Wouldn't you know?

The New Yorker gets shut out of the National Magzine Awards and I get all huffy. New York Magazine indeed. Now that's a magazine so lame it doesn't even have it's own loyal-critical blog! (In all honesty I have not checked.)

brilliant commentary on the style issue

Or, Notes on Marx from the Park Cities People Blog.

First, the initial response.

Then, a double take. Includes the following, "And lookie there! Bingo. Right on! Woo!" You'll want to read these, even if you skipped most of Patricia Marx, "Dressin' Texas" in the March 19 issue.

Park Cities, it would seem, is a well-to-do suburb in Dallas.

Famous Scrota in Literature, a brief intro

"Keep your eye on the rats. You better have the lead in your lap, handy."

So she dropped the lump into my lap just at that moment, and I clapped my legs together on it and she went on talking. But only about a minute. Then she took off the hank and looked me straight in the face, and very pleasant, and says:

"Come, now, what's your real name?"

"Wh -- what, mum?"

"What's your real name? Is it Bill, or Tom, or Bob? -- or what is it?"

I reckon I shook like a leaf, and I didn't know hardly what to do.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 11.

Another book, arguably for young people (and famous for its use of another word) doesn't use the word scrotum. I'd love it if Madame Librarian posted on the Newberry Award winning children's book that does, but Electric Warrior does a fine job. NYT coverage here.

Actually, as far as I can tell, the plot of The Higher Power of Lucky is a quest for the definition of the word scrotum, which is a great plot for a children's book - all about what's said and not said. In the 19th century, it might have been a quest for the definition of appendix.

Illustration by E.W. Kemble, I think. PS. It was Benj who drew the literary comparison here.

it's like a petition.

Written by James Wolcott and signed, with tough-love, by so many of us. "Smugged by Reality," a biting review of Adam Gopnik's Through the Children's Gate in The New Republic.

Do a Google search for Wolcott Gopnik and you'll find a fair number of bloggers and comment-ers who were so tired of Gopnik's kitsch and would ask him to tone it down, just a bit.

At Gawker. The Nation was quick to the punch, though Hansen jabbed lightly.

Most bloggers just link merrily and move on. There's nothing to add, really. Linkers of various stripes:

Roth Brothers, Diary of a Rat, Biffles at the Bijou, Clive Davis, Christopher Hayes, dcat, lowebrow, Rising Hegemon, The Elegant Variation, Penguins on the Equator, Jewcy, gall and gumption, the stood, All Intensive Purposes (notes the Auster, oh yes), Books are my only friends, The Huffington Post, Bruce Feiler, and, tried and true, Madame Emdashes . . .

And how modest and self-effacing is our hero? The groundswell takes Wolcott by surprise, over at his VF blog.

One lonely Dad comes to Gopnik's defense. If you see more, let me know.

mixed metaphors, odd maxims and mediums

It's all too, too much. Ken Auletta performs something rather elaborate for mediabistro's Dorian Benkoil. Thanks for tip, zigzigger.

You've Got a Friend in Pennsylvania

Given that crazy WASP-a-thon in the Dec 18 issue, I think Tad Friend is probably not the kid who grew up in Torrance, CA, dissed two wheelchair-bound hotties in a seedy hotel lobby and then wrote about it for Details.