For many writers struggling for publication, advertising has proven a useful field (it does pay, after all): F. Scott Fitzgerald, Salman Rushdie, Dorothy Sayers, Don DeLillo, Joseph Heller and Helen Gurley Brown all worked as copywriters early in their careers—some with more success than others. Rushdie came up with "Naughty. But nice" cream cakes for Ogilvy & Mather; Sayers introduced "Just think what Toucan do" to Guinness and founded a dotty, fictional (and wildly popular) "Mustard Club"; and, thanks to Fitzgerald, streetcars in Iowa once ran with the promise "We keep you clean in Muscatine" sparkling on their sides. READ MORE

Right now, many young summer campers are frolicking beneath the open sky, the wind on their faces perfumed by the rough fragrances of pine and their parents' jet exhaust; on the horizon, the mountains shrug, "whatevs." Their families will pay one-fifth of the median national household income so they can go "rough it." And The New York Times has been on it. READ MORE

So you have the hiccups, and you'd like to get rid of them. Chances are, if you're out, that your companions will have advice to offer (hold your breath, drink backwards from a glass, etc.). But how can you know which folksy cure works best? Science. READ MORE

Back in 1940, some bars and nightclubs began replacing their jukeboxes with a newfangled contraption called a Panoram that could play short musical videos. Patrons couldn't choose the order of the movies they saw; they'd plunk in a dime and whichever of the eight three-minute videos was next on the reel would be projected onto the machine's two-foot screen. Although the reels sometimes featured sketch comedians, most of the movies showed quite literal enactments of a pre-recorded song, some by musical greats in their prime like Louis Armstrong, others by artists who were then still on their way to stardom, like Duke Ellington, Doris Day, Lena Horne and a young Liberace (if you can imagine that). READ MORE

51. West Virginia: $4.74
50. Louisiana: $4.82
49. North Dakota: $4.91
48. Kentucky: $4.97
47. Idaho: $4.99
46. California: $5.19
45. Alabama: $5.27
44. Georgia: $5.29
43. South Carolina: $5.42
41-42. Indiana, Wyoming: $5.50
40. North Carolina: $5.51
38-39. Nebraska, Virginia: $5.55
37. Tennessee: $5.56
36. Missouri: $5.58
35. Oregon: $5.59
34. Mississippi: $5.75
33. New Hampshire: $5.87
32. Nevada: $5.95
30-31. Arkansas, Colorado: $5.96
29. Montana: $5.99
26-28. Delaware, Iowa, Kansas: $6.00
25. South Dakota: $6.03
24. Texas: $6.07
23. Florida: $6.08
22. Oklahoma: $6.19
21. Ohio: $6.22
20. Minnesota: $6.53
19. Maryland: $6.70
18. Pennsylvania: $6.80
17. Arizona: $6.87
16. New Mexico: $6.88
15. Michigan: $6.90
14. Utah: $7.22
13. Maine: $7.97
12. Washington, D.C.: $7.99
11. Wisconsin: $8.11
10. Vermont: $8.23
9. Connecticut: $8.25
8. Massachusetts: $8.30
7. New Jersey: $8.35
6. Rhode Island: $8.60
5. Alaska: $9.14
4. Illinois: $9.67
3. Hawaii: $9.73
2. Washington: $9.89
1. New York: $11.90


Methodology: Prices were obtained by calling a gas station in each state's most populous city and asking the clerk for the price of a pack of Marlboro Reds with tax. Memphis, Tenn., was toughest (nine phone calls). The gas station in Milwaukee, Wis., had the only employee who ended the conversation with "have a good one." READ MORE

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Yesterday the FCC issued a report saying that, despite that Internet thing with all those “websites,” there's less news being created at the local level. But you already knew that, right? (The report was also supposed to give recommendations for righting the trend, but it didn’t really.) READ MORE