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: March 19, 2008
March 19, 2008 · No Comment
The Vine: March 19, 2008

 “Mommeeeeeeeeeee!”
I know you ALWAYS get cat questions, but this one goes off one you answered last year because it raised a discussion between a friend and myself. She now thinks I am a heartless …

Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox
March 19, 2008 · 4 Comments
<I>Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox</I>

You can’t say Dr. Bronner didn’t lead a remarkable life, so it’s rather unfortunate that the weakest parts of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox are the sequences during which Bronner himself is talking — expounding on …

Vacation reading list
March 14, 2008 · 31 Comments

I’m out of town for a few days; while I’m gone, I’ll be finishing Posner’s Case Closed, and starting I Love You, Beth Cooper and that book on the TV-news wars Kim lent me months …

The Vine: March 13, 2008
March 13, 2008 · No Comment

Hi Sars,
It’s really kind of embarrassing that I have to ask this question — I go to an Ivy League university and while browsing the library page today I noticed the following:
“On this day… …

The Vine: March 12, 2008
March 12, 2008 · No Comment

Sarah, I really need a third-party opinion.
BF and I have been dating for nearly four years, and we have a very loving and committed relationship. Unfortunately, we also have very, very differing views about …

The Innocent Man
March 10, 2008 · 15 Comments

John Grisham’s fiction isn’t my thing — the one novel I read twenty years ago was plenty — but I read good reviews of The Innocent Man, his foray into non-fiction/true crime, and I had …

FMK: Quirky Teen-Focused Indies
March 9, 2008 · 41 Comments

For those of you not familiar, “FMK” stands for “Fuck, Marry, Kill”; for those of you not familiar with that, it’s like Death Is Not An Option, but with another element added. Like DINAO, you …

Reader follow-ups
March 7, 2008 · 6 Comments

Reader Alexis had this to add re: the Vine letter of March 4:
 

The case of “hard to underestimate” that you discussed in The Vine recently was investigated on the linguistics blog Language Log in 2004: …

The Vine: March 7, 2008
March 7, 2008 · 20 Comments

Hi Sarah,
Your readers have done such a good job of finding books and music I thought I’d give you all a shot at this one. My sister and I are looking for a children’s book …

So…
March 6, 2008 · No Comment

…that happened. (tm State And Main)