The Awl http://www.theawl.com/ Be Less Stupid Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:30:01 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.2 A Short Story from the County Board Meeting in Arlington, VA http://www.theawl.com/2011/12/a-short-story-from-the-county-board-meeting-in-arlington-va http://www.theawl.com/2011/12/a-short-story-from-the-county-board-meeting-in-arlington-va#comments Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:30:01 +0000 Choire Sicha http://www.theawl.com/2011/12/a-short-story-from-the-county-board-meeting-in-arlington-va

Two kids are testifying about why this Arlington shelter is a bad idea — cursing, 2nd hand smoke. Their parents should be horse whipped.

— Michael Neibauer (@NeibsWBJ) December 14, 2011

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Two kids are testifying about why this Arlington shelter is a bad idea — cursing, 2nd hand smoke. Their parents should be horse whipped.

— Michael Neibauer (@NeibsWBJ) December 14, 2011

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/12/a-short-story-from-the-county-board-meeting-in-arlington-va/feed 16 Seen And Heard At A New Jersey Beach Club This Past Weekend http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/seen-and-heard-at-a-new-jersey-beach-club-this-past-weekend-done http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/seen-and-heard-at-a-new-jersey-beach-club-this-past-weekend-done#comments Tue, 28 Jun 2011 09:00:42 +0000 Dave Bry http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/seen-and-heard-at-a-new-jersey-beach-club-this-past-weekend-done 1) A thick-chested man in tight striped Polo shirt and a woman in tennis whites are walking towards the pool. “They say that money can’t buy happiness,” the man says. “Well, I say, ‘I’m gonna try to find out!’” The woman swats at his arm. The man laughs, “HA HA HA HA HA.”

2) In the parking lot sits a white convertible Mustang painted with pinstripes and a large New York Yankees logo on the side. On the beach, a guest asks a longtime club member, “So who owns the Yankees Mustang? With the pinstripes?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” says the longtime member. “But I’ve seen it here it before. I don’t know if it’s a member or just a guest. Last year there was a Mets S.U.V. out there sometimes.”

3) A pod of bottle-nosed dolphins appears in the ocean, swimming southward down the shore. They leap out of the water as they go, like white-bellied jet skis. A crowd gathers to watch.
“Look,” says a man to his six-year-old son. “Dolphins!”
“So?” says the six-year-old, who is standing next to an eight-year-old.
“Do you see them?” the man asks. “Right off the beach there!”
“Yeah,” says the six-year-old.
“That’s amazing.”
“No it’s not.”

4) A group of parents are sitting on the beach, drinking beer and talking about dolphins. “There have been more of them this year,” says a woman wearing large sunglasses. “They came a couple of weeks ago, and the kids were in the water. I looked out and saw the fins. And, you know... I think any mother would… I screamed. I started screaming, ‘Get out of the water! Get out of the water!’” She laughs at the memory. “I mean, you know, you see a fin… But it was just dolphins.” A man leans back in his beach chair. “I wouldn’t have said anything. I woulda been like, ‘You can take one of mine. Maybe then I could get a smaller car.’”

5) Loudspeaker: “Adult swim from three to three-thirty.”

6) A boy points up at an old WWI-style bi-plane flying over the beach. A man looks up to see it.
“Yeah,” the man says. “And watch. It’s going to be pulling a big sign.”
They wait til they can see the sign clearly.
“There it is,” says the man. “It says… Oh, it’s a giant can of beer! Did you ever see a can of beer that big? You’d have be awfully thirsty to drink that beer, right? It’s a giant Coors Light. The Silver Bullet.”

7) There is a happy hour cocktail party. Caribbean theme. Half-priced drinks from 4 to 6. A sign says, “Have your drink in a coconut—yours to keep!”

8) A steel drum version of Steve Miller’s “The Joker” plays on the soundsystem. A group of large reddened men wait on line for drinks at the bar. The bartenders are wearing black pirate hats with their white polo shirts. One of the men takes out his cellphone. “I’m gonna take a picture of these guys in these hats,” he says.

9) Three little boys are wading in a tidal pool that has formed next to the jetty, where a thin layer of tan scum floats on the surface, as well as an upside horseshoe crab. One of the boys is holding a smaller crab in his hand, a limp-looking sand crab. “Is this one alive,” he asks a man, who has come over to check on them.
The man holds out his hand to take the crab, which feebly grasps his finger. “I think so,” the man says. “He doesn’t seem to be doing too good, though. I think you should put him back in the water and let him be.”
“This one’s alive!” The boy shouts to the other boys. “I’m gonna make a crab zoo!”

10) A circle of people are sitting on the beach, talking about the new wife of a club member. “You can tell she’s not from America,” a woman says. “I mean, just from her body. It’s like, whoa! Women in America do not have…”
“Like the lady from 'Modern Family,'” a man says.
“Exactly. And from her… She wears a bikini that’s just… Well, she’s from Brazil, it’s a Brazilian bikini. It’s just, everything’s all out there!”
“And it’s bouncing around,” the man says.
“Yeah, she’s just all out there, bouncing around. And in front of the kids!”

11) A group of suntanned kids run foot races down by the water, where the sand is firmer. An 11-year-old boy loses to an 11-year-old girl. A group of adults jeer. On their way back up to the club for pizza, the boy walks with the girl and three other girls, slightly smaller. “Wanna arm wrestle?” The girl asks the boy. “I love arm-wrestling boys because I always beat them.”
All the girls look at the boy, who blushes and stutters, “Uh... da… I can’t…”
“Oh, right.” The girl rolls her eyes. “You sprained your thumb.”
“Yeah.”
“For a fifth grader, you’re totally immature,” the girl says and the other girls all laugh.
The boy smiles, happy.

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]]> 1) A thick-chested man in tight striped Polo shirt and a woman in tennis whites are walking towards the pool. “They say that money can’t buy happiness,” the man says. “Well, I say, ‘I’m gonna try to find out!’” The woman swats at his arm. The man laughs, “HA HA HA HA HA.”

2) In the parking lot sits a white convertible Mustang painted with pinstripes and a large New York Yankees logo on the side. On the beach, a guest asks a longtime club member, “So who owns the Yankees Mustang? With the pinstripes?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” says the longtime member. “But I’ve seen it here it before. I don’t know if it’s a member or just a guest. Last year there was a Mets S.U.V. out there sometimes.”

3) A pod of bottle-nosed dolphins appears in the ocean, swimming southward down the shore. They leap out of the water as they go, like white-bellied jet skis. A crowd gathers to watch.
“Look,” says a man to his six-year-old son. “Dolphins!”
“So?” says the six-year-old, who is standing next to an eight-year-old.
“Do you see them?” the man asks. “Right off the beach there!”
“Yeah,” says the six-year-old.
“That’s amazing.”
“No it’s not.”

4) A group of parents are sitting on the beach, drinking beer and talking about dolphins. “There have been more of them this year,” says a woman wearing large sunglasses. “They came a couple of weeks ago, and the kids were in the water. I looked out and saw the fins. And, you know... I think any mother would… I screamed. I started screaming, ‘Get out of the water! Get out of the water!’” She laughs at the memory. “I mean, you know, you see a fin… But it was just dolphins.” A man leans back in his beach chair. “I wouldn’t have said anything. I woulda been like, ‘You can take one of mine. Maybe then I could get a smaller car.’”

5) Loudspeaker: “Adult swim from three to three-thirty.”

6) A boy points up at an old WWI-style bi-plane flying over the beach. A man looks up to see it.
“Yeah,” the man says. “And watch. It’s going to be pulling a big sign.”
They wait til they can see the sign clearly.
“There it is,” says the man. “It says… Oh, it’s a giant can of beer! Did you ever see a can of beer that big? You’d have be awfully thirsty to drink that beer, right? It’s a giant Coors Light. The Silver Bullet.”

7) There is a happy hour cocktail party. Caribbean theme. Half-priced drinks from 4 to 6. A sign says, “Have your drink in a coconut—yours to keep!”

8) A steel drum version of Steve Miller’s “The Joker” plays on the soundsystem. A group of large reddened men wait on line for drinks at the bar. The bartenders are wearing black pirate hats with their white polo shirts. One of the men takes out his cellphone. “I’m gonna take a picture of these guys in these hats,” he says.

9) Three little boys are wading in a tidal pool that has formed next to the jetty, where a thin layer of tan scum floats on the surface, as well as an upside horseshoe crab. One of the boys is holding a smaller crab in his hand, a limp-looking sand crab. “Is this one alive,” he asks a man, who has come over to check on them.
The man holds out his hand to take the crab, which feebly grasps his finger. “I think so,” the man says. “He doesn’t seem to be doing too good, though. I think you should put him back in the water and let him be.”
“This one’s alive!” The boy shouts to the other boys. “I’m gonna make a crab zoo!”

10) A circle of people are sitting on the beach, talking about the new wife of a club member. “You can tell she’s not from America,” a woman says. “I mean, just from her body. It’s like, whoa! Women in America do not have…”
“Like the lady from 'Modern Family,'” a man says.
“Exactly. And from her… She wears a bikini that’s just… Well, she’s from Brazil, it’s a Brazilian bikini. It’s just, everything’s all out there!”
“And it’s bouncing around,” the man says.
“Yeah, she’s just all out there, bouncing around. And in front of the kids!”

11) A group of suntanned kids run foot races down by the water, where the sand is firmer. An 11-year-old boy loses to an 11-year-old girl. A group of adults jeer. On their way back up to the club for pizza, the boy walks with the girl and three other girls, slightly smaller. “Wanna arm wrestle?” The girl asks the boy. “I love arm-wrestling boys because I always beat them.”
All the girls look at the boy, who blushes and stutters, “Uh... da… I can’t…”
“Oh, right.” The girl rolls her eyes. “You sprained your thumb.”
“Yeah.”
“For a fifth grader, you’re totally immature,” the girl says and the other girls all laugh.
The boy smiles, happy.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/seen-and-heard-at-a-new-jersey-beach-club-this-past-weekend-done/feed 26 Australia's Worst Export: Planking Finally Invades America http://www.theawl.com/2011/05/australias-worst-export-planking-finally-invades-america http://www.theawl.com/2011/05/australias-worst-export-planking-finally-invades-america#comments Tue, 17 May 2011 10:08:52 +0000 Dave Bry http://www.theawl.com/2011/05/australias-worst-export-planking-finally-invades-america Saturday morning, after picking up my kid from his art class, I was walking with him on East 11th Street, across from St. Mark's Church, when we came upon a boy, looked to be about ten years old, lying on the sidewalk. His eyes were closed, and though I could see him breathing, for a moment, I wondered whether something bad had happened—whether I would have to call 911, and whether my own kid was about to witness something much heavier than I would ever want for him to witness. Three guys walking in front of us had fanned out to step around around him, slowing to inspect the scene. As my kid, who is six, and I did the same, I scanned the street for clues as to what was going on. Twenty feet away, standing in a doorway to a building, I saw two man standing and talking and looking toward the prone boy. "I don't know, it's like some kind of performance art or something," one of them said, and they both chuckled and shook their heads in a way that told me that the speaker was the dad.

So, phew, I thought. But also, I judged the guy for allowing this kind of "performance art" to take place on his watch. It was a crowded sidewalk. The guys in front of me had almost tripped over the boy. I had come close to doing the same myself. Even more than that, I didn't appreciate the moment of worry and fright. Had this boy heard the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf? Hadn't his father?

"Daddy," my kid asked once we out of earshot. "Why was that boy lying down on the sidewalk?"

"I don't know," I said.

"He shouldn't lie there like that. I almost kicked him."

"I agree," I said.

Of course, the boy on the sidewalk was doing something called "planking," which has all of Australia in turmoil, since they have to put forward planking-related death education.

Even worse news? Now the kids are starting pillaring.

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]]> Saturday morning, after picking up my kid from his art class, I was walking with him on East 11th Street, across from St. Mark's Church, when we came upon a boy, looked to be about ten years old, lying on the sidewalk. His eyes were closed, and though I could see him breathing, for a moment, I wondered whether something bad had happened—whether I would have to call 911, and whether my own kid was about to witness something much heavier than I would ever want for him to witness. Three guys walking in front of us had fanned out to step around around him, slowing to inspect the scene. As my kid, who is six, and I did the same, I scanned the street for clues as to what was going on. Twenty feet away, standing in a doorway to a building, I saw two man standing and talking and looking toward the prone boy. "I don't know, it's like some kind of performance art or something," one of them said, and they both chuckled and shook their heads in a way that told me that the speaker was the dad.

So, phew, I thought. But also, I judged the guy for allowing this kind of "performance art" to take place on his watch. It was a crowded sidewalk. The guys in front of me had almost tripped over the boy. I had come close to doing the same myself. Even more than that, I didn't appreciate the moment of worry and fright. Had this boy heard the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf? Hadn't his father?

"Daddy," my kid asked once we out of earshot. "Why was that boy lying down on the sidewalk?"

"I don't know," I said.

"He shouldn't lie there like that. I almost kicked him."

"I agree," I said.

Of course, the boy on the sidewalk was doing something called "planking," which has all of Australia in turmoil, since they have to put forward planking-related death education.

Even worse news? Now the kids are starting pillaring.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/05/australias-worst-export-planking-finally-invades-america/feed 30 Building Gardens in the New York City Schools http://www.theawl.com/2011/04/building-gardens-in-the-new-york-city-schools http://www.theawl.com/2011/04/building-gardens-in-the-new-york-city-schools#comments Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:30:08 +0000 Choire Sicha http://www.theawl.com/2011/04/building-gardens-in-the-new-york-city-schools
What's that? A fundraiser to help expand a program in which New York City school kids build gardens, grow vegetables and make documentaries? Sounds like community organizing to me.

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What's that? A fundraiser to help expand a program in which New York City school kids build gardens, grow vegetables and make documentaries? Sounds like community organizing to me.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/04/building-gardens-in-the-new-york-city-schools/feed 3 Message In A Bottle Received, Responded To, 24 Years Later http://www.theawl.com/2011/04/message-in-a-bottle-received-responded-to-24-years-later http://www.theawl.com/2011/04/message-in-a-bottle-received-responded-to-24-years-later#comments Mon, 04 Apr 2011 10:30:51 +0000 Dave Bry http://www.theawl.com/2011/04/message-in-a-bottle-received-responded-to-24-years-later
"My name is Frank and I'm five years old. My dad and I are traveling on a ship to Denmark. If you find this letter, please write back to me, and I will write back to you."
—Frank Uesbeck, of Coesfeld, Germany, contributed to the pollution of the Baltic Sea 24 years ago by sealing a note in a brown glass bottle and throwing it off a boat. Now 29, and apparently unrepentant, he is being rewarded with press coverage. Because 13-year-old Daniil Korotkikh found the bottle on a beach on the Russian coast and reporters helped him contact Uesbeck over the Internet. Actually, this story from last week is heart-warming, and a little jealousy-making, for anyone who ever did this sort of thing when they were little. Which is everyone, right? The video above, of the Police playing a concert in Germany six years before Uesbeck hurt our planet, makes me want to write a letter to Stewart Copeland, telling him that his phenomenal drumming was always the best thing about that band.

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"My name is Frank and I'm five years old. My dad and I are traveling on a ship to Denmark. If you find this letter, please write back to me, and I will write back to you."
—Frank Uesbeck, of Coesfeld, Germany, contributed to the pollution of the Baltic Sea 24 years ago by sealing a note in a brown glass bottle and throwing it off a boat. Now 29, and apparently unrepentant, he is being rewarded with press coverage. Because 13-year-old Daniil Korotkikh found the bottle on a beach on the Russian coast and reporters helped him contact Uesbeck over the Internet. Actually, this story from last week is heart-warming, and a little jealousy-making, for anyone who ever did this sort of thing when they were little. Which is everyone, right? The video above, of the Police playing a concert in Germany six years before Uesbeck hurt our planet, makes me want to write a letter to Stewart Copeland, telling him that his phenomenal drumming was always the best thing about that band.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/04/message-in-a-bottle-received-responded-to-24-years-later/feed 3 Videos of Kids Training with Guns That Are Not Viral Ads for "Hanna" http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/videos-of-kids-training-with-guns-that-are-not-viral-ads-for-hanna http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/videos-of-kids-training-with-guns-that-are-not-viral-ads-for-hanna#comments Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:00:01 +0000 Abe Sauer http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/videos-of-kids-training-with-guns-that-are-not-viral-ads-for-hanna

3 year old learning to shoot.

Small child shoots AK-47

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3 year old learning to shoot.

Small child shoots AK-47

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/videos-of-kids-training-with-guns-that-are-not-viral-ads-for-hanna/feed 7 Kids Play In Playgrounds Like They've Always Played In Playgrounds http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/kids-play-in-playgrounds-like-theyve-always-played-in-playgrounds http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/kids-play-in-playgrounds-like-theyve-always-played-in-playgrounds#comments Tue, 15 Mar 2011 13:10:57 +0000 Dave Bry http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/kids-play-in-playgrounds-like-theyve-always-played-in-playgrounds "Children still enjoy playing traditional games like skipping and clapping in the playground despite the lure of mobile phones, computer games, and television, a study published on Tuesday found. Playground games are 'alive and well ... they happily co-exist with media-based play, the two informing each other,' it said."
—Children like to go outside! Expect New York mag to weigh in shortly.

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]]> "Children still enjoy playing traditional games like skipping and clapping in the playground despite the lure of mobile phones, computer games, and television, a study published on Tuesday found. Playground games are 'alive and well ... they happily co-exist with media-based play, the two informing each other,' it said."
—Children like to go outside! Expect New York mag to weigh in shortly.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/kids-play-in-playgrounds-like-theyve-always-played-in-playgrounds/feed 2 ‘Red Riding Hood’ and the Gripping Jaws of Sexless Teens http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/%e2%80%98red-riding-hood%e2%80%99-and-the-gripping-jaws-of-sexless-teens http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/%e2%80%98red-riding-hood%e2%80%99-and-the-gripping-jaws-of-sexless-teens#comments Fri, 11 Mar 2011 13:40:06 +0000 Melissa Lafsky http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/%e2%80%98red-riding-hood%e2%80%99-and-the-gripping-jaws-of-sexless-teens Teenagers aren’t having much sex these days. And why should they? If it’s not the AIDS resurgence or public displays of adolescent pregnancy, it’s HPV, or syphilis (yes, syphilis) or any other number of other pestilences that rot your organs and turn your genitals to corrugated mush.

So does all this adolescent celibacy mean that today’s teens are less horny than their free-love Baby Boomer predecessors, or the angst-ridden millennials, or any other group of teens in history? Not a chance. If there’s one universal of the human condition, it’s hormones: Our biochemistry is primed to make us breed, and that means endless streams of panting, sweaty youngsters entering the “mate and procreate” phase.

Our culture, meanwhile, tries to Clorox all this horniness into a sanitized, sweat-free version of gentility. Which results in all sorts of hilarious side effects, like the hardcore porn industry and the abstinence movement. Movies are the perfect mirror to reflect this cultural peccadillo back at us—they digest our collective fears and anxieties and embarrassments about sex into a thick primordial soup, and project them back in Dolby Digital. And never have movies been as reflective of the “teens want to get it the hell on but can’t” trend as now.

Into this repressed hormonal petri dish skips Red Riding Hood (opening today wherever teenagers are found). Billed as a “modern retelling of the classic tale,” this is a movie that drags all the exhausted clichés out of their tombs, dresses them up in bodices and Disney-fied tunics, and showers them with a torrent of phoned-in acting and ear-stabbing dialogue. All in the name of appealing to horny teens.

Yes, this movie is face-clawingly terrible—but it serves a purpose. Call it an experiment in filling the gaping hole before the final Twilight film emerges. Since the “new Twilight” has yet to appear from the heaving bodice of another Mormon housewife, what if we turn to classic fairy tales? The original intent of stories like “Red Riding Hood” was to scare children (read: girls) into avoiding strangers (read: men with ready and willing phalluses). What storyline could be more applicable today? Sex was scary as hell then—pregnancy meant ostracism, not to mention likely death in childbirth—and it’s scary now.

This great film-making experiment is overseen, fittingly, by Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke who, for all her vampire-related mockability, truly gets teens (have you seen Thirteen? If not, refrain from judgment). Her films understand a fundamental truth about humans trapped in the binds of puberty: They wanna bang any and everything, and if they can’t, they act out in some other way. Which, in movie-land, usually means some level of blood-spurting gore.

And gore we get. The production and execution of RRH is shoddy on just about every level—$100 says even the sweeping woodland shots during the credits came straight from unused Twilight footage—but the gore is singularly impressive. No actor (yes, not even Gary Oldman, whose presence in this film is a Book of Eli-level mystery) escapes some amount of carnage. There are decapitations, deaths by torture, hacked-off limbs, slashed faces, you name it, all packed into a supposed teen romance. And the violence, quite honestly, makes sense—you’ve shut a pack of teens away in an anachronistic village located somewhere between the Alps and Portland, and forbade them from ever getting it on. What did you think was gonna happen?

Still, as goopy and plodding as the Twilight films are, at least they stay in a realm where sexual repression doesn’t translate into heartlessness. RRH winds up in a pretty nasty place, with a Kilimanjaro-high body count (predominantly made up of innocents, including a mentally disabled boy) and a heroine (Amanda Seyfried) that is totally fine with (big fat spoiler alert—though honestly it’s like spoiling the fact that the yogurt you’re about to eat is 8 months old) killing her father and abandoning her bereaved mother in order to hang with her boyfriend when the moon isn’t full. Meanwhile, her sugar-sweet but spurned fiancé rides off into the wilderness to hunt down potential witches and werewolves in the name of religion (which, actually, has plenty of precedent in history).

Yeah sure, it’s asking for all kinds of trouble to make teens ignore their sexual urges, we know. But does doing so really give them leave to become sociopathic murderers? If those are the only options, I’ll take the Generation of HPV.



Melissa Lafsky is glad to be an adult.

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]]> Teenagers aren’t having much sex these days. And why should they? If it’s not the AIDS resurgence or public displays of adolescent pregnancy, it’s HPV, or syphilis (yes, syphilis) or any other number of other pestilences that rot your organs and turn your genitals to corrugated mush.

So does all this adolescent celibacy mean that today’s teens are less horny than their free-love Baby Boomer predecessors, or the angst-ridden millennials, or any other group of teens in history? Not a chance. If there’s one universal of the human condition, it’s hormones: Our biochemistry is primed to make us breed, and that means endless streams of panting, sweaty youngsters entering the “mate and procreate” phase.

Our culture, meanwhile, tries to Clorox all this horniness into a sanitized, sweat-free version of gentility. Which results in all sorts of hilarious side effects, like the hardcore porn industry and the abstinence movement. Movies are the perfect mirror to reflect this cultural peccadillo back at us—they digest our collective fears and anxieties and embarrassments about sex into a thick primordial soup, and project them back in Dolby Digital. And never have movies been as reflective of the “teens want to get it the hell on but can’t” trend as now.

Into this repressed hormonal petri dish skips Red Riding Hood (opening today wherever teenagers are found). Billed as a “modern retelling of the classic tale,” this is a movie that drags all the exhausted clichés out of their tombs, dresses them up in bodices and Disney-fied tunics, and showers them with a torrent of phoned-in acting and ear-stabbing dialogue. All in the name of appealing to horny teens.

Yes, this movie is face-clawingly terrible—but it serves a purpose. Call it an experiment in filling the gaping hole before the final Twilight film emerges. Since the “new Twilight” has yet to appear from the heaving bodice of another Mormon housewife, what if we turn to classic fairy tales? The original intent of stories like “Red Riding Hood” was to scare children (read: girls) into avoiding strangers (read: men with ready and willing phalluses). What storyline could be more applicable today? Sex was scary as hell then—pregnancy meant ostracism, not to mention likely death in childbirth—and it’s scary now.

This great film-making experiment is overseen, fittingly, by Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke who, for all her vampire-related mockability, truly gets teens (have you seen Thirteen? If not, refrain from judgment). Her films understand a fundamental truth about humans trapped in the binds of puberty: They wanna bang any and everything, and if they can’t, they act out in some other way. Which, in movie-land, usually means some level of blood-spurting gore.

And gore we get. The production and execution of RRH is shoddy on just about every level—$100 says even the sweeping woodland shots during the credits came straight from unused Twilight footage—but the gore is singularly impressive. No actor (yes, not even Gary Oldman, whose presence in this film is a Book of Eli-level mystery) escapes some amount of carnage. There are decapitations, deaths by torture, hacked-off limbs, slashed faces, you name it, all packed into a supposed teen romance. And the violence, quite honestly, makes sense—you’ve shut a pack of teens away in an anachronistic village located somewhere between the Alps and Portland, and forbade them from ever getting it on. What did you think was gonna happen?

Still, as goopy and plodding as the Twilight films are, at least they stay in a realm where sexual repression doesn’t translate into heartlessness. RRH winds up in a pretty nasty place, with a Kilimanjaro-high body count (predominantly made up of innocents, including a mentally disabled boy) and a heroine (Amanda Seyfried) that is totally fine with (big fat spoiler alert—though honestly it’s like spoiling the fact that the yogurt you’re about to eat is 8 months old) killing her father and abandoning her bereaved mother in order to hang with her boyfriend when the moon isn’t full. Meanwhile, her sugar-sweet but spurned fiancé rides off into the wilderness to hunt down potential witches and werewolves in the name of religion (which, actually, has plenty of precedent in history).

Yeah sure, it’s asking for all kinds of trouble to make teens ignore their sexual urges, we know. But does doing so really give them leave to become sociopathic murderers? If those are the only options, I’ll take the Generation of HPV.



Melissa Lafsky is glad to be an adult.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/%e2%80%98red-riding-hood%e2%80%99-and-the-gripping-jaws-of-sexless-teens/feed 8 Acclaimed Novelist Republishes First Book http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/acclaimed-novelist-republishes-first-book http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/acclaimed-novelist-republishes-first-book#comments Mon, 07 Mar 2011 11:00:50 +0000 Dave Bry http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/acclaimed-novelist-republishes-first-book Awl contributor and author of The Metropolis Case (Crown, 2010), Matthew Gallaway certainly pulls no punches in reassessing What Shall Be I Be When I Grow Up?..., a book he wrote in 1979, when he was 11 years old, and recently republished in its entirety, on the Internet. "Initially heralded as a 'model of gender equality and optimism,'" Gallaway writes today, "the book was later dismissed as 'derivative, unoriginal, and convoluted' and subsequently banned in most schools when an investigative reporter uncovered evidence of subliminal messaging through the use of product placement—a practice then in its infancy—and politically subversive content." Having read the book myself, I think such criticism is too harsh. In focussing his review solely on the most controversial aspects of the work, Gallaway is too quick to dismiss the courage his younger self displayed in challenging conventional wisdom (a six-legged octopus!) and wrestling with what is perhaps the single most profound question inherent to the human condition. What Shall I Be When I Grow Up? Indeed, what shall any of us?

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]]> Awl contributor and author of The Metropolis Case (Crown, 2010), Matthew Gallaway certainly pulls no punches in reassessing What Shall Be I Be When I Grow Up?..., a book he wrote in 1979, when he was 11 years old, and recently republished in its entirety, on the Internet. "Initially heralded as a 'model of gender equality and optimism,'" Gallaway writes today, "the book was later dismissed as 'derivative, unoriginal, and convoluted' and subsequently banned in most schools when an investigative reporter uncovered evidence of subliminal messaging through the use of product placement—a practice then in its infancy—and politically subversive content." Having read the book myself, I think such criticism is too harsh. In focussing his review solely on the most controversial aspects of the work, Gallaway is too quick to dismiss the courage his younger self displayed in challenging conventional wisdom (a six-legged octopus!) and wrestling with what is perhaps the single most profound question inherent to the human condition. What Shall I Be When I Grow Up? Indeed, what shall any of us?

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/acclaimed-novelist-republishes-first-book/feed 9 In Sympathy With Candle Sniffers http://www.theawl.com/2011/02/in-sympathy-with-candle-sniffers http://www.theawl.com/2011/02/in-sympathy-with-candle-sniffers#comments Tue, 01 Feb 2011 09:11:07 +0000 Dave Bry http://www.theawl.com/2011/02/in-sympathy-with-candle-sniffers
When I was a kid, like eleven, I used to get those tubes of lip balm that smelled so strongly of lime or strawberry or pina colada and keep them in my desk in my room and basically huff them when I was supposed to be doing my homework. God, they smelled so good!

The higher-end ones even managed to inject a bit of actual, tastable flavor into whatever was their chemical composition. I ate far more of them than I ever should have. It makes me feel a little queazy to remember it now, gnawing away at a stick of what was basically lime or strawberry or suntan lotion-scented wax. That's just what it tasted like, and just what it felt like in my stomach, too, after a long night of not learning how to divide. Still, the next night, I'd be back at it, twisting off the little plastic cap, inhaling deeply for a few minutes and then tucking in—somehow believing that this time the taste might live up to the bouquet. It never did. They were only made to please one sense. Lip balm is not food.

So my heart goes out to these kids who make YouTube "haul" videos of themselves reviewing the delicious-smelling products they buy at places like Yankee Candle and Body Works. Because I know they eat them when the camera's off.

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When I was a kid, like eleven, I used to get those tubes of lip balm that smelled so strongly of lime or strawberry or pina colada and keep them in my desk in my room and basically huff them when I was supposed to be doing my homework. God, they smelled so good!

The higher-end ones even managed to inject a bit of actual, tastable flavor into whatever was their chemical composition. I ate far more of them than I ever should have. It makes me feel a little queazy to remember it now, gnawing away at a stick of what was basically lime or strawberry or suntan lotion-scented wax. That's just what it tasted like, and just what it felt like in my stomach, too, after a long night of not learning how to divide. Still, the next night, I'd be back at it, twisting off the little plastic cap, inhaling deeply for a few minutes and then tucking in—somehow believing that this time the taste might live up to the bouquet. It never did. They were only made to please one sense. Lip balm is not food.

So my heart goes out to these kids who make YouTube "haul" videos of themselves reviewing the delicious-smelling products they buy at places like Yankee Candle and Body Works. Because I know they eat them when the camera's off.

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