The One-Page Magazine - NYTimes.com Though a year or two may have elapsed since Tempestt Bledsoe shared the screen with the man she still calls "Dr. Cosby," she upholds his tradition of working in front of a live studio audience on her NBC sitcom, "Guys With Kids." "It's as close to improv as you can get," she says. "We've said lines - "Hey, you want a sandwich?" - and they fall out. And you're like, "Oh, my God, what was funny about that?" " Tootsie Rolls Fake teeth Plastic pumpkin buckets Smarties Wizard of Oz costumes Submit suggestions on Twitter via #meh A new biography of Pauline Kael, the straight-shooting New Yorker film critic, paints her withering 1963 attack on Andrew Sarris's auteur theory as a "careerist move" rather than a hilarious riposte to his midcentury notions of femininity. That Sarris later dismissed Kael as a "lady critic" goes unmentioned. The biographer, Brian Kellow, must be fond of "Pauline," though. He calls her by her first name while, as Jana Prikryl observes in The New York Review of Books, conferring "surnames on everybody else." What town wouldn't want a new Williams-Sonoma? Sonoma, Calif., of course. At least that's what a local paper suggested after catching wind that the City Council was planning on banning "formula" stores from its historic square. The news stung fans of the upscale cookware giant, which was planning to return to Chuck Williams's original 1956 storefront. But Ken Brown, a town councilman, says the paper was wrong: "I called the P.R. gal myself and told her, "Hey, we're rolling out the red carpet." " There used to be a "Saturday Night Live" cartoon about the ex-presidents as a team of superheroes. It's not a bad idea. While Washington inches closer to calamity, we've got four former presidents from both parties hanging around, and they mostly seem to get along. Whoever wins in November should get these guys in a room and see if there's a fiscal plan everyone can live with. Then they could sell it like the statesmen we need them to be. By Mario Batali When I'm hanging out in an airplane lounge and I need a hydrating beverage, I make a red beer. Put two ice cubes in a highball glass, and add 4 shakes Tabasco, 1 tsp. Worcestershire, 3 oz. V8 and squeeze half a lime. Then fill to the top with a cold pilsner. Hit the foamy head with a shake of salt and commence hydration: it's a long flight, and the movies are from last year. By Peter Andrey Smith M. Wells Dinette, a Québécois restaurant in Queens, canceled its plans to serve horse tartare after receiving threats. It's the latest example of America's odd relationship to dining on equines, which to many connotes Frenchness. "Real Americans," says Kari Weil, a philosophy professor at Wesleyan, "wouldn't eat horse and don't speak French." To stay married out of duty. Four kids and constant bickering had turned Jeanine and Henrique's romance into mutual martyrmony. See also: Boudwar (dispute originating in bedroom). Katie writes: My boyfriend, Ryan, and I are the proud parents of a tabby named Mike. He has been trained to walk on a leash and is obsessed with going outside. I don't give him what he wants every time he wants it, but my boyfriend is soft of heart. Shouldn't we stop giving in to this cat's every demand? Let me tell you what your cat does when it goes outside: It is going to poop, and it is going to murder small animals. Unlike a dog, he will never crave your authority; unlike a child, his moral character will neither spoil nor improve by your indulgence. I rule in your boyfriend's favor, though I applaud your putting a cat on a leash, because that is always hilarious. Listen to the judge's podcast and submit questions for adjudication to www.maximumfun.org/jjho Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction, by Paul Bahn: What those people actually do and why they are optimists by nature. By Scott Stapp I didn't leave my house for six years, and for one and a half of those I was in a bathrobe drinking a bottle of Jack and half a bottle of Hennessy every day. Then I went to the Betty Ford Center. I began to see things as: "I'm alive! Look at how I've been blessed! It's been key for me to get new purpose, bro.