Chris Evans in W looks ready for some afternoon delight.

Michael Fassbender and Charlize Theron heat up W (August 2012) in the same way a solar flare would heat up an errant space shuttle. Wow.

Prove it!

As of midnight last night, it was exactly six years since my first post. It's been a tough thing to keep up with a dayjob and outside activities, and just when I think I might walk away, a valuable connection or interesting opportunity or a kind word comes my way. Thank you all for reading me.

Of whom are you more jealous?

Here are my favorite 100+ posts out of nearly 11,000. Please take some time to read (or re-read!) a couple and tweet or Facebook any you like.

xoxo Matt

The pocket pool championships were intense this year

BOY CULTURE

Boy-crazy

FROM BOY TO MAN: BC B.C. (2007): The entire history of my novell and novel Boy Culture as well as the movie version; might be my ultimate post.

Jonathon Trent & Derek Magyar make an Allan Brocka sandwich

BOY ON FILM (2006): An account of the NYC launch party for Boy Culture as it played the TriBeCa Film Fest.

I was left "Reeling" by the experience

FRIENDS AND "FAMILY" (2006): The movie version of Boy Culture hits Chicago.

No one would've mistaken me for Taylor Lautner

RAPT PUPIL (2006): The final night of Outfest with Boy Culture; I was fat but on the other hand got to meet Bryan Singer.

 

MY ART

 

Construction worker (shot this week) vs. James Dean

GUYDAR (since at least January 17, 2008) & ENDS OF THE WORLD (since at least January 13, 2008): Attractive men of the world—I got your backs. Your fronts, too.

i-i-i (phone)

Not totally built

Unaltered iPhone image that still blows me away

"Your pictures suck" (2008): An art critic attacks me, but not without sustaining some hits in return.

Let's call it a draw

DRAWN TOGETHER (2008): How my desire to draw related to my secret desire. One of my absolute favorite posts.

The shirtless one

LOST ANGELES (2009): My favorite photographic travelogue of L.A.

Even then, New Yorkers feared 9/11 was the beginning of the end

ART IMITATES LIFE (2006): My 9/11 and my distaste for grief tourism.

ME

Death of the party—Jeff in high school, already halfway through his life

BURNING MAN (2007): Tribute to my late high school friend and first romance.

Signed, sealed (eventually) delivered

LOST BOY FOUND (2011): There is a book in here somewhere.

Be Italian

CIAO HOUNDS: OUR TRIP TO ITALY (2011): Finally got José to Europe.

Death becomes here

ILLINOIS DEATH TRIP (2007): Ruminations on death while revisiting a past home, and the past.

Life is short...and meaningful

PASSING BY (2008): Mourning the loss of a person I only met once.

Lots more...

I love Mark Ruffalo enough to tell him I don't want to see him as a Sid & Marty Krofft character meets Stevie Nicks. From here.

Many Madonna outtakes from that most recent Steven Klein W session are here. Some I'd already seen, some I hadn't. The budding couple looks pretty hot in some, a bit ragged in others.

Madonna's year-long love affair (if you believe Madonna) or showmance (if you believe some of her suspicious fans) with Jesus Luz is reportedly—accent on reportedly—ovah (if you believe the Chicago Sun-Times). He didn't like it, so he didn't put a ring on it, but that's okay—Madonna's more fun as a single lady with various suitors.

All of these outtakes were removed at the request of Steven Klein's legal representation.

Now if we can just get Demi to don her W Magazine duds for a side-by-side, Hipgate might be solved. As you can see from the above side-by-side, girlfriend looks pretty hot sans retouching (albeit with the kind of A+ retouching that certain doctors go to school to learn how to do). It's not that I expect images to never be retouched, but how about laying off a bit? When you're starting with near perfection and you make these kinds of drastic changes, you overshoot perfection and land in mortuary or statuary or depth-free medieval painting.

Via Absolument Madonna: No one looks fresh and dewy at 50, but—yes, I'll continue being obsessed with this point forever, skip this post if it bugs ya—perhaps the main reason Madonna's surgical interventions annoy me is that while they may have been indulged to stave off the aging process, they haven't worked in that regard all that well AND they've robbed Madonna of her unique relationship with the camera. I'm sure the expression she was making in this unretouched W outtake would have been fucking interesting instead of comically disinterested if her face were not so unnaturally elongated. 

Meanwhile, again, how do these photographers EVER allow these leaks? It has to be so fucking easy to control.

And finally, is Steven Klein a fucking amazing photographer is or his assistant a fucking amazing retoucher?

W's Korean edition subtly but noticeably fixes Demi's missing hip, the one she and her people and the magazine and the photographers claim was never retouched (incorrectly or correctly) in the first place.