It is indubitably an unwise course of action to trifle with your wife’s assertions of fact. Fortunately, in this case, there appears to have been no lasting damage to wife or writing implement, but other cases have eventuated a more tragic outcome.

There is also a lesson here for the young master or mistress who is tempted to interrogate his or her own tonsils with nothing more suitable than a household mirror and a felt pen. If you must, then by all means maintain equilibrium whilst doing so.

Goethe offers some learned ruminations on the art of courting the fair sex.

It seems quite beyond dispute that, for example, Mr. Wooster excels at being that for which Nature has made him.

Nor can it be denied that Nature has a piquant sense of humor.

However, it is my distinct impression that the Mormonites take a rather different view of the matter.

“… the league could begin to dissemble quickly. “

One grants the BYU athletics programme its reputation for probity. Not many institutions of higher education would sacrifice a snatch at the brass ring of the NCAA championship by suspending a key player for an Honors Code violation at the crucial moment.

However, one cannot help but question whether it is reasonable to expect BYU to be able to transmit its ethic of honesty to an entire league.

But I confess the possibility that I have missed a subtle difference between the Queen’s English and the American tongue.

The inestimable Glenn Reynolds, sometimes jocularly addressed as His Hehness, has made a recommendation. I find it apt.    (more…)

One remarks the evident parallels to the oeuvre of Shelley.

I cannot advise applications for DARPA grants that implicitly rely on the immoderate ingestion of domestically-produced pharmaceuticals.

While advocating a policy of “wait-and-see” on the advisability of the Chevy Volt–such a policy appealing to men as eminent as the late President Coolidge–I take the liberty of recommending the journalistic longeurs of Mr. Weingarten of the Washington Post. They are calculated to amuse, enlighten, and instruct. If one must write about the Chevy Volt, one should one do it thus.

When the bells jostle in the tower,
The hollow night amid,
Then on my tongue the taste is sour
Of all I ever did.
(more…)

I recommend Mr. B.R. Myers’ review of Franzen’s latest. His dictum “the language a writer uses to create a world is that world” goes to the the heart of the matter.

One suggests seeds.

Gentlemen whose tastes incline to the historical can do no better than this excellent review of recent writing on the fall of the Roman Empire.

 he may casually admit to wearing women’s cosmetics.

It would not be amiss for the gentlemen of Masten to indulge in uproarious celebration, though if I may, these distances are best expressed in inches. Thank you, gentlemen.

I should scarcely advise it.

One contemplates with quiet satisfaction the edifying spectacle of the advance of science.