Okay, okay, he died an embittered, disfigured drunk. But before that there was the gorgeous cool that was Montgomery Clift, photographed by Richard Avendon in Montauk in 1958, and published in this week’s New Yorker from a collection of rarely seen work.

Are you sitting down? Without food in your mouth? Because if you are a regular reader, you are about to read something jaw-dropping: I want Marc Jacobs to be my friend. Now, don’t worry, I am not calling off the boycott. But after reading Ariel Levy’s hilariously knowing New Yorker profile, I have to admit, he seems like total entertainment, and everybody needs entertaining friends on whom they don’t depend. I love that he gets his ridiculousness, what with the highest-maintenance-ever dogs, the highest-maintenance-ever hair, and the highest-maintenance-ever exhibitionist lifestyle. Plus, a gym-obsessed chain smoker is almost as funny as my friend the smoking nurse (an inspiration for Jacobs’ collaborator Richard Prince, for sure).

And as cliche as his art collection appears to be — the Lalannes, John Currin, Elizabeth Peyton — it’s awesome how he realizes his ownership is temporary. What a cool, contemporary and green way to look at your possessions — and that viewpoint explains why, unlike most fashion designers, Jacobs enjoys the idea that the brand is the product. All of this is not to say that I’ve become a fan of the work. The clothes remain derivative dreck, and the ad campaigns are too wink-wink misogynistic. But Jacobs, unlike another sheltered egomaniac we all know, might dig a dissenter in his circle. Just imagine: My influence could be astounding!

HRC totally nailed that speech last night, and I have a hard time believing that such rousing, mama-bear passion is actually a product of the cynical reasons put out by John Heilemann in New York this week. Chiefly, that an emphatic plea for unity is little more than a cool calculation to deflect blame should Obama get creamed by McCain. As for Maureen Dowd’s observation, “I’ve never actually seen a convention where the energy was so absorbed by people who had lost the nomination, rather than the one who had won,” well, that’s just oversimplified hooey. Obama knows he needs these operators because he’s an operator himself. Moreover, blaming Hillary for the fervor of her supporters is misplaced, and faulting her for “looking great” is ridiculous. An expertly cut pantsuit in Magazine MILF Orange is always right.