But this is not a lament. I made my own bed (charged it, anyway) and, much like that requisite post-college upgrade from a secondhand futon to a brand-new mattress, I consider my credit history rather priceless. It's like a mathematical LiveJournal: a statement of my psyche (deep denial); an inventory of my twenties (job interview clothes); maybe even something of an anthropological artifact (Sleater-Kinney tickets!). Herewith, a dozen of the transactions that shaped or epitomized my decade, charted (logarithmically) into a Debt / Regret Matrix which plots their principal price tags against the emotional interest they've accumulated. So far.

Jessanne Collins has written for Salon, Radar, The New York Observer, and The Morning News.

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It might be this weird arrested development that makes me a bit romantic over the suburban chain store.

And this decade was not kind to them; the rapid expansion of shopping centers led to the perhaps-inevitable demise of chains small and large. Many still have hulking ghosts scattered around this country's byways. (My sister and I, taking a drive through Suffolk County last week: "What do you think that store was?" "Oh, I dunno. Maybe a Circuit City? Or it could just be the Home Depot that moved across the street." "I guess it's good that this year there are no liquidation sales going on." "Yeah, this year, just the car models are going away.")

In an effort to further lessen the divide between patriotism and capitalism, I present to you memories of a few stores that shuffled off the turnpikes during this decade. (B. Dalton's middlebrow book offerings won't be leaving this nation's malls until early 2010.) The stories share a lot of parallels; most collapsed under the weight of their own debts, which were racked up during pie-in-the-sky expansion efforts during a bubblicious period that many thought would never end. Never forget-and hey, Five Guys and Zara, please read this as a cautionary tale.

Circuit City, 2009. My only sentimental attachment to the electronics chain, which had a much colder façade than the friendly blue hues preferred by its rival Best Buy, was its place as my sister's first stop on our annual Black Friday trip around the local environs, which was only because it was the closest place to our parents' house that had deals on DVDs. Yet the one thing that lives on in Circuit City's zombie incarnation is its curiously stoplight-ish branding. Did no one ever think about the subtle "stop before you spend your money" messages that were being sent out there?

Fortunoff, 2009. A northeastern chain that mostly specialized in the type of housewares that could be called "nice," Fortunoff was a Long Island business that had been established in 1922; in the '90s its branding was so entrenched in the Island's culture that it was able to anchor a brand-new mall that was named after its slogan. ("The Source.") The mall's mix of outlet stores, upscale casual dining restaurants like the Cheesecake Factory, and a Jillian's probably should have been a sign that Fortunoff's premium pricing on jewelry, furniture, and wedding-registry-ready housewares would soon be out of fashion. In 2008 it was sold to the owners of Lord & Taylor, and it fell to liquidation earlier this year. Its anchor space at The Source is still empty, and the mall now claims a Dave & Buster's as one of its anchors.

Bennigan's, 2008. OK, so I'm pretty sure I haven't eaten at one since, like, high school. But you have to feel for poor Butters.

Linens & Things, 2008. A casualty of both the housing bubble and its own debts. The assets of the company went from $1.3 billion to $1 million in the space of three years-because, as in the case of Circuit City, at the end, the only thing worth a damn was the familiar brand name.

Steve & Barry's, 2009. In 2005, this Long Island-based chain opened 62 new outlets in 3.5 million square feet of freshly leased mall space, which garnered a fair amount of attention from the business press. Steve & Barry's specialized in super-cheap clothing that was more blatant than fashion-forward; it had racks of T-shirts emblazoned with odes to beer and the logos of local high schools, each of which cost less than your average Value Meal. Steve & Barry's would eventually try to upscale itself, co-branding its still-inexpensive wares with the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker, Amanda Bynes, and Stephon Marbury. (In the mall near my parents' house the racks of sub-$10 "Federal Body Inspector" tops were placed in a space formerly occupied by Nobody Beats The Wiz, another chain that came to an early demise despite its Seinfeld shout-outs.) The chain capsized under the weight of its debts in 2008; it went under before it could make its mark downtown, where it was slated to occupy the E. 4th St. space that was once the home of...

Tower Records. The most painful capsizing of all, occasioned by some completely dunderheaded corporate decisions, Big Music's brief, ruinous love affair with serving as electronics stores' loss leaders and a tanking economy for recorded music. The chain's last days were characterized by carcass-picking of cheap discs that had once been priced at $18.99 and higher, which only added insult to injury. (Especially when I heard tales of people finding things for super-cheap that I'd purchased at premium prices back when I had the money to do that sort of thing.) Tower had been something of a social space for me, even though I rarely talked to people on the trips that my friends and I would take there; I would stalk the aisles in search of music I'd only read about, band names that were trapped in my memory being unlocked after sidelong glances at divider cards.

When I went to Ireland in September, I was staying around the corner from an outpost of the store's still-existent Irish arm. The last day of my trip, I finally got there when it was open-and upon walking inside and taking my first breath, I was greeted with the uniquely Tower smell of molding plastic and record-collector folly. It almost made me burst into tears.

Maura, Maura, Maura!

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Choire Sicha: Is it ever!

Tom Scocca: Did anyone there notice that Perez Hilton is now more famous than Paris Hilton?

Choire Sicha: I'm not sure if anyone besides the publicists noted that!

Tom Scocca: But the publicists showed they'd noticed?

Choire Sicha: Well there is some anecdotal evidence, such as the post-show release from the horrible gay Canadian twins of "DSquared," in which they touted the appearance of Nicky Hilton and... Perez Hilton.

Choire Sicha: Also anecdotally? He was everywhere... and Paris Hilton was in, like, Stuttgart and Venice? She was actually busy being sued for canceling appearances. Her big fashion week headline? "HILTON FACES CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT OVER ALLEGED EUROPE NO-SHOW."

Tom Scocca: We spend all our time second-guessing publications' output. Time to second-guess the input, isn't it? Shadow Assignment Editors! WHY ALL OF YOU NO HAVE?

Choire Sicha: That is a good point. They were eager, historically, to cover Paris, but they are exceedingly less eager to cover Perez. In part, I think because he has a platform via which to castigate, undermine and rebut? I think publications dislike both Hiltons equally. But they were never afraid of Paris, because she had no editorial product of her own.

Tom Scocca: "Both Hiltons," you say. Apologize to Nicky!

Choire Sicha: Oh I would never. Although! Hilton mania reached such a fever pitch not long ago that I was conscripted to actually write a Nicky Hilton potential cover story for a large New York-based magazine. (One that fortunately never came to... fruition.) And by "not long" I believe I mean 2005 or 2006. Even I, as much as I love the celebrity industrial complex, found this a bit suspect.

Tom Scocca: Possibly Nicky is the Interesting Hilton. At least, there's still a job opening for that slot. But: Perez Hilton is a bigger name that Paris Hilton. Am I the only person who is freaked out by this?

Choire Sicha: I have a metric for you! Paris Hilton on Twitter: 631K followers. Perez Hilton on Twitter: nearly 1.5 million followers.

Tom Scocca: It is like when George W.S. Trow wrote about how contestants on Family Feud were trying to guess what the survey participants had guessed that the average height of an American woman was. Perez Hilton has derived greater fame from Paris Hilton than Paris Hilton had herself derived from being famous for famousness' sake.

Choire Sicha: That is accurate, I think. He leeched it out of her in a really fantastic way! And often he did it by going where she went, and doing what she did... except not by revealing his chest and being what a delusional teen boy would think of as "being sexy." Somehow he didn't need to! That credit goes to his editorial product. Unfortunately, Paris Hilton's editorial product is a failing, disastrous MTV reality show.

Tom Scocca: I only have about 87 GB of open memory here, and that's not enough to hold all the scare quotes that need to go around the word "'["'(reality)'"]'" in that sentence.

Choire Sicha: Well sure. Here is another interesting bit of fact! Perez Hilton is having a very bad income week.

Tom Scocca: Why is that?

Choire Sicha: I do not know why? It may be just the general ebb and flow. But he is only receiving $28,000 worth of ad income this week. [UPDATE: According to the wonderful honcho of BlogAds, there were also some takeover sales this week, though in checking Perez's site I didn't see them. So $28,000 sounds like Perez's floor income. As in, that is basically what he found in quarters on the floor.] Often he rakes in upward of $50,000 a week. Math will tell you that that is $2.6 million a year. So he has only sold small ads this week; most weeks he has also sold ads up top, for $25,000 a week.

Tom Scocca: So what does this combination of fact and cultural observation give us? Who are the advertisers?
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Choire Sicha: Well, the advertisers this time of year, throughout the 4th quarter on the web, are typically entertainment products. Though he also often does well with music products, the end of the year always has an upsurge in movie and TV marketing.

Tom Scocca: What does "product" mean in this context?

Choire Sicha: Oh, you know, "Where the Wild Things Are" or "GI Joe," any kind of product.

Tom Scocca: (This "["{"con/text"}"]".)

Tom Scocca: I'm sort of surprised the chat program didn't turn some of that into emoticons.

Choire Sicha: There are many kinds of products! There is the Perez Hilton Music Tour. Which actually sounds kind of great? Says MTV: "Last-minute surprise act Little Boots hit the stage sans her band mates (they were stuck across town) and performed solo with only a piano to accompany her. She thanked Hilton with a run through a haunting cover of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill"... Self-proclaimed "filthy party band" Semi Precious Weapons killed it. "This is rock and roll – pull your f—ing tits out!" beckoned frontman Justin Tranter...""

Tom Scocca: YouTube.

Choire Sicha: Quite so.

Tom Scocca: So where are Perez's magazine covers?

Choire Sicha: Hmm. On the cover of what magazine would he move newsstand?

Tom Scocca: None! He is repulsive. Yet he is only the elaboration of the logic that put Paris Hilton on the covers.

Choire Sicha: Oh sure, except he doesn't have boobs.

Choire Sicha: Hmm, let me correct that.

Tom Scocca: Yes.

Choire Sicha: Well.

Choire Sicha: Less said the better.

Choire Sicha: I actually don't think Paris Hilton moved magazines either, besides perhaps Us Weekly, for a brief period. I wish Janice Min still worked in the industry right now, she could explain all of this in two sentences.

Tom Scocca: People don't like celebrities. It's more about people feeling compelled to honor the idea of celebrity.

Choire Sicha: But people also actively dislike celebrities. And where Perez succeeded is in being outrageously dislikeable! I think that is his secret.

Tom Scocca: That seems correct. It was a great crossover move to pit himself against whatsername, Carrie Pre-Op, Miss Culture-Wars Martyr of 2008. Or was it 2009?

Choire Sicha: Yes!

Tom Scocca: An incident in which the most substantive person involved was Donald Trump.

Choire Sicha: Yeeessss. That was wonderful for him. Also a great "news" "peg" for publications. Unfortunately for Perez, he will always have the sort of editorial product that announces that Jaclyn Smith is offing herself in Bulrgaria or something. Honduras. Whatever.

Tom Scocca: I don't even know what incident you're talking about.

Choire Sicha: Exactly! How would you! But every tween in Norte Americana does. Amusingly,this involved a bad reading of a Spanish language newspaper.

Tom Scocca: Death is the obstacle on the way to the perfect celebrity-news future. We are about 20 minutes away from being able to gossip about completely computer-generated avatars, which can do almost everything that our current celebrities can do, except for dying awkwardly.

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I loved your decision to put Gwen Stefani on the July cover, and I really enjoyed reading Aaron Gell's article about her, "Underneath It All." She is an accomplished and multitalented woman, taking on both the music and fashion industries and becoming an icon in the process. I appreciated her delving deep into the internal struggle she faces while attempting to successfully balance a home and work life. I commend her for her honesty and the bravery it took to do an interview during such a trying time in her life.
Lauren, Highland Park, IL (Elle, September '09)

Did you guys put Gwen Stefani on the cover? I'm like, "Is that her?" I asked my friend Denise and she's like, "I don't know." I'm like, "Denise!"
Karen L., via e-mail




The biggest winner
I watch "The Biggest Loser" every week and love seeing Jillian help people change their lives. Now I can benefit from her expertise in the magazine, too. It doesn't get any better than this!
Jessica Zausch, Menomonee Falls, WI (Self, September '09)

I've been lucky enough to experience a lot of great moments in my life-graduating college, getting married, giving birth-but nothing compares to the times I've spent reading you. Nothing. No-thing. Nuuuuh-thinggg. Are you listening, you old dummy? You old dumb bitch? Dumbitch. Seriously, though-fucking look at me! Do you even have eyes?! Oh you fucking slut. Fuck. I'm a fucking wreck. And now I'm fucking crying! Goddamnit, fuck. I love you. I love you, you old fucking bitch. You slutty old horrible whore, you're my best fucking friend. Come here. Come the fuck here!
Wendy S., Chattanooga, TN

Step it up!
I read in SELF that a daily exercise break is good for productivity, so I used a pedometer to measure out a 1.2-mile route around our five office floors. By sending an email to my coworkers, I gathered up 30 walkers to complete the route three times a week. What a great morale booster and fun way to spend time with my staff! Thank you for the great idea and helping us stay fit.
Claudia Hoffman, Miami (Self, September '09)

I read in SELF that the strongest noose is made of silk. But that was in an article from last year, so here's what I'm wondering: Does that still "hold up" today?
Donna Doogan, Duluth
From the editors: Yup!

I just want to say that I love Marie Claire for its sharp-witted sarcasm-when I read your magazine, it talks back to me, unlike all of those other, brainless fashion mags. Thanks for the sassiness!
Rachel Stiles, Waukegan, IL (Marie Claire, September '09)

Sometimes I pick up your magazine and hold it against my head like a telephone. "Hello, who's this? Oh, hi! How are you? You saw who at the store?" We can chat for hours. Chit chat, chit chat, chit chat. "What are you doing later? Oh that sounds fun. Me? I'm not sure." It's really nice!
Elise, Tampa

Dangerous dieting
"The Scary New Skinny" really hit home for me. I used to cleanse and fast constantly because I believed I was doing something healthy. No one questioned my decision to cut dairy, meat, sugar and wheat from my diet, or to live off juices, watermelon and teas; it was all for seemingly healthy reasons. After about five years of this, I finally realized these behaviors were not healthy and that I had an eating disorder. I sought treatment, and I never want to go down that road again.
Jenna M.
Lethbridge, Alberta (Self, September '09)

For about 45 years I used to kill people constantly-literally murdering them by shooting bullets through their brains and then cutting off their heads with a knife. And even though everyone I killed was either super annoying or weird (you can ask my friends, and they'd all be like "yes they were!"), one day-this morning, actually-I saw my own reflection in my blood-smeared knife, and I looked so freaky I didn't recognize myself. I'm hanging my head low today, that's for sure.
Candace Staggerfield, Northampton, MA

Edith Zimmerman is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn.

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We invaded Iraq anyway; but that didn't stop the Francophobia. In the ensuing 2004 election, when a Bush adviser told the New York Times that John Kerry "looks French," other media ran with it, shamefully giving it legs and maybe even costing the "surprisingly lifelike" John Kerry an election. James Taranto, of The Wall Street Journal, pounded away on this French connection throughout the election. Limbaugh of course also locked on, referring to Kerry as "French-looking" and "Jean Cheri" Tom DeLay (R-HELL) started speeches saying, "Good afternoon, or, as John Kerry might say, Bonjour." Commerce Secretary Don Evans called Kerry a "fellow of a different political stripe who looks French." There were many more, including Sun Times writer Mark Steyn calling Kerry "America's first French president."

The height of this stupidity came in the form of food wars. In March 2003, all references to French fries and French toast on the menus of the House of Representatives restaurants were removed and replaced with "freedom." Representatives Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) said at the time, "This action today is a small but symbolic effort to show the strong displeasure many on Capitol Hill have with our so-called ally, France." (Ney would later make a less small effort by taking money from unquestionable ally Jack Abramoff.) The House menu did not revert to offering "French" fries and toast until 2006.

Fudruckers fine dining and the less-fine eating establishment called The United States Air Force both removed "French" as a descriptor of their fries and toast. There were, and are, many websites.

"Iraq first, France next!" and "First Iraq, then Chirac!" were a couple bumper stickers available to express one's opinion on the subject.

Less notable historical documents of the period that played on anti-France sentiment were films such as SWAT, which featured a murderous French gangster as the main bad guy, and Ocean's Twelve and Catwoman, both of which also featured French baddies.

This Francophobia went so far that French's mustard, concerned about flagging sales, was forced to put out an official statement clarifying that its brand came from a family name, not, yuck, from France.

The point is that none of these ridiculous France references would have been possible if a large segment of America was not somehow convinced that the French were indeed goons and against our interests. The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 2004 noted of the American public's sentiment: "The favorable image of France nose-dived from 79% in February 2002 to 59% in February 2003, and all the way down to 34% in March of that same year..."

Cut to today, five years on, and Hardee's, one of the nation's largest, most popular purveys of food-like substances, has launched its latest contribution to American obesity: The French Dip.

The very demographic that often eats at Hardee's is likely very similar to the lobotomized demographic that fed on, and fueled, the Francophobia of a half decade ago.

Hardee's is even running ads featuring French maids and French kissing with the tagline "It's better when it's French." There is even a Hardee's "French Me" website. And a campaign.

A Hardee's street team will "French-ify Hardee's Fans in 11 US cities:" From the (just shocking) press release [all very sic]:

"What do maids, toast, kisses and burgers all have in common? They're all better when they're French," said Brad Haley, Hardee's Executive Vice President of Marketing... "We Mesdemoiselles cannot wait to pull on our stockings and get a little dirty," said Isabelle, Hardee's French Maid Captain. "Zere are hungry messieurs all over zee country and we are going to French zem all with Hardee's new crème de la crème of burgers...the French Dip Thickburger!"

Nothing at a massive national chain like Hardee's happens because a couple guys in a room decide "what the hell." There are market surveys and testing and consumer research and branding, all looking for the new product sweet spot. That means that some giant New York firm put on their hazmat suits and went out to The People and tested names like "The Man Monster," "Au Jus Delight", "The Hamminator," and "The French Dip," and that these results pointed to a market that most favored "French Dip." This means that just five-odd years after people were whipped into a froth enough to support a move by their elected officials to rename the French fry and shun a presidential candidate over even the suggestion he might "look French," they are willing to pay $4 for a bunch of heated meatish matter on a bleached-white bun named a French Dip.

Jenna Petroff, a very nice public relations manager for Hardee's Food Systems, Inc. filled me in on the French Dip: "We didn't have any concern about anti-French sentiment before and we haven't seen any responses now that the ad campaign has launched to indicate otherwise, In fact, our street team, the French Femmes (four beautiful French Maids on segways) are now in their second month of touring various markets throughout the Midwest and Southeast. They've been very well received, attending sporting events, concerts and other public venues, passing out French Dip Thickburger coupons and taking pics with their fans. You can see more on the tour at www.frenchdiptour.com."

So assuming a PR rep would never lie to me, this means that Hardee's reps, less than six years after a Las Vegas talk radio station held an anti-France public crushing of French products and a Pennsylvania rep and 40-plus co-sponsors introduced House Resolution 119, prohibiting state-sponsored liquor stores from buying French wine, and Las Vegas' Paris (!) hotel and casino removed all its French flags, Hardee's said: "Yeah, French! That's a great idea!"

In a follow up, Jenna told me that, while the company doesn't release numbers, it is "very pleased" with French Dip sales so far.

And in the event she is covering something up (which I doubt), and Hardee's worried themselves silly about how "French" would be received, going so far as to run $10 million worth of market tests, so what? The ultimate result is the same and it's that the thing exists at all and is being widely purchased.

And for the current hullabaloo, that's a good thing. A look at the current health care fearmongering and misinformation campaign reveals a lot of the same players. For (perennial) example, there is Bill O'Reilly. During the anti-France thing, O'Reilly called for a "boycott of France," which, besides not making any sense as one cannot boycott a geographic entity, included bumper stickers and regular O'Reilly segments lying about how much economic damage his viewers were doing. He fanned flames of what was genuine nationwide hatred.

It wasn't until 2007 that the pundit lifted his boycott; though his "boycott France" bumper stickers remained available because "you never know, we may have to re-impose it." Surprise then that Bill is now on about "death panels" and generally encouraging the loons that are turning town halls into gun shows and circuses.

Mr. DeLay, he of the "Bonjour" slur, is fanning the white-hot LCD-flames of the current outrage by making up fairy tales about "quadriplegics on gurneys" being "dumped on the floor in front of my podium."

And how about The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto? Oh here he is: "...the country's culture of freedom [is] deep-seated enough, to thwart any authoritarian impulses Obama and his men may have." (Also, James seems to not have given up on the French thing even though the rest of America has; on Aug. 19 he wrote "...John Kerry, the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam.")

So America has again shown itself to be a toadying zombie mob with a terrible memory. We quite simply cannot remember what we loved or hated ten minutes ago. Some have worried of late about how the current town-hall-attending anti-socialism "water-the-tree" lunatic fringe is boiling up to "do something." But recent experience, in this case, most likely does indicate future performance. That is to say, it all ads up to cable news theatre and a surplus of embarrassing bumper stickers. Five years from now, the hot Christmas toy will be the new Socialism Elmo. Today's manufactured "socialism" scare is yesterday's anti-France zealotry. And the next outrage is anyone's guess. But we can be sure it will have an expiration date.

By the way, the French Dip thing is delicious.

Previously: The Last of the Hot Summer Town Halls: How We've All Been Fooled by the Health Care Debate

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In a Q&A discussion that followed the film with Pete Fornatale, author of Back to the Garden, a confrontation between the author and a member of the audience erupted as to whether Woodstock was a political event. The movie-goer, who has probably spent a long time intellectualizing "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," gave a long winded articulation that Woodstock represented a kind of "instinctual revolution" against the political drift of the country carried out through expression and sensual indulgence.

Fornatale was having none of it. Citing the incident where Pete Townsend cracked the activist Abbie Hoffman over the back with his Gibson SG for giving an impromptu address from the stage, he argued that Woodstock, if anything, was an attempt at something pure and free from the corruption that comes from an association with venal old politics.

Another aging hippie in the crowd waxed nostalgic about Woodstock being the first time that he felt he didn't belong to a subversive subculture but was, rather, a part of the new cultural paradigm that was growing out of the 60's.

This screening, it turns out, was likely the only free thing he has attended since Woodstock.

I was left wondering if these men had seen the same movie I had. The film doesn't depict Woodstock as some defining moment of history-but rather as the manic, disorganized freakshow that it was, where the activists organize, the business men haggle, the users use, and the drag queens pack heat. Yet somehow, and the film captures this beautifully, the confluence of all these people on that farm at that time produced a party like no other, featuring some of the most legendary musicians of all time.

Thankfully Mr. Fornatale had to catch a flight about 15 minutes into the Q&A, cutting it short before the subject became overwrought-which, on the fortieth anniversary of the Woodstock Music & Arts Festival, is by far the greatest threat to the legacy of a show at which, despite mud, rain and a shortage of porta-loos, 500,000 people managed to have the time of their lives.

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Choire Sicha: You know what I'm going to ask you, right?

Tom Scocca: Are you going to ask me why I get Glamour magazine?

Choire Sicha: Okay yes that!

Tom Scocca: According to the sheet of paper enclosed with a previous copy, I am getting Glamour magazine to make up for the cancellation of my Domino subscription. This is a fine explanation except for the fact that I never had a subscription to Domino.

Choire Sicha: What's that, you ask? What is Domino editor Deborah Needleman up to? "HomeGoods is making it easy and fun to discover your home design personality with the newly launched HomeGoods StyleScope. Created by founding editor-in-chief of Domino Magazine, Deborah Needleman, this unique personalized look into individual style provides users with a home decor style type and helpful, easy to follow design tips."

Tom Scocca: Tip No. 1: eliminate clutter. Such as inexplicable stray magazines.

Choire Sicha: That is some good advice. So. Your substitute subscription comes, a substitute for a magazine you never subscribed to.

Tom Scocca: And at an address that not even my college alumni magazine has found yet. I was wondering if someone had gotten me a prank subscription to Domino, but that's not the Conde title someone would get me as a prank.

Choire Sicha: Cookie would be, of course. (I've considered it!)

Tom Scocca: I know you have, you swine. That's not funny. So, gosh, this thing REEKS.

Choire Sicha: Of lady-cologne?

Tom Scocca: Quite. Oh, wait, isn't September the issue that's supposed to be ostentatiously huge?

Choire Sicha: It is! For instance, my September Vanity Fair came yesterday, and it was not that small actually.

Tom Scocca: I did not realize this was the September issue till I looked at the spine. It is 296 pages. And it is very confusing. I brought this up in the first place because I wanted to talk about an article in it. But the article is not in the table of contents! Not on the first table of pre-contents, the "Cover Reads," in which the cover lines get page numbers appended to them ("5 DINNERS ABSOLUTELY ANYONE CAN COOK page 279"; "25 NAKED TRUTHS ABOUT GUYS' BODIES page 264 [don't miss the body map on page 267!]").

Tom Scocca: Not on the first page of the actual contents pages: "268 Finally! Money advice just for young women." Not on the second page of contents: "258 DIANE KRUGER SHOWS OFF FALL'S CHICEST CONFIDENCE CLOTHES."

Choire Sicha: Oooh, "Confidence Clothes"! They invented something

Tom Scocca: I always get Diane and Barbara Kruger mixed up.

Choire Sicha: Diane Kruger is the poor man's Heidi Klum.

Tom Scocca: Who is the rich man's Heidi Klum?

Choire Sicha: Well it used to be Milla Jovovich but not for some time.

Tom Scocca: Anyway, finally, on the second page of the Editor's Note (which is actually an Editor's Listicle and is printed eye-ache-inducingly out of register), down at the very bottom inside corner, inside sideways red brackets, there is a little set of contributors' pictures, including the one I was looking for!

Tom Scocca: "BEN AFFLECK The star interviewed Nicholas Kristof and wife Sheryl WuDunn about their new book on women's rights worldwide (page 211). Says Affleck, 'I really wanted to be a part of this–it's important.'"

Choire Sicha: WHAT.

Tom Scocca: We could have an all-day seminar on the use here of the phrase "wife Sheryl WuDunn."

Choire Sicha: You mean as opposed to "Pulitzer Prize-winning Goldman Sachs advisor"?

Tom Scocca: Well, she did share the Pulitzer with husband Nicholas Kristof.

Choire Sicha: It all starts to sound better if you replace "wife" with "breadwinner." Though you know, she was only a VP.

Tom Scocca: Still, that Christmas bonus would buy a lot of Cambodian child prostitutes out of bondage.

Choire Sicha: Well Cambodian child prostitutes are cheap.

Tom Scocca: [Leaves punchline lying on table, untouched, because thinking about serious women's issues while contemplating Glamour's handling of same makes that particular strain of parody and irony seem inadequate and distasteful.]

Choire Sicha: [Sits quietly for a while.]

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But it isn't exactly true that he's a turn-off. All of Max's varied activities and productions-the convoluted maze of ways by which he's gotten his name out there-are directly tied to his sexual prowess. The New York Press wrote that he is "that boy at the party who you really resent because you either want to be him or fuck him." A blog called The INQUEERY cooed that he is "the type of guy that makes you want to try any drug he hands you, or the type of guy that will piss you off at one point just so you two can have amazing make up sex." Interview magazine did a brief Q&A, accompanied by a smoldering black and white photo of Max in a leather jacket with no shirt underneath. He's become the wet dream of the Brooklyn gay art scene, in which getting known is inextricably linked to getting laid. He needs more fodder for his zine, after all.

His "zine" is Scorcher, a compendium of his autobiographical porn stories. He also writes a blog, This Is Fag City, and a monthly horoscope column under a pseudonym, for "a free New York publication" whose name he won't reveal. He is also a performance artist, a singer, a songwriter and an accompanist. His go-go-dancing work takes place at QxBxRx (it stands for Queers, Beers, and Rears, of course), a monthly queer punk party in a crowded basement on the Lower East Side. But that doesn't stop him from playing a bit part on a Logo show with the Hells Kitchen gays or hanging with the poets.

Max sees it all as part of the same scene. He calls it the "New Gay Underground," and he once wrote: "There is a real sense of gay art (music, theater, writing, performance, visual, talking, witchcraft) being made right now that is grappling with similar ideas... I generally feel not talented enough to be part of it."

Last Saturday, at 11 a.m. in his Bushwick apartment, he just seemed tired. It was raining lightly. He drank coffee and coconut juice and took aspirin; he had a hangover. He paced around the kitchen in a faded t-shirt and tight black pants. He's tall and fair, with a mess of curly, dirty blond hair. When he is calm and charming, his features are regular and his voice is deep and mellifluous. His friends had said they'd be up for brunch and he was worried about having something to do to entertain me.

When Max was in college he swore he'd never go to Williamsburg. But when he came to New York in 2006, you either went there or to Harlem. So there he went. He's been in the same apartment, over a live poultry store near the Montrose L stop, for three years. Roommates have come and gone-he currently lives with Patrick, a graphic artist and self-described witch, and his best friend, Danielle-but he is here to stay. After all, where else would Max Steele make sense? Where else could he go? "Bed Stuy?"

We talked in his big, airy bedroom while the rain fell outside. We sat in chairs arranged side by side, like on a talk show. There's a large picture of himself on the door. His sheets are covered in bright Day-Glo squiggles and he has punk band posters and pages from magazines pinned to his wall. He moved around a lot, folding clothes, adjusting the windows, changing the record on the turntable, returning his friends' GChat messages. I looked over his shoulder and saw that my Facebook profile was open on his computer.

We left his apartment-still raining-and walked to Max's friend Tommy Pico's a couple of blocks away. He asked, as if we could now finally speak frankly, why I was writing about him. I said I was interested in artists our age, their role models and the career paths they foresaw. He didn't reply.

In the living room of the long, narrow railroad apartment, a few people were putting together copies of the new issue of Birdsong, the journal Tommy edits. He was sewing the books together; another boy was stamping "birdsong 7" on the covers, letter by letter. It was painstaking, tedious work, probably not helped by the pot, but they had to get it done for a big reading the next day.

Max and I took the J train to the New Museum, where there was work by artists under 33 and a great many zines on display. Max giggled at Ryan Trecartin's videos and was pleased but not overly impressed by the rest. He seemed relieved; the work of successful people his own age sometimes makes him sad. "I thought maybe I would be blown away by everyone who was really young, but there was nothing where I was like, God, I wish I'd thought of that."

We went back to his place and napped, Max on his bed, me on the futon in the living room, under a poster for the William Klein film Qui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo? At a table, his roommate Patrick was cutting out hundreds of tiny images of beautiful people from what was obviously work by his boss, a famous photographer. Max woke up, and I opened my eyes to find that he'd changed into a purple t-shirt with big purple polka dots. He served us tea.

Then we walked again to Tommy Pico's, and everything started happening much more quickly. We walked to Greenpoint, to the apartment of Jess Paps, the frontwoman of a band called PAPS. It was filled with Max's fellow Sarah Lawrence alums-lesbians of all shapes and sizes, including one who was just boyish enough to be pretty, and a boy named Max Whitney, who was known while they were both at college as Pretty Max, while Max Steele was called, simply, Max.

Max's crew, overwhelmed by specters of the past, took refuge in Jess' bedroom in the back. I had my own bottle of red wine and briefly lost track of time. There was a Hole sing-a-long, to a song released in 1994 ("We look the same!/And talk the same!/And even fuck the same!").

And then Gio Black Peter arrived, a small, skinny twenty-something with big lips, bedroom eyes, and some acne scars. Gio played the cute boyfriend in last year's Bruce LaBruce film, Otto; or, Up With Dead People. He draws virtuosic pictures of boys with big penises and performs his raucous dance music in his underwear. He's one of Max's favorite artists, and they're collaborating soon. Gio spoke with an accent not quite British, French or Spanish.

Gio was drunk when he came but made a valiant dent in a six-pack of PBR. Also he finished my red wine. He talked about sex with trannies and scrolled through his cell phone contacts. Two entries were "buttmagnet" and "rape." He talked about his boyfriend of four years, who lives in London and had taught him the word "badgered" earlier in the day. (Gio's boyfriend had said, "You're badgering me" and hung up.)

Then we were in a cab. We arrived at the corner of Ludlow and Rivington ("The far side... like the comic strip with the cows that talk," Gio told the driver) and then we were on the roof. Boys milled around in the drizzle, plotting the rest of their nights. One named Scott, with close-cropped blond hair, came on to a guy by saying, "Isn't your dick as big as this terrace?"

I found Max. He took a shot of triple sec and then fell down the stairs from the roof to the sixth floor. His voice had wilted in the boozy haze, and he would bug out his eyes and scream "I KNOWWWWWWWW" whenever anyone said anything resembling a fact.

Gio didn't know I was writing about Max and when he saw my recorder, he shoved me, yelled "I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS," and grabbed my pen and threw it off the roof. A fat boy silently threw up in the corner.

Then we got in a cab.

Max regularly says things like "I'm not a creative person" and "I don't think I have an original bone in my body." He is entirely comfortable dancing in his underwear, but gets scared when he has to read his work to people who aren't his friends. He shies away from any aspiration to become a TV star or even Justin Bond. Instead, he wants to be like the Miranda July of a decade ago, when she was in her early twenties and doing small, weird performance pieces. He dislikes that she was "discovered." Yet everything he does-the tireless performing, the zines dropped at gay bars and punk clubs all over the city, the relentless self-exposure-leads you to believe that Max Steele wants, needs, to be discovered.

After all, he was born in L.A. His parents were both actors. One of the zombies in the Thriller video was at Max's bris. His mother starred in John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13. Her stage name at the time was Laurie Zimmer, but after Assault bombed in the U.S., she changed it to Laura Fanning before suddenly abandoning acting entirely. A documentary called Do You Remember Laurie Zimmer? has appeared on German television, but his mother doesn't want to see it.

When he sent her a notice about a show of his, some sign that he was making it, she told him, "I hope you enjoy it. I didn't enjoy it."

We made it to Sugarland, the Williamsburg tourist stop for Manhattan homos looking for a Brooklyn night out. Max worked here when it opened in the fall of 2007, walking around in his underwear and selling cheap shots. None of the customers realized that the boys got to keep all the money, and with three or four dollars coming in per shot, he would leave with his briefs stuffed with cash.

The club was dark and sweaty and the boys were packed tightly on the dance floor. Others watched from a balcony. Someone crashed into his friend near the bar and they both tumbled to the ground. Max found someone he knew, a boy named Justin with dark hair swept severely across his forehead, and began making out with him. Justin smirked; Max had clearly pulled this stunt before. Gio had taken off his shirt in one fluid motion as he entered, and told me that he would show me how to hit on guys. (The secret is to talk to them.)

Max stumbled over to me. "Can you cheat on your boyfriend?" he asked me. I demurred and he said, "Good on you, good on you." Earlier in the day, Max had said that he's not in any rush to get married, "but I hope at some point I'll pair up with someone and have a lasting monogamous relationship... well, maybe not monogamous," he said, laughing, "but a family of my own, a partner."

We got in a cab again.

Gio was straddling Max in the back seat while they made out. We went to Beauty Bar, in South Williamsburg. It was 2:30 in the morning.

Gio and Max made out at the bar. A bunch of straight hipsters stared. One guy behind me said to another, "I just want to finger a girl and go to sleep."

Gio and Max were winding down, and Max said to me, "I think I'm going to go home with Gio. Do you want to sleep on his couch?" I was tired. He said, for the hundredth time that evening, "Please don't write mean things about me." I left the bar and got in a cab. It was 3:30 in the morning, and if Max Steele wasn't taking me home, well, my night was over.

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