALLY WORK? The mint alone is probably not going to be enough. You'll still have to brush, floss, and maybe use a tongue scraper afterward. But if you find yourself with extra mints lying around, you might want to try mentholingus (coinage: mine). It's a wholly sustainable perversion that costs just pennies a year or less if you buy in bulk and never get laid. Really, anything mentholated—mints, balms, even an unlit Kool—will probably work. "I've used Tiger Balm and ginger root," says sex instructor Madison Young before clarifying that "ginger's mostly used for anal." (As if we didn't know that.) "You take some ginger root and peel back some of the skin to create a butt…

If you order a dry martini in one of the pleasant little cocktail bars where so much modern tippling takes place, the gin in your cocktail as likely as not will be called something like "Pug" or "Devilchair" and have been imported not from England or Holland but from two ZIP codes over. Its manufacturer won't be a third-generation distiller but rather somebody who was writing computer code until two years ago. Welcome to the world of craft gins, as they're called, made by small, independently owned distilleries. (Knowing Tanqueray's Tom Nichol, who has been distilling spirits since you were a child, we suspect he'd punch you in the nuts if you told him he wasn't making a craft spirit.) In any case, there are hundreds of these things. Since…

I own four blazers. The oldest is black: bought in Chinatown, fitted for me by a Taiwanese guy named Mr. Henry who refused to change out the brass buttons. I wear it often enough. The second is corduroy, which I wear only outside. The third was custom-tailored in Bloomington, Indiana, of all places, blue and vaguely plaid. Semiretired, that one. Which brings me to the Burberry: I bought it on eBay for a mere $39 and loved it from the moment I pulled it from the crushed shipping box. I wore it to poker games, to literature classes, when getting coffee. I hung it every night and thought, It even hangs like a champ. But one afternoon, I noticed it seemed a little flappy in back and that it popped…

STEPHEN MARCHE IS GETTING FED UP WITH BEING FED UP … THANK YOU, MODERN WOMEN. ("BABY BOOM"? REALLY?) AND NOW BACK TO THE WORLD OF MEN. THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM IS BROKEN. Nobody doubts it anymore. The only remaining question is how best to describe the brokenness. Is the U. S. government a fragmented one or an outright failure? Wrecked or cracked? Is it like an old car that needs new parts and a going-over by a loving and competent mechanic, or is it like a dropped vase, to be quietly swept up and thrown away? Signs of failure can be found wherever you look: The current Congress, which has an approval rating hovering around 10 percent, is testing the country's capacity for negatives with its passing of a mere…

SIR THOMAS MORE: WHY NOT BE A TEACHER? YOU'D BE A FINE TEACHER. PERHAPS, A GREAT ONE. RICH: AND IF I WAS WHO WOULD KNOW IT? MORE: YOU, YOUR PUPILS, YOUR FRIENDS, GOD. NOT A BAD PUBLIC, THAT … OH, AND A QUIET LIFE. —ROBERT BOLT, A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS, ACT I The best teachers are the ones who remain students at heart, the ones who keep learning from their students, and from the world around them, and from their own drive to know even more about even more things, and who then are able to transmit that knowledge—and more important, the drive to know more—to their students. That's how great teachers echo through time. That's how great teachers become immortal. It is…

She really sucks at shuffleboard. This isn't shuffleboard like you'd play on the deck of the Caribbean Princess. This is bar shuffleboard—metal pucks you slide by hand down a narrow, twenty-foot, sawdust-covered bowling lane. After a couple rounds, Lake Bell is behind. And angry. "Fuuuuuck you," she groans as one of my pucks bangs into hers, sending it into the gutter. We're at Fat Cat in the West Village, a dark, underground playroom with pool, Ping-Pong, and shuffleboard—a place where I'd hoped she'd grab a beer and instead she brought her own coconut water. I also hoped she'd be wearing, well, look around this page. But Bell, thirty-five, is comfortably dressed in dark red pants, ankle-high zipped boots, and a black sweater emblazoned with a foot-tall paper clip. The look…

CORRECTIONS AND AMPLIFICATIONS ESQUIRE OCTOBER 2013–ESQUIRE APRIL 2014 APRIL 2014 >A calisthenics move recommended in our health feature, "The Best Shape of Your Life," should not have been included. The move, "high-kick march with toe touch," is not possible. An ice pack might help. MARCH 2014 >The title of the style feature "The New Rules of Denim" was misleading. It has been brought to our attention that many of the rules in "The New Rules of Denim" had been published previously in Esquire; the rule "If your jeans don't fit in the store, they're never going to fit" had itself been published in seventeen different issues, first appearing in "The New Rules for Dungarees," by Ring Lardner Jr., in October 1933. >That title, too, was incorrect. FEBRUARY 2014 >A short…