Twin Sister, the band that did this perfect song four years ago, would like you to know that it is now called Mr Twin Sister, thank you.

“Oh my God, I’ve lived a very simple life! You can say, Oh yes, at thirteen this happened to me and at fourteen… But those are facts. But the facts can obscure the truth, what it really felt like. Every human being has paid the earth to grow up. Most people don’t grow up. It’s too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older.” — Maya Angelou has died. She was 86.

The researchers found that Manhattan’s 13,000 taxis made 470,000 trips a day. Their average speed was 10 to 11 m.p.h., carrying an average of 1.4 passengers per trip with an average wait time of five minutes.

In comparison, the report said, it is possible for a futuristic robot fleet of 9,000 shared automated vehicles hailed by smartphone to match that capacity with a wait time of less than one minute. Assuming a 15 percent profit, the current cost of taxi service would be about $4 per trip mile, while in contrast, it was estimated, a Manhattan-based driverless vehicle fleet would cost about 50 cents per mile.

The upside of driverless cabs: No more awkward small talk with the mildly racist cabbie who otherwise seems perfectly nice and probably has a lovely family that he can no longer support because highly advanced machine-learning algorithms and visual systems took his job. Downside: If you’re too poor to afford a smartphone, you’re effectively too poor to ride in a totally adorable Google taxi.

by Brendan O’Connor

America’s oldest weekly rodeo show, The Cowtown Rodeo, is not in Colorado or Oklahoma or Texas, or anywhere else that most people might imagine cowboys still roam. It’s in New Jersey, past the oil refineries of Newark and Perth Amboy, beyond the reedy Raritan Bay, west of Springsteen Country and south of the Pine Barrens, just off Highway 40, in a small town called Pilesgrove. In a place like Pilesgrove, a kind of anonymously American space that is everywhere and nowhere at once — a repeating, hypnotic pattern of rolling hills, tall grass, cornfields and strip malls — you may as well be in Ohio or Missouri as in New Jersey.

Cowtown Rodeo sits just off Game Creek, a tributary of the Delaware River. A little farther down the highway, two women were selling flowers out of the parking lot of the defunct Richman’s Ice Cream manufacturing plant. Tickets to the rodeo were available across Highway 40, at the Cowtown Cowboy Outfitters (“Jeans $20,” “Boots Cheap”) which is where I met Angela Speakman, author of a recently published history of Cowtown. A Salem County native, Speakman has worked summers at the rodeo for almost twenty years, selling t-shirts and plastic air rifles at the arena. On Saturday, however, she had been given the night off to watch the rodeo, which she had never seen before. “I get why people like it,” she said later.

Speakman asked me, twice, if I was an animal rights activist. Last summer, Cowtown attracted controversy when a horse dropped dead in the middle of a show. An advocacy group called Showing Animals Respect and Kindness posted footage from the event — which ended up on TMZ, of all places — that appears to show Duke being shocked with a “hotshot,” an electric prod, as he hesitated to exit the chute with his rider. According to Grant Harris, third-generation owner of the rodeo, the horse died from an aneurysm of the aorta. “People die running marathons all the time,” Speakman told me. Before the rodeo, we prayed at Cowboy Church, an outdoor chapel tucked away behind the arena, that nothing like it would happen again.

The Bible at Cowboy Church was old and held together with duct tape. The preacher, a woman with short white hair and a slow, pan-American drawl, reminded everyone in attendance that it is not good to say that you know Jesus when you don’t. She paraphrased, and misattributed — to Corinthians — one of my favorite lines from the Book of Revelation (KJV Revelation 3:16 — “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth”), before going on for a bit about Miley Cyrus and Satan and the Grammys. Tim Kent, 2013 Cowtown Rodeo Bareback Riding Champion, lead the closing prayer as we all held hands in a circle, thanking God for the green grass and the blue sky and the perfect rodeo weather (it was about seventy degrees). The men on either side of me gripped my soft, pale, unremarkable hands in theirs, heavy and gnarly and strong.

After the service, I wandered over to the arena, drawn by the sound of mooing. The calves and steers who are destined to be roped, tied, and wrestled into the dirt are kept in two pens, a berm separating them from the arena. A walking bridge passes over the berm; a sign asks you not to linger. Two cowboys perched on the fence assessed the steers by some mysterious calculus. One was leathery, with a handlebar mustache, the other fair. Both were sunburned and wore cowboy hats. (Everybody wore cowboy hats.) The fair-featured one held a clipboard and jumped down into the pen off the fence, wading amongst the steers. One of them, white with brown spots and the number “116” carved into his left horn, approached me as I leaned on the fence. “Are you happy in your work?” I asked. He stared at me without mooing. I could see that the tips of his horns had been blunted, which seems to me to just be adding insult to injury; he was castrated, like every steer.

On the other side of the chute are the calves, with wet noses and long, long eyelashes. They mooed incessantly; their mothers, kept in a pen on the other side of the arena, mooed back just as incessantly. If you are very still, a calf might start to edge towards you, dragging all the others behind it. Their ears are surprisingly soft and floppy, and behind their glassy eyes, you can see a mammalian fear and confusion; Nearby, a small herd of horses, mostly pairs of foals and mares, was running. They moved like water, all joints and muscles and violin-bow hair; no wonder people write books about them.

At the beginning of the rodeo’s opening ceremony, an announcer proclaimed that it was his pleasure to introduce a lady who is over two hundred and thirty five years old: Old Glory. “More free than ever,” the announcer told us, “She stands for everything that us as Americans stand for.” A woman in a sparkly shirt, sitting on a brown horse, hoisted a large American flag aloft. The animal became uncomfortable, shuffling back and forth and baring its teeth. Other women on horseback, also in sparkly shirts, emerged, carrying slightly smaller flags. Old Glory lead their parade around the arena, followed by the banners for: Cowtown Rodeo, New Jersey state, Dodge Ram, Pendleton Whisky, and Outback Trading Corporation.

At this point, I began to wonder why, when a cowgirl is wearing cowboy boots or a cowboy hat, they are still referred to as cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, and shouldn’t we call them cowgirl boots and cowgirl hats? Then I wondered whether anyone else in this arena cared, and I started maybe judging them for that, and then I judged myself for my urban elitism, and then I was watching men try to hold on to angry animals who weigh about a ton and wanted to gore or maybe trample them to death.

In order to win money, bull riders must stay on their bull for at least eight seconds. In the first round, no one stayed on for that long. Some bulls threw their riders and bolted for the exit; others kept bucking and spinning as the rodeo clowns — also known as bullfighters — tried to get their attention, jumping in and out of the twisting circle of muscle and horn to hit the bull on the face (!) to get its attention. Some bulls threw their riders and stood very still, leaving the arena on their own time, no sooner or later than they wanted. Funky Chicken immediately threw his rider and stood as still as that dumb bull statue on Wall Street with massive balls, eyeing the bullfighters and the cowboys, until he chased the Dusty the rodeo clown into his Coors-branded barrel, headbutting it repeatedly. After charging at three other cowboys on horses, Funky Chicken retreated, satisfied with the havoc he had wrought.

Steer wrestling was my favorite event. “Hmm,” I thought to myself after watching a few rounds, “I could do that.” Here is what happens in steer wrestling: two men on horseback chase a galloping steer. One man jumps out of the saddle, and tackles the sprinting steer by the horns. Then he wrestles the steer to the ground in a maneuver that mostly seems to involve falling over backwards. Upon further consideration, I thought maybe I could not do that.

After the rodeo ended and “Happy Trails” played, sending most people for the door, a diminished audience lingers to watch the “slack.” The slack riders were mostly young men trying to break into the professional circuit, but a few were older guys for whom this is just a bucket-list type adventure — guys who go to the rodeo and think to themselves, “Hmm. I could do that.” I ran into Speakman again at the conclusion of her first real night at the rodeo. A rider lost his hat, exposing his gray hair as he dove off of his horse to wrench a steer into the ground. “That’s going to hurt tomorrow,” Speakman said. “I wonder what his wife thinks.”

Brendan O’Connor is a reporter in New York.

Photo by Randy Pertiet

★★★★ The air was moving, a little, but the midmorning was already getting hot. The two-year-old, wearing his sunglasses and riding on shoulders, waved to a truck driver, and the truck driver waved back through the open window. The playground fountain arced and splatted onto the tinted-concrete United States map. A toddler being smeared with sunscreen got its hands on the tube and flung it away across the blacktop. The shade was abundant and comfortable. Helicopters purred somewhere out of sight beyond the leaves. The two-year-old sat on the pebbly concrete at the foot of the tall chain-link fence and ate a lollipop, while a stranger toddler crouched beside him and wept with envy. Two little girls in bright, immaculate sundresses and sun hats drifted closer and closer to the fountain, till their adult supervisors had to spirit them off the playground entirely. The two-year-old peeled off his shoes and socks, contemplated the fountain, then walked a little ways into it. The spray was cold. He walked back out, with tiny bright droplets clinging to his hair and dark flecks of dirt clinging to his feet. The sky got whiter, with more glare. The two-year-old came out of his nap and lay on the floor till the air conditioner was turned on to revive him. A late hot breeze made the hot dog and pretzel umbrellas on Broadway ripple.

Something soothing to listen to as you consider this headline: “Whither Blog Rock?”

by Casey N. Cep

On February 4th, 1990, the sound system of the Second United Church of Christ in Lexington, North Carolina malfunctioned. Those gathered for worship at 11 o’clock that Sunday heard an unexpected voice over the microphone. According to The Dispatch, the newspaper for Davidson County, Donese Scott, who lived across the street from the church, was talking to her friend Revoda Jeffries on a cordless phone, which was picked up by church’s sound system. The two women chatted as Ms. Scott prepared a bath and climbed into the tub.

“God Almighty,” Ms. Jeffries said to Ms. Scott, “I can’t believe my husband stood in line hours to get the seats, and you got those seats Thursday.” They had run into each other the night before at a concert, and even though Ms. Jeffries’s husband had queued up weeks before to get tickets, Ms. Scott’s husband had managed to purchase seats very near the stage only a few days before the show.

The inequality of concert seating addressed, the two friends talked next of the opening act by George Jones. A woman near one of them had been so taken by The Possum that she was asked how she would respond to the main act, Conway Twitty. What the woman said, what the two friends repeated, and what the congregation heard that Sunday morning was: “I might just take my panties off.”

She wasn’t the only one. Women around the country shed their knickers for Conway Twitty. It happened whenever he performed. To understand why, you need only listen to one song, the song that opened almost every concert he gave after 1970. It begins with Twitty softly whispering some pretty love words into the ears of every woman listening:

“Hello Darlin’,” he says, “Nice to see you.”

Women swooned. Pull back the curtain, turn down the lights, crank up the volume; whatever else had to happen, Twitty uttering those six words meant the show had begun.

“Hello Darlin’” wasn’t just a show opener, it was Twitty’s fifth chart topper. He recorded the song in November of 1969, and released it in March of 1970. It rose to number one the first week of June, and spent four weeks there. Five years later, as if to demonstrate the universality of Twitty’s charm, the song was broadcast from space.

The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project proved that spacecraft could dock while in orbit when the American Apollo Command and Service Module connected with the Russian Soyuz capsule, but it also linked the two countries in a cultural exchange that culminated in the broadcast of Twitty’s song. On July 17, 1975, after the crew members shook hands and exchanged gifts, Apollo Commander Tom Stafford played the version of “Hello Darlin’” he had convinced the country singer to record in Russian: “Privet Radost.”

Goodness knows why Commander Stafford chose Twitty’s ballad for the honor. It’s a beautiful song, but not exactly the stuff of global harmony or intergalactic peace. It is the tender admission that an old flame still burns — the quiet apology of a man who regrets losing love.

The song is the kind of one-sided conversation that country musicians do so well. After exchanging pleasantries (“nice to see you,” “it’s been a long time,” “you’re just as lovely as you used to be”) and then asking a few questions (“how’s your new love” and “are you happy”), the man’s darling returns the favor. She asks how he’s doing, only to hear, “Guess I’m doin’ alright,” and then, “except I can’t sleep and I cry all night ’til dawn.”

There is all that love can do when it’s doing you wrong — endless tears and no sleep. But then Twitty sings what almost everyone longs to hear from almost every ex they’ve ever had: “I love you and I miss you and I’m so sorry that I did you wrong.” The song works because the sweet nothings never cease; there’s no argument, no defensiveness, just unadulterated apology and regret.

“Let me kiss you, just for old time’s sake,” he asks, “Let me hold you in my arms one more time.” And so they do, followed by the mid-point of the song’s chiasmus: “Goodbye, Darlin’, gotta go now, gotta try to find a way to lose these memories of a love so warm and true.” The final plea, that last, plaintive turn, comes when Conway Twitty says, “And if you should ever find it in your heart to forgive me, Come back Darlin’, I’ll be waitin’ for you.”

Hello, goodbye, come back; the song is every relationship that’s ever failed. And just like Twitty’s fifty-four other number-one hits, “Hello Darlin’” charmed not only because of its lyrics, but how he delivered them. Like a cowboy wearing bunny slippers, it was his sensitive masculinity that brought women to tears. Twitty paved the way for male vocalists like George Strait and Vince Gill, more likely to be lusted after as husbands than lovers.

That’s part of why “Hello Darlin’” charmed the panties off so many women. You could be his darling whether you were single or married, a divorcee or a spinster, even if you weren’t a woman. After Twitty died in 1993, his wife said, “He’d always pick a song that women would hear and love. Right up to the last album project we finished, that was still the important thing.”

Twitty always claimed he wrote “Hello Darlin’” for Loretta Lynn, who was his singing partner for 18 years, but he and Lynn were both married to others, and they never had an affair. “I love you,” then, means more than what it seems: the relationship that says hello, goodbye, and comeback isn’t necessarily romantic; the “love so warm and true” isn’t only erotic.

There are so many kinds of darlings, which is why I find Blake Shelton’s recent song “Honey Bee” so confusing. From the get go, the sobriquet gets changed from “Darlin’” to “Girl,” and then a series of pairings tries tactlessly to convey romance: “You’ll be my soft and sweet, I’ll be your strong and steady”; “You’ll be my glass of wine, I’ll be your shot of whiskey”; “You’ll be my honeysuckle, I’ll be your honey bee.” And then, finally, just before the sugar and the sweet iced tea: “You’ll be my Little Loretta, I’ll be your Conway Twitty.”

Lynn was perhaps the only woman who didn’t throw her panties at the man, but even, or perhaps especially, country music misunderstands its own history. The best misunderstanding, though, in the history of the song came years before. It was a joke that Minnie Pearl, of Grand Ole Opry and Hee Haw fame, used to tell about a new preacher in town who looked like Conway Twitty.

The preacher went ringing on doorbells trying to recruit congregants, and when the first woman answered the door, she shouted, “Conway Twitty!” He said no, that she was mistaken, and he was only the new preacher. He went to a second house and the same thing happened. He went to a third house and, when he rang the doorbell, a beautiful young woman answered wearing only a towel. She threw out her arms and the towel fell as she shouted, “Conway Twitty!”

The preacher said what every woman wants to hear, “Hello, Darlin’.”

Casey N. Cep is a writer from the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Photo by Thomas Hawk

Political analyst John Maginnis, whose The Last Hayride and Cross to Bear are not only two of the greatest books written about Louisiana politics, but are also pretty high on the list of greatest books about Southern politics, and merit appearances on the list of greatest books about American politics in general, has died. Maginnis was 66.

by Awl Sponsors

You’ve already mastered the selfie, so take it one step further with the CitySelfie! A CitySelfie is a 20 second selfie video, in which you make a 360 by turning a full circle to your right. CitySelfies are made at the most beautiful locations on this planet.

We’re on a mission to inspire the world by gathering CitySelfies taken by locals from all around the world. For a chance to win two Round the World tickets, follow these simple CitySelfie steps below:

1. City
Choose the greatest spot to show off in your city.

2. Landscape
Hold your phone horizontally and put your face in the corner, so we can see both you and the city behind you.

3. Turn Clockwise
Now record a video while turning a full circle to your right.

4. Short and Sweet
Make your CitySelfie 20 seconds max.

5. Submit
Head over to https://cityselfie.klm.com to submit your CitySelfie.

A jury selected by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines will then select the most inspiring CitySelfies to win the grand prize. Check out this video for more details on how to join the CitySelfie movement and visit https://cityselfie.klm.com to get inspired by other CitySelfies.

“The 26-year-old keeps his sex list on Evernote in his iPhone, recording all 41 women he’s slept with, including Ashley, who took his virginity, four Katies and two Sarahs. He says he frequently looks back on it to analyze how he’s grown and changed as a person.”