Days of Summer

Monday, August 11: The 2007 Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award winner, We Are Together: The Children of Agape Choir, is the story of a South African orphanage populated by children who've lost their parents to AIDS. Featuring three years of footage, Paul Taylor's film reveals how Slindile Moya and her siblings persevere with the help and healing power of song. It debuts tonight on HBO at 9:00 PM EST (see the inspiring trailer) and features cameos from Paul Simon and Alicia Keys. Tuesday, August 12: If only Laura Bush were even the tiniest bit as glamorous or talented as France's First Lady, Carla Bruni (above). Her third full-length album, Comme si de rien n'etait (As if Nothing Had Happened), (out today) is heartbreakingly beautiful. Even if you can't wrap your head around her French, the girl's got a mean set of pipes, as shown on the gorgeous track "L'amour."Wednesday, August 13: Spandex. Skin. Intoxicating human physique no matter what the sex, race, or color of leotard. The Olympics are here. Tonight you can catch some of your favorite disciplines: men's gymnastics and swimming. Champion the adorable Raj Bhavsar and, of course, cheer for Michael Phelps (above); the man is unstoppable -- and quite dashing. Need a reminder? Check out the Popnography-celebrated wet and sexy Men's Journal photo shoot starring Michael alongside Ryan Locthe, then try not to tune in to NBC tonight. Thursday, August 14: Matt Rothschild is like the Upper East Side Jewish David Sedaris. In his new memoir, Dumbfounded: Big Money. Big Hair. Big Problems. Or Why Having It All Isn't for Sissies, (out now), he spins hilariously revealing stories about growing up as part of the only Jewish family in a luxury Fifth Avenue apartment full of WASPs. The book is chock full of sexual confusion and the bittersweet trials of adolescence, as Rothschild sneaks into his sharp-tongued grandmother's dresses, shoplifts Barbie dolls, and dreams up an imaginary midget butler he speaks to at dinner parties. Get it now.Friday, August 15: Take comely Oscar-winner Javier Bardem, ubiquitous cover girl Scarlett Johansson, and the painfully hot Penelope Cruz (above), throw them in a web of art, sex, and intrigue, set the story against a Barcelona backdrop, and you have the charming new Woody Allen film Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Bardem plays a painter, while Cruz takes her turn as Bardem's mildly unstable ex-wife and seductress to Johansson. Thank you, Woody, for finally supplying us with a little sapphic drama. This trailer leaves a lot to the imagination. Saturday, August 16: We love a gay artist who flouts convention. In The Nancy Book, Joe Brainard takes Nancy comic strips and transforms them into mind-trips. Classic art is appropriated (de Kooning, Duchamp, Picasso), but the volume is also full of some deliciously lowbrow scenes (Nancy in a threesome, Nancy pleasuring herself, Nancy getting railed by a libertine). Check out Noah Michelson's recap on Out.com, peep some samples on Popnography, then get it here. Sunday, August 17: What would you do if you had to cough up a few thousand dollars for your sick grandson? How about jerk off boys in a glory hole? In the new film Irina Palm, Marianne Faithfull stars as a widow who is loyal to her dead husband yet earns herself a reputation for having the most skilled hands in London, proving that a will to love and support those closest can overcome the, um, biggest obstacles. Check out the trailer, then get it on DVD.