The Emails of Natalie Portman and Jonathan Safran Foer

We interrupt our hiatus (we're working on a super-secret book-length project hate reading the work of Ann Patchett) to present breaking news from the willingly (by all appearances) disclosed correspondence between Natalie Portman and Jonathan Safran Foer. While some have defended the artists' correspondence as earnest and well-meaning, the move has been widely panned as a masturbatory, navel-gazing middle-brow exercise.

Faithful Hate Readers will note that the "profile" of Portman is accompanied by a photo shoot of her in rustic scenes swaddled in $1,000 sweaters over $375 bikinis (though inexplicably her socks have no price tag--what gives?). Others have noted her lack of pants. We were also struck by the visual imbalance. What was Safran Foer wearing? Where was half of this tableau of coquettish coyness and teenage turmoil? What was a recently separated father of two like JSF doing exactly? 

A New York Times Weekly Hate Read exclusive, a photo of the writer intended for publication as part of the series of digital epistles has come to light. In it, JSF apparently reclines in front of a fireplace with an expensive champagne and kittens. One source reported that the photo made Safran Foer seem "a little desperate."

Does this look like an artist to you?