THE ESQ&A John Hawkes prefers bottled water, anonymity, and a world without e-mail. He'll have to make do with one out of three.

MEGAN FOX: SPEAKS IN TONGUES "I have seen magical, crazy things," says the last great American sex symbol, who is determined not to end up like the others. By Stephen Marche

THE NEXT FOUR YEARS Who and what we'll be talking about, from sports and cars and movies to stocks and wars and presidential candidates. And a woman named Imogen Poots.

YOU PLAY UNLESS YOU CAN'T The NFL can change the game of football all it wants. But what really needs to change — and what never will — are the minds of the players. By Tom Junod

LET 'EM RUT There is hypocrisy in our need to punish and then forgive men like David Petraeus, Tiger Woods, and Bill Clinton for their sins. The real sin is our misguided idea of monogamy. By John H. Richardson

AMERICA WITHOUT THE POST OFFICE No institution connects every American so intimately and efficiently as the U.S. Postal Service. Are we really sure we want to live without it? By Jesse Lichtenstein

POLITICS By winning the election so splendidly, President Obama has the opportunity to disenthrall his own administration from its notion that there was some good to be found in the people who so fastened themselves to the cheap and the lazy and the stupid. By Charles P. Pierce

MAN AT HIS BEST: CULTURE The case for short stories, why you'll still want to own a point-and-shoot, and wisdom from an old man.

FUNNY JOKE FROM A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN By Lauren Cohan

MAHB: INSTRUCTION How to make a sauce using butter, some wine, and the stuff that sticks to your pan. Plus: The perfect manhattan. And a few less-perfect (but delicious) variations.

MAHB: SEX Numbing spray and porn. Combine at your own discretion.

STYLE A guide to appropriate winter layering. Plus, novelist Colum McCann's guide to wearing a scarf (constantly).

ESQUIRE POETRY FOR MEN Trochees, iambs, and no requests for exegesis. An enjoyable few moments with poesy. By Matthew Dickman, Galway Kinnell, Alex Lemon, Sharon Olds, Charles Simic, Jason Tandon, and Nick Tosches

ESQUIRE STYLE Dressing down can be as hard as dressing up. But not when you have Kevin Bacon and James Purefoy, stars of the new Fox drama The Following, showing you how.

THIS WAY OUT Inside the Census By Brian Frazer