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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.”

  1. antinea says:

    [Previous comment was not posted correctly]
    In your blog, you quoted : <>>
    In reality, the New Yorker article names the quote’s real author as <>. Two lines below, the Brown University researcher actually *disagreed* with Mr. Lindsey.
    In my native France, we would say that you “n’avez pas les yeux en face des trous”, or that you “avez perdu une belle occasion de vous taire”.

  2. antinea says:

    In your blog, you quoted : <>>
    In reality, the New Yorker article names the quote’s real author as <>. Two lines below, the Brown University researcher actually *disagreed* with Mr. Lindsey.
    In my native France, we would say that you “n’avez pas les yeux en face des trous”, or that you “avez perdu une belle occasion de vous taire”.

  3. Niedermeyer says:

    Link fixed. I’m gonna chalk that up to either my hair ache or this blog’s natural reaction to linking to the New Yorker twice in three posts.

  4. Michelle Haley says:

    Me too. Kittens are definitely howling.

  5. Jake says:

    I’m experiencing a howling of the kittens right now

  6. Brandon says:

    FYI: the link to that New Yorker article is all broken and stuff.

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