Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Hangovers…
…but were in too much agony to ask, can be found at the New Yorker.
In an epic, five-page tour of the world of throbbing temples and “bed spins”, Joan Acocella explores the causes (duh), strange cures (“Pickle juice or a shot of vodka or pickle juice with a shot of vodka.”), and patron saint (St Vivian) of hangovers. Questions you never thought to ask are answered: Why isn’t there good scientific research on hangovers? Because drunk study subjects are hard to control, and rats with “artificially induced hangovers” tend to die at the rate of 9 out of 10. You’ll learn new hangover phrases: Salvadorans wake up “made of rubber,” the French with a “wooden mouth” or a “hair ache.” The Poles, reportedly, experience a “howling of kittens,” while the Danes get “carpenters in the forehead.” There’s even discussion of the morality of finding a cure for hangovers, in which some jackass from Brown University even has the temerity to claim
“Fifteen million people in this country are alcohol-dependent. That’s a staggering number! They need help: not with hangovers but with the cause of hangovers—alcohol addiction.”
Oof. Now I’m getting the “blog spins.”
