• "She holds out her right arm to show me her tattoo of Marilyn Monroe. All that remains of Marilyn is a few drops of black against skin that is the color the moon possesses in the thin air of northern winters."—Stephen Marche on Megan Fox, Esquire, February 2013.

• "Her skin is lined and slightly worn and depends on light from other sources—from her eyes, from her smile, even from the hounding incandescence of television."—Tom Junod on Hillary Clinton, Esquire, February 2008.

• "I can't help but notice her skin. It's the smoothest skin I've seen outside of a Clinique ad."—A.J. Jaocbs on Rosario Dawson, Esquire, [...]

First in a series of two essays today on Louis C.K. Next: Super-Stud in Divorceland.

Let me start with a couple of stipulations:

(1) Identifying bubbles in real-time is notoriously difficult, and;

(2) I really, truly love Louis C.K. I’ve tried (and failed) on multiple occasions to see him live; I’ve watched all of his specials, including some of his weird, almost unrecognizable early appearances in Boston clubs; I’ve even, despite knowing full-well that one should never, ever do this, recounted his routines, through snorts of my own laughter, to my politely smiling friends.

Nonetheless: I’m ready to declare that we are, right now, in [...]

Spawned by a stern former Nazi Sturmabteilunger who disliked him and believed that he was someone else's son, Arnold Schwarzenegger spent years torturing his body into an exaggerated caricature. This expression of dysmorphia led him on a path to riches in America's film industry, much as dysmorphic expressions of emaciation do for women. After accumulating tens of millions of dollars, it seemed a convenient parlay of attention and cash into running the whole state in which the film industry resided, and he announced his campaign for governor of California on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

To this day, no one knows how tall he is.

The twelfth highest-grossing film in America this past week was Country Strong. In it, Goop plays Kelly Canter, a boozed-out, decrepit country star just looking for another chance. Tim McGraw tackles the role of James Canter, the long-suffering cardigan that also happens to be her husband, manager and occasional tormentor. Leighton Meester is Chiles Stanton, a sweet young thing making the leap from pageants to the music biz. Garrett Hedlund is Beau Hutton, a dreamy rehab janitor who lives to play the honky-tonks. It's the second film from Shana Feste—not a stage name—and Tobey Maguire snagged a production credit.

I saw it recently, on the smallest, dingiest screen at [...]

As reliable as March Madness or a fall fashion issue, every year the American public is rocked in its mores by several extremely high-profile displays of bad behavior on the part of our own faithfully erected idols. When one of these events occurs-say, the dramatic exposure of Janet Jackson's nipple during the most watched television event of the year, or the release of blood-curdling phone conversations with Mel Gibson-there are always two competing impulses: outrage and tolerance. Over time, as both the celebrity and the public go on about their lives (and the publicists go on about their damage control) and the full nature and context of the mishap settles [...]

If Al B. Sure, also known as the man who gave our ears the New Jack Swing pinnacle "Nite And Day" has to go on TV to find love, is there hope for any of us in this crazy world? Probably not, right? I haven't even mentioned that he's doing so on a show that presents as its "prize" the Trump-groomed reality-villain prototype Omarosa! [Via]

I had a dream last night that they did a remake of Alex Cox's classic Repo Man, starring Zac Effron and Willem Dafoe. It was horrible. But, honestly, it's a lot less implausible than you'd think. I mean, you could probably walk into a studio right now with a pitch for a "gay, interracial Star Is Born, updated for the hip hop generation" and walk out with a deal. That is The Way We Greenlight Now. Anyway, here's the trailer for the new version of Fame. Kelsey Grammer is in it! And apparently Alex Cox is almost done with Repo Chick, his "sequel" to ONE OF THE GREATEST [...]

February marked the twenty-first anniversary of the publication of a book of poems by the gifted actor Ally Sheedy. It was called Yesterday I Saw the Sun, and she was famously excoriated for it. Sheedy was then 28 years old and coming off a very bad patch, including a stint at Hazelden; she had picked up an addiction to Halcion during an ill-fated fling with Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora, and her friend Demi Moore is said to have scooped up the remains of Sheedy and posted them to rehab by way of an intervention. Terrible business, but the braying press went after her anyway. "Ally Sheedy from bad to [...]

It happens all the time in New York City. You're churning away in your new cubicle, and then, with one fervent IM from a buddy, you discover that you work with a child of the rich, famous or rich and famous. It could be almost anyone! For instance, if you toil at the AOLington HuffPost, perhaps you are sitting near some dude named Theo, who is the son of Steven Spielberg. This exchange, which did not happen, is definitely how you should handle that situation best.

SavingPrivateIMs: yo man

Theo88: Hi. Who is this?

SavingPrivateIMs: its Eddie. from the other side of the office. whats up man? how you [...]

Had I bothered to put “walk through Moscow in a tuxedo” on my list of things to do in this life, I could now safely check it off. The sidestreet in front of the theater was a static maze of Benzes and Bentleys, with no place to pull up. Arriving as I was in a regular taxi, the jam gave me a face-saving chance to get off around the corner and hoof it to the red carpet from there.

The Russian GQ had rented out the theater, a hideous 1990s edifice glowing at the sidestreet’s end, to hold its Man of the Year awards: “the unofficial start,” in the breathless [...]

This weekend's walk-about with Courtney Love in the Times was both excellent and at the same time fundamentally indistinguishable from any other long-form profile of Love written in the last twenty or so years. There is a simple and straightforward reason for this. Courtney is the Dorian Gray of the American celebrity-industrial complex. Her public face shows us exactly what we want to see, while her private face is revolting (and even aging) and seeing the two in close proximity unsettles the viewer on an almost biological level. There's no denying that Love can be personally unpleasant; a former co-worker who went on to be Courtney's assistant [...]

AKB48, the 48-girl pop group named after Tokyo's legendary nerd quarter, Akihabara, is big in Japan. Like, ridiculously huge, Justin Bieber in a Miley-Cyrus-Taylor Momsen sandwich big.

Naturally, they're looking to expand globally.

The "Tina Fey backlash" sparked by Tiger Beatdown's Sady Doyle in a recent essay about which you all had a lot to say is apparently over. Or at least that's the verdict of New York, which cites an essay in Salon for the cessation of hostilities. (Follow all that?) I think the entire discussion was a rather interesting one, bringing up as it did the uncertainty that still surrounds elements of feminism and our as yet unresolved idea of a woman's role in this modern world. That said, my own issue with Tiny Fey is of a different variety: I have a problem with the [...]