The Lexicographer's Rules

"While great endings have always been the exception, not the rule, they seem on the verge of extinction in today's pop-culture marketplace. That's because great endings require a lot of things that aren't fashionable in this age of flash and spectacle. They're the culmination of ideas and emotions, of things that take time and energy, skill and inspiration to create. In other words, there are no shortcuts. Even more confounding for an entertainment industry addicted to splashy spectacles and techno-tricks: Great endings can't be faked. There's no high-tech twist under the virtual sun that can make a good ending out of a bad one."

—Dallas Morning News. Tom Maurstad writes, "Most movies today are over before they begin. Thanks to tell-all trailers and stick-figure stories, you don't have to actually see a new release to feel like you've seen it."'

"Sometimes, I almost decided that there was no point in going on, but I thought that it would be even worse for my family if I wasn't there. Though there were days when I felt so useless that I even wondered about that. But that wasn't the worst moment. It came when I had to sell my viola. It was not especially valuable, but it had been my father's and my grandfather's, and I could make it sing. I've got another one now which is supposed to be as good, but it'll never be the same. The man who bought mine; God, he got a bargain, I was so desperate. Anyway, he's moved to Petersburg, and I've lost touch with him. I'd give him five times what he paid to get my little violuschka back."

—The Spectator. Arkady, now a taxi driver, but fallen from the life he led during the Soviet era, recounts the changes wrought in him and his country. "It's all right for you Westerners. You come here, eat caviar, see the good side. And maybe you're right; maybe things will improve. But I feel used up. I was born in a bad world which has gone, but I cannot find pleasure in this new world that's replaced it, which you tell me is good. Perhaps it will be okay for my children. I don't think it'll ever be okay for me."'

"A common freshman lament is, 'I was a lot smarter before I got here,'" Dr. Coleman said. He asked the parents how many had marveled at how little homework their children did in high school. Numerous hands went up. College will demand more than high school, he said. "This is a place where you can take a week off and be a thousand pages behind."

—Dallas Morning News. Universities across the country are being more open with parents and students about the pitfalls they can encounter. This new openness means warnings about alcohol abuse, rape, credit cards and time management.'

"Clothing' and 'XXXL' produced 4,630 sites, mostly mail-order companies. At XXXXXXL, we were down to 38, including the last gasp of the Morbid Obesity Support Group, which recommends stomach-stapling as a cure and produces a 'Look I'm Melting' T-shirt in this size. By XXXXXXXXXL, we were down to four entries, including a New Zealand shop that once supplied the King of Tonga. Curiously, the Americans seemed to have dropped out at this stage. At XXXXXXXXXXL, though, Team USA made a comeback with the Fat Shack, a 'size-positive' mail-order firm from Georgia whose biggest number is a $26, 83-inch-chest shirt reading, 'This isn't a belly, it's a work of art'. At 11 Xs the search finally petered out, suggesting either that the limits of gluttony had been reached or that it was simply time to try tent manufacturers."

—The Spectator. James Langton looks into the evidence of an overweight America, including searching the web for super-sized clothing. Summary: we are lard-asses. "Almost every concert venue, from the Kennedy Center in Washington to the Hollywood Bowl, has now put in bigger seats, almost always reducing capacity in the process. One sports stadium decreased its capacity by 5,000. The Century City Opera House in Colorado replaced its 17-inch seats with a 22-inch model, and held an open day for patrons to try them. Quaintly, the American Association of Architects still lists 18 inches as the industry standard in building design. As Tim Hussey of the Hussey Seating Company puts it, though, 'We make 18-inch seats, but nobody's buying them.'"'

"My immigrant grandparents were poor, and proud of it. They told great stories of the Depression, making potatoes for unemployed men walking by the house in the middle of the day and being happy to do it. Stories of victory gardens and neighbors helping neighbors. Jell-O salad, once thought of as ingenuity in stretching the budget is now a staple at family picnics where my siblings each own two cars per family. My simple gifts of organic veggies, which would go for top dollar at health food stores, are frowned upon merely because they identify me in my poverty-ridden state. I can't even afford the bananas to float in the gelatin. I remain the elite of the poor, living on the poverty line but raising children who see a socially conscious, active parent."

—Hartford Advocate. Catherine Allegretti writes about living just beyond official poverty line, while trying to remain above the morass of poverty culture. "When does being poor stop being fun? Perhaps it is that first trip to the local food bank. I am the only white person in line in a town where I rarely see non-whites. I am embarrassed because my awareness of the racial imbalance in my area never bothered me, until now. I am embarrassed because I have a car (OK, my car is rusty and 15 years old, but I have one and it isn't trailing a muffler). I am embarrassed because I decided that in order to beg for food, I must look nice, so I wear the 10-year-old Dansko clogs I found abandoned on the lawn at Wesleyan University. I wear the wool sweater I knit from wool I had unraveled from wool sweater rejects I found at the dump. I look cool, I look simple, I look... trendy. Not poor."'