“Normally cubs purr when suckling which some think is to remind a hibernating mother bear that her cubs are ‘content’. Some previously captive bears continue to do this throughout adulthood, like this one. Can be result of removal from mother at too young an age through hunting or a bear that has been confined to a small enclosure. This rescued bear only knows himself; why he does it.”

by Awl Sponsors

Small Business Saturday is celebrated on the first Saturday after Thanksgiving to help support the small businesses that help create jobs, boost the economy and preserve neighborhoods around the country. So whether it’s that trendy downtown boutique that always carries the perfect selection of shoes or the delicious corner bakery that makes the best croissant-doughnut hybrids you’ve ever tasted, Small Business Saturday is a great way to support your favorite local businesses.

Visit ShopSmall.com to learn more, and spread the word on Facebook and Twitter with #ShopSmall.

“Setting up a new iOS device earlier this week, I skimmed through the list of apps I’ve installed over the years and I got nostalgic about the early days of the smartphone revolution.”

This video contains flashing lights, but it’s all the yelling that will probably give you a stroke.

“It is sometimes hard to know what to say to a friend in need. But whatever words you choose, stay clear of ‘get a grip’ or ‘pull yourself together’. They have been voted the most annoying phrases to use to comfort someone.”

When will New York City win its war against leaves? The B and the Q trains are still enjoying a late fall issue, according to the MTA: “Fallen leaves, when crushed by train wheels, leave a slippery residue on the rails which may affect the train’s ability to start and stop.” What is this mysterious “residue”? Why do we allow trees to attack our important infrastructure? Let’s finish this once and for all. Kill the trees, save the subways.

by Matthew J.X. Malady

People drop things on the Internet and run all the time. So we have to ask.

Executed maybe 20 hugs last night. Bit of over-under weirdness. Couple of is-this-a-handshake-oh-it’s-a-hug things. Minimal suffocation. B+

— Amanda Hess (@amandahess) October 23, 2013

Amanda! So what happened here?

I recently wrote a story at Slate arguing that people should stop hugging each other all the goddamn time. A hug with a loved one is nice. But when we outstretch our gangly arms to just about everyone, it becomes an awkward, impersonal display, and even — in the case of power-huggers like Lady Gaga — a personal branding exercise. Some huggers saw the piece as a slap in the face. Strangers responded by saying that I sound like I need a hug (false), or that I have an undiagnosed sensory disorder or am a sociopath (possible!). These are people who are hell-bent on smushing their upper bodies against other upper bodies at every opportunity, so their emotional projections were unsurprising.

A few weeks later, I found myself packed into a SoHo event space for a book release party with several hundred far-flung co-workers, writers I have interacted with only on the internet, and a handful of dear friends whom I love very much and rarely see. It was a hug etiquette minefield. While I’m comfortable making the case against default hugging culture in the isolation of my own apartment, I also don’t hope to offend those with a more liberal sensibility when they are rapidly leaning their bodies toward me. As a human, I forge friendships with huggers; as a journalist, I’m often tasked with extracting information from them. That disconnect is the foundation of the interaction’s awkwardness for me. At the party, I had to make hundreds of quick-fire social calculations: Does this person expect a hug, and if so, where exactly do they want me to lay my incompetent hands on them? It was complicated by the fact that the space was both extremely crowded and featured an open bar. So everyone was a little looser with their physical displays, but we also didn’t have much space to extend our arms, which were saddled with books and drinks. There was a lot of I’m-going-to-just-lean-my-body-against-your-body-for-one-second going on, which actually seems like a fair compromise.

Of course, many of these people had read my piece, which meant that I was no longer free to bury the signs of my obvious discomfort into their shoulders until they released their grasp. I also had to talk about it, constantly. But it didn’t really resolve the confusion about whether we were ultimately going to put our bodies on each other’s bodies! Some people read the piece and approached me slowly with their palms up in surrender mode, while others announced their intentions to change my position with their superior technique. I appreciated that they made their intentions clear so I could brace for impact.

Some folks at that party later accused you of initiating hugs with them — claiming you made the first move, and that said move was to… HUG. Is that true? And, on a related note, what is it like being known as the anti-hugger?

Guilty as charged. I’m a conservative hugger, but I’m not totally anti-hug — that’s a misreading of the argument, which is that the unwieldy proliferation of the hug often results in a perfunctory display that feels emotionally and physically terrible. I will warmly open my arms for known huggers I like (if we’ve interacted enough to become attuned to each other’s hug styles, it helps a lot), and coldly offer them for known huggers I fear. Because there were many people I love there that night, and also champagne, I ended up in a lot of hugs that were not so bad. I got into a bit of a hugging groove, actually — as an awkward, oversensitive potential sociopath, it can be comforting to get to a place where the social script is well-defined, even if it brings little actual physical comfort. As for how it feels to be known as the anti-hugger: Not any worse than most hugs, tbh.

Lesson learned (if any)?

There are some people who are aggressively furthering the hug agenda (like those who terrorize public events with “FREE HUGS” signs), but a lot of people who offer a default hug are a lot like me — they’re just trying to contort their bodies into a position that will minimize awkwardness and communicate respect, which is hard to do when thrust into a social situation where people’s preferences and expectations are unclear. I empathize with them, at a safe distance.

Just one more thing.

I have a very close friend who is also on team Maybe Don’t Hug So Much. We live on opposite coasts, and whenever I see her, we’re just like, “sup,” because we know where we stand. When I said goodbye to her at the end of the evening, I could feel myself tilting into that telltale hugger position. Maybe I hugged so many people that night that my body didn’t know when to turn it off. She was like, “Oh my God, are you trying to hug me?” and I was like, “I don’t know!” and then I just kind of went for it. It was terrible, and I will never do it again.

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

★★★ Blood seeped out from a tiny crack in the dry skin of one thumb tip. Trash bags rattled stiffly in the wind off the river. The light was bright but low, skimming the surface of the sidewalk grates, shooting down the subway stairs to smash blindingly into the station floor. A delivery man on a bicycle wore a black balaclava. It was hat weather now, hat after hat down Prince Street. Where was the hat, anyway?

“None of this absolutely proves Dr Elia’s hypothesis. But it looks plausible. If she is right, facial beauty ceases to be an arbitrary characteristic and instead becomes a reliable marker of underlying desirable behaviour. It is selected for both in the ways beautiful children are brought up, and in the number of children the beautiful have.”

“How do you say ‘Voulez-vous couchez avec moi’ in ursine?”