Carousel's main character Billy Bigelow has much in common with Mad Men's Don Draper besides a fondness for alliteration. He is a cocky, beautiful, ego-driven ball of macho dynamite. The carnival barker thing also makes you realize how much of Bruce Springsteen's early style came straight off the Jersey piers. Bigelow is the kind of man who can't help but talk down to everyone, supposedly because he hates himself, but he doesn't seem to have a lot of regard for most other people either. "Emotion work" is defined as the act of putting on a front that differs from one's own actual feelings. Traditional masculinity requires nonstop emotional work, [...]

This is one of those Thursday Styles stories that people are going to make fun of on the Internet, but hold up. Truthfully we are all involved in the battle against male shininess! Quite some time ago we begged White House press dude Robert Gibbs to get his TV shininess under control. (The results have been good!) So the Times goes long to review the burgeoning market of men's anti-shininess products but we all know there is only one: "Lancome's Pure Focus T-ZONE POWDER GEL." Believe it. (The next stop in our anti-shininess crusade: getting new anti-reflective coatings on The Nation's Chris Hayes' new glasses. He [...]