2007 Hot Issue

HOT TABLETOP: Biba Golic

For most Americans, pingpong is a punch line. But to Asians and Eastern Europeans, table tennis is a true sport, as real and competitive as tennis -- and its Maria Sharapova is a woman named Biba Golic. As the face of Killerspin (the Nike of table-tennis equipment), the twenty-nine-year-old Serb moved stateside a few years ago, bringing her tight, nylon-clad booty to matches across the country and accruing a rabid male fan base. "In Serbia, it was less about the show business and more about the sport," says Golic, who has cameos in this summer's Balls of Fury and the upcoming Ping Pong Playa. "I was very famous there, but the fans were more quiet." America is showing some interest: ESPN recently started airing pingpong tourneys. But Golic's dream of the Olympics may be out of reach. Though she's been playing since she was nine years old, was ranked in national college play and was a quarter-finalist at the U.S. Open in Las Vegas in July, she can't play for the American na­tional team. To play for Serbia, she'd have to move back there to practice. "I like Chicago," she says of her adopted hometown. "I chose a different lifestyle when I moved here." --GILLIAN TELLING

HOT ADAPTATION: The Dark Tower

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." So began the first book of Stephen King's magnum-opus mash-up, The Dark Tower series, a saga that's at once Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western, Arthurian myth and H.P. Lovecraft ­horror. King started the series more than thirty years ago, and it includes elements from the prolific writer's entire fictional universe -- some forty novels, hundreds of stories and millions of words.

To the delight of rabid fans who thought they had said goodbye to The Dark Tower when King published the seventh and final installment in 2004, he recently supervised a run of Dark Tower comic books -- complete with the untold tales that the books only alluded to -- and now that visually stunning series has been collected into a single graphic novel, The Gunslinger Born, out next month from Marvel Comics.

Unlike the books, the comics begin with the origin of the gunslinger, the lead character inspired by Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name. "It's not just an adaptation," says Gunslinger artist Jae Lee. "What we're doing is telling a brand-new story about the gunslinger's youth. It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears. The first seven issues took me about two years."

Lee and painter Richard Isanove are ­already at work on the ­second volume of the series, due next spring, and this time "it's a ­hundred percent brand-new material," Lee says. "Fans are definitely in for a surprise." --Sean Woods

HOT CALENDAR: Mormons Exposed

Thanks to Big Love and Mitt Romney, Mormons are already sexy. Now, because of Chad Hardy, they're also half-naked. The Las Vegas resident, a self-described "open-minded" Mormon, has put together a steamy 2008 calendar featuring bare-chested former missionaries. And they're selling quickly to both women and men. "So many people look at Mormons as being very backward or non-accepting of other lifestyles, but here's a group of guys who are saying, 'We're not that way,' " Hardy says of "Men on a Mission," which he sells on his Web site, MormonsExposed.com.

After screening the models to make sure their families approved, Hardy shot them in locations including a Latter Day Saints temple. "I was waiting for lightning bolts to come down," Hardy says.

Though some conservatives have expressed outrage over the shirtlessness, some former church members say they might not have strayed if they'd known other Mormons like Hardy. And he's doing his best to live up to that respect: Hardy is already planning his next calendar, which features Mormon women. "It's not what people expect," he teases. "It's going to be pretty stink- ing funny." --LINDSEY THOMAS

HOT MODEL: Agyness Deyn

You probably first recognized her cropped platinum coif, but it's the sexy rock-chick slouch and effortless personal style that have some folks calling Manchester-born model Agyness Deyn "the next Kate Moss." The Catholic schoolgirl, née Agnes Hollins, cut off all her hair at ten, dyed it pink at fifteen and later sported a blond mohawk. Discovered while shopping in London two years ago, Deyn, 21, has done ads for Galliano, Armani and Burberry, and quickly became a photographers' darling thanks to her distinctly un-Moss-y joie de vivre. Deyn, who concocted her name out of two family names, spelled with a numerology twist, found fashion through rock & roll rather than the other way around. She started frequenting Manchester's hipster emporium Afflecks Palace after her older brother, Greg, introduced her to Brit pop. ("I had Oasis pictures all over my bedroom walls," she says. "But I also luuurved Take That.") Her on-again/off-again musician boyfriend, Josh Hubbard of the Paddingtons, has been teaching her guitar via video chat, and she's started a not-quite-gig-ready band called Lucky Knitwear. Deyn's still refreshingly unaffected by her rising celebrity: "You've just got to take it for what it is. In life, you're going to run into some cunts, aren't ya?" --Jenny Eliscu

>HOT GIZMO: Mechanical Trees

Watch out, trees. Your job as air purifiers may be threatened. To better combat global warming, Columbia University geophysics professor Klaus Lackner has invented what he calls "atmosphere scrubbers": 300-foot-tall steel posts bearing giant air filters that chemically simulate photosynthesis. They may look more like oversized fly swatters than Ponderosa Pines, but what they lack in aesthetic appeal, they make up for in efficiency. The scrubbers can remove CO2 from the atmosphere a thousand times faster than natural trees -- 90,000 tons a year, the emissions equivalent of 15,000 cars.

How do these mechanical trees work? Their "leaves," resembling Venetian-blind slats, are coated with a chemical that absorbs CO2; the trapped molecules are then converted into waste that can be buried underground. Lackner believes that a "forest" of 250,000 of these trees placed in an area the size of Arizona could completely offset humanity's current annual CO2 output.

The projected cost is up to $20 million a tree. But before Lackner can prove the trees have commercial potential, he has several glitches to address: First, so far only a nine-foot-tall model exists. He's scrambling to develop a full-size prototype but says it won't be completed for two years (critics predict it will take decades). Another glitch: The process of prying the CO2 loose from the filter's chemical membrane and storing it underground requires lots of electricity, and critics say unless that power comes from carbon-free sources, these trees could give off more CO2 than they remove. Green activists have a bigger gripe: The invention would prolong the use of polluting fuels and delay the shift to cleaner, greener energy sources like wind and solar. "It's treating the climate crisis superficially, not curing its root cause," says Kert Davies of Greenpeace, "like taking NyQuil for pneumonia."

Lackner admits his invention extends the use of fossil fuels -- in fact, he thinks of that as one of the selling points. "This will enable us to keep the door open to the world's use of oil, coal and natural gas," he says, "the cheapest and most reliable energy sources we've got." It will take decades to wean humanity off its fossil-fuel addiction, he reasons, and global warming could wreak havoc much sooner. Says Lackner, "We need a contingency plan." --A.G.L.

HOT CONSPIRACY THEORY: Nafta Superhighway

It's twelve lanes wide and longer than the Great Wall of China. It stretches from Mexico City to Toronto, flanked by a railroad, gas pipelines and fiber-optic cables -- all built and maintained by a murky Spanish multinational. And it will destroy America, merging the United States into a single nation with Mexico and Canada, called the North American Union. It's the NAFTA Superhighway, and according to conspiracy theorists, it's the most dire threat to our freedom since King George levied a stamp tax. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul says the highway will "erase the borders." Anti-immigrant crusader Lou Dobbs calls it "an attack on national sovereignty." In February, the Montana legislature passed a resolution opposing it. And right-wing radio host Hal Turner claims to have obtained an Amero coin, the currency of the new Evil Empire.

There's only one catch: The highway is a myth. No one is even planning it, let alone building it. The nonexistent road is the unholy offspring of growing anxiety over globalization and the unfettered Internet distribution of a fear-inducing map of existing highways. One White House initiative has even posted a "Myth vs. Fact" FAQ on its Web site that states bluntly: "The U.S. government is not planning a NAFTA Superhighway."

But such denials do nothing to deter the conspiracy-minded. "Of course, they have their angle," Ron Paul tells Rolling Stone. "But you can find the diagrams of it. It's very real!" Indeed, politicians of all stripes are racing to stop the make-believe road: Congress recently took up a measure by Rep. Duncan Hunter, another GOP presidential contender, to ban federal funding for the free-trade highway from hell. The measure passed by a vote of 362-63. --TIM DICKINSON

HOT CHANTEUSE: Emily Jane White

Thanks to Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom and a billion bearded dudes with guitars, California's new folk movement is already blowing up. But now Emily Jane White is bringing the darker side to that scene. The twenty-six-year-old Northern California native's debut CD comes alive with enough gothic imagery for an Edgar Allan Poe novel. On Dark Undercoat, White pierces her characters with bullets ("Two Shots to the Head"), sticks them with voodoo pins ("Hole in the Middle") and pushes them into blades ("Dagger"). The twist is that with her woeful delivery, the violence is more cathartic than cruel. "All these death metaphors are just the different elements of life," she says.

Dark Undercoat's sparse tracks unfold at a reflective pace, with White's plaintive croon draped over minimal guitar, piano and percussion arrangements. Cat Power is the easiest modern comparison to her melancholy balladry, but White's heroes range from PJ Harvey to Emmylou Harris to Poison Ivy of the Cramps, and the album kicks off with an ode to legendary blues queen Bessie Smith. White wrote the song in response to the common rumor that Smith died because an all-white hospital refused to treat her following a car accident. "Death is at the heart of the blues, and her blues is so old you can feel it," says White.

Dark Undercoat also pays homage to everyday heroes. White wrote "Wild Tigers I Have Known" for Cam Archer's movie of the same name, a Gus Van Sant-produced portrait of a gay teenager struggling to put his desires into action. "The song was a way for me to connect with the heartbreak of that experience," she says. "When you decide to go deep with darkness, you also unearth pieces of gold." --JENNIFER MAERZ

LISTEN: "Wild Tigers I Have Known"

HOT NEW KIDS: Vampire Weekend

You'd think a band of four Ivy Leaguers would yearn for blogosphere approval from some place like Pitchfork. But New York's Vampire Weekend were much more excited to get their first rave from Benn Loxo du Taccu (bennloxo.com), written by a Canadian reporter who was living in Senegal and posting MP3s of obscure African pop tunes. The site had helped introduce the Columbia University band to the Afro-beat deep cuts that shaped their own distinct groove: a blend of ska, African music and New Wave pop that coalesces into addictive indie-rock tunes on their as-yet-unreleased album, due early next year on XL Recordings.

VW singer Ezra Koenig already knew what kind of artistic statement he wanted to make when he formed the band with pals Rostam Batmanglij, Christopher Tomson and Chris Baio in early 2006. "I'd taken a trip to India the year before and stopped in London for a few days on the way there," he says. "It got me thinking a lot about colonialism and the aesthetic connections between preppy culture and the native cultures of places like Africa and India."

For an assignment at Columbia, Koenig wrote a short story exploring those connections and called it "Cape Cod Kwaasa Kwaasa," which became the title of one of the band's first tunes.

But they know to steer clear of academic eggheadism. "If we worry too much about what's 'authentic' and it verges on ethnomusicology," says drummer Tomson, "it would take away from what we want to do, which is more like a mash-up."

Still, Koenig notes that there will always be a guiding principle behind Vampire Weekend's music. "The basis of our whole band is not playing modern rock," says the twenty-three-year-old New Jersey native, who got Nirvana's In Utero for his tenth birthday but quickly moved away from anything remotely "alt-rock." He feels confident they're on the right track: Earlier this year, while he was teaching eighth-grade English at a Brooklyn public school, he got the seal of approval from some of his toughest potential critics. "One of my students kept telling me, 'Mr. Koenig, you guys gotta take down the Fall Out Boys.' And this kid Koran said he was listening to our songs and his cousin said, 'What is this white-boy shit?' And Koran goes, 'No, man, listen to it, it's not like that.' I was like, 'Yeah!' " --JENNY ELISCU

LISTEN: "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa":

HOT TREND: The YouTube Folk Revival

Shortly after Bruce Springsteen's Magic leaked to the Internet, you could find instantaneous covers of nearly half the songs on YouTube from enterprising young folkies who'd figured out the chords, transcribed the lyrics and pressed "record." These days, YouTube has become the new open mike, and it's flooded with more acoustic guitars and harmonica racks than the sidewalks of Greenwich Village in 1962. Search for Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" and you'll find countless unknowns performing cover versions, from a dude in a Mexican wrestling mask who turns out to be an expert fingerpicker to a guy who has uploaded no fewer than ninety cover songs under the name coldironsbound82. All it takes is a Webcam, a well-chosen cover tune and a willingness to endure not-so-friendly commenters. "Some people said they've heard cats sing better than me," sighs one brave YouTuber, Mateus Salgado, who's covered Neil Young and others.

The youngest and cutest performers tend to rack up the most views -- but there's room for grizzled vets too. "I hear there's a great old bearded dude doing bluegrass versions of my tunes," says KT Tunstall, who's the frequent recipient of cover tributes. (Check out Kiersten Holine's take on Tunstall's "Stoppin' the Love.") "I would have been all over that shit if it had been invented when I started out." The trend has become so widespread, it's inevitable labels will want in. (Did we mention Holine has her own CD coming out?) This summer, when numerous stripped-down versions of Rihanna's "Umbrella" turned up online, an ultrapopular clip by Marié Digby surfaced. Turns out Digby is signed to Hollywood Records. That twist led to fears that The Man was encroaching on this cozy virtual scene, which Digby denies. "I always go to YouTube to learn new songs," she says. "And I wanted to learn the Rihanna song. I did this on my own."

Still, not every amateur musician is seeking a record deal. Some just want to share their music the only way they know how. "I don't think I'm that great of a singer anyway," says Scottish lad Jodie Stewart, who's covered Dylan tunes. "I'm not one for playing in front of people." --NICOLE FREHSEE AND KEVIN O'DONNELL

Twelve-year-old Isaac Baker can't believe more than 2,000 people have viewed the four-minute video he posted on YouTube this summer. The emotional clip -- titled "Self Portrait (There Once Was a Little Girl)" -- documents his transformation from the girl born as Iris into the preteen boy he's always felt he really was. "I thought my video might help people," he says. "I just hope it helps others understand that they're not alone."

Isaac may be the youngest person using YouTube to celebrate his emerging gender identity, but he's in good company. Dozens of people between ages sixteen and twenty-six have posted video blogs documenting their transitions. Erin Armstrong, a twenty-two-year-old Utah native, has a backlog of sixty-plus videos: One demonstrates how she gives herself biweekly hormone injections; another deals with her Mormon family's reactions. "When I started my blog, I couldn't find other transgendered people on YouTube," she says. "Now it's exploded." Her clips often get upward of 10,000 views. "Before the videos, I was starting to feel a little lost," she admits. "It helps to feel like I have a community that supports me -- even if it's a community I may never get to meet." --JENNY ELISCU