John Herrman Co-editor, The @Awl The Awl Be less stupid.

Jon Taffer Pej Behdarvand for The New York Times On your reality show ‘‘Bar Rescue,’’ you do speedy overhauls of failing bars. Do you ever worry that moving so

One of the greatest delights that modern bar culture affords us is the ability to sit down on a stool, pay a small fee, and touch a boob. No bouncer holds aside a velvet rope to let you in; no women swing around poles; the menu says nothing about lapdances; nobody, let's hope, is disrobing. You're…

The Carolina Panthers couldn’t be feeling luckier right now. They play with Cam Newton, the league’s likely MVP, on a team that will host the NFC title game on Sunday. Their defense is one of the best in the league, they went 15-1 during the regular season and they’re just one win from a Super Bowl.…

Halfway through breakfast at Café Luxembourg on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Bryant Gumbel unleashes a spot-on imitation of Will Smith in Concussion , specifically the Oscar-desperate earnestness dripping from the line that serves as a closer for the film’s TV spot: a close-up of Smith barking,…

Photographs by Mark Seliger Tired of looking like a harpooned whale every time he stepped onto the beach, Andrew Corsello set out to completely transform his body in just three months. would he become a ripped, waxed, bleached, oiled, preening, speedo-clad machine or keep getting sand kicked in his…

It was easy for Megan Phelps-Roper to tweet things that made people cringe—she knew that they were evil or deluded by God. Credit Photograph by Katy Grannan for The New Yorker On December 1, 2009, to commemorate World AIDS Day, Twitter announced a promotion: if users employed the hashtag #red, their…

LOS ANGELES — From the moment Tina Fey and Amy Poehler walked into a studio green room here to the moment they entered a mind-melded comedy state, two and a

Photographs by Inez + Vinoodh The leader of the free world sits down with the free agent of the year—HBO’s Bill Simmons—to discuss the Obama era and beyond. The exclusive White House Q&A There's the president of the United States, and then there’s the person who happens to be the President of the…

Haley Potiker is still getting the glitter out of her couch cushions. “I know I cannot work with Dr. Luke. I physically cannot. I don’t feel safe in any way.” — Kesha, in her latest affidavit All Kesha wants to do is leave her contract. This September, the singer born Kesha Rose Sebert was forced to…

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg "Mark is fixing stuff." I’m killing time in the Frank Gehry–designed Building 20, whose signature feature is its soaring 434,000 square feet of open space, the latest addition to Facebook’s campus in Menlo Park, California . A PR handler is explaining why CEO Mark…

Photographs by Ian Allen What's next from the chef known for flavors so bold it feels like someone's filming a slasher flick in your gut? Why, $75-a-bottle red wine, of course! But Guy Fieri isn't planting grapes just because he digs "bomb-ass Pinot." (His words, not ours.) He's after something much…

“What’s Bill Simmons like? A lot of people have asked me that question since 2011, and it’s understandable—if I knew somebody who worked with him, I’d ask the same thing. But I don’t have a great answer, and people are usually disappointed to learn that I’ve never met him in person or even talked to…

(Illustration by Dan Evans ) How hard do you think The Rock could punch me? Obviously: to death. I feel The Rock could punch me on most of the parts of my body and I would immediately die. Would I die if The Rock punched me in the head? Yes, I would die. Would I die if The Rock punched me somewhere…

Christine and her husband Robert Robinson over breakfast in their Mission Hills, Kan., home. Ms. Robinson often can’t tolerate the sound of her husband’s chewing. Photo: Ryan NIcholson Photography for The Wall Street Journal Christine Robinson was looking forward to a date night with her husband,…

It began just five years ago, with a photo of a dog and his girlfriend’s foot. Now Instagram has outstripped Twitter, with 400 million users. But is there life beyond selfies and sunsets?

He sees in the pizza not just a meal, but a piece of himself. And for that reason alone he must have it, consume it, be one with it. Only then will he achieve his true identity, the one he was destined for: The Pizza Rat.

Billy Eichner, of Funny or Die’s “Billy on the Street,” during a visit to the Museum of Sex. He is also starring on the Hulu sitcom “Difficult People,” with Julie Klausner. Jessica Lehrman for The New York Times “This is like a terrible ‘ Sex and the City ’ episode,” said the comedian Billy Eichner,…

Upon the release of Chvrches’ “Leave A Trace” video last month, Mayberry’s insistence on her individuality came under fire. The notoriously vile online community 4chan began a thread about her attire in the clip and tweeted it at her.

F rom above, Lake St. George doesn’t look like much. Twenty miles inland from the jagged coast and due west of Augusta, itself no more than a grey smudge on the winding Kennebec, the lake seems like little more than an irregular glacial scrape. The northernmost island in it is even less remarkable,…

Superheroes come in all kinds of packages these days: comedians like Chris Pratt and Seth Rogen, ex-little guys like Robert Downey Jr. The latest bro-next-door to transform into a man of steel? Ant-Man's Paul Rudd. To which we say: If a goofball like Paul Rudd can do it, then why can't we? Joel…

Reaching the quietest square inch of land in the U.S. is literally a walk in the park. Well, a rainforest, to be precise. To find it, you hike along the Hoh River in the heart of Olympic National Park, past bigleaf maples carpeted in spike-mosses and around epiphytic ferns sprouting out of the…

The Awl Be less stupid. The Awl Be less stupid.

This mystery where you solve a crime with a search engine is brilliantly made—but it has one big problem. You could argue that Google has ruined a lot of life's mysteries. In days gone by, we could debate endlessly in bars over what celebrity starred in which movie, or what the lyrics were to a…

Everything in the Music Industry Has Changed Except the Song Itself Is it time for a disruptor to change what songs look and sound like? O utside my songwriting classroom at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, the industry is in full disruption mode. This semester alone, publishers…

We're forever thankful to Silicon Valley for giving us the iPhone, omnipotent search engines, and swipe-simple hookups. But now that America's most vaunted industry has also become its most self-satisfied, Silicon Valley is veering toward fall-of-Rome territory. Which is why it needs to blow up…

When I arrive at the house in the Hollywood Hills that Chris Pratt shares with his wife, the comic actress Anna Faris, and their 2 1/2-year-old son, Jack, Pratt

"I had the idea that we should contact the Chia Pet company and talk them into making a 'Dave Chia,'" Photo: Gluekit The Lost Laughs of Letterman The departing host and his former writers share the greatest jokes he never told. Illustration by Gluekit My first day at Late Night With David Letterman,…

I n February, a news alert popped up on my phone from the New York Times . Such alerts often bring word of natural disasters and notable deaths. This one announced that Jon Stewart was stepping down from The Daily Show on Comedy Central with the kind of “this just in” declaration typically reserved…

Melissa McCarthy, her hands tied behind her back, writhed on the dingy basement floor of an abandoned power plant in Budapest — grunting, shrieking and, despite her best efforts, laughing. “Let me try that again,” she said, attempting a straight face. McCarthy was shooting Scene 114 in “Spy,” an…

THE FUTURE of the Toronto Blue Jays wakes up in a 1978 Volkswagen camper behind the dumpsters at a Wal-Mart and wonders if he has anything to eat. He rummages

This story comes from Lucky Peach #9: The Cooks & Chefs Issue . For more great stuff like this, subscribe to the magazine! A aron Franklin is a wood whisperer. He doesn’t have the multigenerational brisket-cooking lineage that his peers in the Hill Country do, but he has a savant-like aptitude for…

M ornings in the Haight in San Francisco, you’ll find all manner of bleary-eyed characters lined up outside the Pork Store Café hungry for the magic of the most underappreciated of American cuisiniers–the short-order breakfast cook. Our editor Chris Ying was one of them for many of his early years…

There is a certain vision of New York City as a playground of potential that exists only when you arrive, in your early 20s, from someplace smaller, be it Long

Yesterday, March 2nd, we released OneShot, an iOS app for highlighting and tweeting screenshots of text. I thought it would be fun to share a little bit about

W ill Forte greets me outside the bathroom, extending his hand as I zip up my fly. We are at the production offices of his new television show on the far northwest side of the San Fernando Valley, and I’ve shown up early for our interview. It’s still 12 minutes until we’re scheduled to speak, but…

The author skating in 1980. courtesy Kathy Sierra Silicon Valley Has Lost Its Way, the WIRED headline began. Sure, I’ll go with that. It continued, Can