by The Awl

“Medium is offering a tremendous suite of services that makes sense for where we are right now. This extra network effect is extremely positive. Being on Medium makes the process more efficient, and from an [a]esthetic point of view, it’s a good place for it to live.”
 — That’s our publisher, Michael Macher, explaining why The Awl and The Hairpin will soon be hosted on Medium. (Learn more here, including some of the other names making the move, and then Our mission remains the same, and if anything we’ll be bringing a brand new energy to the things that you’ve always expected from us and that we’ve always tried to deliver for you. In many ways, the partnership gives us more room to stretch out and do things we’ve never been able to do up to now. We know that this might seem frightening and strange, so remember: Change is always scary but that never keeps it from happening anyway. A few tiny adjustments here and there and after a while you won’t even remember the way things used to be. You know, like life. We’ll get through it together, we promise. Thanks for being the kind of readers who are so fond of their publication that a note like this is necessary; it makes a big difference in what we do.

Photo: Shutterstock.com

Wintring? Sprinter? Wring? Whatever, it’s cold out there. I mean, yes, as is told in story and song sometimes the snow comes down in June, but Jesus Christ, pick a season and stick with it. Anyway, this M83 song is a goddamn delight, which is the second-largest level of delight in my taxonomy. Enjoy.

★★★★ The west wind had slammed against the outside wall and window in the night, loudly enough to break slumber and accompanied by lightning and clattering rain. By morning it had swung direction a few times and blown itself dry, but it still seethed and boomed. Drafts leaked in at the windows. The apartment door resisted opening. Dead leaves and a few little white petals rotated in a clump on the surface of the fountain by the forecourt. Red-tipped tree branches leaned out far from the top of a newish apartment tower. The fountain on the plaza at Lincoln Center was on as well, and the people who were out in the wind were still drawn to sit by its edge. Seen from the east, the black pool around the Henry Moore sculpture was translucent blue with the close refracted shimmer of its ripples. From the north, the water was full of a coppery flickering, the elongated flare of reflections off the coins of the wishful. Airplanes moving at their different heights had the same immediacy and intensity as the rivets in a sidewalk grate.

The question is “What are the Panama Papers?” This is some top-notch aggregation, and I say that as someone who feels like aggregation does not get its due anymore now that everyone wants to be known as a curator or context delivery provider or whatever other sadness-inducing descriptions people are using to make themselves feel better about the meaningless things they do. Wait, where was I? Oh, right, the Panama Papers. Here’s what they are.

Very pretty music for a less than pretty afternoon. You don’t know that you need this yet, but boy I bet you do. Enjoy.

Is there anyone better than Beverly Cleary? Probably not.

Good morning! Your new editor here, reporting for duty. I’m still trying out all the chairs in the office and figuring out where to position my laptop so as best not to get Toasted Skin Syndrome (most recently: atop a Webster’s Eleventh I “adopted” from my old job at The New Yorker). In many ways, The Awl and its offices are very different from my previous workplace. For one thing, I have never worked in a room with so many USB cords, over-the-ear headphones, PlayStation controllers, and shitphones. Also dudes. There is very little paper here, to say nothing of pencil sharpeners and wooden bookstands…which, it now occurs to me might make the perfect laptop stands.

But on the other hand, I have been reading The Awl since its inception, and have always been a fan of its swift wit, canny voice, and above all, its dedication to good and better writing. It may strike some of you as a strange move, to jump from a ninety-one-year-old superyacht of an institution to a little dinghy like this one, but let me explain: I’ve always thought of the two as taxonomically related. In its first iteration, The Awl had a motto that used to live somewhere near the top of the page that read “Be Less Stupid.” In many ways, that’s what The New Yorker has always been used for by a certain set of people (mainly lawyers). Reading it is a way to stay informed and well read, culturally awake and critically stimulated, in a format that also feeds you funny doodles on every other page that make you smile but not laugh. To me, The Awl has always been a home for smart, well-reasoned words and voices, taking a moment to point to things in the world and say, “Hey wait a second, isn’t that weird?! Let’s think this through for a second.” There’s also the abstruse listicles, Lovecraftian real-estate commentary, and yes, even poems. The Awl is a good deal shorter and faster, and organizationally much smaller than what I’m used to, but effectively I’ll be trafficking in the same product — the only product — that keeps me going: good writing.

I’m overjoyed to take the helm. The waters are going to be a little choppy while I get used to the new tiller and open all the doors and see what Easter eggs Matt and John have left me (whose paperclips are these and what were they ever used for besides opening SIM compartments on review phones?). I hope you enjoy the ride.

Photo: Shutterstock.com

Back to Real Footage from lucie elven on Vimeo.

The ten minutes you’ll spend on this odd monologue (starring anarchist/anthropologist David Graeber, favorite of the Baffler-reading lefty young, and Suzanne Elven) might be the weirdest part of your day. I mean, I hope it is. Director Lucie Elven suggests that it will convey “the familiar experience of listening to someone misguidedly giving you a terrible, episodic, parabolic pep talk,” but there is a lot more going on just under the surface.

“A future shutdown of the L train’s East River tunnel for repairs has had Brooklyn residents and businesses on edge, but Manhattan could get its own transit headache. A full closure of the tunnel — and both of its tracks potentially for more than a year — could lead to a shutdown of the L train stops in Manhattan in addition to halting subway service under the East River, cutting off a key crosstown route.”
 — It seemed like the L train shutdown was going to be a remarkable boon to those of us here in town — keeping people from Williamsburg over there and giving us the perfect excuse for declining all the invitations to their tiresome events — but the news that the line might shut down all together even here is remarkably upsetting: How am I supposed to get across town now, take a bus? I don’t think so.

Remember when our seasons used to follow a regular order instead of showing up whenever they felt like it but particularly, if they are winter, right after you decided that a bunch of 70 degree days meant you were safe in sending your heavy coat to the cleaners? Those were different times. Anyway, here’s another one from the new Leon Vynehall, which is as good as everyone is saying. Enjoy.