Wes Phillips

"Imagine that your only contact with 'English' as a subject was through classes in school. Suppose that those classes, from elementary school right through to high school, amounted to nothing more than reading dictionaries, getting drilled in spelling and formal grammatical construction, and memorizing vast vocabulary lists—you never read a novel, nor a poem; never had contact with anything beyond the pedantic complexity of English spelling and formal grammar, and precise definitions for an endless array of words."

Because it has just been too long since I posted anything about Harry Beck's iconic London">http://www.clarksbury.com/cdl/maps/tube38.jpg">London Tube Map and I gets all itchy when that happens.

Is depression an epidemic? Barbara Ehrenreich says that the way that depression seemed to sweep across Western Europe in the 17th Century looks like one, but is probably the result of the modern age's celebration of individuality. An increased sense of personal autonomy was accompanied by the loss of communal rituals and festivities that emphasized belonging to communities.

Speaking of having fun . . . .

Unconventional portraits of US presidents, the works in Mr. President "run the gamut from irreverent humor to deeply felt homage."

Chandler Phillips thought he was applying to Edmunds.com for a job writing an advice column on buying and leasing cars. The editors had a better idea. They asked him to go undercover and work as a salesman at two lots: a high-pressure import dealership on the "auto mile" and a no-haggle American showroom.

Kate Colquhoun reviews Martin Jones's Feast: Why Humans Share Food. At first I thought the article's title was absurdly inflated, but I was convinced by the time Colquhoun wrote: "To mangle Brillat-Savarin, he dissects not just what early humans ate, but how they ate, in order to draw conclusions about who they were. In the process, he proves once again that food and the ways we have chosen to process and proffer it can be more revealing than any other historical or prehistoric artefact."