by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Consider Yourselves All “Debbie”

Dear Debbie, why is it so hard
to understand? The accident was
me. It was in me, it was on me,
it keeps getting written all over
my face. Watch your tongue,
you might say, or, go ahead
and fix your face. But help is
on the other side, Debbie,
my good one, it’s stuck in profile,
Debbie, it’s not on its way.
Use our arms as your arms,
the ditch lilies beckon. There,
they say, now you know what it’s like
to be pleasantly ignored. We keep
all the wrong appointments,
Debbie. Sunday bleeds into Monday
and unlike flowers, Monday
will not be ignored. Because.
Because. Because, Debbie,
Monday is ugly and awkward
and never knows what you really
just don’t want to hear. Because
Monday is the last person
you want to see right now
but there she is again. Because
time is a wheel, Debbie. Because
I am Monday and Monday is this
accident, Debbie. How many times
do I have to tell you?

Lisa Olstein is the author of three books of poems, most recently Little Stranger (Copper Canyon Press, 2013). She teaches in the MFA programs at the University of Texas at Austin.

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

“What the artists were attracted to in the Garden State wasn’t horse country, hot-air balloons, Jersey tomatoes or the suburban good life. The salient words in the exhibition’s handsome and readable catalog, describing what fascinated artists about the state, include ‘rot,’ ‘numbness,’ ‘indifference,’ ‘decrepit’ and ‘ramshackle.’ In fact, curator Kelly Baum goes so far as to say that if much of the art in her exhibition were taken ‘at face value, New Jersey would seem to comprise nothing more than polluted streams, construction sites, bland suburbs, ruined landscapes, obsolete structures, depressed towns, and shuttered factories.’”

My freshman year roommate took all her clothes off to poop. She had no idea this wasn’t normal. I think about this a lot.

— Katie Notopoulos (@katienotopoulos) December 5, 2013

One day she mentioned something like “yeah so I was taking my shirt off in the bathroom” or something, and I was like “wait, what?”

— Katie Notopoulos (@katienotopoulos) December 5, 2013

She was genuinely thought everyone did this. She was disgusted that I would leave my shirt on while pooping.

— Katie Notopoulos (@katienotopoulos) December 5, 2013

I guess like, we go through life not knowing what other people are up to while they’re pooping. So you have no idea what’s actually normal.

— Katie Notopoulos (@katienotopoulos) December 5, 2013

This is some pretty deep stuff, when you think about it.

— Katie Notopoulos (@katienotopoulos) December 5, 2013

by Alan Hanson

If you’re anything like me — a neon-blooded selfie-taking party slug with an APPetite for Disruption and Media Diets — you’re probably flailing in an ever-spinning maelstrom of opening and closing tabs, like, all the goddamn time. (While also struggling to maintain the appearance of being human!) One oft-encountered problem we NetLords run into as the tabs careen into our fat faces with a squawking, Hitchcockian fury, is whether or not we fall into the wide chasm of the term “millennial.” It’s a classification as broad as fellow alien Metta World Peace’s shoulders — Certified Journalists have calculated the birth year of millennials to fall anywhere between 1980 and 2000. So where on this fabricated, niche spectrum of dizzying asininity should we align our portrayals? I’ve broken the category into seven simple sub-classifications to ease the process of assimilation. And remember! Your traits are generational and handpicked by a select, microscopic amount of Humans just as lost as you are pretending to be!

Tier 1: The Unshimmering Glaze of Journalistic Laze

Age in 2014: between 22 and 26
Appearance: An actor in any current fast food commercial
Location: The City
Description: You are the Progeny of Modern Convenience — your attention span is HEY LOOK OVER HERE. DOWNLOAD. INTEGRATION. EXCLUSIVE CONTENT. Anyway, your obsession with fleeting technological ephemera is only dwarfed by your self-involvement. You are highly Metropolitan, severely yet reflexively Left, primarily represent the fruits of the former generation’s failings, and have thirteen fingers. According to recovered documents, you are most likely a light-skinned female with a smartphone or possibly a laughing group of fashionable, diverse teens. You are either hampered or enriched by your generational placement, depending on the tide of articles filed this week.

Tier 2: The Ghosts of Grass and Grain

Age in 2014: between 16 and 32
Appearance: An actor in any current domestic beer commercial
Location: America
Description: Although technically under the Millennial Umbrella, you are suspiciously absent from most editorial discussion of the generation. You live in small towns and lesser cities, you are familiar with and appreciate the rural regions of your state, you work hard for little pay but pay your rent on time, even if sometimes you’re paying that rent to your parents. You go largely unnoticed by media and are seldom asked by reporters about your dating life or your participation in dating apps. You are happy.

Tier 3: The Dour Machines

Age in 2014: Vague
Appearance: Wispy
Location: Unknown
Description: A disconnected wire. A new light bulb siting in a dead socket. Questions outnumber answers by an unfathomable amount. You lay on floors often, unreasonably near tears, malaise on malaise. You are doubled over by coincidences. You are a hem-fiddler. You are a sigh-singer. You are obsessed with simple beauties — escalators, drinking water, right angles, desert rocks, gift wrappers. You are an interlude.

Tier 4: The Flat Belly in Amber Lamp Light

Age in 2014: 22
Appearance: The area of skin from the denim waistline to the lower section of the chest.
Location: A dorm room or new apartment.
Description: You are a nubile stomach in a warm room with your shirt recently removed. A hand is impatiently tugging at the button on your Levis. The body you are attached to is on top of a cheap comforter. The head at the top of this body is saying: I can’t believe this is happening. Usually I don’t do this! I mean, not this quickly. But like, I’m really feeling a connection here. Right? No, no, me too! And Taryn said you were wonderful, and she’s always right, but I didn’t expect to hit it off like this! No, I don’t have one. Do you? Oh, shoot. I mean, I know I’m clean. Yeah! Why wouldn’t you be? If you’re cool with it I’m cool with it.

Tier 5: The Celebrity of YouTube

Age in 2014: 11 to 22
Appearance: A talking head
Location: Cyberspace
Description: You are trapped in a glowing rectangle and you can never leave. You exist only when someone is watching you. Once the browser is closed, you disappear into a horrifying ether of static and the Dead who are clawing through the Other Side.

Tier 6: The Masters of Media

Age in 2014: 24 to 30
Appearance: Politely disheveled. Many hoodies. Coffee.
Location: The Two Cities
Description: From the hills of Valleywag to the truffle-scented sidewalks of Grub Street, you discuss with near vitriol all subjects moot and passing. You decide which films are important to see, or say you have seen, and comment grandly on anything from subtle iOS changes to walking corpse celebrities to the President to the proper wearing of certain garments. (Not to be confused with people “in” the media, such as the Willennials: Jaden and Willow.) There are twelve of you.

Tier 7: The Contentedly Silent

Age in 2014: Infinity
Appearance: Sleep
Location: The Earth
Description: Welcome. You are dead. This is death. Isn’t it nice?

Alan Hanson is a Californian writer living in Harlem.

Photos, in order: Hungry millennials by Ed Yourdon; airport millennials by TheeErin, Macon millennials by “shakey1964”; selfie by Eric Molina; screenshot of Adam Driver from “Girls”; McDonald’s millennial packaging by Jonny Goldstein; screenshot of Valleywag editor Sam Biddle’s appearance on CNN; exhausted teen by Becka Spence.

“Netflix believes it has a powerful factor in its favor as it tries to change viewers’ habits. ‘Human beings like control,’ says Sarandos. ‘To make all of America do the same thing at the same time is enormously inefficient, ridiculously expensive, and most of the time, not a very satisfying experience.’ There is a freedom achieved when your options extend beyond that night’s offerings and the limited selection of past episodes that networks make available on demand.”
 — Netflix is on a mission to empower you.

“The trap with the yearling in it is being watched to see if other bears come looking for it. We have not been told what the plan is if that happens.”

“The U.S. release of Morrissey’s long-anticipated Autobiography downplays the Smiths singer’s two-year-long relationship with photographer Jake Owen Walters, according to WENN. When the book first hit shelves in the U.K. via Penguin Classics, one of the major revelations came via the anecdotes that detailed Moz’s time spent with the man. Though the book didn’t specify whether they were lovers, the author’s fondness is quite clear. But the G.P. Putnam’s Sons stateside release apparently does not include the photograph of Walters as a boy that the original contained. It also seems Walters’ name has been removed from a story about a night out with Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde. WENN reports that these are two of ‘many details’ that have been modified or redacted for this version of Autobiography.”

I am way past the point where it is aimed at, resonant with or even pleasurable to someone like me, but I am glad that they are at least still making this kind of music because it means that there are apparently people out there for whom those things continue to apply. [Via]

We are a couple of days late to this but we should pause here to note the passing of Dick Dodd, lead singer of The Standells, whose scuz-rock classic “Dirty Water” was a shining example of American ingenuity in the field of sleaze music right up until 1997, when it was appropriated by Red Sox fans, who less than a decade later turned into the worst people in the world, thus dramatically poisoning a remarkable work of art with their immutable taint. Dodd was 68.

If you can read a couple of sentences such as “The success of viral geniuses like Zimmerman shouldn’t be dispiriting to more traditional outlets, though. Rather, it’s evidence that social media is something that actually can be figured out — and, given the traffic at play, there’s a tremendous reward for those who figure it out” without needing to take several deep breaths and a walk around the block in an effort to restrain your rage then you are almost certainly living a more well-balanced life than I am. That said, THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS WRONG WITH THE WORLD RIGHT NOW and Tom Scocca identifies at least seven of them in this piece. We can meet back here tomorrow when we’re all done reading it and discuss.