Maybe someone can help me understand this television commercial that came on my television last night. I’ve always pretty much gotten the gist of the previous spots in the New York Lottery’s “Hey, You Never Know” campaign. Basically: You should play the lottery because you might win so much money that you could do truly outrageous things that you would never otherwise think possible. But what exactly is supposed to be going on with this one? You could win so much money that you could buy a time machine and go back in time and invite the founding fathers to a beach party and then teleport them here to the present with you and show them how much fun a beach party is? Or are you supposed to be the founding fathers? You and your friends. And you perhaps won enough money in a 1776 version of the lottery that you were able to invent cryogenics (Franklin probably had some such scheme in the works) and so you are now still alive in 2012, and so able to be partying with young women on a beach? Or is it just that, you can win enough money to dress up like the founding fathers and go to a beach party? Because, if it’s that, why would you want to?

“Roseanne” Or “Frasier”?

by Leah Finnegan

Part of a series: Two choices — which do you choose?

Two 90s sit-coms, and at first glance they couldn’t seem more different. “Frasier” is set in a fancy apartment with panoramic views of a Seattle that bears little resemblance to the actual Seattle in Washington; “Roseanne,” in a linoleum-sided house in a nondescript southern Illinois town that could be anywhere in Middle America. “Frasier” is about the wealthy; “Roseanne” about the working class. However, both programs tell stories of families grappling with the strange social (implicitly political) changes of the decade — and both carry with them the fumes of 80s class tumult. “Roseanne,” which debuted in 1988, unspools like a rejoinder to Reagonomics; while “Frasier,” coming along five years after, brings in a healthy dose of good ol’ city-slicker American consumerism. So, in the interest of education by historo-time-capsule entertainment, which should you watch?

“Frasier” is a very white show, starring white people and making fun of white people for being pretentious, misogynistic, homophobic and elitist.* It should be horrible, but it’s actually brilliant; at its core, it’s a playful satire of the empty elitism and weird sexual politics of the 90s (and beyond!). From their obsession with rare wines and classical music to their knack for alienating those around them with their extreme anal-retentive tendencies, the brothers Frasier and Niles Crane are caricatures of a certain breed of Baby Boomer yuppie. Both are overeducated, appearance-obsessed, psychiatrists who cannot cope with — and in many cases, are oblivious to — their own personal problems.

The show treats sexuality in an interesting way. Frasier and Niles love to beat up on Roz, Frasier’s cheerful, bawdy producer, for her perceived sexual looseness. Sample dialogue:

Roz: Well, I think hugging is very healthy. I read somewhere that if you have physical contact on a regular basis, it can actually extend your life.

Frasier: Well, in that case you should outlive Styrofoam!

And they harp on Gil, Frasier’s effeminate colleague. “Honestly, the conclusions people make, just because a man dresses well and knows how to use a pastry bag!” Gil exclaims when Frasier and his other co-workers eventually find out he’s married to a woman.

Meanwhile, Frasier and Niles are obsessed with sex, but don’t have it regularly. Instead, they mourn their failed marriages to emotionally icy women, make fun of other peoples’ sex lives, and go out to French restaurants and the opera together. It’s the gayest show in history to never have any gay people represented on it. But if Frasier and Niles were actually gay and out, would it still be funny? Probably not. “Frasier”’s heyday was in the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell years of Clinton, after all, which could have been, come to think of it, a suitable alternative name for the show.

Besides sex, status is a preeminent theme in “Frasier.” As Anita Gates wrote in The New York Times in 1998, “Frasier” spoke to America’s class system in a way no other show had by bringing together under one roof the new elites, Frasier and Niles, with their blue-collared compatriots, their dad Martin and his home health-care aide, Daphne, without resorting to crass stereotypes. As Gates argued: “One reason ‘Frasier’ works is that both classes are made up of good people with values, which happen to be expressed in different ways. The show gives both coastal yuppies and Middle America a good name.”

Well, kind of. Martin Crane is indeed a lovable, if vanilla, character, and I rarely tire of Daphne’s Mancunian accent. But it’s Frasier and Niles who transcend the flat dimensions of the proto-sitcom character; they blow out the reality of what they represent. Hyperbolically affected, Frasier and Niles are on the viewer’s side, speaking to the audience in zings, puns and cultural references. They’re silly men, and they’re in on the joke: pretentious people suck. Where “Seinfeld” riffed on the absurdity of modern life, “Frasier” turns it into a farce.

On “Roseanne,” Roseanne and her husband Dan are Boomers, like the Crane brothers. But they’re not yuppies. They’re overweight and underpaid; the heads of a dysfunctional but cohesive family unit. “Roseanne” is what would happen if Tolstoy was a woman, moved to the Midwest, had a sense of humor and maybe got a little drunk on Bud Light. “Roseanne” was basically the drawing on a cave wall that predicted reality television. True reality, not “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” reality.

The show succeeds in being unfailingly honest and of its time. Case in point: On “Frasier,” when Roz gets pregnant by a 20-year-old Cafe Nervosa waiter, she decides to keep the baby. Martin condescends to her that “every baby needs a father,” but that’s about the extent of the hand-wringing. When Roseanne becomes pregnant in season 7, the abortion talk is frank and funny but most remarkably, they really talk about it. When Roseanne’s grandmother reveals that she had two abortions, Roseanne’s mother Bev recoils in disgust: “I think it’s an abomination,” she says. “If you’re willing to lie on your back and have sex, you should be willing to face the consequences.” Nana Mary responds: “Who said I was on my back?” Roseanne keeps the baby, but still: abortion talk on primetime in 1994? Progress not seen since “ Maude.”

Sure, Roseanne the character can be grating, and the episodes can be schmaltzy. But sometimes I wonder if we will ever see a funny, smart, heavy leading woman write her own television show again, making fun of the way other “family” shows romanticize life’s trials. To boot, we get one of the most authentic romantic relationships every portrayed on television, between Roseanne and Dan. They love each other and their kids, and they fuck them up, Larkin style, as parents tend to do. They bicker about money. They make lasagna and chili and eat together. They even still have sex! Oh, and they also smoke pot:

Roseanne Barr herself summed up the show’s impact in an article she wrote for New York last year. “Call me immodest — moi? — but I honestly think Roseanne is even more ahead of its time today, when Americans are, to use a technical term from classical economics, screwed,” she wrote. “We had our fun; it was a sitcom. But it also wasn’t The Brady Bunch; the kids were wiseasses, and so were the parents. I and the mostly great writers in charge of crafting the show every week never forgot that we needed to make people laugh, but the struggle to survive, and to break taboos, was equally important. And that was my goal from the beginning.”

So, take your pick. A biting bourgeois farce or a biting heartfelt family comedy (Warning: both shows devolve equally in their final seasons.)? I always come back to “Frasier,” which goes down as smooth as the nightcap I’m too lazy to make and drink. Plus, Eddie.

* For a satire within a satire within a satire, please see “Black Frasier.”

Previously in series: Angela Lansbury Or Betty White?, Wallis Simpson Or The Queen Mother and Hard-Packed Ice Cream Or Soft Serve

Leah Finnegan works in the op-ed section of The New York Times. She also really likes the show “Just Shoot Me,” but has no plans to discuss that in print.

Perhaps you don’t religiously read ¡Hola! at the supermarket checkout. You fool, you’re missing out on the comings and goings of the hot Spanish royal family. (Felipe, Prince of Asturias! Rowr! Or do you prefer former Olympian Iñaki Urdangarín Liebaert, Duke Consort of Palma de Mallorca? That’s fine if you do.) But you’re also missing out on this amazing Jane Fonda photoshoot in the August 1 issue. (Why? ¡No sé!) But here she is, at “74 incredible years”! “I have no secret, but good genes and trying to take care! And I’m not Superwoman!” You’re superwoman to us, Jane. Or at least to that bird you have there on a stick. And possibly also that dog that you are clutching. In your backyard. In daylight. In a backless, sequined evening gown.

★ This again. Sticky air, growing stickier if you moved around in it. The sun, up behind high clouds, spilled out an immense, colorless halo around itself — a slack, dilated disc of secondary light. The light filtered down on the street as fill illumination, without shadows. Absent real shade or direct sun rays, breeze and stillness took over the work of dividing cool from hot, here and there. The sky darkened later on, and a few drops came in sideways under the awning of the halal cart, but it quit before it could even add up to rain.

An incredibly perfunctory and bummed-out guide to the weekend ahead. (iTunes)

David Rakoff — writer, aesthete, genius, New York devotee (the City was “the great love of my life,” he wrote), exceptional reporter and observer, performer, director and incredibly kind person — died after a phenomenally unfair and incredibly prolonged series of medical travails, which rarely slowed his creative output or his deeply human black humor. In early 2009, a pinched nerve was discovered to be a malignant sarcoma, caused, he said, by the radiation treatments from the lymphoma he’d had two decades before. An incredibly complicated and ethical person, Rakoff channeled his anxieties both into crafts, making elaborate products in his incredibly organized home such as duct tape wallets, but also into a phenomenal amount of writing.

The work he leaves behind — both recorded and in the collections Fraud, from 2001, Don’t Get Too Comfortable, from 2005, Half Empty, from 2010 — are all ahead-of-their-time documentations of the way we actually do live now. There was no better correspondent from New York City of his time.

In a short piece from 16 months ago, he wrote understatedly and generously about his illness and treatment and doctors. This quiet bit, for instance, would be rendered in histrionics by any other writer. Instead, it communicated the empathy that was at the heart of his entire body of work.

by Nic Turiciano

Mitt Romney is poised to announce his VP nominee any day now, and speculation continues to swirl around his choice. The current favorites — from the media’s perspective, at least — are Tim Pawlenty, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan and Rob Portman, but who knows? Presidential nominees have shocked the world with their VP choices more than once in the past, and maybe Romney will choose someone surprising and exciting (probably not). As we wait to see, let’s take a look at ten of the more question-mark-worthy picks of recent memory.

10. John Kerry 2004

The might-have-beens: Well, there was the incident when the New York Post ran a front-page headline declaring Dick Gephardt as John Kerry’s VP pick. And the choice would have made sense. As the Daily Kos pointed out at the time, Gephardt might have been a suitable pick if only for the fact that, he “might not be the most exciting choice, but he gives the Republicans zero ammunition. And that fits in nicely within Kerry’s strategy.”

While Gephardt is the might-have-been that people best remember, the then-Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack was also in the mix. His compelling biography — orphaned at birth, abused by his alcoholic adoptive mother, only to go on to become a lawyer and then politician — played well with the American public.

Vilsack wasn’t chosen, but this vignette from reporter Jeffrey Patch made him sound appealing. “Asked loudly whether he thought Kerry would select him, Vilsack shouted ‘Pardon? Here, you want some candy?’ and threw some orange cream tootsie rolls at the media, herded together like sheep on the flatbed parade truck.”

Who got the nomination — John Edwards: To be fair, Edwards wasn’t a complete surprise. He ran second to Kerry in the primaries and was a telegenic Southerner who balanced out Kerry’s Northeastern patrician-ness. He had always been in the mix. He just wasn’t Gephardt.

9. Al Gore 2000

The might-have-beens: Gore’s (admittedly closed-door) VP selection process lurched along until Bush announced Dick Cheney as his nominee on July 25. The announcement spurred the media into speculating how Gore would react, and according to one Democratic strategist, Bush’s choice meant that, “There are a lot more people viable now. It probably improves the chances of a ‘generational’ candidate — youth, style, the future.” Along this train of thought, the eternally youthful John Edwards became an option.

But so too did a more elder statesman, George Mitchell of Maine. The 67 year old, who’d been considered by Clinton as a running mate in 1992, had the record — 15 years in the Senate — to make him a qualified choice.

As a Democratic Party official said in 1992, “He’s steady as a rock — awesome! He’s who you’d want there if the world is falling apart.”

Who got the nomination — Joe Lieberman: Lieberman’s name had floated around, but as there had never been a Jewish VP nominee before, he seemed a long shot. But as one editorial said approvingly: “The first reaction beyond ‘who’s he?’ … may well be, ‘So what?’ He’s an unassuming, mild mannered, moderate senator without the star power, or baggage, that some other nominees would have carried into the race.” But those same mild qualities led another editorialist to observe: “One aspect of the Lieberman selection that I haven’t heard anyone mention is the one that would seem to be most obvious: Lieberman was the only person on Gore’s vice-presidential ‘short list’ who was more boring than Gore.”

And Lieberman recently said that he, himself, had been surprised by Gore’s choice.

On a Sunday in August, a staffer relayed to him news from inside one of the networks that Mr. Gore had selected former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards as his pick. So, Mr. Lieberman said, he and his family had some wine, toasted the country, and he went to bed.

The next morning, however, he woke up to the local news relaying an Associated Press report that “our very own Senator” Joe Lieberman had been selected.

“And all heck broke loose,” Mr. Lieberman said. “I thought it was a hallucinatory hangover, but it was real.”

After the announcement, the Gore-Lieberman ticket enjoyed a short burst of momentum, but one it couldn’t sustain until November.

8. John F. Kennedy 1960

The might-have-beens: Senator Stuart Symington, who made his name as an opponent of McCarthyism, was the expected pick for VP. His credentials as a savvy businessman, civil rights supporter and border state resident matched up well with Kennedy’s northerner-of-privilege image.

Who got the nomination — Lyndon Johnson: While Kennedy’s choice of Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson as a running mate surprised many observers, the real mystery was why Johnson accepted. As observed in this 1960 AP analysis, “It would hardly seem sensible for a man, dressed in the tremendous robes of power worn by a Senate leader, to give up that job for the comparatively less influential post of Vice President. … Johnson, a tremendous manipulator of men, could use the Vice Presidency in a way not attempted by others …”

But speaking about the nomination later

, Johnson said, “I would never reject something that hasn’t been offered to me … I have been prepared throughout my adult life to serve my country in any capacity where my country thought my services were essential.”

Numerous accounts of the Kennedy White House have been written in the 52 years since the election, and almost all speak of the sour relationship between Johnson and Robert Kennedy, who reportedly tried to convince LBJ to reject the VP nomination. From Robert A. Caro’s monumental The Passage of Power: “Years later, back on his ranch after his presidency, not long before he died, he would seize visitors’ lapels and bend his face into theirs in the intensity of his effort to make sure the visitor understood that it hadn’t been Jack Kennedy but Bobby who had wanted him to withdraw from the vice presidential nomination.”

7. Bill Clinton 1992

The might-have-beens: Bob Kerrey and Harris Wofford (who began his political career as an advisor on John Kennedy’s presidential campaign in 1960) were both on Clinton’s short list for the position.

Lee Hamilton from the House of Representatives was also an option thanks to his time as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and as chair of the Iran-Contra panel. In a Tribune article

, journalist Steve Daley noted that Hamilton was “probably the best choice in Clinton’s narrow range. He can take a frisk from the press and, unlike Gore and Kerrey, hasn’t proven he’s a poor campaigner.”

Who got the nomination — Al Gore: Gore was always reported to be a possibility, but the announcement, when it came in July 92, nonetheless came as a shock to many, thanks in part to Gore’s young age (44 to Clinton’s 45, eventually making them the youngest team to win the White House) and his status as a Southerner like Clinton, an overlap that earned the campaign the nickname the “Double Bubba ticket.”

6. Ronald Reagan 1980

The might-have-beens: Reagan wanted former President Gerald Ford as his VP candidate, but, after negotiations went nowhere, relented and began pursuing other options.

Other than Ford, Howard Henry Baker Jr., who was then Senate Minority Leader and had fared well in his own bid for the presidential nomination, looked to be the most serious candidate for the VP nominee. But Baker’s perceived moderate politics didn’t play well with Reagan’s decidedly conservative support, and as politicians go, he was fairly charisma-free. As J. Lee Annis Jr. put it in his book on Baker, “While Baker captured the hearts of few ideologues, Republicans and Democrats alike saw him as eminently electable, if he could only win his party’s nomination. Some say his problem was a moderate posture in a conservative party, even though his voting record was demonstrably conservative.”

Who got the nomination — George H.W. Bush: Though Bush had won the 1980 Iowa Caucus with 32 percent of the vote, his name had never been in significant contention for the VP slot — in part because of continued interest in former President Ford.

But a last-minute push to get Gerald Ford to accept the vice-presidential nomination failed at the 1980 Republican National Convention, leaving Reagan to tell a surprised delegation that George H.W. Bush had accepted the offer instead. As The Times reported, nominee Reagan announced quickly with a taut smile on his face that Bush was “a man we all know and a man who was a candidate, a man who has great experience in government, and a man who told me that he can enthusiastically support the platform across the board.”

5. George W. Bush 2000

The might-have-beens: John Engler, Bill Frist, Chuck Hagel, Jon Kyl, Frank Keating, Connie Mack and Colin Powell were all tossed around as possible candidates, but Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge was the most seriously considered option, due in part to his state’s 23 electoral votes. Ridge’s popularity and respectable record of military service were strong arguments for the VP nomination, but his pro-choice stance on abortion proved to be too great a hurdle.

As Thomas M. DeFrank wrote in The Daily News in June 2000, “He is attractive, articulate and likable. He grew up in public housing and was decorated for valor as an infantry sergeant in Vietnam. ‘If it weren’t for abortion,’ said one Team Bush admirer, ‘the risk-reward ratio would favor Ridge overwhelmingly.’”

Who got the nomination — Dick Cheney: Two days before the announcement came down, Karl Rove, who suspected a leak in the Bush campaign, lied to a staffer and claimed John Danforth, the former senator from Missouri, was the VP pick. Multiple networks went on to report Danforth as the likely VP nominee.

Cheney, who had been tapped as a one-man vice presidential search committee for Bush, was never taken seriously as a nominee thanks to poor health (three heart attacks before the age of 48), his arrest record, the paltry three electoral votes offered by his home state of Wyoming, and an extremely conservative voting record in Congress. Nonetheless, Bush announced Cheney as his choice for VP on Aug. 25, 2000.

Immediately speculation surrounding Cheney’s nomination began, but as Stephen F. Hayes writes in Cheney: The Untold Story of America’s Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President: “Looking back, Cheney says he is aware of the conspiracy theories that suggest he and Bush had struck a deal long before he was asked to run the search process. ‘A lot of people don’t believe it,’ he says, ‘but I really did not enter into the effort with the notion that somehow I was going to get the job.’”

4. George H.W. Bush 1988

The might-have-beens: An Aug. 3, 1988 poll of delegates to the Republican National Convention, conducted by The New York Times, showed Bob Dole and Jack Kemp as favorites for the 1988 Republican VP nomination. Indeed, Dan Quayle’s name was not even included among the 14 possible nominees in the poll — which was performed only 14 days before Bush announced Quayle as his running mate.

Who got the nomination — Dan Quayle: The 42-year-old Quayle came as a surprise nominee when Bush asked him to be his running mate. Quayle had held public office in Indiana for eleven years prior to his VP nomination — seven of them as a senator — yet was perceived to be a political lightweight unfit for presidential responsibilities. He was also accused of having used his family’s influence to evade the Vietnam War by joining the National Guard. But, as William Safire wrote: “Conservatives cannot publicly gripe. Quayle is a staunch and outspoken man of the right, passing all litmus tests with flying colors. The general reaction to him by right-wingers is (Gulp!) He’ll be fine.”

During his time as vice president he became notorious for his often illogical quotes, such as “I have made good judgments in the past, I have made good judgments in the future” (more here, here and here) and his misspelling of “potato.”

3. John McCain 2008

The might-have-beens: Mitt Romney, Joe Lieberman, Charlie Crist, Tim Pawlenty, Tom Ridge and David H. Patraeus were all named as possibilities, but speculation on Romney as VP seemed to be the most promising. A report from Time’s Mark Halperin even went so far as to declare Romney the VP nominee on Aug. 22, 2008. The post has since been deleted, but this screen capture shows the impetus for Halperin’s report: two GOP sources leaked, incorrectly, that McCain had made his decision, and that the VP nominee was Romney.

Who got the nomination — Sarah Palin: Of course, the now ubiquitous Sarah Palin received the surprise nomination on Aug. 29, 2008. The 44-year-old governor from Alaska was seen as a risky pick, but one that would surely shore up the conservative and evangelical vote for McCain.

But by Sept. 2, as The New York Times noted in an editorial, “In the mainstream media — and even more emphatically in the blogosphere — questions are being raised on an almost minute-by-minute basis about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s suitability for the job of Vice President.” The other week, of course, Dick Cheney called the choice “a mistake.”

2. George McGovern 1972

The might-have-beens: The 1972 Democratic vice-presidential nomination is one of the oddest and most cited to this day. The Democratic party was unlikely to win the White House against incumbent Richard Nixon. As a result, Walter Mondale, Hubert Humphrey, Edmund Muskie, Birch Bayh and Ted Kennedy (who said he’d consider the VP nominee if it would “make a difference between success and failure of the ticket”) all refused offers to be on the ticket with George McGovern.

Who got the nomination — Tom Eagleton, replaced by Sargent Shriver: After a reportedly hour-long vetting process and brief conversation between the two, McGovern finally found a running mate in Missouri Sen. Thomas Eagleton. Unbeknownst to McGovern and his aides was Eagleton’s history of depression, for which he had been hospitalized three times and received electroshock therapy twice. The media played up Eagleton’s mental health record to the extent that 18 days after his nomination, Eagleton stepped down as the 1972 VP nominee. Only days after his resignation Eagleton gave shockingly open (for 1972) accounts of his battles with depression to the Associated Press.

Sargent Shriver, brother-in-law to Ted Kennedy, would go on to be the proper VP candidate on the Democratic ticket for 1972, an election in which the Democrats would carry only Massachusetts and Washington D.C.

1. Barry Goldwater 1964

The might-have-beens: Mitt’s father, George Romney, was discussed in some circles for the role, but his reform-minded stance on civil rights wasn’t a match for Goldwater’s staunchly conservative platform. Gov. Jim Rhodes of Ohio was also in the mix, but he firmly rejected the idea of the vice presidency, saying, “I’ve never been a candidate (for vice president), am not now a candidate, and will not be a candidate. I would not accept it if it is offered.”

Who got the nomination — William E. Miller: A member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York’s 40th district, the 51-year-old William Miller was a virtual unknown on the national political scene. But his rough and aggressive campaign style made him an appealing ally. As this 1964 report took note of: “A gut fighter is one who campaigns not merely to upset but to destroy his enemy. A gut fighter must be a very tough fellow, indeed, because he is likely to become embroiled in the bitterest kind of argument as he develops his campaign theme that his opponent is no good whatsoever.”

While Miller’s campaign style meshed with Goldwater’s, his absolute anonymity proved an insurmountable hurdle. As the News-Dispatch wrote: “Goldwater is not so divorced from reality as to believe that Miller is truly a national figure. Nor is Miller a representative New Yorker with local prestige and a hold on the imagination of that great state.”

The Goldwater-Miller ticket would go on to lose the election by the sixth largest margin in U.S. presidential election history. And though it didn’t help in his run as VP nominee, Miller would eventually capitalize on his anonymity by starring in the first “Do You Know Me?” American Express commercial, saying, “Do you know me? I ran for vice president of the United States. I shouldn’t have trouble charging a meal, should I? Well, I do.”

Nic Turiciano is an Awl summer reporter. You can follow him on Twitter. Top photo by Pimkie.

I’ve been waiting to like Stalley — the crazily-bearded rapper from Massillon, Ohio, who Rick Ross signed to his Maybach Music Group last year — more than I have so far. Seems like a nice guy. But I’m not yet sold. Niether his voice, nor his rhymes, nor his flow strike me as particularly noteworthy. But this song has a great title, and a great beat, made by the Huntsville, North Carolina production duo The Block Beattaz from a sample of Charles Bradley’s “The World (Is Going Up in Flames),” and a highly enjoyable video to boot.

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Thank You

Gaud, lea, spry, loaf, spawn, scalp, slake, splay:
(Pause for laughter). Thank you all for coming, for surviving those infamous six to ninety-four
years of famine, ostensibly living off grape juice (Krane’s “zippy violet pilot of sustenance”), violent
riots to claim last cups of java, searing coffee crop-dusting a talc
on the tongue. Truly, the first hit of it at the top of the throat makes me believe
that I have been drowning, and that, being revived, I am taking the first

gasp of breath, the rest of my life, so, thank you. Virgo, I read, today, the first
of this spring month, is blessed with achievement, an ability to splay
then not splay, to specifically address Pistol Shrimp when nobody’s there, to truly believe
that Pistol Shrimp have one claw that they snap with such force that they kill ninety-four
nearby fish with a pressure wave. Virgo’s plumb right. It may be cliché, but “two talc-
washed pelicans are still not three mules” and I’ve never believed the violent

truth of the statement more, never been able to so clearly see the pelican, violent
in its burro-lust, the white powder wheeling off in duple, the buildings piercing the first
scum of the clouds like fingers. If I could, I would take that winter-white-as-slalom talc
onto myself, allow the pelicans to transform in a gaudy ring, phalanges splay-
ing. Now, where to begin? (Pause for applause, possible giving of second award entitled “Believe
Me, The Youth Will Never Be As Great Or Old As Us!”) (Pause) Fore! (Swing) For ninety-four

cents is all I had to my young name, and a calla. Those ninety-four
cents became 3,000,002, then forty-one, then a Pangaea-shaped fortune in a violent
vault under the land-crust underscoring the absence of Pangaea. Money’s not elusive when you believe
it’s not, when you smell it and mark it and know it. Japanese bone-money came first
and they loved it like I do, “invented the wheel so as to invent the coin,” wrote:

In the full moon,
mother and child wait.
Then, the bell.

Or was it:

The snow-covered pine;
the silence
on either side.

No, no, it’s:

The sided moon,
both mother and silent child,
snows and splays.

I remember, I bought that haiku in Hokkaido under the sign: “Come, Reads, Eat, Talc,”

“talc” a misspelling of “talk,” “read” a misspelling of “buy.” Don’t misunderstand: talc,
talk, it’s all the same when you’re in an orchid country and twenty-four and ninety-four
lovely girls want to feed you plunked grapes from there, Japan, waiting to Geisha-splay.
I’ve worked for what is literally and metaphorically thousands of hours and still, violent
is the loss of that first purchase (not a haiku book, but the actual haiku). So. First
lifetime achievement awards are perfect for first lifetimes (I believe

in many things, including afterlives, reincarnation, carnations, etc.), but, then, I believe
in fields of absences. I believe in loss and then return of the thing, or return of the loss. Talc
is also something I believe in. I believe in colors with Japan in them. I believe in first
meals and last meals and meals that consist of grapes and meals that consist of ninety-four
Gods with graces. (Pause to believe) I believe that my generation is the oldest. In violent
non-resistance. I believe that Michiko meant it when she whispered “I love you. Now, splay.”

The first of ninety-four talc-white nominees, who are honored just to be nominated alongside me and my
violent splay of pausing: this award, I believe, means everything to me. Thank you.
I used to love “arigato.” I was much younger then.

Megan Amram is a recent graduate of Harvard University and comedy writer living in Los Angeles.

Don’t be coy with me; I know you’re gagging for more poems. Gag no more! There’s a ton right here, in the archives of The Poetry Section. You may contact the editor at poems@theawl.com.

Due to the ever-increasing loudening of the universe, white noise is now a multi-billion-dollar-grossing industry. I just made that fact up! It’s probably not true in the slightest! But there are a TON of albums, apps, websites and purveyors, all devoted to white noise. That is because some of us cannot sleep without it, due to exterior noise and/or snoring, or because of our fear of silence and/or death, or also because we are tired of babies crying.

The best way — with a few exceptions! — to use white noise at night is with an iPhone or iPod docked in some kind of speaker-thing. Or from your computer to speakers! (As long as everything else is shut off.) Whatever is in the room, it’ll work. Don’t go crazy. Don’t try to “game” the “system.” You go to sleep war with the sleep aids that you have. You set that puppy to “repeat one” track and turn off shuffle and boom, done. I personally find that if I turn my speakers away from the bed, so that sound is bouncing off the walls and around the room, I get more out of it. And then I use it on headphones on planes. Here is my guide to everything in my white noise rotation.

Brown Noise
From Simply Noise
Nice, but very flat. Doesn’t have gradations in tone. Does a decent standing fan imitation though. But slightly forceful. Their white noise and pink noise are not ideal.

White Noise Blowdryer
From “White Noise”
Do you like hairdryers? Well, here’s a heinous, irritating recording of a hairdryer for you!

Victoria Falls
From WhiteNoiseMP3s.com
This has a nice “wide scope” sound. The waterness of it is not distracting. The full 66 minutes of this “quasi-binaural field recording” has both low and high tones, which is important, but is concentrated in the medium spectrum. Because it’s “real audio,” it is actually random noise, and patternless, which is terrific. Feels like: sleeping in a hammock without all the discomfort and bugs. Downside: you might wake up having to pee desperately.

Very Sleepy
From “White Noise Baby Sleep Care Masters”
This is the rhythmic raygun sound you use to turn darling little Crevasse and Piton into mass murderers.

Empty Conference Room
From WhiteNoiseMP3s.com
The dystopic title is correct. This is a very cold, unfeeling white noise. It has terrific bassy, rhythmic undertones however. It’s not one you’d want in your regular rotation but it’s nice on planes.

Air Conditioner White Noise
From Lullaby Land, White Noise No. 1
Extremely hostile. I bet this works on stupid babies. It makes me aggro.

Large Hadron Cuddler
From WhiteNoiseMP3s
Everyone involved in the production of this white noise should be put behind bars. DO YOU WANT TO WAKE UP IN TERROR EVERY FIVE MINUTES? Then try this! (Seriously, click through and listen. It’s like the TARDIS in a blender!)

3 Hour Nap
From White Noise Therapy Volume 2
Oh man. This is deep. It’s not good for snorers. But it is great for sleeping on your own. Best possible use for this is actually playing on your iPhone from under your pillow. It’s a dreary kind of drone, but when close to your head at low volume, it’s extremely soothing — the way you’d imagine a train ride should be, but never is, here in disappointing real life. Can be weird on planes, as it’s very similar to wind noise and actually somehow embeds with the plane noise.

Sleepy Jet Cabin
From WhiteNoiseMP3s.com
Speaking of. Ugh! I don’t really want my plane to sound MORE like a plane.

Deep Sleep Therapy
From Deeper State: White Noise for Infants
This is like a frosty white cocoon of deep noise. Excuse me I’ll be righ zzzzzzzzzzz. Best for sleeping alone. Some of the other cuts on this classic album are decent too. (See also: “Safe and Sound” and “Snugglebug.” Avoid “Goodnight Moon” and “Counting Sheep.” Too shrill.)

3Hz Delta Sleep and Lucid Dreaming
From “White Noise Meditation”
Bright, brassy, enveloping. Thin but permeating. This is the ultimate tape to use when sleeping with a snorer, or in an apartment with traffic noise. You may find it offputting at first! And you’ll hear ocean behind the static, and then you’ll hear static on top of the water. And then you’ll be face-down in your own drool. Warning: most of the other mp3s on this “album” are too oceaney.

3D Waves for Sleep
From “3D Ambient Sleep Atmospheres”
This is like white noise from the future. One thing that’s terrific about this is that it cycles in, uh, waves. It’s a little scary though! Not as much a favorite as the two above. I think I had an engrossing dream about being a sardine once with this playing. Oh but it’s good. Except every once in a while there’s like a weird sort of evaporating hiss, which is a little scary. Um, fun fact: they want to sell you 1 hour and 13 minutes of this for $9.99. If only it were possible to get a small chunk of this and loop it! Oh well, someday we’ll have the technology to do that….

DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE WHITE NOISE? UPLOAD IT IN THE COMMENTS. JK do not, we don’t have that technology.