At Monday night's Los Angeles launch (sponsored by "Louis XIII Black Pearl de Rémy Martin") for beautyLIGHT (teNeues), the exquisite new book by iconic photographer Matthew Rolston, on display was all the evidence we need that supermarket tabloids are ruining the fun of worshiping celebrities. Rolston's electrifying portraits of stars such as Angelina Jolie, Matthew McConaughey, Salma Hayak, Jude Law, Beck, Reese Witherspoon and dozens more of Hollywood's most riveting personalities are a stark contrast to where we normally see them these days. Badly lit street shots of a celeb running for his or her SUV are not glamorous -- it's crime scene photography.

Harmony Korine made a staggering comeback from the brink of self-destruction and incoherence with this year's Mister Lonely, a cinematic wormhole filled with celebrity impersonators, free-falling nuns, and talking eggs. It was his return to filmmaking after an eight-year hiatus following the release of the divisive (some say misanthropic) Julien Donkey-Boy. Expectations weren't exactly high for the bad-boy of American cinema. Expectations were embarrassingly off the mark.

My lord! I love Maine. I try to spend as much of the summer there. L.L. Bean is a twice-summer stop, so wool shirts and rugged pants are a familiar sartorial staple, such as they are. Politics are fiery up there, too. Like New Hampshire but without the Republican dollars. And, sure, I have an inner hippie. And I like guns -- they have their place. But bundle that all together, and you have the Chutes, who possess a look and lifestyle that streaks wildly into the world and forces the curious to pay attention. I am fascinated. Not just by their Northern Kingdom militia trip, but also by their self reliance and sheer "fuck you" attitude. More to the point, feathering along my boot fetish, I dig Mr. Chute's work boots and his gravedigger stare (he really did dig graves!). And look closer. Carolyn, a writer, is rocking some thick moon boot/Uggs hybrid, and she's layering a Phishtastic amount of natural fibers. Copy this Americana at your own risk. Read the New York Times story, and marvel.

Mr and Mrs Smith, the boutique hotel connoisseurs, are launching their latest luxe review in time for the holiday gifting season. Bound in gloss and oozing sex appeal, this coffee-table-cum-designer-hotel-porn is the perfect stocking stuffer for the traveler in your life. The 360-page tome covers 30 destination hotels detailed in the Smith style, wherein a couple is sent anonymously to a Smith-approved hotel to write a cheeky he-said-she-said review of the joint. The Global Shortlist is the sixth book in the series, joining Smith 52: The Game Plan, European Cities, European Coast and Country, and UK/Ireland Volumes I and II.

Ever tried to picture Liberace simmering tomato sauce in his boxers? What about Babs with the body of a black Lab? In Sleeveface: Be The Vinyl (Artisan Books, 192 pages), editors Carl Morris and John Rostron have collected images of album covers placed with deliberate and devious accuracy on everything from canines and Chryslers to the guy who drives the Fairfax 417 city bus. Don’t call it a remix.

I love how everyone salivates over George Plimpton. A little too affected for me. But talented, yes. My only problem with the late writer and editor of Paris Review is that I can't shake the one time he wagged his proverbial finger at me for choosing a bad analogy during a conversation. It was as if he were verbally editing me in real time. Fuck you, I thought. You're a tamped-down, lock-jawed fraud! I should have said it. But I didn't. Last time I saw him was at Elaine's. I was with Hunter Thompson, John and Judy Clancy, and Marc Libarle. And then there was George. Everyone has George stories. All I remember is Hunter shooting me funny faces every time George spoke. Like teasing a teacher, Hunter raised his eyebrows, swayed his head and gently mocked George behind his back as he waxed poetic. I thought it was classic. But speak not ill of the dead, right?

Christopher Wool sees the world in black and white. But this isn’t to say that the 53-year-old New York artist is dogmatic. “I try to keep the faith that if I concentrate on expressing myself, it will communicate,” he says. “But in the end, I’ve come to accept that no one sees my work in the same way I do.” Each of his silkscreens, Polaroids and stencilled words embodies layers of nuance. Compelling detail (“splattering” painted neatly onto the canvas with a fine brush) and charged phrases (“SELL THE HOUSE SELL THE CAR SELL THE KIDS”) have drawn discerning eyes to his monochromatic art for more than 20 years.

In poorer taste than the ill-timed Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Banker, Disney's massacre of Sophie Kinsella's Confessions of a Shopaholic is locking horns with intrepid marketing blowhards. Because when the country's in financial peril, it's senseless to push a movie that trivializes credit card debt from outrageous shopping sprees to a general populace that can barely afford anything aside from elaborate staycations. Not to mention that the flick glorifies a job in one of the most economically ravaged sectors. And there's a certain je ne sais quoi about Isla Fisher as Rebecca Bloomwood that makes her appear ingratiating throughout the trailer.

The late, great fashion designer Geoffrey Beene will be immortalized in a brand new Assouline book, Geoffrey Beene, An American Fashion Rebel, out October 13. PAPER mag editor Kim Hastreiter is the scribe on the tome, which, as fashion heavyweight Diane Pernet puts it, focuses “on the fiercely independent, radical, subversive designer who was equally loved by the ladies that lunch as the underground scenesters” (and was at odds with Women’s Wear Daily until his death in 1994).

The late photographer Philippe Halsman drowned the world in snapshots. His sensational portraits of universal superstars like Marilyn Monroe and Alfred Hitchcock are larger than life, and he produced dozens of powerful collections. Halsman is admired by millions in the art world as a camera wizard; however, the public didn't see that his skills reached beyond the yellow in Marilyn's hair. Halsman's obscurity and genius is shown in a new collection, Unknown Halsman, conceived and crafted by his grandson, Oliver Halsman Rosenberg. In talking with Rosenberg about the upcoming book, I learn that what goes on behind the lens will never be more than a mystery.