by Natasha Vargas-Cooper
What kind of world is this, when a Page Six item begins, “Some people still have money to buy real estate.” Well of course they do! And now is a fantastic time to buy. Especially if you are James and Whitney Fairchild, who old folks among us will remember as…
On December 1, 1964, Ursula Nordstrom wrote a letter to Nat Hentoff, who was on assignment for the New Yorker. (Hentoff’s piece on Maurice Sendak ran January 22, 1966-well over a year later.) Nordstrom-who had never been a…
Continuing reverberations in the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, whose execution by the state of Texas is the subject of increasing controversy: Dorenda Brokofsky, a juror in the case who voted to convict…
by Luke Mazur
So I have swine flu. I mean, probably not, but I did get horribly sick last Tuesday. It’s more logical that I just have the regular flu: more people get that one, and the symptoms as far as I…
A bear cub broke into a car in a Denver suburb but became trapped when the door shut behind it. One of the…
Yesterday morning I leaned over and begged Choire to promise me that we were currently experiencing “the absolute low point” in what we hope to be the long and fruitful history of The Awl. I sought this assurance because they had not yet turned on the heat here at Awl Towers, and we were both…
Awl pal Alex Ross, who is almost certainly better known as the classical music critic of the New Yorker and the award-winning author of The Rest Is Noise: Listening To The Twentieth Century (which is AMAZING), has a new blog! Bookmark it or put it in your RSS reader or whatever you do with these things.
by Walt Fruttinger
From time to time, The Awl offers its space to normal, everyday people with a perspective on national issues. Today, we’re pleased to once again present you with Walt Fruttinger, an Applebee’s franchisee who has some incisive thoughts about…
Whether or not this whole thing turns out to be a hoax, enough doubt and suspicion has been raised about the whole thing that I think we’re missing the most significant aspect of the event: The next time a little boy gets trapped in an experimental helium balloon his…
Seen those stories about how military recruitment is succeeding wildly in These Troubled Economic Times? This might be a better explanation as to what’s happening: “The secretary of defense ordered, and Congress authorized, an expansion in the size of the Army. But the Army reduced the…
Your questions answered: “How do we taste the carbon dioxide that gives carbonated drinks their fizz? After all, the human tongue is supposed to sense just five flavors: bitter, sweet, salty, sour and umami, sometimes called savory. It turns out that the taste buds that let us…
“Silvio Berlusconi still has cards to play. He has the option of calling a snap election (which on current polling evidence he would certainly win). He has already spent millions on lawyers to keep him from prosecution, and it will not be easy to bring him to court. Yet after many crises…
What seems like common sense to so many people may not have ever occurred to others, so just in case you haven’t given any consideration to the matter, we’re going to pass along this valuable lesson from South Carolina’s Post and Courier: “’There are humane ways to euthanize an injured…
Awl stalwart Mathnet is more or less liveblogging the Balloon Boy Family’s appearance on “Larry King Live.” Much like the story itself, it is both disturbing and unmissable.
Monday, in New York magazine! “Dog-walking with the novelist and vegetarian polemicist Jonathan Safran Foer”! Also! “Circumcision: For and Against”!
I had never heard of Anne Lister, the “first modern lesbian,” but this report on a forthcoming BBC costume drama about her life includes this amazing capsule summary: “Lister chronicled her pioneering life and wide-ranging travels as well as her relationships in an at…
So there was a thing that happened in this corner of the Internet over the last week or so and people said some stuff and then some other people said some stuff back and then a lot of people said a lot of things about it and there were letters exchanged and the like? You know what I’m talking about. Anyway, here are a few additional responses.
