Do you suffer Computer Back? I do. Mine is caused by the terrible habit of hunching over the laptop while also curling my legs under the chair in a sort of corkscrewed position that is osteomuscularly nightmarish but somehow conducive to concentration. When I stand up I look like a stooped, slightly concerned turtle. Now, lots of people have Computer Back, and nearly everybody with whom I've talked about it has, at some point in the conversation, brought up the fact that Philip Roth works at a standing desk. That tidbit, you'll remember, came out in a 2000 David Remnick profile, and it apparently haunts the imagination of everyone [...]

Once upon a time (last December), we went out looking for a managing editor for this website, and we met a ton of amazing people. Long story short: we now want you to meet Carrie Frye, who has written and edited previously at About Last Night and Asheville's Mountain Xpress. She can be reached at caaf at theawl dot com.

Hi and hello! I completed orientation over the weekend ("Core-ee Seek-a") and now it's just a thrill to be sitting here at a desk with my Awl stapler and pen set, filling up the calendar with items that, while we're enjoying a mood of excessive first-week politeness, the [...]

Today would have been David Foster Wallace's 50th birthday, and if you'd like to mark it, here are some things that might interest you to read (or watch) and revisit. The list isn't intended to be comprehensive; for that there's the Howling Fantods, not to mention this, this and that. This is more like an old trunk, some favorite things that got packed away and today's maybe a nice day to take them out and rummage around a little: Remember when Frank Bruni peeped inside DFW's medicine cabinet? etc.

111. Frankenstein's Monster (Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus) 110. Uriah Heep (David Copperfield) 109. Casaubon (Middlemarch) 108. Bradley Headstone (Our Mutual Friend) 107. Samuel Pickwick (Pickwick Papers) 106. Gussie Fink-Nottle (Right Ho, Jeeves) 105. Keith Talent (London Fields) 104. Jerry Cruncher (Tale of Two Cities) 103. Hercule Poirot (The Mysterious Affair at Styles) 102. Ham Peggotty (David Copperfield) 101. Thorin Oakenshield (The Hobbit) 100. Tracy Tupman (Pickwick Papers) 99. Julian Malory (Excellent Women) 98. C.J. Stryver (A Tale of Two Cities) 97. Charles Arrowby (The Sea, the Sea) 96. Dr. Watson ("A Study In Scarlet")