My Corner Pot Shop's Charm Offensive @4:20 PM
I live next to a place where people buy marijuana with great frequency. And not in the way that your neighbor upstairs pushes a few dime bags here and there—this is a full-blown storefront, with free coffee and a TV and couches for people to lounge on. Carefully stapled bags, "prescription" printed on one side, are pushed out of a little window similar to the kind manned by bank tellers or postal clerks. The child-proof amber prescription bottles are the same kind that Cephalexin or Xanax comes in, but with ink-jet-printed labels reading ISH slapped on them, citing CA Health and Safety Code 11362.5-7. And that's because this is all, still, legal in the failing great state of California. READ MORE 14
Inconsistent Pleadings: Town of Sexting Teens Not Also Hotbed of Kiddie Porn @4:20 PM
In 2008, George Skumanick, then-District Attorney for Wyoming County, Pennsylvania, noticed an alarming problem, one that called for the immediate intervention of the local law enforcement apparatus: “rampant sexting.” This grave threat to rural Pennsylvania’s social order was brought to his attention by various Tunkhannock School District officials, who, after confiscating the phones of males and females in the Justin Bieber age cohort, discovered pictures of ladies in various stages of undress. Most of those stages involved bathing suits or bras, but apparently, if you looked at some of the pictures carefully (and the Tunkhannock school district officials definitely did), there was nipplage to be seen. For reasons that are not entirely clear (read: insanity), the school officials concluded that the pictures were a criminal justice issue and so they handed the phones over to District Attorney Skumanick. READ MORE 27
Odd Man Rush: You Got Five For Fighting? @2:05 PM
What if the NHL banned fighting? Would you consider watching hockey games? Of course not, you’re an American. You wouldn’t even start watching if, during fights, the players all stripped down to their jockstraps like Michael Ontkean did at the end of Slap Shot (video below!). But should the league ban fisticuffs for the betterment of the image of the game? Eh. Probably not. READ MORE 15
Cooking the Books: Sam Lipsyte and Ceridwen Morris Make Momofuku Pork Buns @12:00 PM
Sam Lipsyte, the author of Home Land, whose new book is The Ask, and Ceridwen Morris, whose latest is From the Hips, were interviewed by Emily Gould. Cooking the Books is directed by Valerie Temple and shot and edited by Andrew Gauthier!
Cuba's Hiatus: The Raul Interlude @4:34 PM
The Plaza de la Revolución fills much the same role in Havana as the National Mall does in Washington. It lies in the shadow of the city's tallest monument, constructed to honor the memory of the country's great revolutionary hero. Huge crowds, sometimes topping a million people, have crammed onto the concrete square to partake in patriotic ceremonies, concerts, or speeches by Fidel Castro or the Pope.
When I visited Cuba earlier this year, the Plaza was eerily empty. Dozens of vultures circled patiently overhead, as if waiting for the 83-year-old Castro and his 51-year-old revolution to succumb to the steady march of time. READ MORE 10
Real America: March Tuition Madness @1:40 PM
NCAA basketball "March Madness" is on—beginning today, a host of institutions of higher education compete for bragging rights and an incremental boost in income from licensed-merchandise sales. But Awl readers know that the real champion school is the one that can charge the most tuition a year and still attract a robust student body to rock the all-important school rankings. Using the figures provided by college information resource Peterson's, I ran the NCAA tournament bracket by tuition. (In the case of state university system schools, the lower, in-state tuition is used.) It was a barnburner. READ MORE 34
Choose Your Own Adventure: The Blog Post @4:00 PM
It’s 4 p.m. on a long Monday. Of course you could get some work done, but your boss is elsewhere, you’ve got a headache from trying to cut back on caffeine, and it’s drizzly outside. Plus they stole an hour of sleep from you over the weekend! Meaning: you’d rather just cruise the net, floating on a raft of hyperlinkage toward that horizon of informational numbness. But before you can say “choking on the pen cap you were absently chewing,” a perfectly outrageous blog post title loads in your browser, begging for—or perhaps openly provoking—your attention.
Do you… ignore the inflammatory headline and continue surfing?
Or immediately register your disgust in the comments section?
Or do you begin reading in earnest, though with some skepticism? 17
Graphic Imagery: Vodka and Fate From Russia to Brooklyn @1:10 PM
Are you looking for an authentically grim Russian culture experience, but don't have 12 hours and ferry fare to Governors Island to spare? A new graphic novel by Kevin Baker — the historical novelist behind such Brooklyney favorites as Dreamland – brings an ex-Russian soldier to Coney Island and gets him wrapped up with the local mob. It also calls to mind a recent, similar, much better comic, which was mostly ignored when it first came out but is finally available in collected form. READ MORE 2
I Got 99 Problems, But Eminent Domain Ain’t One: White Brooklynites Against Jay-Z @9:50 AM
Jay-Z has been dipping his toes in the political waters of late. First, he and Beyonce showed up at the White House (which was stellar). Then, he surfaced as entrenched in an imbroglio (not so stellar) with the New York Guv, a potential Queens "racino," and Rev. Floyd Flake, the borough’s behemoth ex-Congressman-cum-powerbroker. Then the governor, even while busy swimming in a flood of scandal, killed the deal. And yesterday, Jay-Z appeared standing shoulder-to-shoulder with dozens of New York politicos and dignitaries to take a big step towards building his dream: a stadium for the Brooklyn Nets. And lots of people are peeved about it. READ MORE 11
The Black Athletes Who Don't Play Basketball @4:20 PM
Sometimes athletes are black. Depending on your sport of choice, this might be a big deal. And when a black athlete is on the rise—or even just in the mix—in an affluent, white-dominated sport, it becomes a very big deal. That's because writers like to write about these unexpectedly or surprisingly black athletes. In the past decade, the term "the Tiger Woods of [sport]" became common shorthand for a certain kind of athlete: the kind who is "changing the face of the game." READ MORE 46
Meet Your Vegetables: The Farmers Market in Winter @1:43 PM
By this time of year, the Inwood farmers market is a slim affair. Never particularly expansive even in the summer, the shoppers and sellers have dwindled. There is a trickle of, I don't know, either hardcore locavores or devotees of the greenmarket social scene, the urban hippie parents catching up on neighborhood gossip and scheduling playdates. There is local wine and local seafood and apple turnovers the size of your face. I don't know if those are made with local flour, and I've always worried it would be an asshole move to ask. READ MORE 33
Boxed In: "First Love, Second Chance" and Short Periods of Exquisite Felicity @10:20 AM
The oldest precursor in Western culture to the new six-week TV Land reality series “First Love, Second Chance” is a play. It tells the story of a couple deeply in love, one of those formative, life-changing early relationships, not to mention the boy’s first kiss. The relationship ends abruptly, as intense relationships often do, when the boy is unexpectedly sent far away. Many years pass, and both the boy and the girl are physically transformed beyond recognition. But such, we are meant to feel, is the strength of their bond, that when they meet again, without even knowing each other’s identity, they fall in love and marry.
The play is Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, and the fact that the romantic leads are mother and son, their union fated to end in tragedy, only adds to the intensity of this first depiction of life as a romantic odyssey, a long, circuitous journey back to the person that you started with. READ MORE 13
The 14 Most Remarkable Apple Product Placements @3:00 PM
Last week, I looked at the grotesque dominance of Apple product placement in TV and film. Now let's take a look at the most noteworthy Apple product placements of all time. READ MORE 29
Showed Up: Sam Mendes Does 'The Tempest' and 'As You Like It' at BAM @12:45 PM
The second of three seasons of The Bridge Project, a partnership of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Old Vic and Neal Street, is closing at BAM this week. Last year, Sam Mendes staged The Winter’s Tale and The Cherry Orchard here; this year it’s The Tempest and As You Like It. Two of those plays are romances, involving love but also magic, sadness, and personal redemption. One, written as a comedy, is regularly performed as a tragedy, which means that audiences see it as a little of both. As You Like It is a straightforward comedy, but here Mendes has added a torture scene, which isn’t very funny. READ MORE 5
Going Outside: St. Patrick’s Day Festivities, Hoboken, NJ, March 6 @4:20 PM
From time to time, The Awl likes to explain to Internet denizens what the world beyond the great inside is like. Here is one such explanation, describing a recent trip to locations on the Eastern seaboard of the United States.
We had missed the parade. Or maybe it was somewhere else. The sidewalk was packed with bad faces. A guy had his pants down and was trying to walk. The cops were wearing long leather jackets. I grew up in Jersey, and I remembered bad faces, but I couldn’t remember cops ever wearing jackets like that, leather and big gold buttons. Every bar had a line out the door. The gay bar had taken down their rainbow flag and they had a line out the door too. A group of girls staggered past us. They shouted that they were “pizza whores” and went into a crowded pizza joint. One of those girls had beer sunglasses, my friend said. I thought he probably meant beer goggles, but with the novelty junk they were selling on every corner, I don’t know. READ MORE 19
Rich People Things: The New Robber Barons Also Robbers @11:30 AM
It was only a matter of time. First, the histrionic cry of “socialism” at the merest suggestion of a more equitable distribution of the social good known as health care. Then, the robust trade in New Deal denialism on the right–the economic version of intelligent design theory, only without the intelligence. And now, unsatisfied with turning the clock back to 1929, Wall Street Journal editorial hand Daniel Henninger has called for the resuscitation of the Robber Barons. Henninger derides the incremental efforts of the Obama administration to boost job creation with tax credits and stimulus funds. That’s all just bootless government meddling in the masterful free market, he announces; in lieu of that we need “industries no one thought of before”—and that means, in turn, that “we need vision, vitality, and commercial moxie. The government is draining it [sic] away.” READ MORE 11
Nina Hartley in the Valley @4:10 PM
Tom Byron, who used to fuck Traci Lords for money and also date her, lives on a nice suburban street in Granada Hills, in the San Fernando Valley. Recently he was directing a scene at his house for the latest installment of Seasoned Players, recognized as "Best MILF Series" at the 2010 Adult Video News Awards.
Nina Hartley was getting into makeup when I showed up. A 50-year-old self-described sex-positive feminist and venerated industry veteran, Hartley was dressed for the shoot in a long black skirt, puffy white top, high heels and Sarah Palin glasses. READ MORE 43
The Five Kinds of Appeal to Authority You Meet on the Internet @2:50 PM
We know that humans—especially popes—are fallible. Any logician worth her adorable sweater vest will tell you that random philosopher p endorsing premise x affects a deductive conclusion in the amount of not one whit. Still, debaters are happy to hang their hats on dusty quotes and arguments from authority, the nastiest result being a communal tolerance of sickly ideas propped up by rhetorical parlor tricks. If only there were some credible source (preferably dead and/or otherwise unable to clarify himself) to which you might ascribe your toxic viewpoint… what? No, sorry, God is taken. But here are a few other ways to make the fallacy take wing; all remain facepalmingly common and resonant in the right echo chamber. READ MORE 27
Inconsistent Pleadings: Liberals, Don't Flip Out Over 'McDonald v. Chicago' @2:10 PM
A well-chewed bit of conventional wisdom holds that cultural conflagrations find no better accelerant than a Supreme Court opinion. Under this theory, smoldering social divisions explode into Samuel Pepys territory when the Court short circuits the democratic process and moves definitively to settle a social issue. Exhibit A is typically Roe v. Wade, which, in attempting to remove abortion from the realm of political controversy, instead visited upon us several decades of incessant yelling and pictorial craziness (think sonograms, bloody fetuses and snowflake babies). READ MORE 71
Why Apple Deserves an Oscar Too @4:30 PM
Avatar is in contention for an Oscar because it dominated its field, both technologically and financially. But another cinematic player was even more dominant last year: Apple. In the 44 films in 2009 that topped the box office for at least one weekend, an Apple logo or device could be seen in at least 18 of them. (That's almost 41%.) In some, Apple products even eclipsed their human scene partners. This high appearance rate does not include the heap of mass-market films from 2009 that did not own a weekend but also featured Apple product placement. READ MORE 43
Horror Chick: Why the Heavens Should Crumble If ‘Inglourious Basterds’ Wins (Short Answer: Eli Roth) @11:40 AM
I can't stand Eli Roth. Everyone on the Internet has a strong opinion about him one way or the other, and the only difference between the two sides is that one is utterly fucking wrong. There are legions of horror fans who like him. There are oozy corners of the Web where he is worshiped and glorified. There are even fan clubs teeming with girls who think he's the zenith of swoony hotness or whateverthehell fangirls think. They are all tragically mistaken. Don't take it personally, fangirls—your mental slowness is part of the human condition. We're all morons about something. I think Jeff Dunham’s kinda funny. READ MORE 126
A Field Guide to the Acronymical Kingdom, Part Three @4:40 PM
The Lol thrives in damp, dark places. Indigenous to the rain forests of Washington state, it has proved remarkably adaptable and now thrives in sewers, drain pipes, irrigation canals, port-a-potties and indoor plumbing across the North American continent. (Small populations of Lol’s have even been spotted in camping grounds in the Mojave desert.) READ MORE 5
Odd Man Rush: Team Canada Settles For Gold @4:10 PM
It was supposed to be a Canada-Russia Olympic final—with a subplot of Sidney Crosby vs. Alexander Ovechkin—continuing an international hockey rivalry that really began in 1972 with the epic Summit Series (a series that made Paul Henderson, and his shot heard round the world, a national hero forever).
But then, the US shocked Canada 5-3 in the preliminary round. “Fluke,” every Canadian fan nervously thought, as their team outplayed and outshot the Americans 45-23. However, in Sunday’s wonderful gold medal game, coach Ron Wilson’s young underdog squad played the mighty, talented Canadians dead even. READ MORE 29
Difficult Listening Hour: William Kentridge To Direct Shostakovich, Redeem Winter in NYC @3:10 PM
Sweet fuck, am I ever tired of this wind and snow and cold and sniffling. I've been eating over half my meals at the diner that's 20 steps away from my front door, because walking anywhere—save for the subway line that takes me to work—has become untenable. The gym? The one that's two blocks away? Haven't seen it since January. And yet, this week, I plan to leave my apartment, post-sundown, for a non-work related engagement. It better be worth it. My whole reason for persisting through that entire awful month of February is riding on it. I suspect we're talking about the kind of awesome that makes a city with as many petty annoyances as this one actually worth the navigating. Talking Boredoms-with-77-drummers amazing, here. Serious. READ MORE 25
Rich People Things: The Skirt Locker @10:20 AM
As the U.S. economy tries to unshackle itself from lagging indicator after lagging indicator, this seems like just one indignity over the line: Tinsley Mortimer, the prefab Manhattan socialite whose frothy vacuity all but embodied the self-regarding elan of the new millennial money culture, has grown “edgy.”
That’s the worrisome verdict delivered by Wall Street Journal fashion hand Ray Smith, at any rate, who conducts on a sobering tour of La Mortimer’s closet in West Chelsea, supplying a chilling account of What It All Might Mean. The Virginia-bred socialite has, you see, been “going through an emotional time—spurred by her separation from her investment-banker husband Topper a year ago and the intense scrutiny” that accompanies the debut of her CW reality show later this month. Why, just the rumors of a feud with rival socialite-cum-brand-magnet Olivia Palermo, featured already on her own reality franchise, MTV’s "The City," sends fresh charges and countercharges of cynical hype pinwheeling through the confected uptown social scene. Is it any wonder then, that our ingenue has ventured into the dark and brooding netherworld beyond “her trademark pastel-and-ringlets look”? READ MORE 20
Iced Out: The End is Near–the Medal Count, Less So @4:20 PM
South Korean darling Kim Yu-na was an absolute stunner last night in the ladies free skate, shattering her own world record score and twirling her way to the gold. Aerial ski jumper Jeret Peterson—known assonantly as "Speedy"—landed a "Cirque du Soleil on skis" move called the Hurricane that he had not successfully stuck in competition since 2007; he won a silver. The Canadian women’s hockey team boozily Owned The Podium (and almost Drove The Zamboni) after winning their third Olympic gold. And still, all I could think about as I lounged on the couch and let the NBC broadcast team play cat’s cradle with my heartstrings was: how the hell did the US go one-two in the Nordic combined!? READ MORE 45
The Oscars are Next Week and Nope, I Still Haven’t Seen 'Avatar' @3:49 PM
No, I’m not some joyless prude. I was once like you, even. Remember when we were sitting around your apartment and decided to watch the trailer online? How we laughed! Someone had tried to adapt early 90s Trapper Keepers® for the screen! And they’d spent a small nation’s GDP to make it happen! If, some months from that point, James Cameron Trips Over A Fanboy Wishlist Into The Uncanny Valley wasn’t going to be the flop of our young century, jeez, it really should’ve been.
Then we went about our admittedly terrestrial lives. READ MORE 58
Matt Cherette Is Going To Move To New York City @4:20 PM
Matt Cherette is 25 and lives in Grand Haven, Michigan, about fifteen minutes from his parents' house. He traveled to New York in the second week of February and while he was here, he signed the paperwork for a job at Gawker.TV. He would be their night coordinator. This was an opportunity to actually get paid for the sort of diligent content repurposing that he’s been doing for free, for years, on the LiveJournal-hosted gossip community Oh No They Didn’t.
While he was in New York, he came to a party thrown by his new boss, Richard Blakeley, at Destination Bar, on Avenue A. The Tennessee-Vanderbilt game was on the TV at the bar, but no one was watching. Matt showed up at the high point of the party’s somewhat limited activity. READ MORE 265
