We should have stayed in the Groves of Academe to use Mary Mc Carthy's old phrase (or was it Ovid? Everything is always Ovid) so out of touch with everyday intellectual tastes are we. Thus David Remnick publishing in the middle brow New Yorker a silly piece (not as silly as the internet stalker article to be sure) why the Dutch are taller than Americans. My ex was of Dutch extraction and at 6'5" had tall genes, period. The US has Latin, Mediterranean stock far outnumbering Germanic or Nordic stock so we are shorter. Period.

Then Janet Maslin reviewing a childish book "Bergdorf Blondes" in the New York Times. Eh bien!