Why is Maisie so hateful?

The Light That Failed, by Rudyard Kipling, may be the saddest book of all time. It is the kind of book that rips your heart out, tears it into pieces, and jumps on them, only to find that it has not put on its cleats, so it goes to get them and then jumps some more.

In it, a man named Dick loves, with almost total self-effacement, a woman named Maisie. Maisie does not care tuppence for Dick. You would think this could end conventionally and you would be slightly sad for a brief period and then get over it.

But no. Maisie, despite apparently not caring whether Dick lives or dies, delights in breaking him. And, man, is he broken.

The book is one of my favorites, and Maisie is no one-dimensional cipher. That would make it better--one could then ascribe her deviltry to misogyny or poor writing. But she appears to be a human being who does these things. And that makes me sick.

Why do so many men have crew cuts?

You know why Don Draper gets all the women? I mean, sure, a sweet name, plus he's totally handsome and well dressed and it's 1960 and all women are sex-starved lunatics who will throw themselves at any man who presents himself.

But also, he has a good haircut. Short back-and-sides is fine, if you're, you know, eight. Once you hit high school, and especially university, you are expected to be able to wield a comb and look like an adult.

No one is saying you have to look like Peyton Manning. But you should also not look like a homeless man.

Why does church ruin shoes?

Pointy-toed shoes are my kryptonite. I own many pairs and I wear them often. It is a constant disappointment to me (and to my shoemaker) how dreadfully they are affected by a proper high mass.

When you kneel, you see, your toes have to go somewhere. Unless you have knees which bend in hideously inhuman ways, your toes will go more or less straight down. Regardless of the surface of the church floor, this will really do a number on your shoes. If they are fabric, it will wear the threads through. If they are suède, it will destroy the nap.

I am not suggesting that church involve less kneeling or that shoes have less pointy toes. I am merely observing one of the great injustices of life--that an admirable (or at least present) piety should have such a deleterious effect on one's sartorial choices.

Why is any dried fruit sweetened?

Fruit already has sugar in it! We are willing to eat fresh mango all by itself; why would we demand that it be sweetened when dried?

I don't have much of a sweet-tooth, I guess. But at hippie stores, I feel like things should not involve too much in the way of refined sugars.

Especially if they're already sweet.

Why do Jane Austen films have to be sexy?

Jane Austen is pretty much the least sexy writer ever. Anything sexy is decidedly off-screen and referred to in the most delicate of terms. Everyone is always fully clothed and decorous, unless totally debauched (and even then, off-screen). We still read her, though. Clearly there's something else there.

So why do the film adaptations get raunchy? We don't need to see Mr. Darcy bathing or swimming in his pond. We don't need to see Fanny Price undressing or washing her hair. We don't need Mary Crawford to hit on Fanny as well as Edmund. We certainly don't need to see Maria Rushworth (née Bertram) actually in bed with Henry Crawford. Nudity is strictly surplus to requirements.

I'm not going to quibble with the occasional interpolated smooch. This isn't Bollywood, and it started with Olivier, so I'll deal. I do object when it's in public, though. I mean, seriously? You went to the trouble of putting everyone in severely unflattering dresses, but you dispense with even elementary niceties?

Make up your own story if you want to have naked people on screen the whole time.

Why don't people understand question and answer sessions?

They are called this for a reason. You ask the speaker a question of clarification, and he answers it.

It is not appropriate, for instance, to give a short lecture on Aristotelian theories of the soul during the question and answer session for an explication du texte of the ransom of Hector in Iliad XXIV. Just hypothetically. Not that I've ever seen that happen.

We go to talks to hear the talk. You are not giving the talk. Nobody asked you. This might be galling to you, but that's just tough darts, bucko.

If you have a question, ask it. Then stop.

Why do women dye their hair in patently false colors?

And why are so many of those colors "19th century prostitute?"

Look, we all envy redheads, even though they have that pesky melanin deficiency and are derided as "ginger." However, most of us would look lousy with red hair. Indeed, many people who attempt it merely end up looking like Belle Watling. But more gross.

I can more or less understand the urge to experiment with hair color. But, unless you are a useless, attention-starved waste of space, it makes sense to attempt a color that suits you.

And also does not make you look like a street-walker. With tuberculosis.

Why do eateries have faux-folksy menus?

I got brunch in the West Village a few months back. And the menu was in faux-southern/frontier/nineteenth century slang. Par exemple, "Don't be bringin' in no outside vittles."

I am not kidding.

We all know that a few strategic mis-spellings or mis-punctuations on the menu add to the charm of a Chinese restaurant. This is quite stupid and mildly racist, but it's also the way it is. Fine.

Those are Chinese restaurants, not diners in lower Manhattan. In this context, the language is out of place, obfuscatory, and asinine. If you want to add authenticity to a place like that, make the air freshener smell of nicotine.

Why does everyone hate Tom Cruise?

And, still worse, why does everyone try to justify this hatred? I hate Renée Zellweger, but I have accepted that this is irrational.

I will here explicate the reasons that people hate Tom Cruise, and refute them.

1. He may have kidnapped Katie Holmes. I actually don't know anything about this one, nor do I care. Celebrities have messed up lives, and I won't try to fathom their choices, but I will point out that Ms. Holmes is an adult, and, if she wants to marry Tom Cruise, she is allowed to do so.

2. He's crazy. This may be true. I still don't care. Scientology is weird, but it really doesn't stack up to other neuroses and beliefs that many celebrities have. Remember, people, Angelina Jolie used to carry around Billy Bob Thornton's blood in a little bottle. That is monkey-dirt crazy. Jumping around on couches is just weird.

3. He's arrogant. Compared to whom, exactly? Is he not allowed to make movies about heroes? Did people pass judgement on James Mason for his portrayal of Erwin Rommel? At least he doesn't maunder on about his art. Or be Sean Penn.

4. He's too noticeable in films. Again, compared to whom? Did you fail to recognize Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading? No, you didn't. Most actors are pretty recognizable in films, once they get famous, so this objection is basically "Tom Cruise is famous," which, while true, is not much of a reason to hate him as opposed to all other famous people.

5. He made Cocktail. Yeah, I can't argue with this one. He also, however, made A Few Good Men, Jerry Maguire, Born on the Fourth of July, Minority Report, Top Gun, and Risky Business. I have seen terrible films starring Laurence Olivier. So, really....

You can hate Tom Cruise. That's cool. I hate lots of things. But to hate him because it's currently fashionable to do so, well, that's really stupid and lame.

Why do people pronounce "polis" with a long O?

It's an omicron, people. That "micron" bit? It's in opposition to the "mega" bit on "omega." It means "small." Or, for us, "short."

I don't care what you think about reconstructions of classical Greek pronunciation. You have to differentiate the omicron from the omega. Unless you are perverse, this leaves you with a short O for the omicron and a long one for the omega.

If you say "poe-liss," you sound like a twerp.

Why is the MTA awful on weekends?

All I wanted was to get up and down the west side. But no. The B is not running. The C is not running. The 3 is not running.

Seriously? You're supposed to be a real city, New York. You're not Philadelphia. This is embarrassing.

Why is there no cheap Indian food where I live?

This is unacceptable. I realize I was spoilt in university by having three Indian restaurants per university town in which I lived, but having none is absurd.

Well, we have one. But it's hideously over-priced and not that good. A bad combination.

All I want is cheap vegetable korma. It's not even hard to make! I hate you all.

Why did King Arthur happen?

I propose that, if you wish to make a silly movie about quasi-history, Picts, and Romans, you are totally allowed to do so, but you should probably not name the characters Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and so on and so forth.

Yes, King Arthur/Camelot/Excalibur/etc. is a mythic-type story, and therefore open to re-interpretation and the like. However. There are certain fixed points.

1. The love triangle. There is no point in having a Guinevere and a Lancelot if there is not, you know, a Guinevere and a Lancelot. Having Keira Knightley and Ioan Gruffudd glare at each other is not the same.

2. The death of Arthur. This story, however goofy it may get in the middle, and however tidy the leaves and regimented the snow, does not have a happy ending. The wedding is the beginning, not the end.

3. Morgan le Fay. You are totally allowed to take magic out of the equation. Merlin can be just a crazy old man. That's fine. But he has to be there. Same with Morgan. Saxons make great nemeses, so keep them if you like, but witches make even better ones.

I realize that no one would have gone to see the movie if it had been released as A Bunch of Dirty Dudes Kill Saxons and Keira Knightley Doesn't Wear Much. Well, maybe they would have. But that's beside the point. It would still have been a better movie. It would have made sense, and not left everyone going, "So...the Lady of the Lake? Uther Pendragon? Helloooooo?" And you could still have giant piles of hay and pitch!

Um. Also. Mongolia is not on the Black Sea, so you may want to re-think Mads Mikkelsen's helmet just a little bit.

Why was Roger Moore ever James Bond?

This is a difficult matter for me, because for some reason I grew up thinking that Roger Moore was James Bond, and all the others were pale, worthless impostors.

And then I realized that Roger Moore probably can't kill an ant without feeling squeamish and that he is kind of a useless pretty boy--and not really that pretty. Timothy Dalton and Sean Connery would probably kill you if they had the chance. Daniel Craig would definitely kill you if he had the chance. I don't know about how much Pierce Brosnan would want to kill you, but he brings me to my next point.

Roger Moore? All these women? Seriously?

Even in the 70s, which were a miserable wasteland, I'm going to go with no.

Why do people still think punk is edgy?

It was edgy literally decades ago. Decades.

Yes, I like The Clash too. This does not, however, mean that I will wear tight pants and a leather jacket and pretend that I am so very counter-cultural that it is impossible for me to muster enthusiasm for anything but looking vaguely disgruntled and complaining about the Man.

There is a Hot Topic in every mall in the United States. Punk is a brand. It fails to be the establishment, not because it is revolutionary, but because it is passé.

I do not look at you contemptuously because you threaten the order to which I so desperately cling. I look at you contemptuously because you are a boring, delusional sheep.

Why don't people know how to cut limes?

You cut them along the long axis, people!

This is how you make wedges for your drinks. Get it together.

Why is there a Pro Bowl?

There are a lot of good reasons there shouldn't be a Pro Bowl. You've probably heard them all.

But the one that matters is this: it invariably stinks.

Why do women ruin films (part 4)?

Ever After is a clever movie, and as moderately feminist re-tellings of Cinderella go it is neither particularly heavy-handed nor asinine. Dougray Scott has the most attractive and least insane rôle of his career so far, and the secondary and tertiary characters are engaging.

So why, oh why, was Drew Barrymore allowed to infect that movie with a fake British accent even worse than Sean Astin's? I haven't seen the Madonna film with the terrible fake British accent, but I'm pretty sure this one gives it a run for its money.

Look, I have accepted the convention of British accent as generalized foreign accent (daft as it may be; British people are, definitionally, not foreigners), but can it not be awful? And, of course, pick a single accent! You can't be Oxbridge one moment and East End the next! (Well, you can, but only if the part demands it, not merely if you're incompetent and can't tell the difference.)

I could perhaps suspend disbelief enough to accept that I'm not supposed to think that Drew Barrymore looks like a frog (a literal frog, people). But it is too difficult when her middle-school theatre British accent is obtruding itself on my attention every other second. There are British actresses! Really, there are! Some of them are not aesthetic snobs! And we have heard of them! You can put them in silly films! Please!

Why do people buy elaborately healthy coffee drinks?

Everybody knows that ordering one's effete coffee-type caffeinated beverage takes about four minutes. This is one of the many signs of the decline of civilization. After this it's bread, circuses, and vomitoria.

Latte? Mocha? Macchiato? Soy milk? Skim milk? Two percent? No whip? Sugar free? There are no end to the modifications required to make what should be a pleasant steaming cup over which to sit and chat into a quasi-sports drink of misery and death.

You want a low-calorie, low-fat caffeinated drink?

Drink coffee.

Why do men wear pre-tied bow ties?

Note that here I do not say "gentlemen."

Look, it's really not that difficult to learn to tie a bow tie. I haven't done one in a while, but I'm pretty sure that, given about two tries, I could produce a respectable butterfly. Also, pre-tied ties are extremely obvious even to the casual observer, and make the wearer look like an infant.

Furthermore, though I abhor the wearing of four-in-hands, Windsor knots, etc. for dinner dress, these styles are now widely accepted, so there is no reason ever to wear a bow tie if you are for some reason incapable of tying one.

Because you are five years old.