Essays
Blame Bogey and Joe: Do movie stars make people smoke?
Published on Aug 22nd, 2002
0 comments It goes without saying that cancer isn't funny. Which should make us appreciate all the more the latest literary achievement of Joe Eszterhas, the notorious screenwriter of such enjoyably trashy...
Protected "porn": Supreme Court saves Romeo & Juliet again
Published on Aug 8th, 2002
0 comments By Michael W. Lynch "What the Supreme Court has said here is that 'child pornography' has to involve children,'" Mark Kernes, a senior editor at Adult Video News, told The New York Times. "And what a...
See ya greater: Why quitting is back in style
Published on Aug 1st, 2002
0 comments   By Rob Walker Even with all the grim business news around us, The Wall Street Journal noted not long ago that employee disloyalty had made a comeback or that it never went away. Workers are...
Charlottesville music: The next Seattle that never was
Published on Jul 25th, 2002
0 comments   By Cripsy Duck Remember the early '90s, when rock aficionados grew suddenly preoccupied with the burgeoning Seattle music scene? As Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam were sweeping...
Raw ambition: Get an Ivy League paycheck without the ivy
Published on Jul 18th, 2002
0 comments By Penelope Trunk I recently read in the New York Times about a study that found that the best indicator of how much money you will make is not where you went to college but where you applied. The...
Underage and under siege: Kids' sexuality finds a champion
Published on Jul 11th, 2002
0 comments By Sharon Lerner Ask Judith Levine when a kid ought to start having sex, and she'll respond like the levelheaded, Brooklyn- and Vermont-based liberal she is: "There are some 16-year-olds who can...
"Advice Columnist Landers dies..." A Remembrance
Published on Jul 4th, 2002
0 comments By Kay Slaughter Ann Landers crosses the city newsroom– in high heels, no less– like she owns the place; I am surprised at how small she is physically. She's perfectly coiffed and made up...
Jumbo jetting
Published on Jun 27th, 2002
0 comments By Michael W. Lynch Southwest Airlines recently limned why it's one of the few profitable airlines: it puts its customers first. That's the motivation– and the effect– of Southwest's...
Breast revenge
Published on Jun 20th, 2002
0 comments By Gersh Kuntzman Where’s our apology, Bob? That’s what Miami lawyer Reed Somberg wants to know.He filed a class-action suit against Penthouse Magazine owner Bob Guccione on the grounds that Guccione...
No comment
Published on Jun 13th, 2002
0 comments By Neil Steinberg One of the most vexing aspects of being fat– besides physical discomfort, medical woes, and looking bad– is that others feel compelled to inform you that you are fat, as...
Ozz fest
Published on Jun 6th, 2002
0 comments By Paul A. Cantor MTV's hit show, The Osbournes, recently completed its first season as a huge success, and I'm left wondering why.After 9/11, the conventional wisdom was that television programming...
Rebuild it big
Published on May 30th, 2002
0 comments I was never among the detractors of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s I lived in the East Village and loved seeing them daily as I walked to work. I’d take...
Kindred crazies
Published on May 23rd, 2002
0 comments The internet is outing me. What was once my deepest, darkest secret– that I fantasize about television actors– is a cottage industry on the internet. Forget the summer smash that the...
"I Hate Hella, All Montagues, and Thee"
Published on May 16th, 2002
0 comments By David Gentry San Francisco– If I were to write a haiku about goatees, it would end with the five-syllable line, "laughable face-hair."My friends and I have a little ongoing understanding...
Paper or plastic?
Published on May 9th, 2002
0 comments By Sheila Pell “Paper or plastic?”When you hear those musical words, you know you’ve reached the end of the line. That loaded question seems to carry more weight than all the polyethylene, paperboard...
Duped!
Published on May 2nd, 2002
0 comments By James A. Haught WELL, the recent Mothman movie stirred thoughts about the eagerness of some people to believe nutty things. Back in the 1960s, I wrote newspaper reports on the original Mothman...
Five dogs old: saying goodbye to April
Published on Apr 25th, 2002
0 comments I measure my life by dog lives. I am four dogs old. April is my fifth. Lately, April has developed a new habit: puking on rugs. She never pukes on the indestructible vinyl floor, only on the rug. My...
The triplet effect
Published on Apr 18th, 2002
0 comments By Thomas Fallace If you were at Starr Hill on April 10, you may have witnessed the following scene; a room full of tattooed, corduroy-clad neo-hippies bobbing their heads with eyes closed to the...
You have male
Published on Apr 11th, 2002
0 comments By Karen Lehrman For the past couple of decades women have been inundated with relationship advice. From books such as Smart Women, Foolish Choices to The Cinderella Complex to The Rules,...
This old T-shirt
Published on Apr 4th, 2002
0 comments My husband has never worn a suit to work. He has never had to interpret “office casual.” His entire two decades of working have been spent in uniforms, usually with his name embroidered on the breast...
I believe... that celibacy doesn't have a prayer
Published on Mar 28th, 2002
0 comments By Jimmy Breslin It looks like the only way to rehabilitate the Catholic Church is for all the priests who have girlfriends or are secretly married to come out as advertisements for Catholic sanity....
Design your baby?
Published on Mar 21st, 2002
0 comments A human being was spared the horror of losing her mind by age 40 by means of genetic testing, recently revealed the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Of course, this medical miracle...
Lay-ing low
Published on Mar 14th, 2002
0 comments By Joshua Green One of the more frustrating Republican talking points is the politically advantageous assertion that Enron's collapse, far from being a scandal, actually vindicates the free-market...
No excuse: ignorance doesn't equal innocence
Published on Mar 7th, 2002
0 comments What is really retarded here is the Supreme Court using Daryl Atkins as their test case to determine whether mentally retarded criminals should be executed.   You will never find a unanimous...
Musically rich
Published on Feb 28th, 2002
0 comments There are two kinds of rock n’ roll cult heroes: the kind that show up in cheesy posters hanging on dorm room walls and the kind that inhabit the hearts of musicians, critics, and musical snobs....
Blind justice
Published on Feb 21st, 2002
0 comments Jamie Salé and David Pelletier skate in the worn tracks of many athletes whose Olympic dreams have been dashed by iffy— or corrupt— officiating. At the controversial 396 BC Games, two of three...
Newspapers: our last connection?
Published on Feb 7th, 2002
0 comments As the TentMaker would have it: "The moving finger writes; and, having writ,//Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit//Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line//Nor all thy Tears wash out a word of it."...