The Spandex Report: Williamsburg Fashion Weekend @1:50 PM
On Saturday night, about ten men and women in white body paint and blue lips were standing on a stage; they wore knitwear short shorts made from recycled sweaters. Only one was wearing a furry bunny mask but they all held croquet mallets. Surf music played in the background as styrofoam "snow" fell from the ceiling. Then Arthur Arbit bounded onstage holding a tallboy can of Pabst Blue Ribbon and welcomed us all to Williamsburg Fashion Weekend. READ MORE 16
Bed Bugs: Is No One Safe? @12:11 PM
Bed bugs are shameless. They are the pest equivalent of a party guest who comes out of the bathroom and boldly announces that they just snooped through your medicine cabinet and you’re like, “No shit, asshole. You left your fingerprints everywhere.” They have no boundaries. That kind of boldness is not cute in people and it’s even less cute in flesh-eating creatures of the night.
It doesn't matter if you're fabulous or young or in need of a body that men want to touch, because things that lack shame don’t understand the importance of all that. If you live in an area where old mattresses line the street and foot traffic is heavy, you can get bed bugs no matter how amazing you are. In fact, here in Koreatown, I would say that the bed bugs are the only residents who don’t actively discriminate against anyone. READ MORE 68
![The North Central Texas Goat Sucker? [Photo: Joe Duty]](http://www.theawl.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/chuba-2-490x416.jpg "The North Central Texas Goat Sucker? [Photo: Joe Duty]")
Is The Metroplex Monster A Chupacabra? @2:15 PM
[Photo: Joe Duty]
“This is a weird little critter. This is not a coyote. This is not a dog.”
—Wise County, TX, resident Tony Potter discusses the animal carcass he discovered last week at a local golf course. Some suggest that this Metroplex Monster is a chupacabra, a legendary cryptid which stalks the American Southwest. Sure! I mean, why not? CHUPACABRA DISCOVERED, PEOPLE! MUST CREDIT THE AWL.COM, and then if you feel like it, credit the actual organization that discovered it in the first place. Whatever you're into, you know? But we'll be happy to take the link. 26
Winners Of Microscopic Digital Imaging Contest Are Awesome @11:02 AM
Whoo Hoo! It is time to celebrate. Why? Because it's Friday? No. The weekends and the weekdays are largely indistinguishable in the great joblessness of 2009. Saturday might as well be Tuesday. The reason to celebrate is that the ten winning photos of the "2009 Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Competition" have been chosen, and Scientific American has made a photo essay out of them. And it is MIND BLOWING in its AWESOMENESS. READ MORE 3
Photos Of 'Mad Men' @4:00 PM
While you await the season-ending installment of Footnotes—coming shortly!— please enjoy this miniature art project based on last night's episode. I guess it may contain spoilers if you are EXTREMELY intuitive or versed in the conventions of television. 8
The Annotated White House Flickr Feed, with Ana Marie Cox and Jason Linkins: Barack Obama's Top-Secret Message To Fox News @4:48 PM
Did you know that our President does lots of things each day? The White House staff photographers knew! And here are Air America's Ana Marie Cox and the Huffington Post's Eat the Press editor Jason Linkins to explain it to us common people.
ANA MARIE: Let's start with this basketball picture.
JASON: I encourage Awl readers to enlarge this image, for truly it contains multitudes.
ANA MARIE: In the first place, please note the lack of powerful women at this basketball game. READ MORE 19
G20 Photos: Where the Right and the Left Meet (And Also Don't) @12:09 PM
Yes, I am totally obsessed with the G20! I mean, how amazing, on all sorts of levels. And what I love about the protests in this country is that there are fun places where the right and the left meet. Although: the anarchists make the birthers and the truthers look like wusses, honestly, because when was the last time a birther had to breathe teargas? (Just picturing Orly Taitz getting riot-copped is making my whole morning, honestly.) But both sides are strongly anti-bailout, and anti-big government. Also, both sides love their favorite TV shows. But both sides share even more. READ MORE 30
Silvio Berlusconi's Women: A Series Of Slideshows @11:00 AM
That's right, scandal-plagued Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi likes the ladies. But it's hard to keep track of just who the man's been amorous with—which one's the hooker, who's the actress he nominated to Parliament, etc.? Fortunately, Vanity Fair is offering a pictorial gallery of Berlusconi's harem, which will be of enormous help to anyone who missed the slideshows in the Telegraph, the Financial Times, the Daily Beast, Life, Bild, and probably dozens of others that I haven't even come across. It's almost like the Internet is all slideshows of Berlusconi's ladies all the time. Credit VF, though, for at least going the LOLcat route with theirs. 7
Meanwhile, Back In Cambridge @3:50 PM
Henry Louis Gates' neighbors are trying to start a conversation of their own, apparently. 8
PARK OUTRAGE: HSBC Ad Campaign and the Lawyers Have Taken Over Madison Square Park @1:30 PM
What follows is a picture of the legal disclaimer that you "sign" just by walking into one of New York City's fine public spaces today: Madison Square Park. This is it! This is the moment that the machines and the lawyers have taken over, creating a Bloombergian cyst of revoltingness! (The lawn of the park, by the way, is closed, so don't try to use your public space today, because the CITY HAS SOLD IT TO HSBC.) What is going on is that the bank called HSBC is having what they call a "soapbox" thing where you, the "park attendee," stand in a kiosk, in front of a picture of a baby or a gadget or a nuclear power plant and explain to cameras how it makes you feel, while you are digesting your Shake Shack burger. THEN THEY WILL MAKE ADS OUT OF YOU. READ MORE 16
Here You Can Buy McSweeney's And All Those Other Various Random Literary Journals That Are Just Like It @2:41 PM
From our Brooklyn Bookstore Correspondent Emily Gould comes this photo. It was taken in Word, the lovely independent bookstore in Greenpoint. Go on over, and support your local bookstore! Oh and while you're there, please steal this hilarious sign. Emily points out: "It's like if instead of 'FICTION' at Barnes and Noble there was a sign that said 'Twilight and other novels.'" 29
Barack Obama's Eyes Were Watching God @9:45 AM
In the matter of United States President Barack Obama's ass-ogling, let us not jump to hasty conclusions. I believe moderation, restraint, and an awareness of the complexities of the male gaze require no less than a considered and circumspect response. READ MORE 19
Famous Woodstock Hippies: Where Are They Now? @9:40 AM
They discovered it while at a friend's house listening to the album and passing around the gatefold jacket. First, Nick recognized the famous yellow butterfly staff in the left corner. "It belonged to this guy Herbie," Nick says. "We latched on to him that day because he was having a very bad experience. He was tripping pretty heavily and he had lost his friends. After I saw that staff I said, 'Hey that's our blanket.' Then I said, 'Hey, that's us.'"
Not only are the kids from the cover of the original Woodstock record (ask your parents) still alive forty years on, they're still together, and totally adorable. 7
Plant Sex: 9 Pictures from Summer at Wave Hill @3:07 PM
Plants: our friends? Our enemies? Uncaring monsters who are only interested in screwing everything in sight? Oh wow definitely the latter. Wave Hill (a "public" garden, which means "only eight bucks!") is the pervertedest, sexiest, pollen-iest place in New York City (249th St., hello!). Up there, overlooking the Hudson, you can watch the foreign flora, from near and from really far, basically get on top of the other flora and hump it until it bleeds sap. All over. Actually very sexy and fun to be around! READ MORE 4
New Jersey and Hair Metal Still Perfect Together @11:52 AM
What did you do this week? Go for ramen in the East Village? Take a romantic stroll on the High Line? Maybe you just stayed in and watched I Survived a Japanese Game Show? Whatever: compared to the night had by the 17,500 rockers who gathered just 45 minutes down the Garden State Parkway in Holmdel, New Jersey on Wednesday night, you missed out. Because those 17,500 rockers were watching Cheap Trick, Poison and Def Leppard rock the PNC Bank Arts Center-and shot-gunning millions and millions of beers. Here is a wonderful gallery of photos to give you a taste of what you missed. And yes, Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen still plays Pour Some Sugar On Me with one arm. Can you do that? Didn't think so. 9
Photos From Iran @4:26 PM
Anyone who tells you that they know how the current situation in Iran will play out has no idea what they're talking about, but no matter what happens there have already been a number of images that can only be considered iconic from the week of protests. The Boston Globe's Big Picture blog has an excellent collection of photos here. 11
Tim Burton's "Alice In Wonderland" @1:05 PM
I was flipping around the TV last weekend and came upon Tim Burton's Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, which I had never seen before. Apart from an unfortunate, tacked-on backstory, it was pretty goddamn great, and it got me to thinking that Johnny Depp may be the most underrated actor to have achieved star status in his generation. I mean, can you think of anyone else with Depp's box office success and marquee name who takes so many chances and so clearly delights in just being weird when the role calls for it? You probably can; that's why we have a comments section. But where's his Oscar? Anyway, he and Burton are teaming up again for a new version of Alice In Wonderland. USA Today has the first released images, and, whatever, I thought they were cool. Have a look. 16
Resume Kit: Now 50% Off @3:05 PM
Our secret squirrel super-spy sends in this photo from Lexington Avenue and 62nd Street in Manhattan, where high-end resumé stationery is now half-off. Mmm hmm. 12
The New York Stock Exchange's Sarah Palin Shrine @1:13 PM
On the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange, you'll find lots of fun things! (One of which you would have learned about this morning, if only you were a subscriber to our daily email, which you can sign up for over there —>.) But what takes the cake for fun is this shrine to Sarah Palin—which is actually right near the Fox Business Channel booth, by the way! READ MORE 11
Carla Bruni Boob Shot Goes For 20K @4:30 PM
That topless photo of French first lady Carla Bruni in bed sold at auction for $19,600. Yep. 10
New iPhone OMG @11:31 AM
Here is a collection of slightly blurry photos showing what may or may not be the new iPhone. It has a compass! Slaver and drool like the iPhone imbeciles you are. 2
Hot Hot Hot Obama Photos Explore Young Obama Hotness @10:58 AM
Photos of Your Presidential Crush Barack Obama as a college freshman are being exhibited at an LA gallery starting tomorrow. (The link is currently down because you are not the only one who slobbers over pictures of your smoking hot Leader of the Free World.) Photographer Lisa Jack, one of the many unlikely beneficiaries of Obama's rise, tells the LA Times that she wants a White House invite for not selling the pix to the Hillary campaign, who would have no doubt used them to nefariously suggest that the then-Illinois Senator was too urbane to run the country. READ MORE 7
World Economy Propped Up By Naked Carla Bruni Photos @1:30 PM
Yet another topless photo of French first lady Carla Bruni is up for auction. This one was taken by photographer Pamela Hanson in 1994, and is titled "Carla Bruni in bed." A source close to Nicolas Sarkozy says the French president "has no problem with this because he knows that the only images of his wife in existence are tasteful, and also wants to remind you that he is, in fact, all up in that on the regular." 4
Supplicant Obama Humiliates Nation @3:06 PM
White House Flickr Feed, via Ben Smith: "President Barack Obama bends over so the son of a White House staff member can pat his head during a family visit to the Oval Office May 8, 2009. The youngster wanted to see if the President's haircut felt like his own."
Yes, it is BEYOND ADORABLE, but how long before Fox News starts criticizing the President for BOWING? 16
The Hipster Grifter Was A Patsy @8:53 AM
You don't want to know just how far the Hipster Grifter Conspiracy goes.
[Graphic Artist: Todd Grantham] 11
There are even chimps who are less hairy than I. @12:29 PM
"Ashes was born with fur like any other chimpanzee. But by just a year old, he had lost all of it! While he is somewhat frightening, it is a wonderful opportunity to be able to see a chimp's musculature." 23
Protest them all, let God sort them out. @2:31 PM
We'll let Wonkette sort out the backstory on this one. My question: You think that's actual doody, or just Photoshop? Because I could see it going either way with these folks. 3
