For today’s Awl newsletter, we’re soliciting questions about THE LOOMING APRIL 15TH and all things tax and employment and money-related. Send them to me at choire @ the awl dot com or leave them here in the comments, or on Twitter, or whatever. Anonymity respected. But feel no shame! Experts (uh, sort of! Experts in life, we mean! Legal disclaimer goes here!) are standing by.

“New scientific research raises the possibility that advanced versions of T. rex and other dinosaurs — monstrous creatures with the intelligence and cunning of humans — may be the life forms that evolved on other planets in the universe. ‘We would be better off not meeting them,’ concludes the study, which appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.”
 — Okay, scientists, now you’re just screwing with us. (This from a paper that is really about amino acids? Seems kind of a speculative ending? Just saying! Also pretty sure this was a TV show called “V” twice.)

Thank the atheist Cylon God once again for the Ninth Circuit: in US v Nosal, yesterday they ruled (PDF) that, among other things, the ridiculous user agreements that we all “sign” online aren’t really something that should be crimes if we violate them. That’s not crazy: up until quite recently, the court points out, minors couldn’t even “legally” use any Google product. On Facebook, it would have been “illegal” for any user to give another his password. The dissent — and other courts — claim their conclusion is silly, because just because the government can prosecute something doesn’t mean they will. But that’s not really how America works: “The government assures us that, whatever the scope of the [Computer Fraud and Abuse Act], it won’t prosecute minor violations. But we shouldn’t have to live at the mercy of our local prosecutor.”

You may know him from Animal House, you may know him from “The Sopranos,” but to me he will always be MacIntyre, from my favorite movie of all time. Happy birthday, MacIntyre.

Caine’s Arcade from Nirvan Mullick on Vimeo.

The general rule with Internet videos is that people won’t watch anything longer than 3 minutes, and even that is pushing things. I sympathize, but I also suggest that you put on some headphones, pretend you’re doing work, and give yourself the 9-plus minutes it takes to watch this, because it is pretty much guaranteed to make you smile. Look, I know the way the world works. I can be cynical about sunshine. But, for whatever reason, on a day like today, I’m just going to pretend that life really can be this sweet and enjoy this. I hope you do the same.

by David Rees

An excerpt from David Rees’ newest book How To Sharpen Pencils, out today from Melville House. The book’s official launch happens at Barnes & Noble Union Square tomorrow night at 7 p.m., at an event featuring Eugene Mirman, Stacy London and Sam Anderson.

Every aspect of pencil sharpening includes its own suite of pleasures and anxieties. The pleasures should be familiar to you; we turn now to the anxieties.

Although sharpening a pencil is usually a psychologically rewarding experience, resulting in feelings of accomplishment and serenity, it also entails psychological risks. It is your professional and personal responsibility to be aware of these risks, and to actively discourage their flourishing in your practice.

DISAPPOINTING THE CLIENT

The greatest anxiety, at least for me, is disappointing my clients. Whether you’re sharpening a pencil in front of a crowd or alone in your workshop for a distant stranger, the weight of expectation can disturb an otherwise balanced mind.

It is during these paid “gigs” that your relationship to your pencil sharpeners is most like that of a musician to his or her instrument. It is incumbent on the performer to ensure his or her instrument is operating at maximum capacity. This means, of course, tending for it; tuning it; maintaining and optimizing its functionality; and treating it with the respect it deserves — while ensuring others do as well.

The more care you invest in your pencil sharpening tools, the more familiar you are with their strengths and their idiosyncrasies, the more confident you can be during their use. This will in turn reduce your anxiety — freeing up space in your consciousness for more profitable thoughts.

Keep your blades sharp. Keep your burr cylinders clean. Keep your eyes on the task at hand. This will go a long away towards keeping your demons at bay.

ANXIETY OF THE UNKNOWN: THE UNSHARPENED PENCIL

Even if you are confident about your practice, famil¬iar with your tools, and certain of your ability to make the best use of them, there is yet another element of the pencil-sharpening experience to consider. It is the one clients pay the most attention to, with good reason — for this element is the sharpener’s raison d’etre: the pencil.

Ironically, the client’s pencil is simultaneously the most crucial element of the job and the element you will be least familiar with — for (unless you’re renewing a point you’ve previously sharpened) you will be approaching it for the first time. This is why it’s crucial to have confidence in your ability to size up any pencil the client offers, or confidence in any pencil you yourself provide.

As we’ve discussed before, an easy way to reduce anxiety and improve the chance of sharpening success is to make sure the pencil’s shaft is straight, the graphite is centered within the wood, and the unsharpened top is free of paint. It’s also worth reminding the client that a poorly manufactured pencil can only play host to a point of mediocre quality; we cannot expect a five-star meal from a one-star restaurant. Saying this in a loud voice will comfort the client — they will know they are in good hands. Your confidence will be bolstered in turn.

PERFORMANCE ANXIETY: THE LIVE PENCIL-SHARPENING EXPERIENCE

Any professional pencil sharpener worth his or her salt will have road stories about hecklers and unforgiving customers who seem incapable of accepting that every pencil is different, and some will carry scooped collars or other irregularities to their grave. We must not be discouraged by obnoxious reactions to our craft; instead, record any wounding taunts or sarcastic remarks in your log along with a physical description of their authors. Then commission a comedian or bartender to compose witty responses and mail them to the offending party.

EMOTIONAL RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH DIFFERENT PENCIL-POINTING TECHNIQUES

As the reader now knows, each method of sharpening a pencil produces a different point — a result of its unique technology and operation. Is it any wonder, then, that each method is also attended by its unique forebodings and disquietudes? Below is a partial list of the emotional risks associated with particular sharpening techniques.1

Single-Blade Pocket Sharpener:

Any discussion of the psychological risks associated with single-blade pocket sharpeners must begin with the tyranny of the irregular pin tip. The agony of removing a pencil from the device, only to find an errant filigree of graphite branching away from the point’s end, will be a familiar sensation to the novice — and is hardly unknown to the professional.

Fortunately, an irregular pin tip is less a verdict of one’s failures as a craftsman and human being as it is an argument for further diligence and research. One of the many psychological benefits of maintaining a pencil-sharpening log is the comfort of actionable data it provides. If you find yourself producing irregular pin tips with unseemly regularity, simply review your log for the average number of rotations and applications of force you apply with a single-blade pocket sharpener, and adjust accordingly.

A second psychological risk associated with single-blade pocket sharpeners is the terror that they will be misplaced and lost due to their diminutive size. I myself used to suffer from this distraction until, recalling the age-old advice of finding “a place for everything, and everything in its place,” I constructed a pocket-sharpener compartment system for my tool kit, and pledged to return any pocket sharpener to its tiny cubicle as soon as its job was finished. An afternoon’s work served to eliminate a year’s worth of worry. Such is the nature of investing in one’s well-being — the dividends are exponential, if not infinite.

Hand-Crank Sharpeners (Single- And Double-Burr):

The reader may insist that hand-crank sharpeners, being the most consistent and predictable of our pencil-pointing devices, are incapable of causing psychological distress. As counterargument I offer two difficult situations the hand-crank user may encounter:

1. Removing a pencil from a hand-crank sharpener for inspection, only to find that the graphite point has broken off inside the device, leaving you with a “hollow collar” — a finished collar with a hole where the graphite should be.2 The unhappy absence where one was expecting abundance may well trigger unwanted associations with financial, intellectual, and romantic aspects of your own life. Ignore them. Amputate the empty collar, clear the sharpener’s burrs of the forfeit point, and set course for the future abundances that are your due.

2. Inspecting a hand-cranked point, determining it isn’t sharp enough, and then reinserting it into the sharpener, only to break the point upon its reinsertion — thereby destroying your investment of sweat equity by your own hand. This phenomenon, perhaps the most frustrating in the trade, is known as the “Malleus Maleficarum,” because, like the 15th century witch-hunting text for which it is named, it suggests the existence of satanic conspiracy.3

Again, consider this unholy accident an opportunity for recalibration of your technique: The next time you reinsert a semi-sharpened pencil into a hand-crank sharpener, do so with greater delicacy so as to minimize the chance of breaking the point against the static burrs. I have little doubt your odds of catastrophe will diminish.

Knife:

Of all pencil-pointing technologies, surely the knife promises the deepest wellspring of potential emotional hazards, as its threat is simultaneously literal, archetypal, and Freudian. (Those suffering from aichmophobia4 are reminded that there is no shame in omitting knives from their practice.)

The pocketknife in your tool kit may host an additional profusion of anxieties, if, like mine, it belonged to your late grandfather — a successful research chemist, amateur astronomer, and woodworker who lived through the Great Depression, built his own telescope, voted Republican, and kept his hair in a neat buzz cut. You may find it difficult to use the tool for your pencil-sharpening business without feeling a clammy apprehension that somewhere, a ghost is rolling his eyes at you. No matter: Though ours may not be the “Greatest Generation,” we can still insist on fumbling towards greatness on our own terms.

THE IMPORTANCE OF MAINTAINING A HEALTHY ATTITUDE TOWARDS ONE’S PRACTICE IN THE FACE OF BROKEN PENCIL POINTS, PHYSICAL EXHAUSTION, SOCIETAL DISAPPROVAL, SEXUAL IMPOTENCE, AND FINANCIAL RUIN

In the end, even the most accomplished pencil sharpener must concede that absolute perfection, while an appropriate goal, is rarely attained. Pencil sharpening takes place in the unforgiving glare of the physical world, and is subject to the same contingencies and calamities that bedevil all things material.5 Happily, however, like any earthly specimen, our practice (whether “sweet, sour; adazzle, dim”) may thus lay claim to those glories of “pied beauty” celebrated by Gerard Manley Hopkins.6

We must learn to live with — perhaps even savor — the uncertainties and imperfections that attend every pencil point, even as we continue to strive for their ideal form. This is not an admission of futility so much as a considered reflection on the vagaries of human experience and the importance of appreciating one’s circumstance even as one seeks to improve it.

It is in this spirit that I invite the reader to heed the following words, not in my capacity as a pencil sharpener, but as a friend:

The only perfection available to you without compromise is that of intention and effort. If you endeavor to be the best pencil sharpener you can be, and tailor your actions accordingly, you can be certain all else will be forgiven in the final accounting.

With these words I have solved all psychological problems.

1 Specific antique sharpeners may also provide succor.
2 Also known as a “headless horseman” or a “Louis XVI,” a hollow collar is most often caused by internal breakage of the pencil’s graphite core somewhere below the collar top. Unless you make a habit of throwing pencils against the wall before sharpening them, it is not your fault. Few things are.
3 Although the Malleus Maleficarum pre-dates the modern pencil by almost 100 years, a sufficiently metaphorical reading of the following passage suggests the Devil’s hand is indeed to blame when pencil points are removed by hand-crank sharpeners:
“Here is declared the truth about diabolic operations with regard to the male organ. And to make plain the facts in this matter, it is asked whether witches can with the help of devils really and actually remove the member, or whether they only do so apparently by some glamour or illusion. And that they can actually do so is argued a fortiori; for since devils can do greater things than this . . . therefore they can also truly and actually remove men’s members.”
4 Per Wikipedia, aichmophobia is “the morbid fear of sharp things, such as pencils, needles, knives, a pointing finger, or even the sharp end of an umbrella . . .” (Emphasis added, to argue that the ranks of top-seeded pencil-sharpening aichmophobes may be thin indeed.)
5 For instance, as I finish this chapter late at night, my sedan’s car alarm keeps going off — to the delight of my neighbors, no doubt. (One of whom is a bald, burly mechanic and one of whom is a tattoo-covered prison guard [female], both of whom could probably break a bundle of pencils with their bare hands.) However, as automobiles are material objects, we must learn to live with their shortcomings, as I will remind my neighbors in the morning before being beaten to death.
6 Glory be to God for dappled things — 
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced — fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

David Rees first came to fame as the author of Get Your War On, a Bush-era comic strip composed from clip-art that he emailed to friends. It was eventually serialized by Rolling Stone magazine, collected into three successful books, and turned into an off-Broadway play. He is also the author of the workplace satire My New Filing Technique is Unstoppable. He lives in Beacon, New York. This is his pencil site.

by Awl Sponsors

Check out an exclusive look at the first twelve minutes of Fox Searchlight’s Sound of My Voice after the jump. The movie is a psychological thriller directed by Zal Batmanglij (Zal also co-wrote the script with star Brit Marling).

The story centers on a young couple documenting a mysterious cult led by a woman named Maggie (played by Marling). The pair hopes to pull back the veil on Maggie’s bizarre group that’s founded on the idea that Maggie is a time traveler from the future, but eventually the couple begins to question themselves and their motives.

The full movie premieres April 27th, but in the meantime, get excited and watch the clip below. [Please note: It will autoplay.]

by Dayna Evans

I’ve been obsessed with the idea of identifying critical moments in popular songs for a long time, but have been struggling with defending what that exactly means. One friend dismissed my ever-growing playlist of songs with identifiable pinnacles of brilliance as just “good songwriting.” I tried to tell her that, no, wait, good songwriting is one thing, but being able to completely change the composition of a song, the whole understanding of the joy that a song can bring, in one critical moment, is not just good songwriting, it’s genius. Nor was I talking about anything as simple as climax and release. As was found with Adele’s “Someone Like You,” science can now identify the exact elements of a song that make it so heart-wrenching — that is, where the song becomes so successful at conveying emotion that it sends “reward signals to our brains that rival any other pleasure.” But I’m no scientist; my degree is in Children’s Writing. What I go on are hunches and careful, careful listening for the little moments that change everything.

Now, a song’s climax usually happens pretty late in the game. We’ve already heard the chorus, we’ve seen a bridge or a slight interlude, and all we’re waiting for is to be elevated that one step higher to bring the song to its full potential. We need to walk across that bridge to a necessary pitch modulation that will make us feel like the singer has reached an exalted plane — the second coming of the artist, if you will. But what I think of as the pinnacle moment of a song can actually come much earlier or later than the climax. And while we would know if the climax and release were lacking, we might not be able to identify if that other pinnacle wasn’t there: we’d just feel it as a sort of unconscious missed connection. It takes incredible talent to place these moments in a song — and while some musicians have nailed the beauty of finding this magical spot on more than one occasion, it’s rare. How can an artist know what it is we really need? What we really, really need? What follows is a list of some of my all-time favorite moments where the artist has figured that out.

3:45 — “A Postcard to Nina” by Jens Lekman

If you were a lesbian, Jens Lekman is exactly the sweet image of gentility that you’d want your parents to think was your boyfriend. Yeah, your father is a bigot and a psychopath, but at least you could go to sleep at night knowing that pop perfection was recorded in honor of your troubled relationship with your good ole German dad. “A Postcard to Nina,” Lekman’s five-minute note to a friend about the ruse of his standing in as her boyfriend is not only lyrically pop gold but musically, it creates the perfect balancing act between smooth, unaffected calm and slight anticipatory buildup. We ride the epistolary wave along with Lekman as he writes sweetly, softening our hearts, then more irritably (“Hey! You! Stop kicking my legs!”), until his sign-off (“Yours truly, Jens Lekman”) gives us our chance to feel release. By no mistake is this moment in the song the most sonically important. We’ve just been witnesses to an awkward series of lies and slip-ups, and while Lekman’s inner-monologue is notated with brash horns, his dinner conversation plays around with a harmless glockenspiel. But it isn’t until 3:45 precisely, when both horns and glockenspiel play in tandem, and we are given the addition of a clave-sounding backbeat, does the song reach such a direct and essential pinnacle. It comes near the song’s closing of the song, and could easily serve as the falling action, but it means so much more than that.

“1:22 — “Nectarine” by Twin Sister

If you grew up in Pennsylvania — or, for that matter, anywhere that had a Cracker Barrel — you may have owned a train whistle. It’s the all-essential instrument to pissing off everyone around you. The sound that it creates is, exactly as the name suggests, just like a train. In one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands, I’m immediately brought back to my childhood and sent into a dreamscape of spaced-out fuzziness at 1:22, when a descending bass line leads us into what can only be known as the sonic representation of a train arriving. We have a shaker, some dull spoons clacking, a harmonica-as-train-whistle, and an overlay of vocals calling out to us with a sumptuous “yoo-hoo” to add to the urgency of it all. As the lyrics that precede this exact moment are “And when you come back home / when you come back home / I won’t ever let go / I haven’t before,” we imagine the return of a loved one on a train pulling into the station. The bass line, as it walks us toward the pinnacle moment, is as familiar as the steps we’d take to walk down to a train platform. Then the train pulls in, and it’s perfect.

2:56 — “Heard ’Em Say” by Kanye West

Kanye West has a talent for creating great moments in song and including “Heard ’Em Say” on this list was a tough decision because Adam Levine from Maroon 5 spends half the song practically ruining it with unnecessary humming and whining and what I’m sure he would call “crooning.” Just shut up, Levine. But the nature of this song’s critical moment makes it worthy of almost any top ten list…about anything. When you’ve grown almost so irritated by Levine’s voice, and are hoping with all your ability that Kanye West will reintroduce himself sooner rather than later, the song appears to come to its most enlightening moment. It’s at 2:56, when the singing stops and the piano trill loop fades out, we’re left with the sound of a warped vinyl spinning in slow motion, what appears to be Levine’s key melody filtered through many processors, and the most important element: some finger cymbal-y rhythms beat out over the course of the last 30 seconds. It works to astounding effect. An ultimate coolness rests over the song now that wasn’t present before. West has given us a fresh interpretation of a song, where the most important moment happens near its close, which I advise all young songwriters to take note, because that is the real deal.

3:52 — “Heart of Chambers” by Beach House

If there’s any band that can send a person into fits of epic sadness, it’s Beach House. When “Heart of Chambers” begins, we’re presented with another droney, lonely song that tears apart our insides (and we like it). We’d be perfectly satisfied with this slow electronic drumbeat that seems to be keeping the time of our heartbeat’s march toward death, but Beach House has something more in mind. A short instrumental breakdown is followed by a trembling guitar smoothly leading into the lyrics, “In our beds we’re the lucky ones / fill us with the sun” sung over and over again. Deceptively, this is not the best moment of the song. On the second round, as the tremolo on the guitar becomes more distinct and the pitch modulates an octave higher, at precisely 3:52, we really, really feel it — a hauntingly on-pitch turn to comfort. It’s practically the end of the song, but Beach House has wrenched out from us all the emotion that we can part with, and it’s right at this moment that we feel magnificently full again. They have created musically what we feel internally: in our beds, we’re the lucky ones.

1:09 — “Pizza Time” by Ducktails

Many of the songs written by Real Estate’s Matt Mondanile for his side project, Ducktails, are lackluster. But “Pizza Time” is an exception — brilliantly titled and with a great fast-forward, free, jamming motion to it. And it’s once we hit 1:09, as Mondanile’s bass taps out a few critical notes in a row as it builds into a glowing warmth that has now settled over the song, we’re allowed a release of our anxiety about how much layering is going on. Too much chillwave can actually set off uneasiness within us — we crave a path or a direction in songs, and meandering, laid-back instrumentals don’t often provide it. It’s when the low bass sound is reintroduced several times close to the end of the song that we realize that without the early bass strums at 1:09, we wouldn’t have settled into the song’s sweetness so nicely. All we need is one more Corona and a pair of vintage tortoise-shell Wayfarers to complete the mood.

2:00 — “What Would You Do?” by City High

“What Would You Do?” is the one significant contribution that now defunct group City High contributed to pop music. The production quality of the song is as good as if I recorded it in the back break room of the a Kansas Stop ‘N Shop with only a Styrofoam plate and a tube of Wet ’N’ Wild “The Devil Wears Prada” lipstick — it sounds like the scraps from R. Kelly’s second cousin’s soul project. Despite the cold beats and lack of real tonal depth, there is something real that happens at 2:00, when we’re brought to the song’s height and introduced to a revelation. I haven’t yet figured out if the reason I love these few seconds so much is because the rest of the song is so poorly administered or if this really is an earnest elite interval in musical history, but in a way, it doesn’t matter. When the pitch of the song modulates right after the Dr. Dre sample (anyone know how they got away with using that, anyway?), we’re brought to an eye-opening moment of exaltation. Before this, perhaps we disagreed on what we’d do if we had a hungry son at home — some thought my girlfriend should go get a regular job, while others claimed her situation was unavoidable — but after we hear the choir come in and the chorus is repeated again, we seem to all be in agreement. This is utilization of “take ’em to church” in the best way possible.

1:42 — “The Sun” by Mirah

The studio version of this song, despite its practical verisimilitude to the b-side, does not make the cut as far as game-changing moments are concerned. It’s far too obvious. We know from the beginning when things are hollow and tired that we’re building toward something. It opens with heavy plucks on a bass that resonate fully and then transitions into an acoustic guitar, and Mirah sings sugary and sweetly, while an overlay of somewhat sinister leading background vocals sing in a tandem hum. When it does hit its critical moment, it isn’t big or defined enough — it feels lazy. On the b-side, however, we could happily expect the song to continue as straightforward and understated as it begins. It’s soft and quiet. It’s passive. But then a crash symbol is tapped lightly and harmonies begin to elevate into something bigger and louder. At 1:42, the song goes barreling forward into what we never knew that we wanted: Mirah advising us to breath. It feels so good — it’s so sexy and real. She all of a sudden possesses such power that we’re overcome by the first line that falls directly after the song’s essential moment: “I am the sun / I’m the only one.” The way the drums crash heavily into that line makes the emphasis on that moment in particular all the more relevant and authoritative. Our surprise gives the moment significance.

4:21 — “Losing My Way” by Justin Timberlake

The “bring in the gospel choir” tactic is an overdone trick in pop music, and at times I wish it had no effect on me. Justin Timberlake is also obviously a fan of the gospel climax-and-release in song, and that is not a complaint. His use of a gospel choir at the end of “Losing My Way” is perfect. The anticipation that builds until the moment of release in a song is so epic that it almost hurts — it’s reminiscent of every R. Kelly song we’ve ever liked — that I feel like Justin helps us actually find both ours and his way. (If you don’t know it, Justin has lost his way in the song due to addiction to crack. Really, Justin?) The moment of necessary enlightenment, however, isn’t as obvious as just “when the choir comes in” (though the instinct to think that at first is strong). The choir and some relevant clapping comes in around the 3:37 mark, but we feel the real change in us, the true genius and excellence at 4:21, where all of the relevant newly introduced elements come together at the same time to tell us that “I’m losing my way.” We have the gospel choir, a confessional man who speaks and pleads over the song, and a fluid orchestra that mimics the melody. You’ve helped us find our way, JT.

:52 — “Is This It” by The Strokes

Some Strokes songs can leave us painfully and achingly wanting. Someone, somewhere is disagreeing with this in an insurmountable rage, but it’s true that their pop genius can falter on a few tracks and leave us asking for more depth, more power. If they could only reproduce the sonic quality of “Is This It” on every single track, I’d feel very satisfied. In “Is This It” at exactly :52, wunderkind bass player Nikolai Fraiture introduces to us what can only be the best and most essential moment in this song (and maybe all songs). A wandering bass line brings the singular plucking on a lo-fi electric guitar to new heights by complementing it accordingly with an infinite, ambling, jazzy smoothness. The bass line continues and repeats throughout the remainder of the song but because little else transpires from start to finish, it’s at the first time that we hear this rhythmic addition that we feel completely overcome by genius. What has always been missing in Strokes songs is found in this single dignified moment.

Dayna Evans is a writer and doughnut enthusiast from Philadelphia. You can check out her Tumblr here and the rest of her work at her website here.

Two things you’re supposed to read today:

• On Facebook buying Instagram: “Companies once made sleds or dreamcatchers or software, but that’s all outsourced; an Internet product is very often a thing that lets other people make things — a kind of metaproduct — and you can get 30 million people working for you, for free, if you do a good job of it.”

• Are comments actually bad for web business? “In conversations I’ve had with peers in the internet publishing world lately, as well as a resurgence of chatter about comments both online and in schmoozy-cocktail-space, I’m starting to come to a conclusion: comments are more trouble than they are literally, financially worth.”

I dunno, “tell us in the comments”!

“Mr. Wood is the junior member of the band and his opinions carry less weight than those of Mick Jagger or Keith Richards, who have traditionally supplied the group’s material and direction, but in the context of the Stones’ complicated internal politics Mr. Wood is close to Mr. Richards and often shares his views.”