“It is good news for beauty salons across the globe — women really do prefer a man with a smooth chest, researchers have found. Researchers compared the attractivemess of men before and after shaving their chest — and found only 20 per cent of women preferred the more hirsute version.”

It’s Retro Nostalgia Heaven Day!

Morrissey! Swans! The Paris Review! And a Save the Village benefit, brought to you by the charmingly rogue NYU faculty.

by Kevin Depew

“With regard to precipitous heights, if you are beforehand with your adversary, you should occupy the raised and sunny spots, and there wait for him to come up.”
 — The Art of War, Sun Tzu (1772)

One morning in 1978 three men, painted entirely in black and crouched atop a crudely fashioned raft, floated down the pale-blue river that spills down from the Fluoristan mountain range. The current carried the men swiftly, bringing them ever closer to the gleaming white walls of the floating city. Once there the men set to work with sledgehammers and pickaxes. Discovering them, a sentry called out to the city’s protectors, who, with the aid of a giant toothbrush, forced the men off the walls and back down to the river below.

And the citizens of Toothopolis cheered.

Toothopolis. This is your floating city. To say it lies at the end of the world would be to mistake the beginning. Your beloved high white walls are simply porcelain veneers. The grinning white fortress of the seducer’s mouth, lips half-parted, a sickly whisper of mint obscures the decay within. In Toothopolis, your floating city, nothing ever dies. No one ever leaves. The white never yellows or fades. Who are these men who would bore holes in this floating paradise? And to what end? Had they come to stain us? Or worse, perhaps our being already stained, had they come to bore holes in our vanity?

On that morning in 1978, it was a sentry outfitted in a militaristic red uniform, perched high atop the white walls of Toothopolis, who first gave witness.

“The Cavity Creeps!” he shouted.

And the violators of our vanity suddenly acquired both name and purpose.

These violators, these Cavity Creeps, would soon return.

***

It is no longer 1978. It is many years later. I am standing inside the shell of a hollowed-out suburban split-level house in what was supposed to have been the pre-fabricated manifestation of a twenty-first-century dream. The man I am looking for is not here. For thirty-two days I’ve been looking for him, in vain, and my editors are growing impatient. He is the last one, they say. The last of the Cavity Creeps.

But no one has been here for a very long time. What is here is of very little value. This is no floating city. There are no high white walls. And the ruins of this dream are distinctly modern in that they present only an absence; an absence of kitchen appliances, an absence of light fixtures, an absence of plumbing, everywhere an absence. I step through a hole in the drywall and into another room filled with still more absence. I relieve myself in a hole on the floor where a toilet once stood, a proud, if trivial, act of defiance.

To start at the beginning, as thirty-two days earlier I had, one must first locate the end. And that’s how I find myself here, at the end, so very far from your floating city, looking for a man, a hero or a devil, it’s impossible to say which. The last of the Cavity Creeps. I have much to ask.

***

“I have yet to learn that any living organism has any power to bore a hole in the enamel of a tooth, and to use the theory is as absurd as to assert that the sun revolves around the earth, causing day and night, and is quite as far from the truth.”
 — American Society of Dental Surgeons, F.J.S. Gorgas, M.D., D.D.S. (1888)

“We make holes in teeth.”
 — The Cavity Creeps (1978)

The first toothbrush was nothing but an animal bone with pig bristle attached. Like all things that become so worthwhile in their utility that they are sunk into oblivion by our rote inattention, it was invented by a prison inmate. If that strikes you as a cure of such severity that it trumps the disease, consider that there is not one thing on the face of the Earth that a man has not at some point put into his mouth for either pleasure or penance.

This is why I want to find him. This is why I want to meet the last one standing. For truly this is about nothing less than the core of all religion, pleasure and penance, the quest for purity, for Hygieia, the goddess daughter of Asclepius and Epione, cast down from the heavens and into the cavity, sentenced to remove an impossible stain. The beloved walls of your city were never pure.

This is why I want to find him, the last one standing, hero or devil.

There’s a pain in my jaw that began on the flight here from that other place. It’s a dull ache that ebbs and flows in rhythm with my pulse. In a grim, silly irony, what I need is a dentist. All I have is whiskey.

***

“That the impact of your army may be like a grindstone dashed against an egg — this is effected by the science of weak points and strong.”
 — The Art of War, Sun Tzu

It’s 1979. As the sun rises on Toothopolis, the men, the Cavity Creeps, return. They attack the high white walls of the floating city. Their number has increased. There are five now, again dressed entirely in black. They have jetpacks. And pickaxes. They want to make holes. They want to make holes in the city wall. They want to make holes in teeth. It takes a security team comprised of seven young people and a barking yellow dog less than two seconds to repel them with some kind of gel containing a substance called ‘fluoristat.’

And the citizens of Toothopolis cheered.

The Cavity Creeps would return. Fuck your fluoristat.

***

“Line the cavity with crystal gold; first go around the border of the cavity; then build across until the cavity is lined with a basket of gold; upon this foundation a solid gold plug may be anchored of any cohesive gold without danger of its falling out or of decay around it.”
—

Catching’s Compendium of Practical Dentistry, Benjamin Holliday Catching (1896)

A cavity is, technically speaking, the hollow of a body. In the literature, such that it is, that comprises our many years of dental learning, a cavity is a hole in a tooth. A hole, simple and plain. I have one, he explains, pointing to what he insists is a tiny black speck on an X-ray. To me the black speck is invisible. But only a fool argues with pain. He says he will fix the tooth right now for $100. Cash. Otherwise, it may take days, perhaps even a week to get back in to see him. Incidentally, he tells me he knows where to find what I’m looking for.

“Let’s fix the tooth first,” he says, pulling on latex gloves. “Then we’ll talk.”

I can smell the latex as his fingers go into my mouth. He pulls my jaw open wide as the needle goes in. “This will feel like a pinch,” he says. And it does. A deep one. The pain turns warm and recedes. I fixate on a subtle imperfection on a ceiling tile overhead and run toward it. The sound of a machine chases after me. Too late.

I pay the man for my tooth and he hands me a piece of paper with an illegible script, possibly in Latin. “Take this across the street and give it to the man behind the counter,” he instructs. Soon.

***

“The rule is not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided. The general, unable to control his irritation, will launch his men to the assault like swarming ants, with the result that one-third of his men are slain, while the town still remains untaken. Such are the disastrous effects of a siege.
 — The Art of War, Sun Tzu

It’s 1983. The final siege begins, as so many do, with an opponent’s feigned weakness. “They must be out of Crest,” the Cavity Creep commander murmurs. A team of five men, dressed in black, wades through the river toward the floating city’s high white walls. Their crude pickaxes have been replaced by 60-pound jack hammers. The technology of warfare marches ever onward. Their goal is now a chant. “We. Make. Holes in teeth. We. Make. Holes in teeth. We. Make. Holes in teeth.” They scale the beloved high white walls and begin to make holes. Less than two seconds later they are blasted from the high white walls by a giant laser.

And the citizens of Toothopolis cheered.

This time, the Cavity Creeps would not return. Years later, a search would begin. But not today.

***

Last night I had a dream. I held a little heart-shaped pebble in my hands. It was white and smooth all over like porcelain. Beautiful. I turned it over in my hands and rubbed it like a worry stone until I noticed a speck of black the size of a single grain of pepper appeared. I tried to rub the speck away but the more I rubbed it the larger it became. I panicked and began rubbing the little white pebble harder which only made the black speck worse until eventually the entire pebble turned black and brittle and crumbled in my hands like a piece of charcoal.

I wake up covered in sweat. The ache in my jaw has returned. On the nightstand is the little brown plastic bottle the man’s friend has given me in exchange for the slip of paper, in exchange for my tooth. Everything is an exchange. I take a pill from the bottle and chase it down with what’s left of the whiskey. Like a hero, like a devil. At some point, whether we’re ready for it or not, the world comes to us and speaks its name. All this time. All this wasted time. I was looking for myself.

Previously: Rocktober: An Oral History

Kevin Depew is a writer and editor living in New York City. He is available in all the usual locations, and sometimes writes a comment here at The Awl under the alias Screen Name.

★★ The clouds grew denser throughout, in a steady slide into dimness and dark. In the chill, people were going quite beyond. On Broadway there were barn coats buttoned all the way, scarves tucked in — folks bundled up fit to go buy a Christmas tree. Puffy coats, with rolls of padding. Downtown, a leather or leather-look coat with a shearling or shearling-look collar. All the day required physically was a light jacket over a sweater, but the soul has its own thermostat. Someone had deployed quilted child-bags in a tandem stroller, a big-kid bag tipped upright in the big-kid module and an infant bag in the infant module. There seemed to be children zipped inside.

1987 was a tough year for New Jersey’s Bruce Springsteen fans. After our hometown hero conquered the world on the Born In U.S.A. tour, he broke our hearts by marrying a model who he’d first seen in a .38 Special video and summoned to a backstage meeting arranged through his manager. Julianne Phillips was a former cheerleader from Oregon who lived in L.A., about the farthest thing from the kind of Jersey girl Bruce had been singing about so well for so long. And when he ditched the E Street Band for his new album, and posed on the cover wearing a blazer and a bolero tie, Jesus, we thought, is this the end?

No, it turned out, it was not. Luckily for us (and this feels terrible to say, but, from a purely art-appreciative perspective, it is true) Bruce’s marriage was an unhappy one, one that would not last very long, and the album that he wrote about it, Tunnel of Love, is, like Nebraska, his previous bandless effort from five years before, a quiet, restrained, intense masterpiece. The misery of his mistaken marriage led Bruce to some of the best writing of his career. Especially on the songs on side 2 — the title track, “Two Faces,” “Brilliant Disguise,” “One Step Up,” “When You’re Alone,” and “Valentine’s Day” — Bruce stared into the mirror in a way he never quite had before, and didn’t much seem to like what he saw. But he recorded it faithfully. “God have mercy on the man,” he sang at the end of “Brilliant Disguise,” “who doubts what he’s sure of.”

Today, 25 years since it hit record store shelves, Tunnel of Love remains the most personal album Bruce has ever recorded, and one of his very best. (One of his six very best.) Then of course the following year he fell in love with a woman every Jerseyite in acid-washed jeans could see was the one for him: the saucy rocker-chick who sang all those hurt, guilty, self-lacerating songs right along with him — his back-up singer, Asbury Park High School alum, Patti Scialfa. They’re still married today, still living on the Jersey Shore. Patti couldn’t sing with Bruce at the concert I saw this past summer, because she was visiting colleges with their daughter.

by Matt Haber

Once upon a time there was a magazine. It was called Talk, and Tina Brown made it with her friend Harvey Weinstein. Tina must have had a magical crystal ball because, as we see in this month’s installment, the prescience displayed in this turn-of-the-century synergy handbook is something to behold.

In October 2000, Tina Brown celebrated Talk’s new office: “After nearly two years in small and excessively intimate ‘temporary’ quarters in midtown Manhattan, we’ve moved downtown into spacious permanent digs in the Chelsea district, designed to our needs and specifications by architect Ross Anderson.”

Other new things celebrated in October 2000: Zooey Deschanel, “a straightforward and unbratty new star”: Battlebots, “homemade robots” beloved by “hobbyists, techies hipsters, [and] WWF enthusiasts”; Hooking Up, Tom Wolfe’s collection “including his devastating 1965 critique of The New Yorker”; and the Toyota Prius, “a remarkably stylish $19,995 full-size sedan.”

Osama bin Laden is a failure

“Since arriving in Afghanistan in the fall of 1999 I’d developed serious doubts about the general quality of the fundamentalists who’d rallied around bin Ladin [sic.]. After visiting Mas’ud’s prison camps, I suspected that most of the Saudi’s minions were poorly educated peasants who’d stick out like sore thumbs at the security controls of a first-rate international airport. Quite likely, bin Ladin bombed America in Africa because he couldn’t get away with it anywhere else.” — Blueprint For Terror, by Reuel Marc Gerecht.

Jared Leto is a star

“Now back in L.A., the actor, who began his career as Claire Danes’s boyfriend on My So-Called Life, and who last year played the blond Angel Face in David Fincher’s Fight Club, does not know what he is doing next — nor need to worry. Whatever else Requiem [for a Dream] does, it proves that Leto is a star.” — Talking Movies, Jared Leto, unbylined.

Spotlight on a new talent.

Ralph Nader will legitimize the Green Party

“There is no reason for anyone to vote for [George W.] Bush, since he has no accomplishments at all other than a passion for executions, which he shares with the country’s lowlifes. There is a feeling that a [Ralph] Nader race will make it possible to form a Greenish party that would get federal funding in 2004. This assumes of course that there will be an election then.” — Gore Vidal speaking to Adam Bellow, The Other Gore.

Marriage will end

“Even our language betrays the new attitudes toward marriage. A reluctance even to use the word seems to be sweeping the West.” — The Case for Marriage, by Linda J. Waite and Maggie Gallagher.

The Takeaway

In October 2000, magazines still didn’t have URLs on their covers, but you could run a photo of Sonny Mehta smoking at a party for Joe Eszterhas’ American Rhapsody. You could also run a story about Ben Affleck with the headline “Ben There,” since Twitter didn’t exist and no one could make fun of you. Synergy Watch: Ben Affleck starred in Bounce (produced and distributed by Miramax); ads for Padma Lakshmi’s “Easy Exotic,” Christopher Rice’s A Density of Souls, and Helen De Witt’s The Last Samurai (all published by Talk Miramax Books); short interview with The Last Samurai author Helen DeWitt; two-page ad for the Ford Escape that allows a sweepstakes winner to visit the set of a Miramax film.

Previously: Where Are Bill Clinton, Heidi Klum and Nicole Kidman Now?

Yeah, Matt Haber is still working through that stack of Talk magazines he found on Broadway near Canal this summer.

The rest of the western world pretty much gave up on organized religion 40 years ago, but here in America we kept Christian-soldiering onward, because America is special that way. Or it was special that way: A shocking new study reveals that the number of Americans abandoning all religion jumped by 15% in the last half decade. With one in five Americans (five in five in New York) now in the “no religion” category, we should catch up with Europe by 2032 or so, by which point the Earth is expected to be a boiling cauldron anyway.

The number of Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid pace. One-fifth of the U.S. public — and a third of adults under 30 — are religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew Research Center polling.

Did something really illuminating happen since 2008, other than our choosing a Muslim an agnostic/intellectual president? Sort of! These 46 million people seem to be weary of organized religion’s focus on politics and earthly treasure, even though that’s been the motivation for organized religion since the dawn of history.

“The unaffiliated say they are not looking for a religion that would be right for them,” the Pew study says. “Overwhelmingly, they think that religious organizations are too concerned with money and power, too focused on rules and too involved in politics.”

The Pope was quickly wheeled out to yell at some Italians and tourists about this problem for his organization. And if American Protestants had a pope, which doesn’t make any sense, then that pope would be freaking out, too — the number of U.S. Protestants has now declined to less than 50% of the population.

“For years, you had to be a bit trepidatious about saying you liked Magical Mystery Tour. It was the same thing as Carry On films and spaghetti westerns being regarded with absolute contempt — whereas they’re now seen as masterpieces. To say you liked Magical Mystery Tour was almost an indication that there was something wrong with you. It’s taken all this time for it to be reassessed.”
 — The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour

— the hour-long film they made for British television, not the album of the same name — is finally available on Blu-Ray and DVD. I am not sure that “masterpiece” is exactly the right word, but you can absolutely see its influence on Monty Python, among others. It’s a remarkably British piece of film, and if it isn’t completely coherent, it is at least never boring. There’s even The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band singing “Death Cab For Cutie.” If you’re not a Beatles fan you can probably skip this, but if do like the group you’re gonna want to watch it. The extras alone make it worthwhile. Also: “Your Mother Should Know” is a hugely under-appreciated song when you think about how much of their material draws its power from nostalgia. Yes, that’s what I took away.

Yes, there are Guinness flavored potato chips.

Super Sexy Women’s Halloween Costumes

by Christian Brown and Tully Mills

SCANDALIZING TANTALIZING NEWSWEEK COVER

Nothing makes a bigger splash than a daring headline, and nobody does daring like Newsweek! Whether it’s comparing liberals to terrorists or single mothers to other, angrier terrorists, you’re sure to get everyone’s blood boiling in this 100% recycled newsprint costume. Comes with swappable covers to maximize offense to whoever will be seeing you in it, and racy advertorial bustier that’ll really get his pages flipping.

$6.99. One size fits all, available for shipping to US only.

SEXY JUNIOR SAFETY PATROL COSTUME

You’ll have to blow your whistle to get him to stop when he sees you in this sexy, cute costume. An elegant poncho in neon orange polyster will give him flashbacks to elementary school and pulling the pigtails of his favorite crush. And the reflective yellow belt/poly blend microskirt will make sure everyone sees you coming. Play safe!

Officially licensed from the Honorable Order of Safety Patrol Officers of America

$59.99. Stop sign and ponytail holders not included.

TELECOMMUNISEXIN’ FAX MACHINE COSTUME

Hang up the phone, I’m expecting a fax — a SEXY fax! Everyone at your next Halloween or 80s dance party will love this sleek gray number, which includes way more buttons than really makes sense for a glorified printer, and a phone handset for some reason? Tell him to hit your “resend” button and you’ll be faxing all night long, or until someone trips over the phone line. Includes oversized paper and oversized spam faxes sitting in the tray. 100% polyester foam.

$89.99, or $129.99 for working SPOOKY SOUND™ EFF-X™ version, with loud fax noise and button press sounds.

ADULT WOMEN’S RELIEF MAP OF NORTHERN IRELAND COSTUME

Show off your mountainous terrain in this geographically accurate (and sexy!) map of the western coast of Ireland. People will travel from miles around to get a photo at your Cliffs of Mohan in this elastic and poly mix dress/rectangle — just don’t let ’em get a gander at your beautiful bays. You’ll need a shillelagh to beat off the boys — unless you want to start the Easter Rising!

$49.99, shoes and Irish flag headband not included.

JAPANESE GIANT HORNET

Buzzz! You’ll float like a butterfly, sting like a three-inch long hornet when you put on the latex mask and flirty black-and-yellow-striped cotton minidress. You may not be making honey, but you’ll be turning heads when they see your enormous 100% polyester wings and your bee-devouring mandibles. He’ll be begging for you to carry him back to your hive and feed you to your squirming pupae.

$49.99. Stuffed bee thoraxes not included.

KFC FAMOUS BOWL™ WOMEN’S COSTUME

Officially sponsored and officially deliciously sexy, you’ll be steaming hot in this 100% latex enormous bowl with polystyrene veggies, meat and gravy piled high. He’ll want to eat you up with a spoon — or maybe a spork! Comes with savory fishnet stockings and high-heeled shoes with popcorn chicken applique. 100% cotton detachable collar and Colonel Sanders string tie brings together a finger-lickin’ good ensemble.

Comes in Chicken ‘N Biscuit, Rice, and Mashed Potato variations.

$129.99, or $199.99 for four-pack “Family Meal” combo

WOMEN’S JUNGLE FEVER WESTERN LOWLAND GORILLA COSTUME

He won’t be able to keeps his hands off your silky pelt — and that’s BEFORE you offer to eat his banana! The polyester fur torso and arms will make you the hairiest monster at the party, but the barely-there gorilla bikini briefs bottom and high-heeled gorilla’s feet shoes will let everyone know that you’re an ape who knows how to have fun. You’ll be beating your chest all night long — or maybe he will! Comes with optional glowing gorilla eyes.

CAUTION: Do not wear while driving or operating heavy machinery — peripheral vision is almost non-existent.

$212.99, L M S XS XXS XXXS

ADULT WOMEN’S HOUSE UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES COMMITTEE COSTUME

Every girl knows witches are overplayed on Halloween — so maybe this year, a witch HUNT? This democratically sexy number features an oak desk suspended from the slenderest of sensual suspenders, with pinko defendants cowering in front of you. You’ll get his gavel banging when he sees you blacking the balls of all those effete traitors! The pint-sized pinko puppets are machine-washable. Tiny, shouting McCarthy not included.

$269.99, one size fits most.

SEXY WERNER HERZOG COSTUME

Find your Kinski in this sexily lifelike rubber and latex Werner Herzog mask. He’ll be willing to drag a boat over a mountain for just a glimpse of your Cave of Forgotten Dreams. The sexy filmmaker’s bikini and thigh-high go-go boots will make sure you’re the most-watched documentarian at the next Halloween or Oscars party. He’ll be acting like a Bad Lieutenant before you know it!

$79.99. Accent not included.

Christian Brown (text) is an animator in Los Angeles, but that doesn’t stop him from sometimes writing about sexy gorillas. He is currently busy shopping for the exact perfect eye patch for this year’s Halloween costume.

Tully Mills (art) is an illustrator living in San Francisco.