If I'm still wistful about On the Road, I look on the rest of the Kerouac oeuvre — the poems, the poems! — in horror. Read Satori in Paris lately? Bu… - Sarah Vowell

Professor Winthrop delivered an influential lecture at Harvard proposing the earthquake might have been caused by heat and pressure below the surface of the earth. With God’s help, of course, but God comes off as an engineer instead of a hothead vigilante.)

But truth be told, I'm not as dour-looking as I would like. I'm stuck with this round, sweetie-pie face, tiny heart-shaped lips, the daintiest dimples, and apple cheeks so rosy I appear in a perpetual blush. At five foot four, I barely squeak by average height. And then there's my voice: straight out of second grade. I come across so young and innocent and harmless that I have been carded for buying maple syrup. Tourists feel more safe approaching me for directions, telemarketers always ask if my mother is home, and waitresses always, always call me 'Hon.

That, to me, is the quintessential experience of living in the United States: constantly worrying whether or not the country is about to fall apart.