Get ready to put on your favorite pair of tiny white shorts: The U.S. Open Tennis Championships kicks off this week in Flushing Meadows, New York, and it’s gearing up to be a week full of enough drama to make even John McEnroe proud. As usual, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer are the ones to beat, with Nadal seeking his first ever Open title (and thus a career Grand Slam) after a landmark season. Meanwhile, Venus Williams guns for her first U.S. Open title in nine years, while a recently recovered Maria Sharapova seeks to take the title a second time. Racquets may be thrown, grunts will be loud, and shorts will be short. Ah, there’s nothing quite like tennis season.
The
U.S. Open kicks off on Monday, August 30.
Hell hath no fury like Nevada’s Black Rock Desert during the annual Burning Man extravaganza. Even the project’s organizers say, “Trying to explain
what Burning Man is to someone who has never been to the event is a bit like trying to explain what a particular color looks like to someone who is blind.” But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Approximately 50,000 “burners,” as they are called, will gather for a week-long festival full of radical self-expression, exhibited in all sorts of ways—from an art car with a
40-foot-long praying mantis to a rock opera called
How to Survive the Apocalypse. But don’t let the “be who are you” mentality fool you. “This is not where you go to share peace and love and caring for the planet,” one eight-time burner told the
Salt Lake City News. “This is where you go to blow shit up.
The annual
Burning Man kicks off in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada on Monday, August 30 and lasts until Monday, September 6.
One is 5’4”, the other 7’1”. One has a famous head of hair, the other is bald. One is always the youngest in the room, the other is the oldest on the court. NBA All-Star Shaquille O’Neal and tween idol Justin Bieber could not be more different—but the two will come together for the second season finale of
Shaq Vs.. On the series, the self-proclaimed greatest athlete takes on celebrities in their own comfort zones (i.e. a five-round sparring match-up against Oscar de la Hoya or a burger cook-off with Rachael Ray). That means Shaq is taking on Bieber by performing center stage. But the joke’s on Bieber, who was only one-year-old when the first of Shaq’s five rap albums was released. A lesson for the 16-year-old heartthrob: If anything says street cred, it’s not windswept hair or the freshest kicks—it’s a stark white
fisherman’s hat.
The season finale of Shaq Vs.
airs on Tuesday, August 31 at 9:00 p.m. EST on ABC.
Nearly a decade after he picked up the National Book Award for his widely acclaimed novel
The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen is still something of a literary golden boy, if the fervor surrounding his latest novel,
Freedom, is any indication. Franzen’s first novel since his 2002 smash,
Freedom takes on a distinctly bleak post-9/11 tone as it follows a squeaky clean Minnesota family unraveling in the wake of one scandal after another. The long-awaited novel doesn’t disappoint, and has already earned raves from the
Los Angeles Times, which called it “a consuming and extraordinarily moving book.” From Franzen, we’d expect nothing less.
Freedom is available starting on Tuesday, August 31.
Much like Franzen, Paul Murray ducked back under the radar after his much-loved 2005 novel
An Evening of Long Goodbyes. After years of impatient waiting from the literary community, the Irish author has proved that the wait was worth it with
Skippy Dies, a sprawling 661-page mystery surrounding a Dublin teen named Skippy, whose unexpected death in the middle of a donut shop opens the book. The story hits the ground running, exploring the bizarre characters that inhabited Skippy’s life and the crippling angst of teen years that leads his friend to theorize that the universe is, in fact, “built out of loneliness.” Pulsing with the sensitive comic touch that is already Murray’s signature,
Skippy Dies was summed up by
The Guardian as “a rare tragicomedy that's both genuinely tragic and genuinely comedic.”
Skippy Dies
comes out on Tuesday, August 31.
Perhaps more than any other duo, Kate Moss and Mario Testino set the standard for glamour in the 1990s. Testino did so behind the lens with his portraits of the era’s icons like Princess Diana, while Moss made her name in front of it, defining the look of “heroin chic,” and later her own much-copied boho style. Fittingly, the two are now together in an ultra-exclusive book set to grace only the most elite of coffee tables—only 1,500 copies will be made of
Kate Moss by Mario Testino, each of which will be numbered and signed by Testino himself. The book, which features shots Testino has taken of Moss over the course of their 20-year friendship, also has a
reported price tag of 350 Euros—around $472 dollars. No one ever said the price of beauty was low.
Kate Moss by Mario Testino
hits shelves on Wednesday, September 1.
Her dad, Sen. John McCain, has made headlines over the past several months for an ongoing
Twitter exchange with Snooki, so it’s hardly a surprise that media-savvy runs in Meghan McCain’s family. Following a bestselling children’s book (and an ongoing column at The Daily Beast), McCain is back this week with
Dirty Sexy Politics, a typically no-holds-barred look at an increasingly fractured Republican party, written by one of its most outspoken and progressive advocates. With an insider’s perspective that can only be gained from years growing up on the campaign trail, McCain proves yet again that her father’s unique brand of outspokenness runs in the family.
Dirty Sexy Politics
hits shelves on Tuesday, August 31.
Even though we’d probably be content just listening to “Barracuda” on repeat, Heart has made it their mission to be one of those bands that, you know, keeps making music instead of flaming out. Ann and Nancy Wilson are back this week after a six year break in between albums with
Red Velvet Car, an album that reflects that band’s trajectory from rock to power ballads and back again. In spite of years of turmoil and endless lineup changes, Heart still has the same sound that made them ‘70s and ‘80s staples. They’ve already been taking the album on tour all summer with shows at the re-vamped Lilith Fair, proving they can still rock, even without their mile-high ’80s hair.
Red Velvet Car hits shelves on Tuesday, August 31.
Heart isn’t the only group of classic rockers making a comeback this week—after more than 40 albums, Richard Thompson is still going strong on his latest album
Dream Attic. A cornerstone of rock and roll for the past several decades, Thompson’s guitar chops are just as impressive as ever on a collection
The Guardian calls “gloriously vicious, bitter, sad and bleak, even by Richard Thompson’s standards.” Thompson, who has collaborated with artists from R.E.M. to the Blind Boys of Alabama, recorded
Dream Attic’s 13 raw tracks during live shows for his west coast tour earlier this year, a refreshing reminder of a time before auto-tune reigned supreme.
Dream Attic
hits shelves on Tuesday, August 31.
First,
Pineapple Express star James Franco shocked his top-toking fans by starring in an extended story arc on soap opera
General Hospital in 2009 and this summer, he went for the opposite end of the culture spectrum with a multi-media art exhibition at New York’s Clocktower Gallery.
The Dangerous Book Four Boys, which closes this week after a two-month run, includes sculpture, photography, drawing, and video, all centering on boyhood and adolescent sexual confusion. “I like the idea that I can make people look at entertainment in a different way," Franco told the
Wall Street Journal. "And to the extent that my public persona allows me to do that, I'm doing it." But if you can’t make it to see Franco’s thoughts on male teenage sexuality, you can still see him as the hunky younger man opposite Julia Roberts in
Eat Pray Love.
James Franco's The Dangerous Book Four Boys
closes at New York’s Clocktower Gallery on Wednesday, September 1.
As if anyone needed another reason to want to go to Venice, this week sees the kick-off of the 67th Venice International Film Festival. This year’s festival,
presided over by jury president Quentin Tarantino hosts a mix of films from cinema’s new guard, including Darren Aronofsky’s
Black Swan and Sofia Coppola’s latest,
Somewhere, alongside work by veterans like Helen Mirren (
The Tempest) and Catherine Deneuve (
Potiche). The festival isn’t limited to indie and critical darlings, though, and will also screen George Clooney’s latest vehicle,
The American, the same day it premieres in the U.S. Who says Venice is sinking?
The Venice International Film Festival kicks off on Wednesday, September 1.
Some people might be daunted by the task of following up on the enormous success of
Doubt on Broadway, but those people aren’t Cherry Jones and director Doug Hughes. The director and his favorite actress are teaming up again for a revival of the George Bernard Shaw classic
Mrs. Warren’s Profession, which opens on Broadway in previews this week. Following the story of Mrs. Warren, a well-to-do woman whose wealth comes from a less than moral source, and the rift that opens when her daughter finds out, the 1893 play was ahead of its time in examining the moral gray areas that often face working women. With Broadway veterans like Hughes and Jones at the helm, there’s no better team to do justice to Shaw’s timeless material.
Mrs. Warren’s Profession
opens in previews on Friday, September 3.
