Smashing

Apparently, if you've read Rex Pickett's book, "sideways" is a reference to being totally smashed. That didn't exactly come out in the movie. I had more romantic notions of it being an allusion to love coming at you sideways or wine being stored in that position. I just read Janet Maslin's review of Smashed, a new memoir by a 24-year old reformed alcoholic, which set me straight.

Stuff like this--from Maslin's review--makes me realize there were some benefits in attending a dry school, however conservative it was:

The book attacks the "Mardi Gras culture" that equates heavy drinking, sexual exhibitionism and fun; it assails the alcohol industry for promoting images of sassy promiscuity. It connects the dots between drunken young women and Internet porn.

And it identifies date rape as an easier, sexier issue to deal with than incipient alcoholism. The adolescent girl who needs her stomach pumped, Ms. Zailckas says, is liable to be treated more kindly by doctors who think she may have been victimized sexually than by those who know she's just very, very drunk.

I'm frightened for such kids.