Baseball

“I wrote 63 songs this year. They’re all about Jeter.” Just kidding. The game we love, the players we hate, and more.

Culture and Criticism

From Norman Mailer to Wendy Pepper — everything on film, TV, books, music, and snacks (shut up, raisins), plus the Girls’ Bike Club.

Donors Choose and Contests

Helping public schools, winning prizes, sending a crazy lady in a tomato costume out in public.

Stories, True and Otherwise

Monologues, travelogues, fiction, and fart humor. And hens. Don’t forget the hens.

The Vine

The Tomato Nation advice column addresses your questions on etiquette, grammar, romance, and pet misbehavior. Ask The Readers about books or fashion today!

The Vine: December 28, 2012
December 28, 2012 · 17 Comments
The Vine: December 28, 2012

I could use some help on this, please. It’s a short children’s story (I think I found it in an English/Literature textbook when in 7th grade) about this fairy/elf-type being whose job it is to …

Small Sacrifices: Inappropriation
December 26, 2012 · 5 Comments
<I>Small Sacrifices</I>: Inappropriation

The crime
Diane Downs, a postal worker, claimed a burly stranger had carjacked her and her three children, shooting one fatally and leaving the other two permanently impaired. At least she didn’t blame an African-American male…but …

The Vine: December 26, 2012
December 26, 2012 · 27 Comments
The Vine: December 26, 2012

I have a bit of an apartment problem. Our upstairs neighbors are stompy walkers. I seriously don’t understand how normal human beings can make this much noise when they walk. It’s not a normal “all …

Arbitrage: No money down
December 23, 2012 · 5 Comments
<I>Arbitrage</I>: No money down

Apparently, Arbitrage is getting some Oscars notice. True, said “notice” may consist primarily of its own PR team, but Couch Baron and I decided to check it out, mostly to see if yet another “high-finance …

The Vine: December 21, 2012
December 21, 2012 · 34 Comments
The Vine: December 21, 2012

 
Since we’re all still here, let’s track down some books, eh what?
*****
I’ve searched for this book on Google and came up with nothing. I read this book in middle school (late ’90s). It’s about a …

The Age of Innocence (1934): Subtraction by addition
December 21, 2012 · 4 Comments
<I>The Age of Innocence</I> (1934): Subtraction by addition

The Age of Innocence‘s 1934 iteration is an interesting prospect. The stymied romance between old-money lawyer Newland Archer (John Boles) and his bland but correct fiancée’s bohemian cousin Ellen Olenska (Irene Dunne), recently escaped from …

The Vine: December 19, 2012
December 19, 2012 · 34 Comments
The Vine: December 19, 2012

I’m a happily married mother of two young children; my husband and I are both in our mid-thirties. We don’t really disagree about much and we have a pretty great life. But even though we …

Blood and Honor: Listening to the Crow
December 17, 2012 · 15 Comments
<I>Blood and Honor</I>: Listening to the Crow

“Bruno was the consummate racketeer. Scarfo, on the other hand, was a gangster.”
The crime
It’s about the self-destruction the Philly mob, so: pick your felony. But implied also is a metaphorical crime, an affront to the …

The Vine: December 14, 2012
December 14, 2012 · 46 Comments
The Vine: December 14, 2012

Here’s two for the readers. The first was a book on tape that I listened to but never finished, probably sometime around 1998, although the book itself definitely predated that — I want to say it …

The Vine: December 12, 2012
December 12, 2012 · 28 Comments
The Vine: December 12, 2012

I’ve got a “please help me find this song” request to put out there.  My hard-to-buy-for boyfriend has heard a song in the yoga class we’ve been taking, and I’d like to get him a  copy …