This Week's Verbatim

Overheard at Princeton...

Making Time

Tom Ledford

The history of standard time began in the mid-1800s, when train companies in Britain began to adopt a time standard based on the sun position at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, called Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Before this, every town would have its own time standard.

The Library Full of Bowling Balls

Zack Newick

The short story form is a special kind of animal. It is the form that students of fiction are made to learn first, as though crafting a finely-spun tale of less than twenty or so pages is the first step toward tackling the beast that is the novel. But this is mostly nonsense.

Holding Out For a Hero

James Cunningham

Paul Revere, Abraham Lincoln, Wyatt Earp, Jackie Robinson, John Wayne, Jesse Owens, Rudy, Rocky, Rambo, Ronald Reagan, Pat Tillman. Each of these men has, at one point or another, been the focal point of American adoration.

Fashion Speaks

Gavin Schlissel

For the last few weeks, black and white posters for a fashion show called “Fashion Speaks” have found my hallway. I tried to walk by it quickly, trying to hide the quick flit of my eye towards the peppery posters.

Consider the Stalker

Giri Nathan

The cover of last week’s issue of the Nassau Weekly featured the face of Tony Kadyhrob, a 68-year-old man recently accused of trying to entice local college students into his car. Kadyhrob’s story would’ve been a minor one, had his mugshot not come out the way it did: to the collective delight of the Internet, it looks a little like Christopher Walken.