I owe particular thanks for this post to Beck Wise, who gave me the this idea in the first place.

As many literary archivists know, reading societies were a prominent feature of the 19^th and prewar-20^th century American social scene. They provided a valuable and oft-overlooked service giving women and people of color a voice in literary and cultural affairs in the days before the academy had been more fully opened, and, the story goes, largely faded away once it had.

As T.S. Eliot puts it in The Waste Land:

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

I recently had a teaching experience I could only compare to being on a sinking ship—like the band on the Titanic, I played my song dutifully as I sunk into the murky waters. With every word I spoke, attempting to explain the material I prepared, I could sense the students’ disinterest, disengagement, and utter confusion. This wasn’t the first time I experienced this sinking feeling of a total misfire while teaching, nor do I expect it to be the last time. And do you know whose fault it was? Julian Casablancas. 

Throughout the Bachelor Finale and the "After the Final Rose" episode, Chris Harrison promised us, the "Bachelor Nation" an "unprecedented announcement." After much speculation on Twitter and at home, Jimmy Kimmel's gift of a steer named Juan Pablo and the coerced promise that Ashley S. would appear on Bachelor in Paradise, Chris Harrison revealed the big announcement: there would be two Bachelorettes next season instead of one, and the men would get to vote which Bachelorette would stay to the finale based on who would be the best wife.