“A new law is threatening to cut short the purrs of delight, which don’t just come from the pets each night.” A new curfew law threatens Tokyo cat cafes. We’ll stay on this important news story as it develops!!!

If you want to hear the new Arcade Fire song you will have to go here. It is from the Hunger Games soundtrack, a story which I persist in assuming is about some kind of televised obesity contest. Please do not disabuse me of that notion. Anyway, the song’s pretty good. [Via]

“The key to a perfect night’s sleep is going to bed at exactly 10pm, wearing pyjamas and enjoying a cup of tea beforehand, according to a poll.”

“A doctor at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., calls it the ‘sitting disease,’ likening the ill effects of inactivity that doctors are still discovering to the discovery of the side effects of smoking.”
 — Okay, everybody up, right now. Let’s all take a brief stroll, for our health. I myself am going to run downstairs and have a cigarette, but, really, anything is better for you than sitting, which will kill you dead. DEAD. Also, have you ever tried working at a standing desk? Doesn’t it make you feel super-pretentious? Like, who am I, Arturo Toscanini? It just doesn’t do it for me.

Photo by Gemenacom, via Shutterstock

Those of us in the Bear Video Aficionado Community have spent the last couple of days wondering why this video, which is two years old, is suddenly gaining currency now. I suspect it has something to do with the British press and its willingness to fill space without regard for currency. In any event, I was holding back on posting it because of the issue of vintage, but then it occurred to me that perhaps you’re not so interested in how old something is and would just like to see a bear charge a group of tourists in Alaska in 2010. Who am I to say no? Also, it’s a Friday of what seems like the longest week ever. So long as I’m not really bringing my A-game anyway I’m not going to get too concerned about how old something is. So enjoy.

“No longer just a book, “What To Expect” is a full-fledged cottage industry, with a series of offshoot guides, from What To Expect: The First Year and What To Expect: The Toddler Years to the head-scratching What To Expect Before You’re Expecting. (Just, like, in general.) There are also “What To Expect” picture books for children, including What To Expect at Preschool and the must-read What To Expect When You Use the Potty. (I won’t give it away.)”
 — Allison Benedikt describes what to expect from the fearmongering, hugely popular series of guides to being scared of your body. This review will make you LOL, except if you’re pregnant don’t laugh too hard because YOU AND YOUR BABY MIGHT DIE!

Happy birthday to Lewis Allan Reed, who turns 70 today. I hope he doesn’t become curmudgeonly in his advancing years.

Getting into a PhD program, getting a prestigious residency, getting a book deal, getting married, getting a raise — these things happen. (YAY! GOOD JOB!) But so often, it seems, they happen to people who have no idea how to judge who’s an appropriate audience for their understandable joy. The Internet has made it harder to figure out how and with whom to share, we’ve heard. But one thing even otherwise clever people with otherwise good judgment seem not to have figured out is how not to be obnoxious when their lil’ cups overfloweth. So let’s talk about it, and figure out handy rules that will help eliminate the possibility that our braggy ways are making everyone hate us.

1. But I’m so grateful!!

Send a note. Thanking the person responsible for pushing your Kickstarter project that crucial $10K past its goal by shouting something @them on Twitter isn’t a real thank-you, it’s a brag. Get out the notecards and stamps and give the USPS something to do with its waning days.

2. I’m grateful to GOD.

Pray silently.

3. Got into Harvard/Yaddo! Whee!

Tell your friends and family in a series of IRL interactions or phonecalls. Not. Facebook.

4.Okay, so, I’m going to disobey that last one and post the list of graduate programs that accepted me on Facebook.

Fine. Maybe don’t include a link to those school’s respective rankings in your status update?!?!

5.Wedding/ baby photos!!!!

Unless you can get People magazine to pay money for them, they’re for people you know. Know as in “have met.”

6. That’s crazy. Letting people know about my awesome life is what my online presence is FOR.

I just want you to use your judgment and not go overboard with this.

6. But I have a blog! Aren’t you for that? Aren’t you, like, the patron saint of oversharing?

I’m for telling stories. “I won” is not a story. Or it is, but it’s a pretty boring one, no?

7. That thing you just said about baby photos is straight-up insane. What’s wrong with you? Why so bitter?

Look, use your judgment. But like, someone could troll your baby photos! Ick. Your poor baby! Let her wait til she’s old enough to responsibly make the decision about whether to blog. So like, in three years.

8. I think the baby thing got us off track.

I agree. Uh, this is awkward. I think I mostly wanted to say, like, don’t rub people’s faces in your joy or your pain. Consider your audience.

9. What about flippantly saying “I’m so broke,” just curious how you feel about this

Never, ever do that. You have no idea what someone else’s “broke” is compared to your jokey-broke. You sound like such a horrible ass.

10. But, so … if it’s really obvious something good happened to me, do I have to be cagey about it?

No, that’s also annoying. But you can still, like, not go on and on about it.

11. So … never complain, never brag, always be telling a story … anything else?!

YES! GO FORTH AND INTERNET! There is so much freedom within those rules!

by Awl Sponsors

Check out an exclusive look at the first twelve minutes of Fox Searchlight’s Sound of My Voice after the jump. We’re not sure of the release date, but there seem to be people gathering at 4315 Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles on April 27th!

“He ruined a number of people’s lives for no real reason, and he was generally a toxic influence on the national debate.”

Here is a remarkably fair — generous, even — assessment of the late Andrew Breitbart.