The 100 most beautiful words in English
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A little problem with a big, beautiful poem
In my parents’ house, The New Yorker was the gold standard, and with the exception of the benighted Tina Brown era, it has continued to be that in my house as well.
Read MoreWhat pop culture phenomena have y’all ignored?
The Emmy nominations are a good excuse to talk about picking and choosing what pop-culture phenomena we fall in love with.
Read MoreA generous guy ruined my day. Plus state flags.
Making fun of all the state flags? You will think all of this is funny except No. 13.
Read MoreWhere Starship Troopers meets garden gnomes
A couple of cool things have crossed my path in the past 24 hours. The first I saw posted on Facebook by Chris Olson, to give credit where credit is due. It posits that the director Paul Verhoeven must have traveled forward in time in preparation for doing the (pretty awful) 1997 movie Starship Troopers, [...]
Read MoreWhat little stuff annoys you?
I’m not in a bad mood today, but this story about great monkey movie scenes points to one of my least-favorite annoyances (the story gets it right): people who think monkeys and apes are the same thing, or don’t know the difference. This is not snobbery on my part; it’s really not at all hard [...]
Read MoreA roundly reviled song you probably like
It’s hard to imagine that many popular pop songs are as hated as “Africa” by Toto.
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