Maybe it's because she lives in Toronto, not Hollywood. Maybe it's because her dad was a truck driver, her mother a nurse. Maybe it's just her personality. But you won't see her flashing her ladybits as she drunkenly stumbles out of a car; and she doesn't gush about Louboutins or Lanvin. Or at least, not when she's being interviewed by Vogue's Sally Singer. It seems like celebrity profiles used to be about elevating the star — with notes about their stunning skin, beauty regimens, tasteful wardrobe choices, etc. Once, a Jennifer Lopez profile began with the writer "discovering" her getting a massage by the pool. But now, with the "stars are just like us!" zeitgeist, this profile, much like W's piece on Jennifer Garner, emphasizes just how normal Rachel McAdams is. Whether it's true or not (and I suspect it is, mostly) it's as though the magazine is urging you to have a girlcrush on her (not that you already don't) by reminding you how much she's like that earthy BFF you already have. No matter that the photographs have her dolled up in Dior and Dolce & Gabbana, without a beat-up bike or broken in boots in sight!

Some highlights from the interview:

On yoga every morning:

"The earliest I'll start is four-thirty. That's my limit."

On air-conditioning:

"I can't live with it. I feel I'm not living in the world."

On cooking classes:

"I need to have better knife skills…for vegetables. Sometimes you pick up a tomato…."

On accumulating "stuff":

"I don't really desire things. I prefer to spend my money on experiences, on meals or travel."

On her website, GreenIsSexy.org:

"I look at the world through a green lens now, but you can't make yourself crazy. That feeling of green guilt can be really inhibiting. It's about a changing mind-set, remembering to turn off the water when you are brushing your teeth."

On some old boots that Susan Levin Downey (wife of her Sherlock Holmes costar Robert) told her to get rid of:

"But they are just broken in perfectly."

On being the opposite of Regina George in Mean Girls:

"My mother never put an emphasis on looks. She let us grow up on our own time line. She never forced any beauty regimen into my world." McAdams was teased in high school for not shaving her legs. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked her mom. Mom: "Once you start, there's no turning back."

On her home in Toronto, which she shares with her brother:

"Having a house that's always falling apart was so romantic when I bought it," she says, sighing, "but now seems less so."

On being single:

"I'm pretty good on my own, and I like just getting out and walking, which seems very rudimentary."

To top it all off, Diane Keaton, Rachel's costar in The Family Stone forthcoming film Morning Glory says:

"Rachel isn't looking for a lot of friends and a big fat social life. I don't feel like she's drawn toward 'everyone love me' or 'I want to be the richest woman on Earth.' But of course, men fall in love with her like crazy."

And women!

The Notebook, Part Two [Vogue]
Related: GreenIsSexy.org

[Images by Mario Testino for Vogue]

• Remember when Nicole Richie was on The Simple Life? She's planning on returning to primetime TV — this time in a scripted comedy.

Nicole is producing and starring as "a professional woman with complicated family relationships" who is "struggling to figure out what role she'll take as her life and her family evolve." She came up with the idea for the show, and Daisy Gardner (Californication) will be writing the half-hour sitcom for ABC. There's no title yet, so maybe we can brainstorm one? Is Family Puts The Fun In Dysfunctional too long?!?! [Variety]

• Jennifer Aniston really loves her yoga instructor, Mandy Ingber. Jen has filmed a personal introduction for Mandy's new DVD, in which she declares, "Mandy brought yoga into my life. This workout will change your body and your mind." Jen works out with Mandy up to five times a week, and even takes her on vacation with her. What have you done for your yoga instructor lately? [Page Six]
• Jake Gyllenhaal's assistant was seeing taking luggage from Reese Witherspoon's house to Jake's house. Are they broken up? Does he have sleepover bags? Is he going on a trip? What does it mean?!?!?! [MSNBC]
• Breaking: Amy Winehouse was sober at her father's birthday party. [The Sun]
• BREAKING! Lindsay Lohan was also spotted sober, while out at a night club. End times? [Page Six]
• "Sources" say the news about Tiger Woods is not surprising: "He's a pro athlete. He's been in a lot of situations with women that would not look good… Most athletes of his stature fall under the same category, it doesn't mean he doesn't love his family." Apparently Tiger was often seen "in the company of women in public places" and "whether he crossed lines - that's not something anyone talks about openly, but I can tell you there are times things look that way." As always: grain of salt. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Roman Polanski will not be released on bail before Friday, according to Swiss authorities. [AFP]
• Ever the nonconformist, Cate Blanchett spent Cyber Monday shopping the streets of Manhattan. [Gatecrasher]
• In LA, George Clooney walked the red carpet at the premiere of his film Up In The Air with his girlfriend, Elisabetta Canalis, and his mom, Nina. [Daily Mail]
• Elisabeth Hasselbeck has been sued AGAIN over her book, The G Free Diet, by the same woman who sued her the first time. Susan Hassett claims Hasselbeck's book is a rip-off of her own work, Living with Celiac Disease. [TMZ]
• Emma Watson: Spotted vacationing in Jamaica with Brit cutie Jay Barrymore, mere days after she attended a hockey game with Spanish rocker Rafael Cebrian. Hermione plays the field! [Page Six]
• Charlize Theron will be the host of a 90-minute live show promoting — and drawing players for — next year's football Wold Cup in South Africa. Only two hundred million people in 200 countries will be watching. No pressure. [Reuters]
• Rihanna was incredibly upset when a man punched Leona Lewis in the face at an event a few weeks ago. I got so mad, like it was me. I couldn't believe it happened to her, of all people," Rihanna says. "It's so disappointing when people behave like that. Why? She's so sweet. She is just a beautiful, beautiful spirit. You don't want any bad things to happen to her." [Daily Express]
• Boys kissing boys and boys in boys' crotches are very much a no-no! ABC is trying to find a way to avoid a repeat of a performance like Adam Lambert's at the American Music Awards: "We certainly don't want to suppress artistry at any level, but we also have to be cognizant of who our audience is," Anne Sweeney, president of Disney/ABC Television Group, says. [NY Post]
• Richard Gere is being called a "tree-killer." [Page Six]
• Sherri Shepherd bribes her son with White Castle. [Gatecrasher]
• In a very graphic video at the link, bounce's from Jay-Z's 40/40 Club in Atlantic City punch and beat two "ejected patrons." The bouncers may face criminal charges. [NY Daily News]
• The gorgeous and talented exiled Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo — whom you may have seen in House Of Sand And Fog — is maybe about to ink a deal for her memoir. And this column claims she is the "dark-horse Oscar contender" for her performance in The Stoning of Soraya M, a film we have been keeping tabs on. [Page Six]
• The next Harry Potter movie will mostly take place away from Hogwarts, and Rupert Grint says: "Harry, Ron and Hermione are just camping out in random places, living rough, in regular clothes… Me and Dan actually have some stubble." [USA Today]
• Check out this picture of the very limber Jaden Smith, son of Will, who is currently filming the Karate Kid remake, Kung-Fu Kid. [The Life Files]
• Roger Avary, who won a screenwriting Oscar for Pulp Fiction, sent tweets from jail, and now is under higher security; he had been on a work furlough program but is now back in routine confinement. [NY Daily News]
• Russell Brand met Katy Perry's religious parents! Katy's dad gave Rusty a book about God's intervention, Russell gave Katy's dad My Booky Wook, in which Russell details his former life of drugs and hookers. Everyone is okay with everything and all four of them are on vacation in Austria. [The Sun]
• Congrats to Susan Boyle, who could have the number one album in the US and the UK and whose disc has the biggest opening sales of the year. [NY Daily News]
• Gary Busey has been named the unsexiest man in Hollywood. [Daily Express]
• "Liam Gallagher Brands Noel The 'Kevin Keegan Of Rock." [Independent]
• "Michael Jackson" was the most-searched term on Yahoo this year. [AP]
• ''I would have done nothing differently. I think it worked out really well.
  ''I am really happy with what I am doing now — happy in my personal life and happy with my professional life. 'I apologized for the thing I did wrong to the person I did it wrong to." — Russell Brand, regarding the prank calls he and Jonathan Ross made to Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs in October 2008. [Telegraph]
• "[My father] was scary and violent. He beat the living hell out of me, and there was constant verbal abuse. Looking back on it, he probably was disappointed that I was so drawn to the arts. He probably thought I was gay. I wasn't interested in sports. I didn't know the names of any baseball players. I liked films and books and records." — Tom Petty. [Advocate via Rolling Stone]
• "The only thing that came into my mind was a decade ago, when I hit 50, I was onstage in Philadelphia, and you realize, 'OK, this is exactly where I want to be right now. I wouldn't want to be any place else.' You realize there is a finiteness to it. We're playing to an audience now that will outlive us. There will be a seed of an audience out there tonight that's just going to outlive the band. But at the same time, the band is very, very powerful right now. And part of the reason it's powerful is that it's carrying a lot of very strong cumulative history. You come and you see 35 years of a speeding train going down the track and you're going to get to be on the front end of it. We look forward to many, many more years of touring and playing and enjoying it." — Bruce Springsteen. Much more in an extensive interview at the link. [Reuters]
• "I mean, it's fine if that's what they want to focus on. It's a movie that I think is beautiful and was a joy to make. But I can only make it. If people want to make that the thing they want to talk about, it's distressing, but that's their business." — Willem Dafoe wish you would stop focusing on his mutilated genitalia in Antichrist. [New York]
• "I don't have any interest in acting anymore. Movies are a part of my past. It's been 30 years. I'm not young, but I have time to do something else. I consider my entire movie career a complete failure. The goal of movie-making is to star in a film where your performance drives the film, and the film is either a soaring critical or commercial success, and I never had that." — Say it ain't so, Alec Baldwin! [MSNBC Scoop via Men's Journal]
• "I hate that. He has such a big mouth. It drives me crazy, and it makes me want to thump him in the side of his head… It's not accurate." — Kimora Lee Simmons, when asked if it's true that Russell Simmons gives her $40,000 a month in child support. [Page Six]

[New York, August 19. Image via INF]

* The doctor who tried to save the life of Neda Agha Soltan claims to have identified her killer. • Audio tapes of Silvio Berlusconi talking to escort Patrizia D'Addario have hit the Internet. In one conversation, Berlusconi tells D'Addario to wait for him in "Putin's bed." • A new book claims the Bush twins tried to lose their Secret Service detail whenever possible, and that Secret Service agents had to take a drunk Henry Hager (now Jenna's husband) to the hospital in 2005. • A witness in evangelist Tony Alamo's sex-crimes trial may have set the prosecution back by misidentifying Alamo and contradicting her own sister, allegedly one of his victims. • Researchers have found that birth control pills are less effective in obese women not because the hormones concentrate in fat tissue, but because they take longer to reach the necessary levels in the blood. • A doctor who has advised UNICEF and the World Health Organization says breast-feeding doesn't actually protect babies from disease, but that women who breast-feed tend to have healthier lifestyles. • Young British men are more likely to commit violent acts if they live with their parents, perhaps because they "have fewer responsibilities and more disposable income to spend on alcohol." • But drinking can be good for you — if it makes you pass out in a yoga position. • A House spending bill passed Thursday allows the use of local funds to pay for abortions in DC. • And Randall Terry of Operation Rescue, totally failing to learn anything from George Tiller's death, says that if the new health-care reform bill includes coverage for abortion, "history will hold those in power responsible for the violent convulsions that follow." •

• Michelle Obama says that the family's new puppy, Bo, is "kind of crazy," and really likes to chew on people's feet. • For the first time since they were donated almost a year ago, Emory University is planning to unveil Alice Walker's literary archives. • The University of California, Davis has launched a new program, titled "One Health", which will help save the world's remaining 740 mountain gorillas by not only caring for the gorillas, but also the people and animals the inhabit the surrounding community. • Joe Shuster, the creator of Superman, made most of his money drawing racy, bondage themed images for an obscure series of magazines called Nights Of Horror. • Philip Markoff, aka the "Craigslist Killer," has been put on suicide watch after corrections officers found shoelace marks on his neck. • The Philippine Court of Appeals has overturned the 2006 rape conviction of a U.S. Marine. The decision is final, and leftist groups are outraged. • The BBC put Google's new Similar Images tool to the test, to find out whether it actually brought back, well, similar images. The verdict: sometimes, but the Renee Zellweger/John Prescott comparison is not very flattering. • A fertility doctor who claims to have implanted cloned human embryos into several woman is being denounced by experts in the field as an "unscrupulous publicity hound." • The Public Health Commission in Wales has changed the national policy on sex change operations, making them more easily available to transgender individuals. • Two frat brothers from a New Hampshire college are facing misdemeanor charges after they branded pledges with a WWII bayonet. • Feministing takes the New York Times to task for its recent review of "17 Again," Zac Efron's new, possibly sexist, movie. • This is the funniest story I've read today: a woman dressed as Princess Leia was pulled over for drunk driving because both she and her husband (dressed as Luke Skywalker, natch) were too embarrassed to walk home in costume. • Henrietta Hughes, the woman who asked Obama for help and a house during one of his town meetings, is now jobless and is may soon be homeless again. • This quirky British couple got married in full-on Shrek costumes. Fairytale wedding indeed. •  Click here to learn about some weird medical mythology, like vagina dentata and sperm gone bad. • In what was probably a very good move, Apple yanked the "Baby Shaker" iPhone app from their store. • In efforts to prevent childhood obesity, ice cream trucks in Britain have been banned from parking outside schools. •  Students in Alaska have been suspended for cruelly taunting and frightening a moose so much that it suffered a fatal injury. • Andrea Wachner hated high school, so instead of attending her 10 year reunion, she sent a stripper in her place. Watch the whole thing on video here. • A new study has found that people who drink a glass of 100% juice each day are more likely to be thin than those who do not. • A 25-year-old woman from San Antonio has plead guilty to arranging the sale of her 5-year-old daughter for sex. She had also planned to sell her 10-month-old daughter into sex slavery, but fortunately, neither child was actually sold. • Massachusetts officials are conducting a DNA search on the body of the "Craigslist Killer" victim to determine whether to add rape to the charges leveled against Philip Markoff. • The women behind the Pink Chadi Campaign have organized another protest, called "One Night Stand". •  Scientists from the University of South Dakota have invented a wall paint that kills germs and bacteria. • Sad news: the Australian government has authorized the killing of thousand baby kangaroos that have been forced by drought into residential areas. •

For those of us too lazy, poor or contrary to jump on the yoga bandwagon, there are many ways to justify our indolence. But rarely do we invoke higher powers. Not surprisingly, yoga's getting big in Israel. But for the country's sizable Orthodox population, it's the subject of hot debate. The issue? Many yoga practitioners involve Hindu chants dedicated to multiple deities in their practices, which flies in the face of the Jewish injunction to worship only one God. Cranks like the poster quoted above are obviously not going to whip out a mat any time soon. But for those craving the physical and mental benefits of yoga, the question's trickier. Some authorities, after studying the matter, have granted a qualified OK. As Israelity puts it,

theologians have posited that since they all essentially represent manifestations of the one primary godhead, Brahman, the additional Hindu gods can be seen as analogous to Jewish mysticism's concept of the sephirot, the kabalistic manifestations of the Jewish God's various components of holiness.

Even so, American-born Aviva Schmidt, whose "Power Flow" is known as "Israel's first kosher power yoga studio" is at pains to keep things, well, kosher, emphasizing yoga's physical - rather than spiritual - aspects. As she puts it, "I don't say the names of the positions, there is no chanting, no ohming. I do focus on the breathing, as this is very important in yoga, but any kind of eastern philosophy stays outside." Adds another practitioner: "Yoga physical exercise can be kosher as long as it remains within the context of physical fitness and stress management." Some rabbis even recommend studying Torah before practice, to keep one's mind clear of polluting influences.

To serious practitioners of yoga, this is problematic to say the least; as one commenter on a message board commented, "Can't be done. Yoga without the spiritualism is like a martini without the drink. You're missing the point." Or, as a friend of mine put it, "Sure, you can stretch and breathe - but it's not going to be yoga." This is a particularly stark example of the kind of culture clashes that are not uncommon in modern Israel. Says Isreality, "We've heard of kosher cell phones and kosher sex, so kosher yoga? Why not." Well, there is the devil-worship issue...

Yoga Puts Religious Israelis In An Uncomfortable Position [Israelity]
Israel: Can Yoga And Judaism Coexist? [Global Voices]
Kosher-Style Yoga [Haaretz]

In her efforts to increase the quality of life for patients struggling with illness, she has donated $850,000 to the Beth Israel Medical Center to bring "yoga therapy and a new kind of caregiving" to the cancer wing. At 60, Karan has been practicing yoga for 42 years, and she believes that through yoga and breathing exercises, patients can find the strength to survive. "The nurses and doctors are too busy. We need to think outside the box and find ways to effectively change the medical system," she said. Although this is not the first time Karan has raised money for fighting disease, "this is different," she said. "This is about the optimal caring of the patient and the loved ones." [USA Today]

Do Guys Ever Taste Their Own Semen? from Pot Psychology on Vimeo.

Deepen their relationship? Really? Through playing what's described as an "an adult version of airplane"? I don't mean to disparage this if it truly works for some couples, but are we really so disconnected, physically and emotionally, from our longtime loves that we need to do some bendy faux-Eastern philosophical shit to relate to each other again?

It reminds me of that episode in My So-Called Life, you know, the one where Patty and Graham go ballroom dancing and it starts out horribly and then it makes them all lovey for a little while and Graham decides not to cheat on Patty? But then when the series ends, he's about to boink Hallie Lowenthal anyway? Yeah, that's kind of my point. If your relationship is in trouble, yoga ain't helping. Though it seems like the airplane thing could be fun.

[Image via M.K. Smith]

Tangled Up In You [Star Tribune]

Women! I think we can all agree we are guilty enough already! That's why, in lieu of the usual evening Jezebel news roundup, we're presenting you with ten things NOT to worry your head over. Read, and go back to feeling bad about carbs!

• The "Recession": Bull markets are the new black! [Washington Post]
  
• The rising cost of food. I think we all know one place the nation's poor people could use a little "cutting back." [WSJ]
  
• Betraying your feminist principles by marrying rich and staying in the union not a day longer than you'll need to live happily ever after on the alimony. Here's to gender parity: men are doing it these days, too! [WSJ]
  
• Haiti This little dirt-eating nation just got a visit from our very stunning Secretary Of State. Oh Condi, won't you reconsider your stance on joining Republican presidential ticket? It could so use a splash of color. [Wonkette]
  
• The ever-nastier tenor of this presidential campaign. At least one national pageant queen refuses to join the fray. Here's to you, Rachel Smith, for knowing that it sometimes is wisest to be seen and not heard. [Wonkette]

• "Meditating" on your next shopping spree! Now you can worry about whether your puppy's chakras are balanced correctly. [Washington Post]
• Not totally understanding what all the fuss is about "Basra" right now. John McCain doesn't either — and he masterminded the troop surge! [Think Progress]
• The social burden of all those reckless people who signed mortgages they couldn't afford and now think they can just declare bankruptcy. It won't be quite as painless for the ignorant freeloaders it was in the past. [New Yorker]
• That Elizabeth Edwards would be hypothetically left out of John McCain's health plan. Well Jeez, if anyone can afford it, she can. [Think Progress]
• All the nastiness directed at Sarah Jessica Parker lately. She has a really great metabolism. [People]

Not everyone interviewed, however, seemed to enjoy getting buddy-buddy with his or her instructor. One woman quit a yoga class because everyone there was too into the teacher. "He would come into the room and there would be a trail of greetings wafting around him," the student said. "After class I would want to ask him a question because I was returning to yoga after not practicing for a few years, and I would have to wait for 10 minutes while these women did small talk with him after class."

Sounds annoying. Personally, I like my gym classes like I like my sex: With minimal talking involved. I remember that, at a yoga class once, the instructor kept asking me why I wasn't smiling, and while I wanted to say "Because you've been making me hold this pose for a really long time and I'd rather punch you in the face," instead I smiled wanly and said nothing. I also wanted to punch all the other particpants in class who were ever-so-chipper and giggled incessantly at his smiling entreaties. Are you a hater like me, or do you like to get chatty with your athletic supporters?

Gym Pets [Observer]

• Kirsten Dunst looks almost as evil in these Miu Miu ads as we somehow believe she actually is. [Sassybella]
  
• The latest ads for British lingerie label Agent Provocateur features model Vahina Giocante playing "a bored housewife drawn into a love affair with a reform school tomboy." Um, based on this image, she doesn't look so tomboyish to us! [Vogue UK]
  
• First no black models, now no black customers: ck Calvin Klein Beauty Collection cosmetics for Caucasians only. [BellaSugar]
  
• This is what diplomatic disputes look like in Western Europe: The mayor of Paris v. H&M [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Donna Karan: Still trying to cure cancer through yoga with her Urban Zen initiative. [NYMag]

• Ooh, images from the Jovovich-Hawk for Target line. Yeaaaah, jury's still out. [Sassybella]
• Elle fashion director/ em>Project Runway judge Nina Garcia is no stranger to shilling for Blackberry, but now she's shilling a pink Blackberry. [Fashion Week Daily]
• This year, the Make-A-Wish Foundation fulfilled the dreams of a teenage girl named Yali, who had always longed to collaborate with Kate Spade in designing a handbag. "This was the most inspirational and gratifying experience of my life," says Yali. Um, so how's Yali holding up? What's her affliction? What's the prognosis? Yeah, they don't say. But Kate Spade ooh! [Fashion Week Daily]
• Diane von Furstenberg is now designing shoes. "My shoes are not just pretty accessories; they are functional and serve a purpose." Shoes? A purpose other than retail therapy? Shock. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Here's a handy place to hide your ill-gotten subprime mortgage hedge fund gains: a $18,000 belt. [UPI]
• Alexandre de Paris, Elizabeth Taylor's favorite hairstylist, passed away over the weekend at the age of 85. [Independent]

Can lead to these:

Still.

You could throw away your Jimmy Choo's and wear these:

for the rest of your life.

Or you could just say hello to Yoga Toes, which claims to help with a dazzling array of ailments, including bunions, hammer toes, sciatica, fallen arches, and decapitation. Okay, maybe not the last one.

According to the blurb:

"[Yoga Toes] work while you kick your feet up and relax. YogaToes will stretch, strengthen, and align foot muscles. This action increases circulation, straightens bent toes, and can even realign the bones. YogaToes are truly revolutionary."

It's about as close to Yoga as I'm willing to get.

Yoga has always been something I've filed along with menstrual cups and wheatgerm, under the heading Just Not Interested, Thanks.

I'm sure it's all very nice and restful and would ameliorate the effects of all that pizza I've shoved down my gullet in America which is probably still lodging in my colon, explaining why my arse has tripled in size over the years, but then, so would colonic irrigation and lipo, and I'm not going there either. And anyway, people who do yoga wear sandals and have beards. That's my opinion and I will not be moved.

And today, my anti-yoga stance is gloriously vindicated. Yoga makes you fart, according to the British Yoga Teachers Association.

"When you are working on the manipura chakra, which is aligned with the navel, where the intestinal area is.....people do tend to break wind, and burp too. Holding certain postures and working slowly massages the organs and has a releasing effect. It is about changing the flow of energy - prana - and detoxifying the body. Part of that is expelling unwanted gases."

As I am sadly afflicted by the "slient but deadly" more often than the "loud odorless raspberry" I can even feel a sense of self-sacrifice in my continuing yoga boycott.

I did it for you, people.