2013 imminent

Oh, there are more, but here are some of the more important ones. OK, readers, hold me to this: -Dissertation. -Driver's license. -Not q...

"Crazy curious"

Recently, at a Pain Quotidien (don't judge), I saw three young women, home from college, maybe, quite obviously good friends, but all th...

Mont Oriol, Part II: the perils of mésalliance

Maupassant kind of redeemed himself, maybe. I ended up really getting into the novel , which given the vaguely nauseating scanned computer-s...

Of lost time

I know you are under the impression that a PhD that focuses on the themes of inter(text)uality in medieval basket-weaving would be a surefir...

And now, the outrage

OK, so while everyone I've shown Jillian Keenan's post about parental overshare to (people who may have been hearing me go on about...

"[T]he media has an important responsibility not to republish gratuitous material that could damage a child’s long-term personal or professional prospects."

It looks like the national conversation emerging from the Newtown tragedy is one I've actually been going on about for some time  (that...

Mont Oriol Part I: up to page 100 of the defective, unprintable PDF

Don't try this at home, kids, but I picked a dissertation topic before I knew if there would be enough sources to swing it. I mean, I di...

Requisite Jewish Christmas post

If you're Jewish, and do the thing of treating non-celebration-of-Christmas as the major, definitive Jewish holiday, what actually goes ...

I am not 16

"I tried to dance Britney Spears./ I guess I'm getting on in years." - Rufus Wainwright. So I'm officially too old for Fac...

Shorter Sunday Review

-Ross Douthat pulls a right-wing YPIS and accuses Mayor Bloomberg of being a coastal elite in his pro-gun-control advocacy. -Frank Bruni as...

Sticks and stones

A day late and a dollar short, but this kind of only could be posted today. Bear with me: -My first reaction to head-on-a-stick-gate : Yeah,...

But who will review the reviewers?

A. O. Scott's review of Judd Apatow's latest, "This Is 40," tells us basically that the movie is about first-world proble...

One last email from the university before the world ends

Spent far too much time last week trying to track down my lost winter-wear, returning to the lost-and-found when I was told to return, and t...

Holiday fashionz UPDATED

On the day of my own department's holiday party, I first had to take NJ Transit, submit grade sheets, and otherwise be practical, so the...

WWPD, language police

-Yes, yes, the First Amendment, but whevs. I'm going to hereby advocate for a ban on the use of the word "fresh" to describe h...

It's time for a national conversation about the refusal of teenage boys to make chit-chat at the hairdresser's

So the latest warning sign , apparently , is that the Newtown killer failed to make small-talk during a haircut. It seems to me that there...

Echarpe rouge homme

This afternoon I indulged, from the can't-believe-the-semester's-over-but-need-to-get-back-to-work-soon-anyway-but-oh-it's-nice-...

Scrubbing the surfaces

Strange as it may seem, the semester appears to be over. Graded, read over evaluations (seems I'm a better teacher than I was when I...

The curious horde

Ages ago, I believe I announced I would answer some of the questions websearches direct to ol' WWPD. I got three good ones recently: Q. ...

The parenting-a-sociopath question

So everyone has decided to share an essay by a mother about her 13-year-old son and her fears that the boy will* commit one of these notorio...

A few more thoughts on gun-stuff, then back to your usual programming

-Many are noting, correctly, that the everyday gun violence that disproportionately impacts poor and minority communities doesn't get th...

Yes, this is as good a time as any to demand gun control

Shall I repeat myself ? When people who did not grow up around guns have the audacity to suggest that guns are too readily-available in this...

WWPD, feminist

OK, so this day had reached a bit of a low point - when I realized that I'd left my (old, utilitarian) scarf and (new, utilitarian) hat ...

Ends with a whimper

Today was the second-to-last day of class, aka the review session. For this reason, the train I normally take, which normally gets me to the...

Luminosity

It's possible (definite) that my parents sometimes read my blog, and one piece of evidence is that I got a Sephora gift card for Chanuka...

Good for goose and gander

While I'm not a fan of advice along the lines of, have more/fewer children than you wish, because America, I don't think there's...

Do we need more service-industry tell-alls?

Leonard Lopate informs us that there's a new book out, a dramatic tell-all in which it's revealed that hotel staff prefer polite cu...

Posted from a coffee shop

Found via the usual via - as in, I'm no longer sure - an interesting post  (part of a series) about "hipsters on food stamps."...

Write what you know

Lena Dunham confirms what I've been saying since forever: everyone should wear eyeliner. It's always a good idea. Meanwhile, "...

The very surface of shallow

After a day some of which was spent driving with my parents watching (I had said I'd drive! And it went OK, thanks to my husband's e...

Once more, in bold

Miss Self-Important responds , helps me clarify what I was trying to get at in the post below . And hello also new readers via Scott Lemieux...