From time to time it's good to check in on James Franco, the entertainment world's enigmatic (or faux enigmatic!) renaissance man, to see what he's up to. Today he's doing lots of things for Esquire magazine.

He has a big five-part interview thing for the September issue, appearing on the cover and showcasing art projects and getting interviewed by his lookalike little brother and having a poem written about him! And he's maybe writing a vampire book? Daily Intel seems to think that this quote, about Twilight (sorta), might offer a hint to a future project:

When asked what he's reading, Franco smiles his ungrudgingly adolescent smile, a grin as terminally satisfying as the last healthy squeeze on a tube of toothpaste. He is engaging, for just a second, in the mutual diction of actor and artist - "It's for a project," he says. But the word - project - thumps out of him unprecious and without bluster, as if he were naming a day of the week. He's always got something going. He flips the book over. Twilight.
...
"It's crazy how much sexual tension there is," he says. "It just builds and builds. I mean it never stops. It's sort of explosive by the end. Crazy. Like they'll blow up with it. And of course, they don't." He shrugs then, a good shrug, because he is selling nothing with it. "Which is the point too, I guess."
...
He sighs a little, apologetic. "You probably know I have a lot of projects," he says. "But that one is way, way off. It's just something I'm thinking about." He whisks at something in the air then. "Off in the distance. Way off."

These words are so bloated and vague, they almost bob in the air. Franco knows this. "Okay. I want to write a children's book." He guts out a laugh, snorting himself off the hook. "Someday."

(Yes, the whole article is written like that. Is it sincere? An over-the-top send-up of New York Magazine's recent profile? [Probably not, considering when it was likely written.] Who knows! Maybe he just elicits that kind of turgid prose in magazine writers, because of his intellectual sexmagick or whatever.)

There's also the poem, which is nothing if not silly. And this cutesy, giggly video with his brother, Dave, also an actor.

Isn't it all terribly precious? Eh, I don't even know anymore. (Though, that Dave Franco! Nothin' wrong with him!)

OK, that's today in James Franco magazine profiles. Join us next time when, inevitably, more slightly annoying mysteries arise.