It was a supply closet off the main classroom, six feet across, with the only wall decoration being a length of pine board with a row of nails sticking out. Because of the terrible noise inside, the door was always shut. The two machines, industrial-era things that clamored and shook, spewed out a steady stream of hurt and lies and death. On this San Diego afternoon I was in the little room with my coffee, going through the accumulated Associated Press and UPI news that had cranked out of the wire machines during lunch and whatever regular classes I might have attended that day. Local stories, national and international [...]

Here is a Guy Trebay Times Style article about how all the young dudes are a little bit fat. He has two experts, both editors of magazines, who explain the phenomenon to us. One does a really good job? The other is ridiculous. · Aaron Hicklin, of Out: "I sort of think the six-pack abs obsession got so prissy it stopped being masculine." · Dan Peres, of Details: "If we had a slob in the White House, all the hipsters would turn into some walking Chippendales calendar."

Budapest had never been my favorite European capital, but a job in a foreign city is always better than a job wherever I happen to be living at the moment. This is why, on a balmy Southern California morning in February of 1996, I voluntarily carried my only possessions to Los Angeles International Airport's Tom Bradley terminal the customary three hours prior to departure. The first two hours passed pleasantly at the airport lounge, where my friend Steve and I drank double Greyhounds served in pint glasses.

The Double Greyhound is just a lot of vodka with grapefruit juice to soften the blow. We had been drinking these regularly in [...]

When we talk about the dangers of the degradation of newspapers, and the rise of "journalism products," such as the execrable Metro free subway rags, this is what we mean. (Here is the text of the State of the Union, in case you were too busy playing videogames and having a life last night.) It's not like the State of the Union is much more than political theater, sure, but next-level cynicism does some serious eroding of a citizen's ability to think and respond constructively. Lazy advertising-vehicle "news" products engineered by demonic Swedes and thrown together by a warren of garbage-crunchers and distributed to harried subway commuters are actively [...]