by Mark Bibbins, Editor

SO MANY MACHINES

The car is a machine
that spins the world beneath it.
The heart is a machine
that sits like a hunched little man.

A child is a machine
to keep balls bouncing.
Balls are machines that keep
gravity from crushing us.

All machines depend
on all the other machines.

The weather machine,
the walk in the park machine,
the sandals on the beach machine,
the smile machine, the scratch
one’s crotch machine, the scotch
on ice machine, the tulips
in bloom machine,

the wood thrush machine,
the wake and sleep machine,
the just because machine,
the starvation machine,
the manic depression machine
that can’t wait for this goddamn
cocktail party to be over machine,
the sun setting machine
in the window machine behind you.

Henry Israeli is the author of three collections of poetry including god’s breath hovering across the waters, forthcoming from Four Way Books, and three books of translations. He is also the founder of Saturnalia Books.

You will find more poems here. You may contact the editor at poems@theawl.com.

What Time Is The Super Bowl?

The Super Bowl is always now.
It takes place every minute.
It doesn’t happen somewhere else
Just look around — you’re in it.

You start out full of faith and hope
and joy for what will be.
You end up with your brains bashed in
and fractures in your knee.

Your arms are sore, your legs are weak
Your mouth is slack and muddy.
You’ve wet yourself and crapped your pants
The rest of you is bloody.

At every turn you’re smacked around
And even if and when
You somehow reach a goal of yours
They send you back again.

A bunch of larger angry men
Keep mashing up your head
And when they finally stop the clock
It’s over and you’re dead.

The Super Bowl? Well, that’s your life.
The suffering’s what sticks.
Oh, you meant this Sunday’s game?
That starts at half past six.

Guess who is coming to @DIRECTV? We are! Check us out Jan 21st on Channel 342. pic.twitter.com/8OxjxbnpEM

— Fusion (@ThisIsFusion) January 13, 2015

What is Fusion? Fusion is a joint endeavor of ABC and Univision. So it is mostly a TV channel! (That’s channel 108 in New York City, if you have Verizon. It’s not a channel at all if you have any other cable provider.) But it is also a digital enterprise, embedded inside the TV-ness, to make things happen across all platforms as the future of TV changes in whatever ways it will. It is something of an experiment. Mostly what you likely know about Fusion is that they just keep hiring people! But who? And what do they do? Here is an attempt to organize those hires at the digital side of the organization into a masthead. (The TV side is even more complex.) They have so many titles!!! Some of them may or may not be at all what they sound like. And maybe there are a million more people? Or not…??? Who knows! Here’s what we have so far. Undoubtedly we should regard this as as a living document and we will receive a few dozen updates.

Isaac Lee, CEO

Daniel Eilemberg, Chief Digital Officer

Boris Gartner, Chief Strategy Officer

Wade Beckett, chief programming officer

Miguel Tamayo, director, programming and development

Fernando R. Vila, VP of programming

Mark Lima, VP of News

Laura Wides-Munoz, Director of News Practices

Jane Spencer, Editor In Chief, Digital

Hong Qu, CTO

John Patteson, Director of Business Development

Justin Montanino, Director of Development, Branded Content

Hillary Frey, Director of Global News Operations

Anna Holmes, Editor, Digital Voices and Storytelling

Dodai Stewart, Director of Culture Coverage

Jean-Paul Tremblay, Director of Production, Digital

Nuria Net, Managing Editor, Digital

Daniel Bachhuber, Director of Engineering

Kent Hernandez, Art Director

Tim Pool, Director of Media Innovation

Daniela Stepensky, Senior Product Manager

Matt Keppel, Product Manager

Keith Kropski, Product Manager

Latoya Peterson, Deputy Editor, Voices

Adam Auriemma, Deputy Editor

Orlando de Guzman, director and senior producer, breaking news team

Danielle Henderson, Culture Editor

Ted Hesson, Immigration Editor

Jordan Fabian, Politics Editor

Danielle A. Friedman, Health, Sex and Relationships editor

Rollie Williams, Comedy Editor

Jen Sorensen, Editor, Fusion Comics

Mariana Santos, interactive and animation director

Kit Cross, interactive developer

Victor Abarca, infographic artist

Noppanit Charassinvichai, software engineer

Jitendra Harpalani, software engineer

Davis Shaver, software engineer

Tater Read, lead UX designer

Lisa Eun Jung Hong, UX designer

Miguel Costa, UX/UI designer

Cara Rose DeFabio, UE designer

Margarita Noriega, head of social media

Abby Rogers, social media editor

Danielle Wiener-Bronner, social media editor

Brett LoGiurato, senior national political correspondent

Jorge Rivas, national affairs correspondent

Alexis Madrigal, Silicon Valley bureau chief, executive producer

Gabriel Leigh, senior producer

Pendarvis Harshaw, associate producer

Romina Puga, culture reporter/producer

Akilah Hughes, culture reporter/producer

Isha Aran, health/sex/life reporter

Clara Lucio, digital voices and storytelling editorial associate

Ingrid Rojas, multimedia producer

Kristofer Ríos, visual journalist

Andrew Dubbin, graphic art editor and cartoonist

Simon Ducroquet, animator

Danilo Lauria, video creator

Natasha Lennard, reporter

Cristina Costantini, investigative reporter

Alexandra DiPalma, digital producer

Dianna McDougall, “visual/social”

Geneva Sands, producer-editor

Suzette Laboy, producer-reporter

Arielle Castillo, producer-reporter

Danny Rivero, producer-reporter

Alice Brennan, investigative producer

Daniela Hernandez, science and tech writer

Felix Salmon, senior editor

Kevin Roose, senior editor

Kashmir Hill, senior editor

Richard Farley, senior editor, Soccer Gods

Miriti Murungi, senior digital producer & social media editor, Soccer Gods

Kevin Brown, social media editor, Soccer Gods

Kevin Gray, editor

Emily DeRuy, associate editor

Katie Ryan, production assistant

Valeria Mendoza, digital administrative assistant

Here we’ll just put our email for updates right here.

Earlier this week I was commiserating with a friend who expressed discomfort over an increasing feeling of futility that had made itself manifest only recently and, as something of an expert in the field of not totally being in love with life all the time, it occurred to me that the knowledge I have concerning this condition might be helpful to more than just the people in my social circle, so I will share my message with anyone else out there who is similarly situated from an emotional standpoint. You are not wrong to feel down: This is winter. Real winter. We’re in it now. The holidays are a distant memory, spring seems impossibly far away and even the lengthening of the days is something you observe solely through windows. Whatever flash of light you see in the hours before the evening is a taunting reminder that most of your life is spent indoors, in an artificially brightened environment designed to disguise a darkness that is always with you no matter how you try to convince yourself otherwise. We’re at the point in the calendar year where the pervasive hopelessness of nature sends a signal to your brain to start a steady leak from its carafe of chemicals that more than ever makes you realize just how bleak and pointless life really is and that there is no amount of alcohol or television or sex or expensive noodle dishes and the photos you post thereof that can keep you from confronting just how alone you are no matter how many people you number in your life. You are suffering from a state that can best be described as human existence, the only cure for which comes at its end, and even that eventual promise of blissful oblivion makes it no easier to cope with the shabby scrim of suffering that drapes itself over all that you see in your sad eyes. Normally this is the part where I would offer some hope but I am sorry to tell you that I cannot. It’s all dark. It doesn’t get better. There is a temporary respite come spring and summer but even that you will waste and suddenly you will find yourself back in fall, the days growing shorter and your ability to delude yourself that it will all be okay once again proving wanting. It is an endless cycle of suffering only occasionally interrupted by your brain’s begrudgingly allowing you to pretend things might work out while the weather is warm. That said, I hear flights to L.A. are not super-exorbitant these days; if you can swing it, it might make you okay for a week or two, which is really all you can ask for.

★★★★ What the daylight revealed was a letdown, indisputably — a historic letdown, a ludicrous scene of ordinariness: walkways already shoveled clear; cars showing their flanks and hubcaps. Maybe there was still some fine snow blowing, but who cared? Looking out the window was like making eye contact with someone who had just been badly embarrassed. Yet was this snow the governor? Was this snow the things people had said about the storm or done around the storm? Or was it merely new and substantial and clean? The three-year-old went out to play with a friend and came back scarlet-cheeked, eating snow from the back of a mitten, resigned to the loss of a Batman figure somewhere in the playground drifts. Most things have a disappointment in them. The noodles in the cold-case ramen package, picked up the day before in the panic line at the store, had sprouted mold. Out in the late afternoon someone walked along the bare wet sidewalk carrying cross-country skis and poles, heading for someplace where snow would be. A plastic toboggan and saucer were coming home from the other direction. A fat-bellied two-ball snowman with cups for features stood beside the bus shelter. The statues by the fountain wore little white hats of snow. Out the window now, one had to admit the snow lay prettily enough on the far side of the Hudson. And then a brilliant little ray of orange shot under the edge of the clouds to decorate the buildings to the west, and then the three-year-old stood marveling at the colors surging out of the west, orange boiling into pink, a phenomenon beyond the scope of the record books.

by Awl Sponsors

Brought to you by The Bold New Camry | Toyota.

Before you watch this you might want to grab some tissues, because some of the stories from these incredible dads and the obstacles they’ve overcome will make you cry. In this short film, Toyota teamed up with director Lauren Greenfield to ask the question, “Is being a good dad something you learn from your parents or a choice you make on your own?” What we learned was as emotional as it was inspirational.

Even as we filmed this piece, we couldn’t help but reexamine what kind of fathers we are vs. the kind of dads we could be. What are we doing right? What could we do better? And what does the role of father mean in the modern world? When other dads out there watch this film, perhaps they’ll ask themselves the same questions. Because as one of the dads, Jasen Govine, so eloquently stated, “As dads, we’re all works in progress and all we can do is try to get better every day.”

Check out the video above honoring dads everywhere. Honor your dad. Tweet us photos of him using #OneBoldChoice to join our big game celebration.

A woman struggles to pick up a baby stroller at the top of a stairwell leading down to a subway station in New York City. She is wearing a large purse — almost more like a duffel bag — slung over her shoulder and her baby is crying.

She stands precariously, putting the weight of the stroller on her thighs while her bag swings behind her, pulling her backwards. People frown as they squeeze past her on their way up out onto the street. It’s lunchtime and the sidewalk is crowded. The stairwell is crowded.

The woman curses herself. Why didn’t she use the Baby Bjorn? Why did she bring such a heavy bag with her? Why did she have a kid?

Tears are brimming in her eyes when a tall man in a baseball cap stops two steps from the top of the stairs. “Here,” he says, taking the rubber strap between the front wheels of the stroller in his hands. “Ready?” he says.

The woman nods and they carry the child down the stairs together.

By the time they reach the bottom and set the stroller down, the woman is smiling a very wide smile, on the verge of the laughter.

“All right?” says the man.

“Yes thank you so much,” says the woman. And then, giggling, “Your hat…”

The man furrows his brow, he does not remember which one he chose to put on this morning. He takes the cap off and turns the brim so he can read it.

In bright red, yellow and green letters it say, “Don’t Ask Me 4 Shit.”

(Previously.)

by Hallie Bateman

“The contrast between these two children’s shows provides a literal illustration of certain eternal tensions, not only in children’s entertainment but in literature and in American culture in general: Innocence vs. Experience, Nerds vs. Normies, Individualism vs. Conformity, Gender-Neutral Egalitarianism vs. Explicitly Heteronormative Sexuality — and maybe most strikingly, Art vs. Commerce.” — Read Awl pal and eminent cartoon writer Maria Bustillos on the cult and myth of My Little Pony.

Beyoncé (@beyonce) tarafından paylaşılan bir fotoğraf (11 Oca 2015, 09:49 PST)

Like Beyonce, by the time I gave birth, I weighed nearly two hundred pounds because, like Kim Kardashian, I suffered from a condition called preeclampsia. This causes, often later in pregnancy, high blood pressure and fast gains in weight from fluid retention. It’s miserable, but by the end, I was a little too preoccupied — new baby, slash in the abdomen — to really marvel at the state of affairs on the scale. I noted it, in passing, without remarking on it to anyone. I didn’t panic or feel like a failure for having gained more than the recommended twenty-five to thirty-five pounds for one baby; it was the most minor fact in a week full of overwhelming and sometimes alarming data.

The day that I found out I was pregnant, when I stepped on the scale, it said that I weighed 134.5 pounds. That number had been my regular weight for about five years, slowly rising a bit or falling with my state of mind, my moods, the seasons of the year.

I’d never dieted or exercised very regularly as an adult, and I didn’t worry very much about what I ate or drank. But pregnancy changed all of that. As I moved through the months, I began to watch what I ingested, not for myself or the fear of a rising number on the scale — I knew that couldn’t be avoided — but for the health of the baby. I noticed what a poor diet I had, sometimes going almost a full day without eating anything at all. I now tried to eat a “balanced” one. I became more active and conscientious about my lifestyle. Though I’ve always loved walking, I started to make a real chore of it; I’d walk an extra few miles a day. It was invigorating, and I noticed, more than the physical change, that I felt better emotionally.

But my pregnancy wasn’t an easy one, and in the later months I was ordered to “rest” constantly. I was swollen and my blood pressure was very high. I was also not exactly stoic about my state of being. In fact, I was often a huge baby about it. Sometimes I just wanted to eat cookies or potato chips. So I did occasionally. And I didn’t worry about my body, just the baby.

After Zelda was born, with my matronly new eyes I read forums dedicated to parenting, and paged through women’s magazines. I realized that, if I wasn’t concerned about my newfound heft, literally everyone else on the planet was on my behalf. New mothers — with babies just three weeks old — exhausted and counting calories, were not in the minority. Everyone seemed to agree that while motherhood is a transformative affair, at least one of our goals must now be to return to what previously was: We must get back our pre-baby bodies. (Seriously, Google “pre-baby body.”)

I don’t know where my pre-baby body went. It’s just gone. I don’t even remember what it was like. I had that body for thirty-six years. And now I have a new one. I’m not so sure I am itching to get rid of it. Which isn’t to say I didn’t want to lose weight. I did, partly because a lot of it was water, and holding that much fluid inside of me was painful and tiring. When it left — almost overnight, about three weeks after Zelda was born — I felt a change. The swelling in my legs, it was moving: I lost about forty pounds in the course of forty-eight hours. I watched the number on the scale fall wondering, “Where was the bottom?”

After that — after that weight that really wasn’t supposed to be there was gone — I looked at myself. “Nice work, kid, you look amazing.” I stopped looking at the scale so often. My weight kept creeping down, but much more slowly. Then I stopped stepping on the scale at all. You see, unlike the many celebrity moms I am encouraged to compare myself to in the pages of my beloved US Weekly, I don’t make my living on my looks, which are, needless to say, fantastic. I am a VERY beautiful woman, but no one is waiting on me to hit a number on a scale before I can go back to the very serious business of making a living. I also don’t have a personal chef, an assistant, a trainer, or a private physician who is on call twenty-four hours a day, all dedicated to the goal of getting me back to some mythical prime form. I don’t grudge anyone these things: Parenting is hard. Take all the help you can get or afford, and never apologize or feel guilty about it.

But I’m also free to reject the idea that I looked better before. I’m within the boundaries of what is considered a “healthy weight” for my frame, though there is clearly more of me than there used to be. I feel comfortable now, in my “post-baby body.” Sure, it’s ten or fifteen pounds heavier than it was before you-know-who came into the picture (it changes very often). “So what?” I ask myself. I look in the mirror and I am mostly happy with what I see. The gripes I have with my looks are the same gripes I had before the new pounds: weird eyelid, suspicious profile, awkward hair (most days; some days it is really very good).

Parenting is transformative: the focus shifts a bit from you to someone new. Things which used to seem very important sometimes seem less so. Which isn’t to say you don’t pay attention to yourself. I do. I take time to read and to think. To do the work I need to do to be a person with love to share with my family. And of course, I do hope to be healthier. So I’ll probably get a bit leaner in 2015. That is, if my goal of “doing exercise” comes to fruition.

How did I get my pre-baby body back? I didn’t. I haven’t even tried. I let it go, along with my pre-baby life. To try to get it back would be like trying to get back my virginity. That ship sailed a long time ago. I have the baby to prove it. She is wonderful and confident and incredibly good looking. Just like her mother.

The Parent Rap is an endearing column about the fucked up and cruel world of parenting.