“PLAYBOY Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi was given sexy lapdances by women dressed as NUNS at his infamous ‘bunga bunga’ parties, it is claimed.”

I do not have the rights to reproduce this stunning, amazing photo of one Katie Price (formerly known as “Jordan,” she is a model, novelist, UK reality star and, uh, “footballer enthusiast”) wearing a swimsuit emblazoned with the cover of her own magazine about herself whilst holding that magazine in one hand whilst standing before a backdrop splattered in covers of that same magazine. My point is: ANDY WARHOL WOULD DIE. If he hadn’t, you know, unfairly beaten us all to the grave. The reviews of the magazine are in from The Sun: “It’s glossy and full of shite.” (It also contains recipes however: “Cauliflower cheese: I buy it readymade but stick it in a dish then put it in the oven to warm through.” It also costs £3.99. And it’s not even a Kindle Single!)

I totally missed this bit of thinking from the other day by open source enthusiast Douglas Rushkoff. He’s living in the Singularity already, so he can say that “on a very fundamental level, we have pretty much everything we need” — and we’re just distributing it wrong, and “we don’t have enough ways for people to work and prove that they deserve this stuff.” So why do we all want jobs, he wants to know! Why are we all yapping about unemployment? On… a certain level, this is technically true! Even as a world-wide community, we probably have enough “things” (rice, couches, water, fabric) for everyone. Rushkoff seems a little baffled that we’re just not earning/sharing correctly. Because maybe he has never met people.

But the best part is this:

Jobs, as such, are a relatively new concept. People may have always worked, but until the advent of the corporation in the early Renaissance, most people just worked for themselves. They made shoes, plucked chickens, or created value in some way for other people, who then traded or paid for those goods and services. By the late Middle Ages, most of Europe was thriving under this arrangement.

Thriving! Most! Setting aside historical issues of “land-owning,” which still are a central organizing force in who “has” and who doesn’t have, that’s pretty cheap and easy to define your thoughts to “Europe.” Still, while there are at least 850 million people living there now, there were maybe 50 million people in all of Europe in 1450 — and that includes Russia, Sweden and all of 3 million people in the British Isles. (Current population of the British Isles: 67 million.) Systems don’t expand and contract stably to population sizes — which brings us back to land. (Ask Stalin!)

But yes, the gloried late Middle Ages! Plucking chickens! Because the Crusades had recently ended. And the Mongols had been at war from Korea to Vietnam all the way to Poland and Baghdad for 200 years. Oh and at least 1/3rd — maybe a full half — of Europe’s population had just dropped dead. That would be an amazing economic boom for our times, totally promoting class fluidity and abundance, if half the population totally died! Anyone someone should totally try that theory out for a TED Talk.

Yes, sure. The central point is sort of correct? No one wants dumb jobs. No one should have dumb jobs! But there’s just no other way to squeeze $8 an hour out of the people who hold the money and the land. (Although, ask Stalin about that too.)

“Wrapping cigarettes in plain packaging and banning the sale of colourful, branded packs could help to reduce tobacco consumption among smokers, especially young women who smoke, a study has found.”

I know, I said we were doing Fear of Flying. I said! But, I’m gonna level with you, I figured it would wind up in an Unpleasant Internet Scuffle, because Erica Jong is more likely to get squiffy with me than Jackie Collins. She just is! And I’m a little gun-shy after the MacGyver Rage Incident. Also, whenever I think about Fear of Flying, I think about her husband always leaving skid marks in his underwear (or was it on the sheets? I think it was on her sheets), and, ew.

NOT THAT THERE ISN’T LOTS OF EW TO GO AROUND IN HOLLYWOOD WIVES, TOO. Let’s get to it!

I first read Hollywood Wives when I was eight years old, because it was at my grandmother’s house. Not the nurturing-cooking-earth-mother grandmother. The chain-smoking-vodka-swilling-bigamously-married grandmother with trashier books. She also rented The Silence of the Lambs for my little brother and I when we were twelve and eight. My parents were not super-stoked, even though we were pretty much “what’s a woman-suit? Is it like a clown suit?” And now I write a column about Classic Trash. Draw your own conclusions.

My trash expectations for Hollywood Wives were pretty high on reread, due to crystal-clear (possibly false) memories of four scenes from 21 years ago.

Remembered Scene the First: Some movie star and his precariously-held-together wife run into each other at their house following an estrangement. She’s “let herself go,” which means she’s put on about four pounds, let her roots grow out, and is wearing less makeup. This means she actually looks better, and the two of them “fall silently to the carpet and begin to make love.”

Actual Scene: “They circled each other warily, then Ross blurted, ‘I’ll tell you something — you look damn sexy.’ And he had pounced, surprising both of them, Silently they began to consummate their reunion on the living-room floor.”

Remembered Scene the Second: Creepazoid twin brother of movie star remembers having sex with his creepazoid mother.

Actual Scene: It wasn’t the creepazoid twin! It was actually the movie star. “She climbed on top of him and guided his penis into a warm wetness.”

Remembered Scene the Third: Movie star is humping some lower-level lackey in his trailer, she uses his first name, he gets pissy and loses his erection.

Actual Scene: “He hadn’t said she could call him by his first name. Mr. Conti would do nicely. Women. Give them nine inches and they frigging moved in.”

Remembered Scene the Fourth The precariously-held-together Hollywood wife reminisces about being a fat child who didn’t know about carbs. And she had a nickname, which was some kind of large animal (hippo, or elephant, or manatee).

Actual Scene: “When I was thirteen I was the fattest girl in school. Etta the Elephant they called me. And I deserved the nickname. Only how could a kid of thirteen know about nutrition and diet and exercise and all that stuff? How could a kid of thirteen help it when Grandma Steinberg stuffed her with cakes and latkes, lox and bagels, strudel and chicken dumplings?”

Wow, okay, so the moral of that experiment is that your children will totally remember and internalize the things you tell them when they’re eight, and then talk about it on the Internet.

The book starts with two pages about an unknown crazy person hacking his family to death with machetes. And you’re all, oh, wow, this is… intense. And then you’re immediately in Hollywood, with the wives, and it’s all “wait, machetes? I have to assume that dude with the machetes is eventually gonna hack up some Hollywood wives, right?” WAIT AND SEE, readers. Wait and see. And, for serious, buy the book, it’s just as much fun as you think it might be. Minus the incest memories and the machetes. Or, I don’t know, maybe that’s what grabbed your attention in the first place. Classic Trash is not here to judge you.

Context-Free Excerpts From Hollywood Wives

• “Elaine Conti awoke in her luxurious bed in her luxurious Beverly Hills mansion, pressed a button to open the electrically controlled drapes, and was confronted by the sight of a young man clad in a white T-shirt and dirty jeans pissing a perfect arc into her mosaic-tiled swimming pool.”

• “She remembered the day well, because he had climaxed all over her new Sonia Rykiel skirt.”

• “You’ll never need anyone else but Mommy now, will you, Buddy? Will you?”

• “The cutting-down process had been painful. First the chauffeur had gone, then the live-in housekeeper and her staff of two, next the gardeners and poolman. Now it was just Lina, who came in daily, except weekends. And Miguel, who was a combination gardener, poolman, and chauffeur.”

• “He wished he knew something about the role in the movie. Should he be aggressively sexual? Boyish? Charming? Dustin Hoffman with looks?”

• “’You see,’ she continued earnestly, ‘the whole of my career I’ve been typecast. Cunty dumb blondes with hearts of gold — and that kind of part is not the real me.’ She paused for breath, then plunged on, her huge bosom heaving with emotion.”

• “’This is Thiou-Ling,’ said Gina. ‘My present for us. She speaks no English, but she understands. She has been trained in the art of making love since childhood. We shall celebrate our contract, Neil. And then we will go to the party.’”

• “’Goddammit, Gina,’ snapped Thiou-Ling, who had suddenly developed a fierce New York street accent. ‘Cut the fuckin’ hysterics an’ tell me what you want me to do.’”

Discussion Questions!

• I never watched the miniseries. How was it? Was it Spelling-tastic? Should I buy the DVD and then talk about it with you?

• Whose Hollywood wife would you be? And would you rather be a beard, and just spend all of your time getting massages and buying things and then having fun platonic dinners with your husband, Hugh Jackman? Because that’s what I would want. Because, otherwise, I think the straight ones are probably dicks.

• Which books would be improved by the inclusion of a machete-wielding madman who drops in and out of the action? A Separate Peace? The Mill On The Floss? The Very Hungry Caterpillar?

• Should we just go ahead and do Fear of Flying next? Or should we do Confessions of a Shopaholic? Is that Classic yet?

• Why is it so disconcerting to read Hollywood Wives, written in 1983, and to have the constant urge to tell the wives about the advances in skincare? Like, “Bitch, you don’t need to get your eyes done. You want some FILLERS. Be back on the street on the same day.” “You probably don’t even have a prescription retinoid!”

• Do you get the sense that Hollywood Wives is like a really bad version of Postcards from the Edge, which is a DOPE-ASS BOOK? You are correct. This is not really a question.

• Dustin Hoffman is “Dustin Hoffman with looks.” Yes or no?

Nicole Cliffe is the proprietress of Lazy Self-Indulgent Book Reviews.

Photo of Collins by Helga Esteb, via Shutterstock.

Here you will find a picture of a drunken elk stuck in a Swedish apple tree.

Three country legends would be celebrating birthdays today if they weren’t all dead. But let’s celebrate their legacies anyway! Here’s one each from the father of country music, one of the genre’s most influential women, and one of its greatest songwriters. Happy birthday all.

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Use Your Illusion

It’s a gorgeous day, not a bat in the sky.
The topography’s square with the recon.
Contents may have shifted during rapture.
Let’s put the Christ back in Xbox.

This baby is disgusting. Fuck you, baby.
Get a job. You have the worst taste in art.
A real Winston Churchill, this one. Your lot’s loss?
So lose. Lose the attitude. Lose the dress.

I was saying something about a baby.
It had eleven dimensions, kind of
a dim bulb. The last of a tiny race.
Just a shadow on a milk carton now.

I saw myself in half then make myself
disappear. Maybe the other way round.
Let’s hear it for my lovely assistant.
She’s the lower half of my body, sawn.
I open the cabinet and poof she’s gone.

Human Wishes

Last night a DJ almost killed me.
I’m as alive as you can possibly get.
The ash at the end of my cigarette,
who put it there? My wife is asleep.
I hoot like an owl into her hair.

That was a joke, by the way.
Don’t get your feelings in a bunch.
The Bible says, Shawty, you must get loose.
Augustine cautions against taking this
literally. Its exegesis is abstruse.

Story of my life, my sexual abuse
hotline. One leg at a time, I say.
If you cannot afford a leg, one will
be abandoned on a hot tin roof.
Now you must work a mysterious way.

I never promised you a unicorn.
But still. What is it like to be at bat?
Just having T.M.I. tattooed on my balls.
The heavy lice that hang from them
run in blood down palace walls.

Black Wings

I eat wings. I’m such a pain.
Blue fly, butterfly, airplane, crane,
and everything in between.
I think you’d better hurry.
I think I live in a gooseberry field.

Two hundred miles wide, my mouth!
All these teetering hemlines, college-bound!
I still want — how shall I put this — cigarettes.
It takes a strong storm to blow over Man-Pig.
Suddenly I begin speaking a language.

It is one I’ve known from childhood,
the only one, my mother tongue!
Hey, Señor Potato Boob Gun,
you are just so goddamn free.
You’re taller than I thought you’d be.

Eleventy-thousand degrees outside
with a heat index of kablooey.
The tastiest wings of all are Satan’s.
But enough about me
is one of my favorite sayings.

Michael Robbins’ first book of poems, Alien vs. Predator, will be published by Penguin in April 2012. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The New Yorker, Poetry, Boston Review, Fence, and elsewhere. He is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Poetry at the University of Southern Mississippi.

You will not believe just how much more poetry is available right here, in The Poetry Section’s vast archive. You may contact the editor at poems@theawl.com.

“’Reading aggression in literature can influence subsequent aggressive behavior, which tends to be specific to the type of aggression contained in the story,’ a Brigham Young University research team led by Sarah M. Coyne writes in the British Journal of Social Psychology. The study does not show that reading a fictional account of an aggressive action increases belligerent behavior, but it suggests exposure to such literature has a psychological impact on readers, affecting the way they respond to provocations.”
 — This totally explains why all the millennials who grew up on Harry Potter are always trying to cast spells at you when you piss them off. [Via]

Choosing Who To Root For (And Who To Hate) At The U.S. Open

by Thomas Golianopoulos

One of the best things about tennis is that you can switch allegiances every decade or so. That’s unacceptable in team sports. Changing teams reveals serious character flaws. There is one exception to that rule: If the franchise relocates to another city, then you, the fan, can pick a new favorite. (For example, when the New York Islanders leave Nassau County in 2015, I can acquire a new favorite hockey team. They’ll probably be Canadian. The Winnipeg Jets, perhaps?) Tennis is different. We’re not rooting for laundry. We’re rooting for individuals. And individuals get old and retire.

Growing up, my guy was Goran Ivanisevic. There were a few reasons why I gravitated to him:

1. He was left-handed. (I was always jealous of southpaws.)
2. He had the most fearsome serve in tennis. (I was a young stat geek and would keep track of his aces during a match.)
3. He was a little nutty, often berating himself in some Eastern European language. (Personality!)
4. He was Croatian. (As a kid, I rooted for Yugoslavia, and, later on, Croatia, in international sports competitions. Maybe it was because Vlade Divac was on the Los Angeles Lakers? Yes, I know Divac is Serbian.)

Ivanisevic retired in 2002. His replacement was Roger Federer. It was an easy pick.

1. He played a very unique, stylish form of tennis.
2. He won Wimbledon in 2003 and appeared to have a promising future. (There is nothing wrong with being a front-runner as long as you jump on the bandwagon early.)
3. He defeated Pete Sampras in the round of 16 at Wimbledon in 2001, ending Sampras’ streak of four consecutive Wimbledon titles. (Sampras beat Ivanisevic in the 1994 and 1998 Wimbledon Finals.)

Even though it’s a bit irrational, tennis is way more fun when you live and die with each point. And with the U.S. Open reaching the Championship rounds, it’s time to choose your horse in the race, if you haven’t done so already. But for whom to cheer? Choosing a favorite because of nationality is a cop out. So is basing it on hotness. (Good thing Ana Ivanovic and “Deliciano” Lopez are already eliminated.) Here is a completely fair and unbiased ranking of the 5 Most Likable and Most Annoying Players remaining in the draw.

MOST LIKABLE

1. Roger Federer
The 16-time Grand Slam winner earns the top spot because, simply put, no one else is as fun to watch. The guy once attempted a between-the-legs shot on match point! In a Grand Slam semifinal! His 6–1 6–2 6–0 victory over Juan Monaco late Monday night into Tuesday morning was the most aesthetically pleasing match of the tournament, a storm of unlikely winners, crackling one-handed backhands and deft volleying. Here in New York, he’s got another going for him: The aging champion playing for one…last…title. Think Connors in ’91, Sampras in 2002 or Agassi in 2005. The old man is also refreshingly honest.

2. Andrea Petkovic
The personable German — oxymoron alert! — lacks Federer’s flair on the court but is the most interesting character on the tour. Petkovic dances after victories and updates her YouTube channel with fun behind-the-scenes videos: Look! There’s she is hula hooping with Novak Djokovic during a rain delay! She’s gritty too — Petkovic is playing with a slight tear in her meniscus. It’s easy cheering for the wounded warrior.

3. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga
The Frenchman is an athletic marvel: No one that big should move that well or have such soft hands at the net. Tsonga also hits gobs of winners (with his punishing inside-out forehand), and is a tough competitor (7–2 record in 5th sets) with his own victory celebration. While always a fan-favorite, Tsonga moves up because of how he reacted on Monday after American Mardy Fish called him “a dumbass.”

4. Andy Murray
Murray is the sympathetic favorite. He’s the best player to never win a Grand Slam title and has the pressure of the British tabloids magnifying each failure. (When he’s playing poorly, it’s said that “Murray is looking real Scottish.”) Murray also survived the Dunblane Massacre — Murray, who was eight years old at the time, hid under a desk during the shooting. Then, there’s this speech he gave after losing the 2010 Australian Open Finals.

5. Serena Williams
This was a tough one. Serena Williams is ungracious in defeat, way too religious and withdrew from a tournament last month to attend the Kardashian wedding. She has even ambushed tournament sponsors. Oh, and this. Despite those faults (or maybe because of them?), she’s still the most mentally strong athlete in sports and her comeback following life-threatening blood clots is remarkable. On the court, she’s an unstoppable force — the hardest hitter and the fastest mover. She also has a good sense of humor.

MOST ANNOYING

1. Rafael Nadal
The defending U.S. Open champ picks his butt, is preposterously superstitious, takes too long in between points and might have cheated in last year’s final.

2. Caroline Wozniacki
Pushers get no love.

3. Andy Roddick
Roddick would be the sympathetic veteran if he weren’t still a bit of a petulant brat. He also tugs on his sleeves way too much. His playing style, meanwhile, is maddening: He is too aggressive when he needs to structure points. He is too passive when he has an opening to rush the net. Rooting for Andy Roddick will leave you in tears — my girlfriend cried when he choked away that second set tiebreaker against Federer in the 2009 Wimbledon Finals.

There’s a lot to admire here — the impersonations, the incredible movement, the willingness to improve — but, yeesh, the overbearing parents! Young American star Donald Young almost captured this spot but his parents interfered primarily behind the scenes. Mr. and Mrs. Djokovic have been publicly insufferable for years. After Djokovic defeated a lethargic, mononucleosis-stricken Federer at the 2008 Australian Open, Dijana Djokovic was reportedly heard shouting, “The King is Dead! The King is Dead!” Later that year, she even heckled Federer during a match. (His response was priceless.) Another reason why Djokovic trumps Young? Donald Young Sr. hasn’t worn this shirt.

5. Samantha Stosur
Stosur has all the tools — great kick serve, lethal inside-out forehand, soft hands and big biceps — but typically gets unnerved in big spots. She also wears ugly sunglasses.

Thomas Golianopoulos is a writer living in New York City whose work has appeared in The New York Times, New York Observer, Spin, Vibe and a few other places. You can follow him on Twitter.

Photo by meunierd, via Shutterstock.