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

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

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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!

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Articles by Sarah D. Bunting

The Vine: January 6, 2012
January 6, 2012 – 3:48 PM | 53 Comments
The Vine: January 6, 2012

I wonder if the Nation can help me with a retail request. I’m a graduate student, and I’ve just split the seams on my trusty old backpack. I’m looking for a replacement that can hold …

The Vine: January 4, 2012
January 4, 2012 – 11:22 AM | 52 Comments
The Vine: January 4, 2012

Mine is a question involving grammar and preserving my sanity. I work for a very wealthy family who, rather than solely passing on genetic markers, pass on one particularly grievous grammatical error. It started with …

Word Of The Day: “tweedious”
January 2, 2012 – 6:08 PM | 25 Comments
Word Of The Day: “tweedious”

tweedious. adj. 1. portmanteau of “twee” and “tedious.” 2. portmanteau of “tweet” and “tedious.”
I assumed the first definition is the obvious one, but when I said the word aloud with no context, Wing defined it …

31/31: Pariah
December 31, 2011 – 11:08 AM | One Comment
31/31: <I>Pariah</I>

Get me a beer, please.
It’s Sunday morning!
It goes with the spaghetti!
Pariah is in many ways a standard sexual-identity coming-of-age story. Teenager Alike (Adepero Oduye) (and it’s pronounced “ah-LEE-kay”…geddit?) is gay, and outside the …

30/31: Red Riding: In The Year Of Our Lord 1974
December 30, 2011 – 11:54 AM | 10 Comments
30/31: <I>Red Riding: In The Year Of Our Lord 1974</I>

I get to a point in a film-watching sprint where I begin to wonder if I can recognize a good film any longer. I’ll hit a C-minus/D-plus patch, which is usually only two or three …

The Vine: December 30, 2011
December 30, 2011 – 9:44 AM | 13 Comments
The Vine: December 30, 2011

After seeing the Vine readers find so many lost books, I’m hoping they have enough arcane knowledge to help with this. I’m looking not for a lost book, but for a lost joke.
My family …

29/31: The tin ear of The Iron Lady
December 29, 2011 – 4:05 PM | 8 Comments
29/31: The tin ear of <I>The Iron Lady</I>

“One must be brave if one is to take the wheel.” — Margaret Thatcher, teaching her daughter to drive, and the rest of us how not to write
Imagine the movies that the life of Margaret …

28/31: My Week With Marilyn
December 28, 2011 – 9:30 PM | 10 Comments
28/31: <I>My Week With Marilyn</I>

“…Actors.” — everyone
Marilyn Monroe and her myth: spare me. I just really don’t care. I have compassion for her, for what she must have gone through that opened that maw of insecurity and narcissism, but …

The Vine: December 28, 2011
December 28, 2011 – 9:24 AM | 68 Comments
The Vine: December 28, 2011

Backstory: childhood best friend and I have been good friends for about 23 years now. We were in preschool together, most of the same classes until we graduated high school, sleepovers, the whole “golden childhood …

27/31: Jane Eyre and the art of getting to the point
December 28, 2011 – 12:01 AM | 19 Comments
27/31: <I>Jane Eyre</I> and the art of getting to the point

Cary Fukunaga’s adaptation of Jane Eyre is gorgeous — and savvy. Fukunaga and adapter Moira Buffini understand what everyone’s come for, which is what everyone’s come for since the nineteenth century: a woman who is …