The physical publishing of books (“architecting” them, in the words of the First Lady Daughter), is a very strange business with agreements that date back almost 100 years.

That’s a good one. I’ve done a variation. “I love that! Is that vintage? Oh, I thought it was from the 1990s or something. I loved the 90s, didn’t you? I mean obviously you do...”

The residential elevator is my preferred performance spot.

There is a person in my building with whom I was once very close, but turns out that they, probably mostly out of boredom and general not having a life, not really malice, decided to become a behind-my-back shit-stirrer.

If you’ve never seen the movie you might think the guy on the right is Hugh Bonneville, Lord Grantham from “Downton Abbey.”

“freelance Chanel security guard Gigi Hadid...”

Is Awkward Family Photos still a thing? This should go into their Hall of Fame.

I know Jodi Kantor slightly. Not enough to have contact info but if I reached her at the Times newsroom she’d probably remember me if I mentioned through whom we’ve met two or three, maybe four times. She’s (googles) 44 so she’s not some ingenue who needs tips from a fellow journalist conversant in 1970s-era…

Robert Pattison is one of those people who you sometimes think, “Why is he considered so attractive?” (see header pic) and then you see other pictures and think, “Have him washed and bring him to my chambers immediately.” I feel the same way about Pete Davidson, but mine is probably a minority opinion.

Since Parks & Rec was filmed on a Hollywood studio set (the exterior shots are of Pasadena City Hall) someone probably did. Although I’ve lived in New York for 30 years and have no idea what the interior of the State House in up Albany looks like.

I’m still getting over the post-9/11 craze for “freedoms” (plural) and “blood and treasure.” Like, “This republic will expend any amount of its blood and treasure to defend our God-given freedoms.” As if some blowhard on Fox News circa 2002 were rallying the rag-tag troops at Valley Forge. If you ever hear or read the…

She’s a lumberjeack and she’s OK/She sleeps all night and she works all day...

They are distant cousins!

Everything Bill Bryson writes is fascinating, funny and charming, and filled with all kinds of minutiae that, if you can remember it, can be trotted out in any social situation. 

She could go full Calvin Coolidge, and there’s a good story behind this:

It is little known that Daffy Duck was born in a small town outside of Sherbrooke. 

I bake quite a bit and used to make a lot of stuff that involved me cheating and using cake mixes as a base in place of doing it from scratch. I moved on, there’s 1,000 things you can do with cake mix (did you know you can make biscotti from it? I do!) but my horde of cake mix boxes lived on for years. I always…

I love trifle but I make a very (non-alcoholic) American version. It’s super simple. You just buy a big loaf of store-bought pound cake, berries in season, and then some whipping cream and a little sugar. You can flavor the whipping cream (I assume that’s where your maple liqueur comes in, unless you steep the berries…

It was konmari time in my kitchen today. It’s time to clear stuff out in preparation for the restock tomorrow. My challenge: it was in the 80s and heating the oven was a no-go.

When I (through friends) met the guy I’ve now been with for 1/3 of a century we went to an excellent and very cheap Moroccan restaurant that I knew of for our “first date,” just the two of us. The menu was in French. And Arabic, but I can’t speak Arabic. I said, “Well, I can order off the menu for you. I’m…