Ahh, cycling. For those who want to be endurance athletes but also want a $1500 machine to do most of the work.

Bennington, Hampshire, Goddard...rural areas, brutalist architecture. A seriously bizarre juxtaposition.

Yeah, having three consecutive critically-acclaimed bestsellers and a lauded collection of memoir essays, as well as being a highly sought public speaker, is usually the first sign of being regarded as a joke.

That’s a whole lotta generalizin’. Look, no one’s denying that Franzen can be a self-important twat in his publicity-mode persona. And if you want to begrudge his reviews and reception in the critical community, the double standards to which female authors are held, fine. That’s a legit claim.

Why do you think that?

Breakup Stories is super short. Why would that be worth so much more. Wait, is that the joke?

Playing solitaire during office hours is not an accurate representationofhiw we higher ed faculty spend office hours.

I've run many a half and full, so I got one half of the reference but the other half took me a sec. Damn. That's brutal.

I don't get it, but your name and avatar are bad-ass, so I still think you're cool.

Doesn’t being a “truther” entail not believing the “official” narrative?

Or 2011, whatevs.

Being an insufferable dick but refraining from insulting people's mothers is what's known as Eastern New England Etiquette.

I often confuse “exonerated” with “let off the hook on a technicality.” What can I say, I dropped out of that Samoan law school mid-way through my second year.

Again...my favorite football squadron won the Super Bowl, is having a pretty-good-if-not-Pantherseque season now, and our QB didn’t get in any serious trouble. What is there to be butthurt about?

As a self-hating Patriots fan, I’ll get that ball rolling by asking why on earth the Bostonian contingent would express any “butthurt” at all. The Pats went on to win the SB in one of the most exciting games of all time, Brady was basically exonerated, and it’s now officially on record that natural weather-related…

Also, I meant to say “ambiguities” not “bigotries.” Typing on an iPad can get dicey.

Oh I agree, I think that’s exactly what it’s about. I mean, there are a ton of bigotries in that movie, but that aspect of it seems crystal clear. But that’s just why it seems extra funny to say to your sons “Yeah, I pretty much thought of you as being the hideous mewling monster-baby.”

One of my favorite film studies authors wrote a book on David Lynch and, on the title page, dedicates it to his two five year old sons, adding “Thanks for helping me understand Eraserhead.”

Dude, the whole series is on Netflix!

I was out drinking in NYC. 19 years old, my first time hanging out there since I was like 11 and went to the Met with my parents. At this time (2001), underage drinking in Manhattan was no problem. Never got carded anywhere.