Pulse: Chatter: Kids These Days: Fang Gang

Everywhere you turn of late—at least in film, television and teen lit—vampires are enjoying their day in the sun (er, metaphorically speaking). But now the cultural affinity for the fanged undead is showing up in a new—if not entirely unexpected—place: the dentist’s chair. Bucks County DDS Benjamin Schneider says he’s seen a handful of patients looking to bond (literally) with the objects of their affection via a pricey little appliance called a Snap-On Smile—essentially, durable, removable veneers that look like the real deal. “I had a 16-year-old boy in a band who actually wanted his teeth filed into fangs,” Schneider says. His mom’s compromise? A vampire version of the Snap-On, for $250. Since then, Schneider has fitted some teenage girls with the same type of sharpened incisors: “They want to wear them to the premiere of that Twilight movie,” he says, referring to this month’s unveiling of New Moon, which is apparently giving fresh meaning to the idea of body piercing.