“[W]hile some Americans balk at knowing what they prefer to think is unknowable, they embrace science when it relates to their bodies and their health. Jorge Delarosa, a 39-year-old architect from Bridgewater, N.J., pointed to a warm 2012 without a winter and said, ‘I feel the change. There must be a reason.’ But he questions the Big Bang theory because ‘I wasn’t there.’”

Have you heard about the powdered alcohol thing that the “Alcohol, Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau has approved… for sale and distribution”? Would you like to know more? You would? Hahaha, you fell right into my trap. If you are actually interested in powdered alcohol you are clearly some sort of teen or pre-teen, because no one with any level of maturity or taste would have even a cursory interest in something as gross and vile and juvenile as powdered alcohol. You are way too young to be reading this site. Come back in a few years when you have developed some character and a taste for bourbon.

“Brownstone Brooklyn is being overtaken by affluent out-of-towners,” while Greenpoint is “the country’s most awesome place for young people” to live. I hope you’re all proud of yourselves.

March 29: “As a result of high prices and rampant lawlessness in some Mexican regions, criminals who may be linked to drug gangs are plundering fruit from groves and hijacking trucks being used for export… While it is ironic that the current lime crisis may in some part be blowback from our own drug policies, it is crucial to remember that a few months of inconvenience to American margarita lovers is trifling compared with the anguish of Mexicans whose livelihoods and lives have been destroyed.”

April 1: “Hard times in Margaritaville: skyrocketing lime prices slam Mexican restaurants and bars. Cartel violence in the Mexican state of Michocan, plus floods and tree disease, have driven costs of the green citrus to an all-time high.”

April 21: “A nationwide surge in the price of limes has squeezed one of Brooklyn’s most famous pie shops that relies on the tart fruit.”

April 21: “And so, with the brutal winter finally breaking, the limepocalypse has set off a full-scale panic for bartenders and restaurant owners, with a lime black market of sorts popping up around the city. Some are adding a dollar or two to the cost of a margarita; other spots are taking the hike on the chin, hoping prices drop soon. ‘People are basically claiming to be citrus drug dealers,’ says Noel, only half-joking: Bartenders report friends from around the country are posting pictures on Facebook of limes wrapped and labeled in plastic bags like pounds of cocaine.”

“Saudi health officials are stepping up efforts to fight the Middle East respiratory symptom coronavirus, or MERS-CoV, after a recent spike in cases. Saudi Arabia confirmed more than 50 cases of the virus in the past week, at least seven of which were fatal. The Saudi Health Ministry says 13 new cases were reported Monday alone, bringing the total to 257.”

Is anyone upset that Netflix is raising its prices by a dollar or two a month to increase its vast selection of movies that you only want to watch after your brain and its decision-making capacity has been thoroughly pummeled by rows and rows of direct-to-video Nicolas Cage thrillers and Starship Troopers sequels? No?

Newspaper Explains Itself

Five million in venture funding to the first person who can tell me the difference between “navigating” the news and explaining it, or analyzing it or contextualizing it or just writing it correctly in the first place. The poor news, all these things being done to it, maybe we should let it rest for a while. It must be tired! Anyway, The New York Times has opened its own explainer site, The Upshot, and somehow it’s not maddening at all. Maybe a little teacherly, but at least it doesn’t seem to hate us.

“The thing that was different for the first generation was [most of us] rarely put ourselves on our blogs. The newer generation is all about themselves. What can we get out of this? It’s much, much more about self-promotion. It’s me, me, me. Look at me. Aren’t I cool? Look at this bright, shiny world I’m portraying.”

by Matthew J.X. Malady

People drop things on the Internet and run all the time. So we have to ask. In this edition, New York magazine sex columnist Maureen O’Connor tells us more about clitoris threading.

Today in horrific Gchats from friends: “I went to this Indian hair removal lady and she threaded my clit. It hurt SO BAD.”

— Maureen O’Connor (@maureenoco) April 9, 2014

Maureen! So what happened here?

I was Gchatting with my friend Beejoli, when she informed me that a freak hair-removal incident had nearly resulted in her clitoris getting ripped off by a rapidly whirling piece of string.

My exact response:

“WEOIRFIFIDOWJNIOJENWFLIUWELHIWEFIWE:IOJ:IOJOIJDEIOW:J:GOIJ.”

Then I inquired, “YOU CAN THREAD A COOCH?”

Her reply: “Well I got waxed first, and my Indian waxer in LA will tweeze a few strays, nothing big. But this one in New York THREADED. They don’t use tweezers ever or something. Like, threading is literally making a tiny loop to rip out hair, and you know what else fits in a tiny loop? MY CLIT.” My response: “Did it come off?” Her: “It hurt SO BAD but I will say, she got every hair. Every single one.”

At this point, Beejoli texted another friend for a reality check. Not only had this friend experienced clit threading, but she was INTO it. Beejoli relayed her friend’s words: “What’s the big deal? You’re so numb after the wax it’s a nice buzz. It feels kind of cool.” I LOLed until I CryOLed. Then I tweeted about it. Then I continued CryOLing. Much like clit threading, a good CryOL can feel nice when you are shocked and numb and dead all over.

I once took a cake-decorating class. The best way to slice an ornately frosted cake, we learned, is to hold a piece of dental floss taut between your hands and lower it through the thick cake as though it is a garrote. That mental image was in my mind the day I learned about clit threading.

Is there a personal hygiene process men partake in that would be anywhere near the same ballpark as this in terms of pain and agony and unbelievable-ness?

Circumcision comes to mind, but since the non-anesthetized version of that act is performed only on infants whose brains lack the ability to form lasting memories, the precise pain level is difficult to know. I suspect actually having the tip of your penis chopped off is worse, though. The only excuse for America’s sexist double standard in genital grooming is the fact that most of our men are probably suffering from penis-related PTSD already.

Lesson learned (if any)?

A good way to encourage pubic grooming in men would be to create a BDSM dungeon where the dommes are trained in hair removal.

Just one more thing.

I know Beejoli because I wrote a rude gossip item about her sex life once. She befriended me sometime thereafter, either because she is forgiving or because living with a slang term for a sex act embedded in her first name has provided the emotional fortitude necessary for our friendship. In conclusion, “Keep calm and your clit on,” Beej says.

Matthew J.X. Malady is a writer and editor in New York.

★★★★ The turf in the churchyard and the bare trampled ground were just damp enough to be forgiving underfoot, without being muddy. The children exhausted the easiest eggs, then the more hidden ones, and then began to form designs on the daffodils. Long after every other child had given up and ceded the ground to a gleaming starling and a sparrow, the two-year-old was charging back and forth. Occasionally he stumbled over his basket and got up again. The afternoon temperature felt no warmer than midday, and it was chillier toward the river. The new leaves had a shine to them. On the sidewalk of 70th Street, two full carcasses of lambs turned on motorized spits over beds of charcoal. The pork shoulder at home was coming along slowly, but the light kept lasting and lasting, as the oven temperature notched up to chase the receding dinner hour. Finally, as bright pink streaked the darkening west, the meat was done.