Snus

Leon Neyfakh reads David Carr's The Night of the Gun and concludes that the book "turns the traditional memoir on its head, assuming as it does that its author knows nothing about his own life and must research it as though it were someone else’s. The book practically interrogates itself, questioning its own right to exist even as Mr. Carr vigilantly gathers string on the dark and druggy life he led into his 30s."

Josh Benson and Felix Gillette examine, "The McCain campaign’s response to the quantifiable imbalance in volume-of-coverage—a function, depending on whom you ask, of the fact that the press loves the Barack Obama story or that John McCain is the Republican nominee for president—has been a petulant cry of foul for the kind of infraction gentlemen are supposed to ignore.  read more »

On a recent Friday evening, two New York City gentlemen in their 20s were sitting at Vol de Nuit, a Belgian beer bar in the West Village. After some conversation, they removed a couple of small, tea-bag-like packets stuffed with tobacco out of a circular black plastic container the size of a hockey puck and, between sips of Pilsner, placed them inside their respective upper lips.

First came the burning sensation, followed by a slightly unpleasant taste, and then, the nicotine buzz.

“It combines the cleanliness of not smoking with the pleasure of tobacco,” said one of the men, who wished only to be identified by his first name, Lucas, of the substance, a product imported from Sweden called “snus” (rhymes with “loose”).  read more »