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: January 13, 2012
January 13, 2012 · 112 Comments
The Vine: January 13, 2012

I have hair.  And when I say that, I mean I have hair.  It doesn’t go far past my shoulders, but it is thick, and coarse, and full of weird waves and cowlicks.  It has …

The Hour
January 11, 2012 · 5 Comments
<I>The Hour</I>

The Hour is greater than the sum of its parts, which isn’t to say that it’s great, exactly. It has a lot of problems: anachronistic language; feet-planted speechifying, also rather anachronistic, about marriage and the …

The Vine: January 11, 2012
January 11, 2012 · 30 Comments
The Vine: January 11, 2012

My best friend is just that because she’s fun, honest, caring, and a truly good person. I know I can count on her for…well, almost everything.
Here’s the thing — BF believes she can’t have a …

The Vine: January 6, 2012
January 6, 2012 · 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 · 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 · 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 · 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 · 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 · 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 · 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 …