Maybe some of that $15 million Columbia University just received for a center devoted to digital journalism can be used to figure out why there are, as of now, two Jersey Shore posts here on this website, over the course of just two days. The same grant can pay someone to parse how Avatar, Katie Roiphe's favorite authors and pop sociology intersect with any of this. Until then, let me do my part. READ MORE

So in high school we were forced to buy this English language handbook called Warriner's. The book was bright red like an biohazard needle drop box, but that has nothing to do with the fact that the faculty revered it. Some teachers, particularly the much older ones, referenced it regularly. The Jesuits, who could be iffy on the existence of God and other metaphysical questions, were dogmatic about whatever the hell Warriner's decreed. Its rules of grammar and composition were gospel. READ MORE

So last week I was wondering to what extent, geographically speaking, Beggars' Night was celebrated. Growing up in Buffalo, we always went trick-or-treating the night before Halloween, October 30th-Beggars' Night. And on Halloween...well I don't really remember what we did on Halloween. Watch Home Alone? Maybe we went trick-or-treating again? As a kid, I pretty much thought that the way we lived was the way everyone did. Our nasal, elongated vowels. Ordering chicken wings together with pizza. Living in the same place as basically all of your relatives. Six-years-old-me believed Beggar's Night was everywhere. READ MORE

So I stayed in to watch Saturday Night Live last Saturday. I know you believe me, because, like my bio says, now I live at home with my parents. But that notwithstanding, I like to watch SNL, well, live. I'm sort of a news junkie and the 90 minutes of sketch comedy/whatever really tees up the Sunday morning talk shows for me. Remember that one Road Rules/Real World Challenge when Ayanna freaks out about sleeping in her game day clothes? Where she's so ready to compete that she sleeps in her uniform? Well, that's me every Saturday to Sunday. Except my uniform is sweatpants. And my competition is Jake Tapper tweeting about Peggy Noonan. READ MORE

So I have swine flu. I mean, probably not, but I did get horribly sick last Tuesday. It's more logical that I just have the regular flu: more people get that one, and the symptoms as far as I can tell are pretty much the same. But because I've always been a sucker for common experiences-American Idol, paying attention to Major League Baseball playoffs, totally missing The Wire the first time around-I'm declaring this bout swine flu. Swine flu-not regular flu-has captured our imagination this year. Swine flu-not regular flu-is what gets Matt and Meredith talking on the Today show. And I want to be part of the conversation. READ MORE

I always considered David Letterman a sort of father figure. With two baby boomer parents, I basically have two moms: first, my dad who blogs and reads Sufi poetry and cooks with ghee and wears bright colors, and second, my mom, who is saint for signing up for this. And so, growing up I depended on late night talk shows for the little genderizing that actually happened to me. Letterman, his shoulder as cold as the notoriously freezing Ed Sullivan Theater, represented for me a sort of fucked-up machismo. Where you come to work hammered and laugh at your own jokes and swallow your ailments and anxieties and hurt so that the only part of them we see is the times you're mean to that Hello Deli guy. You don't blog. You don't wear pink. READ MORE

I guess I knew about Wendy Williams in the same way that our culture makes little girls know they should wear princess dresses or little boys know they should play with trucks. The kind of knowing that results from those culturally hegemonic signals that fall somewhere between English teacher favorites "nature" and "nurture." You know: how orphan Pip, bouncing from here to there all those years, was ever socialized. For example, I had heard Will Smith or Jay-Z or Lil' Wayne rap about a Wendy. And I remember how an old colleague of mine tuned into some Wendy for "you know, the gossip." READ MORE