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."