Vince Beiser's article on prescription-painkiller use in War, West Virginia {Prescription for Death, March) illuminates the severe drug issues in the area, but the case also speaks to the larger national problems in the pharmaceutical industry and the justice system. It is upsetting to hear about lives destroyed by substance abuse, in this instance spanning generations of a single family. I hope for the best for all involved, particularly the young son. Are there any updates on the murder trial?
The best thing about Gawker has been its ferocious independence and transparency, with Nick Denton (Playboy Interview, March) leading that charge, even if it created chaos within his own system. That's an admirable position and one not many of his fellow moguls can claim. However, hypocrisy is the number one transparency killer, and when I heard about the intern lawsuit at Gawker, the walls of admiration and respect started to crumble. If Gawker can't carry that mantle, who can? Via the internet
In the interesting article "Beyond Condoms" {After Hours, Talk, March), one of the condoms mentioned contains graphene, which is "more than 200 times stronger than steel." One of my longtime fantasies involves fully inserting my member into a vagina and then walking around the room, supporting my partner without using our hands, arms or her legs for support. Instead, we would rely exclusively on the strength of my willie. Do you think this super-strength condom would help me reach my long-cherished goal?
As I read Rick Moody's eloquent essay on the passing of the rock icon (In Search of the Lost Rock 6? Roll Icon, January/ February), I was struck by the familiarity of the words. We've heard it all before. Is there any way rock can survive the most recent virus to infect it? Rock and roll is a living entity born of the souls of creative individuals, and anytime those souls are confiscated by profiteers there will be a visceral reaction. We will survive the downfall. The drive of the creative spirit refuses to be strangled by the hands of profit and bad taste. If you put your ear to the rail, you can already hear the rumbling. History tells us that something amazing is just around the corner. Benjamin Barrett Santa Barbara, California
In What Is a Brand? (January/February) Slavoj Zizek reduces all consumer impulses to a desire for an ultimately meaningless individualistic notion of authenticity, albeit one with a social character. Zizek's examples (rotten organic fruit, Starbucks, Coke) reinforce a banal notion of authenticity, but the essay hardly addresses social consumerism that is also consumer advocacy or (even better) labor activism. Buying a T-shirt from a company or a country with labor standards may make me feel good, but it can also support those workers and working conditions in general. The real question is, short of
Gilbert, I've had the good fortune of being your acquaintance for almost two decades, and I consider myself the better for it. I'm writing in response to your playboy essay / Want a Guy With a Sense of Humor (January/February). It was smart and funny and true. I've long thought that when women and men claim that the trait they most desire in a mate is a sense of humor, what they really mean is they want their partner to laugh at all their pathetic attempts at being funny. They want a raucous audience with the bar for jokes set so low it's nearly invisible. However, I feel your article needs an addendum—something like "This article is applicable to everyone except Nikki Cox." Whenever I have fallen in love, it has always been with men who paid their bills by making people laugh. The love of my life—my husband, Jay Mohr—makes me laugh harder than I ever thought possible. Gilbert, you have always made me laugh. If I were single and you asked me out, I would say, without hesitation, "Absolutely."
• 7 LIKE BEING the bombshell, but I'm still bashful," says Alissa Bourne, a model turned actress who can be seen alongside Cameron Diaz in The Other Woman. A former Division I soccer player at the University of Maryland, Alissa smolders in front of the camera and in uniform on the soccer field. "I've been told I have soft features, and my body feels best after I've showered off the sweat," she says. Game on.
• Godzilla, the screen's most iconic, city-stomping, radioactive kaiju, has been waiting for a modem film worthy of his status since 1954's Gojira. After dozens of cheesy sequels and
For a perfect allegory of our growing attachment to technology wrapped up in an old-fashioned love story, look no further than Spike Jonze's tragi-romance starring Joaquin Phoenix as a lonely writer living in near-future LA. Socially awkward, with a Groucho mustache and a penchant for high-waisted pants, he interacts with women only through cybersex, meetings with his estranged wife (Rooney Mara) and the odd run-in with his ex-girlfriend (Amy Adams). So when he fires up his new operating system, Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), it's a husky breath of fresh air. She organizes his life, "gets" his weirdness and turns him on. It isn't long before he falls for her and she for him. Questions are raised What will people think? Can you have sex? How do we define "love"? Making it work requires more than just a strong wi-fi connection. (BD) Best extras: several making-of featurettes. VVV/2
• Jack Bauer defeated death countless times during the eight-year run of 24, so cheating cancellation? No biggie. As when we left him in 2010, our hero is a fugitive from the same government he once served. He has found refuge in London, but dogged CIA agent Kate Morgan (Yvonne Strahovski) is closing in. And then, as is always the case on 24, the shit gets real. Further plot details are almost beside the point, since only two things matter: Will Jack find creative new ways to kill bad guys, and will Chloe return? The answer, on both counts, is yes. Go ahead and clear your Monday nights right now.
-» Erika M. Anderson hates technology and loves it too, so on The Future's Void, her second album as EMA, she celebrates it by telling us how much it sucks. In 11 ominous songs she coos or caterwauls about satellites, selfies and dead celebrities over an
I NEVER MET A STORY I DIDN'T LIKE: MOSTLY TRUE TALL TALES
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-» Todd Snider calls himself a folksinger, but he's what your dad would refer to as a card. Snider, who is 47 on the outside and 12 on the inside, begins his riotous memoir, / Never Met a Story I Didn't Like, with a tale of being pelted with fruit by Jimmy Buffett ("and not in a playful way"), then proceeds to arrests, booze, drugs and yarns that involve people named Trog, Bonehead, Moon Bitch and Matthew McConaughey. He clearly declares his one goal: to "keep my life
I was glad to see Heidi Boghosian's article on private corporations and government spying ("The Surveillance Industry," October 2013). Boghosian emphasizes the looming danger that comes from lack of true oversight and transparency in the surveillance-industrial complex—something we've seen time and again in American history. For example, Martin Luther Kingjr. and other major figures in the civil rights movement were under FBI surveillance. A congressional committee later reported that agents harassed the domestic activists, actively trying to
Sleep must be for losers, because I've been up all night ("Sleepers Awake," March). Jonathan Crary worries that time spent asleep is undercapitalized, but I have a proposal for him. Put his book on tape
Human greed may in part have led to global warming, but perhaps by exploiting mankind's infinite greed we can fix the problem (Reader Response, March). If we installed vast arrays of windmill forms, devices to harness power from waves and ocean currents, and solar-cell panels all over the world, the "free" clean electricity generated by these systems that derive juice from wind, sea and sun would enable us to greatly minimize our dependence on coal-burning power
It is easy to look at TransCanada's Keystone export pipeline and think, What's the big deal? It's a line on a map, and we have lots of pipelines already. But it is more than that, and the people it would affect are many. We are small-business owners who rely on clean water for good beer. We are farmers and ranchers growing food that
A SWIRLING HURRICANE OF ANIMAL, MAN. MACHINI DUST, PANDEMONIUM AND POSSIBLY EVEN DEATH. ON THE RUN WITH THE MOST EXCITING-AND DANGEROUS-HORSE RACE IN THE WORLD
AND THE WINNER IS...TWELVE FINE LADIES VIED FOR YOUR HEARTS-AND VOTES-WITH THE HOPE OF BECOMING OUR 2014 PLAYMATE OF THE YEAR. NEXT MONTH WE REVEAL WHO WON YOU (AND HEF) OVER. TRUST US, SHE WONT DISAPPOINT.
CONTRIBUTORS: JOHN BALDESSARI, RAE BOXER, JEFF BURTON, JENNY CAPITAIN, PHILIP CASTLE, SARA CUNE, SIMON CRITCHLEY, ROBERT CRUMB, AKARI ENDO-GAUT, HANS FEURER, MARY GAITSKILL, ADRIAN GAUT, RALPH GIBSON, A.A. GILL, HUGH HEFNER, DOOGIE HORNER, JIM KRANTZ, MARYAM MALAKPOUR, RYAN MCGINLEY, MARILYN MINTER, HAMILTON MORRIS, ELLE MUUARCHYK, MARK MULRONEY, KELLY OXFORD, CAMILLE PAGLIA, RICHARD PHILLIPS, RICHARD PRINCE, HENRIK PURIENNE, STEFAN RUIZ, CHRISTOPHER RYAN, OLYMPIA SCARRY, HOWARD SCHATZ, WILL SELF, JUERGEN TELLER, DAVID VANDEWAL, JAMIESON WEBSTER
Who's afraid of the big bad alpha female? Well, just about everyone. The dominant, free-roaming alpha female is a human invention. Among wolves in the wild, the alpha female isn't leader of the pack but merely the alpha male's main squeeze. He always gets to gorge on the kill first and to lope off after any she-wolf he chooses.
A young factory worker skilled in black-smithing spends his youth crafting the wrought iron gates, handrails and chandeliers that serve to keep the mansions of Rue Mallet-Stevens private and rarefied. War comes, and his hands are employed to create a portable barracks for the French army. After the war, he's contracted to build refugee housing. Through this experience, the craftsman imagines a future in which he becomes self-taught in the architecture, design and mass production of a prefabricated house made of sheet metal that can be flown anywhere in the world and set up within hours. This was not an obligation to man or to country: This was desire.
AS HARD-FOUGHT RIGHTS GET ROLLED BACK, PHILOSOPHER SIMON CRITCHLEY AND PSYCHOANALYST JAMIESON WEBSTER OFFER A PARADOXICAL PRESCRIPTION FOR A (MISGUIDED) LIFE
He may be a professional filmmaker or just a weekend camera buff. Maybe he doesn't know what a camera is. Maybe he invented cameras. We don't know. But one thing we do know: He's a man who always sets his focus above the ordinary. And naturally ie applies the same high standards to every single thing he buys, steals or borrows. Fact: playboy reaches 100 percent of men who spend money on goods and/or services of any sort, anywhere. Want him to discover what you have to offer? Put it in playboy.