Four things we learned today

- New Yorkers aren't used to finishing third in anything, especially when it comes to style points, though when gold and silver are taken by Paris and Milan, respectively, it's a little easier to swallow. We're talking about the 2009 Anholt-GfK Roper rankings of the world's most stylish cities, of course.
- Ivy Style uncovered the circa 1965 liner notes to Miles Davis' Greatest Hits, penned by jazz and style writer George Frazier. Frazier's essay, "Warlord of the Weejuns," extols Davis' then-unerring sense of trad style at great length before getting around to the music in the final paragraph: "When not selecting additions to his wardrobe, Miles is a professional trumpet player. People who know about such things tell me he shows a lot of promise."
- The New York Times interviewed 30 chefs and assembled their collective wisdom on this weekend's great task: building the perfect burger.
- Finally, The Selvedge Yard provides a great short primer (and some stunning images) featuring Porsche's 1964 makeover of its aging 356 model—a redesign that produced, of course, the iconic 911.

Four things we learned today

- Johan and Marcella Lindeberg—late of J. Lindeberg—aren't going to be designing off into the sunset, nor are they merely stepping up work with William Rast. Instead, they're taking their design consultancy, Paris68, and turning it into a full men's and women's line.
- There's been a certain to-do in the literary world over novelist Alice Hoffman's ill-advised Twittering to defend her new book by viciously attacking a reviewer who'd panned it. Alain de Botton, the acclaimed author of How Proust Can Change Your Life, has one-upped her on the comments section of a Web site maintained by Caleb Crain, who'd panned de Botton's new book in the Times Book Review: "I will hate you till the day I die," de Botton writes, "and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make."
- Geek alert: The new Firefox browser is out today, and apparently it's a gateway to the Internet of tomorrow.
- Finally, we told you earlier about Beck featuring his new cover band project on the redesigned beck.com; now he's decided to add once-a-week DJ duties to the site as well, under the rubric Planned Obsolescence. An early mix includes what Beck describes as "alabama nukes, rhineland jukes, ponytailed arch dukes, and the anatomically correct scapegoat." Funny—that's what we've been listening to lately, too.

Four things we learned today

- GQ's Style Guy writes about his old friend Hooman Majd, who is apparently one hell of a stylish guy himself, not to mention "probably an observant atheist or an agnostic with Rastafarian sympathies"—and an important voice of sanity on Iran.
- GM—which, as you might remember, is in Chapter 11 protection—has one more "problem": trying to keep the 2010 Camaros in stock. The new models are poised to outsell Mustangs soon, and some buyers are willing to pay up to $2,500 more than sticker price.
- Just as we're seeing less of the skinny look and more muscle and swagger on the runway, along comes Foreign Policy magazine to declare "The Death of Macho."
- Finally, Bryan Burrough, the man who—literally—wrote the book on John Dillinger considers the historical accuracy of Michael Mann's Public Enemies. Burrough's verdict? Spot-on, actually. Turns out you can't make this stuff up.

Four things we learned today

- The first-ever iTunes application featuring adult content—uh, it's called Hottest Girls—debuted. (Insert your own "There's an app for that" joke here.) Hours later, with the developer's servers on the verge of crashing from the demand, the app was declared "sold out."
- British "new fogie" Michael Bywater gets a leg up on five "Savile Rogue" tailors—including, of course, Nick Hart of Spencer Hart—aiming to bring their own contemporary take to the world's bespoke mecca.
- Whitewall magazine's Summer issue is out and online. Though the quarterly print magazine and its digital doppelgänger focus on the art-and-collecting world, Q&As with Vertu's designer, Aston Martin's design director, Terence Koh, François Pinault, David Lynch, and (especially) Daft Punk—their first interview in two years—are well worth checking out.
- Finally, everybody's favorite Superman fan, Shaq, was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers. That's strictly business, of course. But Shaq finding out about the trade on Twitter (where he has 1.4 million followers)? That's personal.

Four things we learned today

- Wimbledon just got less interesting: Maria Sharapova lost her second-round match to 45th-ranked Gisela Dulko.
- Next year's World Cup just got more interesting: Not to get all Sportscenter on you, but the American soccer team pulled off its biggest victory in history this afternoon, handily beating the best team in the world, Spain, 2-0 to reach the finals of the Confederation Cup. (We now resume our regular programming.)
- Beware, all ye who enter here: Topshop guru Sir Philip Green and American Idol sage/curmudgeon Simon Cowell have formed a global entertainment company to produce TV content here (the U.S.), there (the U.K.) and, presumably, everywhere. No hard news on what kind of content, but if you consider what Cowell does and add Sir Philip to the equation—well, you do the math.
- Finally, next year's Oscar pool just got a little trickier to navigate: In an bald attempt to boost ratings, the Motion Picture Academy is expanding the list of nominees—just for the Best Picture category—from five to ten. (Still, if you're thinking Land of the Lost, best keep thinking.)

Four things we learned today

- As if being arguably the most well-known chef on the planet weren't enough, Wolfgang Puck now wants to own part of the Internet. He announced plans to submit an application for the top-level domain name (TLD) ".food"—in other words, if you're a restaurant wanting to use the TLD in your Web address, you'll have to pay the Puck. (Note to the shoulda-coulda-woulda crowd: The application fee is $185,000.)
- Sick of seeing the best minds of their generation make asses of themselves when giving toasts, speeches, tributes, and presentations, two professional writers have teamed up to form The Oratory Laboratory. Give them a little background information (funny wedding toast for your best friend, smart sales presentation for the CEO, heartbreaking tribute to Aunt McGillicuddy) and tell them how long you feel like going—though we'd argue that this is one situation when stamina may be your enemy—and they'll deliver a first draft and work with you on polish and presentation. In other words, they'll save your ass.
- We're Twitter fans as much as the next guy, but when George W. Bush's former Deputy National Security Advisor says "If there's anybody that should possibly get a Nobel Peace Prize in the next time around, it should be the founders of Twitter," we're inclined to call shark-jumping. Either that, or Tweet about it.
- Finally, they're not going gently into that good night: The Beastie Boys announced a new album—their first with vocals since To the 5 Boroughs back in '05. The Hot Sauce Committee Part I drops September 15. Yes—"Part I" is part of the title. Brace yourself.

Four things we learned today

- Brooks Brothers announced the opening of two new stand-alone Black Fleece stores this fall—one in San Francisco and one in Tokyo—to add to the single Manhattan shop. The company has also inked a partnership deal to open as many as 40 Brooks Brothers stores in Mexico. Hell—while they're at it, you'd think they could find Mr. Browne a new CEO and CFO.
- In what has to be a first, Canadian department-store chain Holt Renfrew is preparing to unveil (on Friday) window displays in nine stores inspired by…fashion bloggers. Keep your eyes peeled for a mannequin in the likeness of our occasional correspondent Scott Schuman, a.k.a. The Sartorialist.
- Bad day for baseball cinema and lovers of color film: Just three days before filming was to start, Columbia Pictures has seemingly pulled the plug on Steven Soderbergh's production of Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt—and after 74 years, Kodak pulled the plug on Kodachrome, the first major color film.
- Finally, a good day for hip-hop and/or the estate of Tupac Shakur: Death Row Records is coming back to life. The notorious label founded by Dr. Dre and habitual felon Suge Knight has been resuscitated by an American music publisher partnering with a Canadian entertainment company. Expect a trove of remixes of classic Death Row singles and, next year, yet more Tupac songs from the vaults.

Four things we learned today

- The Times weighs in on the "prepidemic" trend of the all-American look—as interpreted by Daiki Suzuki, Scott Sternberg, André 3000 and others—and Take Ivy, the rare Japanese book (and A Continuous Lean obsession) that serves as the movement's Rosetta stone.
- Among the growing legions of Tom Ford's celebrity fans: The newly non-gangsta 50 Cent, who celebrated a recent lawsuit settlement (regarding renovations to his Connecticut mansion) by loading up on $33K of Ford's custom suits. It's almost enough to make us wistful for his "I've been shot eight times" days.
- Erstwhile rock star and Santa's Party House proprietor Andrew W.K. did an admirable job of explaining how in the hell he got the Cartoon Network to give him a show—Destroy Build Destroy—in which he pits junior-high kids against one another to create massive explosions. (Yet oddly, we trust this guy.)
- Finally, Lars von Trier's Antichrist—the relentlessly violent film that captured most of the buzz at Cannes—is about to become a video game. Eden (only for PC) will pick up the action after the film ends and challenge players "to confront their fears," with Willem Dafoe reprising his role via voice-over. According to the game's developer, Eden's purpose is to construct "your own personal hell." Odd way to market a video game, but we'll write it off as the Von Trier influence.

Four things we learned today

- Eddie Van Halen is suing Nike, claiming some models of its Dunk Low sneakers rip off the red-, white- and black-splashed "Frankenstein" design used on his guitars and, more recently, his own line of shoes—and for which he's held a copyright since 2001.
- That didn't take long: The newly renamed (and refinanced) Chrysler Group is back—sort of. The Detroit factory making the 600-horsepower, V10-powered, $90,000 Viper—a model that's sold about 25,000 units since its introduction in 1992—is up and running again.
- Leave it to Glenn O'Brien to turn cleaning up around his desk into an excuse to riff righteously on Moleskine, fashion shows of yore, and the other detritus of days well spent (or well wasted) in a new installment of his Style Guy blog.
- Finally, Dolce and Gabbana are ready to unveil their new online store—or they will be, in six more days (dandgstore.com, which will offer the full D&G range for both men and women, opens for business on the 23rd).

Four things we learned today

- Nicola Formichetti—the creative director of Dazed & Confused—is also the fashion director of Vogue Japan, senior fashion editor of Another Man, contributing fashion editor at V and VMan, and a consultant and stylist for everyone from Alexander McQueen to Uniqlo. "The Cut" sat him down for a short interview about style—though they neglected to ask him about compulsive job-seeking.
- A new highbrow tattoo magazine, Sang Bleu, is out to reclaim the genre from the usual Sturgis-and-naked-girlfriend crowd.
- GQ's Jason Horowitz tried to get Fox News talking head GlennBeck to explain what possessed him o try stand-up comedy—though Jill Greenberg's portrait gets us halfway to funny before Beck even opens his mouth.
- Finally, over at Slate, Jonah Weiner makes a surprisingly effective case for paying attention to "pretentious pop starlet," "exquisite horror," and current Rolling Stone cover girl Lady Gaga.