I can see the reasoning behind that approach. The reason why we (English profs) would recommend making the first pass at a text a close reading where you “blow up” the text is this: When you make that first, close pass, you’re noting any and all details that stand out to you as potentially important or fruitful as a…

I’m so sorry to hear that that’s her dynamic with you. That’s awful. I feel very grateful that my mother, while devout, grew up in a place where everyone was Catholic, but where religion was also intensely personal/private. Definitely not evangelical in that respect. I think that—along with the fact her family were…

There is so, so much to unpack here regarding Wenner and how The Masters ended up the way that it is. At it’s core, it’s not complicated: His entire career is/was guided by biases that he refuses to recognize and combat. Thus, a rock retrospective that looks very little like the actual history of rock and roll, but…

I am still irrationally angry that Bohemian Rhapsody won the Oscar for best editing when its editing is, objectively, terrible. The editing is so intrusive and illogical that it made a bad movie downright unpleasant to watch. Bohemian Rhapsody was safe and lifeless. It didn’t take chances and it didn’t do enough to…

Yup. There’s no way to win. I use a handful of these on the list, and I will say that some of them are not necessarily passive aggressive. For example, I use “just a gentle reminder” sometimes with my students and it really is just a gentle reminder. Like, hey, don’t forget you’ve got this due date coming up.

I wonder where ambient noise falls in this conversation. Silence is a difficult thing to come by in my house, and I’ve found that putting in my earphones and listening to brown noise works really well for me. After a few minutes it fades away and I don’t really hear it, all I really experience is quiet. It blocks out…

I haven’t seen her new special yet, so I can’t say for certain how well this material shaped up. But I saw her in an early tryout of this material, when she was still very much crafting the show and working through jokes. This whole section of the act did. not. land. It was awkward as hell. She touched on Chappelle a…

This is really taxing my 70-year-old mother’s lifelong, unwavering faith in the Catholic church, and I feel so bad for her. Despite being pro-choice, she has spent her whole life actively avoiding having to grapple with the way that the Catholic church treats women. This is a woman who donates a few thousand dollars…

His whole energy is very calm and appealing to me. And he has a voice like buttah. 

Man, it takes a lot to get kicked out of one of these shows. I’ve been a subscriber to my city’s broadway series (just saw that Beetlejuice show this summer, it’s good!) for years. I think I’ve only seen one person escorted out in that time, and they were drunk and making an unholy racket. I’ve seen people reprimanded…

Yeah, I think this plays a significant role. Soda prices have shot up. Pre-pandemic, we used to be able to get three 12-packs of Diet Coke in my area grocery stores on sale for $11. Now a single 12-pack is $8.75. A “good” sale is now three 12-packs for $14, more commonly it’s $16. Economies of scale make it cheaper…

Oh absolutely. Especially since McDonalds has been consistently phasing out the interaction with the cashier in favor of ordering through kiosks. So they’ll put three kiosks in front and no employees, then the patron will have to stand awkwardly at the counter for a stretch of time, waiting to be noticed by some…

Plus, I absolutely would not want to have to devote that much brain space to thinking about yogurt. Ever. Yogurt is fine. But I don’t care nearly that much about yogurt to devote my professional life to being the mouthpiece for Big Yogurt. 

My mother asked me a while ago, after I responded to some cop horror story or another with ACAB, why I am so bitter and angry at police generally. She’s a white boomer and I am white and grew up in the suburbs, where cops are supposed to be your friend (if you’re white). So she doesn’t get why I am wary and…

Yeah, he doesn’t strike me as gay, either. Perhaps aromantic or asexual, or as you said, just someone so focused on work they don’t do anything else. He strikes me as that kind of hyper-focused weirdo. Probably best he doesn’t inflict himself on another person in a relationship, as these types tend to be horrible…

I read the whole WaPo piece this morning and when I got to that quote I honestly stopped short. Like, oh boy. That guy really said that and thought, “Yeah, this is the image of myself I want to put out there to the world!” 

Yeah, this is not the job where you’re writing the copy that goes on the Chobani label. It’s crafting every message that leaves the C-suite, basically. For a large corporation, it should be paid somewhere in that ballpark. The more remarkable thing is that the job was advertised on LinkedIn at all. This is more of a…

Yeah, stromboli is better. 

And I would argue that stromboli has a better meat/cheese/bread proportion. My experience with WV pepperoni rolls (and I lived in WV for almost a decade) was that most were very bready with not enough pepperoni and cheese filling. 

I think there’s a difference between making fun of or bantering with the cue card guy, and what was described in the Rolling Stone article. The article claimed Fallon berated the cue card guy, which is what Seinfeld is denying here.