Pirelli captures the total woman

December 7, 2015

First it was Playboy doing away with nude pinups. Now the 2016 Pirelli calendar has eschewed the naked ladies – well, mostly – for something different, courtesy of photographer Annie Leibovitz.

Think Patti Smith as imagined by John Singer Sargent, Fran Lebowitz as a latter-day Georges Sand and model Natalia Vodianova with her youngest in a pose that despite her bare leggy-ness echoes a Raphael Madonna and Child.

Besides Vodianova, other examples of fleshiness are a topless Serena Williams, back to the camera in a heroic lunge; and Amy Schumer in panties and heels, comfortable with her stomach rolls as she holds a paper cup. ...

Cover me: American Pharoah and the search for authenticity

June 11, 2015

What Anna wants, Anna gets – particularly when it comes to a sleek, gorgeous, well-muscled male.

And what Anna Wintour, Condé Nast creative director and Vogue editor, wants right now is American Pharoah.

Ahmed Zayat, who has pledged that the Pharoah will belong to the American people, has told Bloodhorse, which covers the Thoroughbred industry, that AP will grace the cover of the next issue of the fashion bible.

"We are breaking new territory," Zayat, who operates his family's Zayat Stables, said June 10 in a podcast interview with Bloodhorse.com.

I’ll say. Anna has featured some studs in her day – Tim Tebow (shirtless), Colin Kaepernick, her fave Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic (Speedo), Ryan Lochte (cover, with Serena Williams and Hope Solo at the beach). Now she has a soon-to-be real stud. ...

Goodbye, Bruce. Hello, Caitlyn

June 1, 2015

And Godspeed. Reaction to Bruce Jenner’s metamorphosis into Caitlyn Jenner on the cover of Vanity Fair has been predictably all over the place and, just as predictably, says more about the commenters than it does about Caitlyn.

There’s no point in dwelling on those who think she’s sick or out for publicity. They just don’t get it.

More interesting are those comments that criticize the pinup aspect of the Annie Leibovitz cover. Let’s face it, if you’re going to transform yourself physically into the sex you believe you always were, well, then you and we want to see that transformation. As for the poster on The New York Times’ site who said that the way to be a smokin’-hot woman at 60 is to live the previous 59 years as a man, well, he – I’m sure it was a he – has a point. I’ve often said on this blog and elsewhere that men are the more beautiful, sexier and thrilling of the two traditional sexes. It’s part of the reason I write about beautiful, sexy, thrilling men in my novel series “The Games Men Play.” ...