Smart Things I Have Done While You Were Watching Sportsball
Silently congratulated myself in Trader Joe’s after realizing that I didn’t know who won the most recent N.B.A. Finals.
All Work
New F.B.I.-Director Job Application
Please write seven hundred words in response to the following prompt: The President has done nothing wrong and even the fake-news media knows it.
Trump’s Presidency Is Ruining My Personal Brand
How am I supposed to Instagram my brunch with all this going on?
Honest Museum Audio Tour
Shouts & Murmurs: You’re thinking that this type of painting is easy, and that you could do it. It’s not, and you couldn’t.
Rant
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, arguing starving hysterical on Facebook over whether a vote for Jill Stein was defensible.
Donald Trump, Private Eye
It was late, folks, let me tell you. The kind of late where I knew only trouble could find me.
I Wrote a Thing
By “thing,” of course, I could mean anything—a poem, a movie review, a seven-hundred-word unsolicited essay about why having a library card makes me better…
Libel Law, Trump-Style
“I’ll have to see what Donald Trump thinks before making up my mind.”
Where My Ideas Come From
Some readers may think that I plucked “The Die Hard Adventure” out of thin air, but it was actually influenced by a “Miami Vice” rerun.
John Travolta Has Yet to Be Recognized at This Pizzeria
I’m a legend. I starred in “Saturday Night Fever.” I fly planes, for God’s sake. I don’t crave attention.
Trapped Inside a Tom Waits Song
You’ll be approached by an unwashed man in a top hat. He was once a ventriloquist, but that was long ago. He hopes his wife…
Briefly Noted
Bolívar, by Marie Arana (Simon & Schuster). The “George Washington of South America,” who freed various countries from Spanish colonial rule, emerges in this account…