Please do tell us what you think of the American educational system.

I know you've probably seen this already. But don't you want to see it again?
I didn't have the highest hopes when I heard about this video clip in which "Miss Teen USA contestant gives bizarre answer to geography question." I thought, oh, teen beauty queens are dumb and shallow, yawn, what else is new. But I am so glad I watched, because this exceeded all my expectations. It's difficult for any description to do it justice, but the closest I can come is that, in this moment, Miss South Carolina resembles a robot, programmed to respond to beauty-pageant questions, suffering a major system meltdown. Instead of stringing its stored stock phrases ("I personally believe... South Africa... Iraq... education") into a vacuous but generally coherent response, it's just spitting them out at random, and no one can make it stop. Here are a few things I love best about these 47 seconds of footage:

• She seems to be off to a terrible start with "Some people out there in our nation don't have maps..." but by the end you realize that was actually the best part of her response. After that: total incoherence. And it gets so much worse than you think it will.
• "U.S. Americans."
• "...everywhere like such as and." It's the way she adds "such as" to that string that really does it for me. I didn't think it was possible for a native speaker of English not to understand how "such as" functions in speech, but I was mistaken.
• "Our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. -- er, should help South Africa, and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries." I love that she corrects herself when she "misspeaks" -- because, whew, for a minute there she wasn't making much sense! (In fact, she was actually much closer to answering the question before she corrected herself.)
• When the bell rings to signal that her time is up and she starts talking fast, as if to wrap up her answer -- even though there's nothing for her to wrap up. She knows she's not supposed to stop talking until she mentions Our Future, and by heaven, she gets it done.
• Mario Lopez's steady, supportive microphone throughout, and stunned yet gentlemanly "...Thank you very much" at the very end. I once saw an episode of Pet Star where a woman claimed her cat could do this elaborate trick, and of course, as soon as she brought it onstage, the cat balked and ran back into the wings, leaving humiliation in its wake... and Mario reacted in much the same way, as if everything had gone exactly according to plan and nobody had any cause to be ashamed. If I ever embarrass myself on national TV, I want Mario Lopez there to pretend everything went fine. He couldn't save me from YouTube, but he would make me feel better in the moment.

Did I miss anything? What do you like best?

And with that, I am off to Boston for a couple of days! I hope you enjoy your holiday weekend. If you choose to spend it watching the above video over and over, I won't judge. You might want to take a break to spend some time with Strong Bad, though. He could use the company.

Angel in my pocket

It took me a whole month to find another charity to pick on, but I'm back today for another installment of Annoying Surprises in Mollie's Mailbox. Although you couldn't really call the "emergency appeal" I received from Catholic Relief Services a "surprise," since I've been receiving them at regular intervals for a couple years now. I try not to respond to mail solicitations (I give in person or online where possible), because they tend to beget more mail solicitations. So this stuff goes straight to the shredder. But the CRS mailings are especially irritating, because they come with this "Special Gift Inside":Plenty of not-for-profits send "gifts" in the hopes of guilting the recipient into making a contribution. I have a drawer full of notepads and address labels to prove it. But while those other organizations like to send something marginally useful, CRS differentiates itself by sending these little gold coins. Tiny golden albatrosses, good for nothing but breaking your shredder if you don't know they're hiding inside the envelope. I do know, because this one, which arrived yesterday, is at least the eighth or ninth such "gift" I have received from CRS. I would have quite a collection by now, if I took them up on their invitation to "Keep this guardian angel as a reminder of the children you help."

How much does it cost CRS, do you think, to produce and send these tacky little angel coins? Maybe not a lot. Maybe just a little. But you know who would probably like to have that money, even more than I would like to have a collection of shiny angel coins? The world's poor. Tsunami victims. The sad little child staring up at me from this appeal. My friends at CRS, you do wonderful work, I am sure. But I would like you to keep this guardian angel -- or rather, the money you spend sending it to me every few months -- and use it to help some children.

Perhaps you're thinking, if I really feel strongly about this waste of money (and paper), I should request to be removed from their mailing list. And that's the kicker: I already have. After I received the first three or four "gifts" from CRS, I called them up and asked to be removed. The nice man I spoke to assured me he had done so. A week later, I got another little angel. Well, I thought, this was probably in the works before I called. I'm sure this is the last one. But no, I've been receiving them at regular intervals ever since. My calling did no good at all. So I'm doing the next logical thing, of course; I'm blogging about it. (At least I'm not as mad as this guy.) I suppose the next logical thing would be to actually save a bunch of these stupid coins, and then send them all back together in the postage-paid envelope with a note that says, "I believe these belong to you." But that would require a lot more organization than I am prepared to devote to this, and it wouldn't give me much satisfaction to waste even more of their money -- the whole point is, I want them to stop wasting it on me! So, since the situation is apparently hopeless (at least till I move), I'm taking suggestions. What should I do with my collection of slightly-bigger-than-a-quarter angel coins? Should I keep them as a reminder of the children I stubbornly refuse to help? Use them to weight the corners of a duvet? Drill holes through them and make a tambourine?

I'm also curious: what not-for-profits harass you and/or send you junk? Have you ever removed yourself from a mailing list without resorting to threats? Please share.

You only send me your funny papers

The building where I live was once a hotel, and the lobby is set up accordingly, with tenants' mailboxes behind a glass partition. I have to ask whoever is at the front desk to get my mail for me. Yesterday, the doorman handed me this:I don't subscribe to any fashion-related periodicals. This is partly because I'm a snob, but mostly because I have no interest in or aptitude for fashion. For me, reading a fashion-related mag is like studying an instruction manual for an appliance I don't own. It's confusing, unsatisfying, a little intimidating; I might learn something new, but I will almost definitely be unable to apply said knowledge to my life. So I figured this plastic-wrapped mag labeled FASHION must have been placed in the wrong mailbox, and I started to hand it back to the doorman -- "This isn't for me." Then I looked at the address label and saw my name on it. I panicked a little. How could this happen? Had one of my copy-editing employers gifted me with a free subscription? Had I, in a self-destructive fugue state, subscribed to yet another magazine? Then, suddenly, I recalled a similar experience in my past, something I must have blocked from my memory. I flipped it over and saw this:Is this some kind of joke, New Yorker? Are you trying to destroy all my intellectual cred? Because if I wanted to read a magazine with J. Lo on the cover, I would have many to choose from at the newsstand. And if I wanted to read a magazine about fashion, I would buy a real one.

A peek at the masthead of Fashion Rocks reveals that its "editorial director" is one Anna Wintour. Is this some sort of crossover promotion? Fashion-forward friends: was your most recent copy of Vogue bundled with a faux cultural journal? And fellow New Yorker subscribers: what did you find most baffling about Fashion Rocks, assuming you didn't toss it directly into the recycling bin? I think it's the table of contents with no page numbers. I only noticed this because, when I first freed the mag from its plastic bag, it fell open to a spread of photos of Sean Lennon, who has what I consider to be the celebrity world's most interesting face. So I enjoyed flipping through that feature, and I was hoping to tell you where to find it, but the table of contents can only confirm that it exists. And I'm not motivated enough to flip through Fashion Rocks at random to find it again. Even if I did, it wouldn't matter, since the interior doesn't have page numbers, so I couldn't be any more helpful than the aforementioned table of contents.

The only fashion-related content I want from The New Yorker is the occasional shopping-trip field journal by Patty Marx. In the future, Conde Nast, I would appreciate your keeping your glossy and disorienting supplements to yourself. And you guys -- does anyone want a copy of Fashion Rocks?

Going Grey

This past week, I, for reasons that I swear are work-related, have been immersing myself in the world of Shonda Rhimes and Grey's Anatomy. Am I the only woman under 45 who never watched a single episode of this show until now? I was dimly aware of the show and its stars (for reasons that are also work-related), and based on conversations I've overheard at parties and bridal showers and such, I have gathered that pretty much everyone else is a fan. But I'm too busy watching shows nobody else seems aware of (The Riches, people!) to stay abreast of the wildly popular ones, and so now I have a lot of catching up to do. Lucky for me, Grey's Anatomy is on twice a week -- the most recent season is in reruns on ABC, and older reruns air on Lifetime -- and ABC makes episodes available for viewing online. I am approaching it with scientific interest -- So this is what everyone else has been talking about for the last couple years. How interesting. I feel like an anthropologist visiting from another century (or planet).

So far I've seen two episodes from this past season and one from (I think) the season before, and all out of sequence. So that's confusing. But you know what, it would be confusing no matter which three episodes I caught, because this show has, like, 17 major characters, all of whom appear in at least one of every episode's plotlines (a minimum of five, three romantic and two medical). I was expecting something kind of dumb and dramatic, the sort of thing you could watch with only half your brain, but instead -- well, I won't go so far as to say the show is smart, but my heavens, it certainly is busy. Is it always like this? Don't you regular viewers find it exhausting? And doesn't covering your eyes and/or leaving the room during the "gory surgical procedure" portion of every episode make the show that much harder to follow? (I assume I am not the only one who does this.) Here's another question: do men watch this show? I get the feeling they don't, and aren't expected to. The fiance gave up after about three minutes and left me alone to watch, so I'm wondering if it's universally man-repellent. Oh, and speaking of repellent: was Meredith, the sort-of-titular character played by Ellen Pompeo, ever likable? At all? Because in the three hours I've seen, all she's done is simper and sneer and mistreat people who, for some reason, put up with it, and I'm waiting patiently for her to display even a tiny bit of appeal. If I go all the way back to season one, will I be rewarded? Or has she always been this way, like Ally McBeal without the charm?

I tell you all this for a couple of reasons -- first, to let you know what's keeping me busy, and second, to inform you that I've finally gotten with the program (ha!), in case you've been dying to chat with me about Grey's. If any of you are Grey's fans, I'd love to hear your reasons for watching/coping strategies/strong opinions. In the meantime I'm going back to my "research." It may surprise you to learn this, but -- as they say over at The Comics Curmudgeon -- more information on Grey's Anatomy can be found on the internet.

Sing with me the songs we knew

Since I saw Les Miz on Tuesday, I've been hearing the music from the show playing on an endless loop in my head. Actually, to be more accurate, I have mainly been hearing the music that is assigned to the character of Fantine. And to be even more accurate, I have been hearing Fantine's music as performed by Patti LuPone on the 1985 London Barbican cast recording.

Those who felt I was insufficiently reverent when discussing Patti's performance in Gypsy might be comforted to know I think she was all kinds of awesome in Les Miz. I didn't see the original London production, of course (and at 5 I wasn't the most discerning of critics, anyway). But she is and will always be the Fantine in my head, for all the same reasons that she isn't my ideal Momma Rose. When Patti belts "I Dreamed a Dream," she makes it sound like most moving, most powerful ballad ever written. She makes the music sound majestic; she makes the lyrics sound insightful; she makes the song sound like a masterpiece. Then you hear someone else sing it and you think, "Hm, this tune is actually kind of banal. And... 'tigers'? What is she talking about? 'With their voices soft as thunder'? Tigers don't have 'voices,' do they? Is thunder 'soft'? What the hell?"

The same goes double for Fantine's recitative during "At the End of the Day" and "Lovely Ladies," which, on paper, makes me grind my teeth. But who else could sing a line as ludicrous as "Come on, Captain, you can wear your shoes" and inspire pathos? Listen to the way she modulates from loud ("That WOULD-n't PAY for the CHAIN") to soft ("It's all I have") to loud again ("Please make it ten!!") during the pre-prostitution haggling sequence in "Lovely Ladies." Hear the desperation in her voice as she wails, "Ten francs may save my poor Cosseeeeette!" This is a Fantine to root for, and feel for. And [SPOILER ALERT - but come on, if you're still reading, you know the plot of Les Miz] when she dies, she is a Fantine to mourn. Patti belts the hell out of that sing-songy deathbed lullaby ("Come to Me"), which may be why I never had much affection for "On My Own." Why should a lesser (and unrelated) character get to reuse the melody from Fantine's death? Is the poor woman to be allowed no dignity, even in death? And for crying out loud, could Claude-Michel Schonberg not have noodled on his keyboard for five more minutes and come up with a new tune?

The other reason I never liked "On My Own" is that professional Eponines so often sound like Cyndi Lauper. Much like the synthesizers that sap the grandeur from the other songs on the Barbican recording, the pop-vocalist pauper must have seemed more natural in the '80s. That's probably one reason I was pleasantly surprised by Megan McGinnis's sweet and spunky Eponine -- and the fact that she doesn't have Patti LuPone to contend with probably helps her stake a claim on the tune. As for Fantine, I saw Lea Salonga's understudy, so I can't say much about her approach. But I can say that "I Dreamed a Dream" is suprisingly unmoving when you strip away all of Patti's pyrotechnics. To sum up: Viva LuPone! And, it's kind of fun to have pretend conversations in your head using the various sung-dialogue-music from Les Miz. "Pardon meeeeeee, I need to board the su-ub-way. / I would like to catch a train this morning. / Please don't walk so slowly on the plat-FORM / Or I will have to push past you and you will be of-fen-ded."

I confess to not knowing my Les Miz cast recordings all that well; my introduction to the show was a mix tape that I used to sing along with in the car, and I think it had tracks from two or three different versions. So I need your advice, O Les Miz completists: Is the 1987 Broadway recording worth checking out? How does Randy Graff measure up to Patti? What's the deal with this "complete symphonic recording," and how is it different from this 10th Anniversary Concert at the Royal Albert Hall? Do they all feature Colm Wilkinson, and if so, why? Most important, which version has the best "Drink With Me" (my favorite song)? I know some of you have strong opinions on the subject. Let's hear them.

All on account of... my name

This week's chilly weather reminded me that my autumn wardrobe is looking a little sparse, so today I did some shopping. Lately I've been having a lot of luck at Esprit -- and ladies, you know how it is once you break the sizing code at a particular store. "Their V-neck T-shirts fit me in medium! I will never shop anywhere else!" So I headed there, bracing myself for their aggressive sales staff. From what I can tell, Esprit employees get a commission for being helpful ("If you need anything, my name is X"), but they are also restricted to particular areas of the store -- a kind of zone offense approach to retail. You can tell when you've crossed a boundary, because the salesperson who has been following you will suddenly turn his attention elsewhere, and a new store employee will hurry to greet you, and the whole thing begins all over again ("Can I help you find a size?"). I really prefer to be left alone when I'm shopping, but since I was holding a bunch of things I wanted to try on, I took the first salesperson up on his offer to open a dressing room for me. I handed him my armful of prospective purchases and told him my name, and he walked a few feet (to the edge of his designated sales area, presumably) and handed them off to the next employee with the instruction, "Put these in a room for Mollie." And she said, "Is that M-A-L-E?"

Now, I don't expect people to be able to spell my name, but their first guess is usually a bit more in the ballpark. I don't often run into someone who is completely unfamiliar with the name. But neither salesperson seemed to have encountered it before, because when the second one ventured this spelling, the first one shrugged and said, "I guess." I wasn't technically included in this conversation, just standing close enough to overhear, so I wondered whether I should intervene. I tend to let people go with "Molly" when it's not important, and in the grand scheme of things, what gets written in dry-erase marker on the door of my Esprit dressing room is not important. But in this case, I thought I might have trouble walking into a dressing room labeled "Male." Before I could speak up, though, the second salesperson walked off to seek the advice of a third salesperson, who guessed, "Maybe it's M-A-L-I"? Not bad, but it's actually a little more Irish and a little less African.

I walked into the fitting room area just as the second salesperson was about to start writing on the door. She looked relieved to see me when I told her my name, and as she let me into the room she asked, "Is it M-A-L-Y?" At that point I wondered whether I should tell her the whole truth, or just the standard spelling. The latter might have been more useful down the line, but I decided I would have felt funny dictating the spelling of my name incorrectly. Especially if she later ended up reading it on my credit card. (For what it's worth, the person who checked me out had no trouble with the name.) So the next customer named Molly who asks for an Esprit dressing room might wonder why they've spelled her name with an "I-E."

Bonus link: this all reminds me of one of my favorite Simpsons moments. I could never find a mass-produced personalized souvenir, either!

And the song was exciting

Last night I treated myself to a completely unrestricted view at the Broadhurst, where the present Broadway reanimation of Les Miserables is playing. Ordinarily I wouldn't feel the need to be front and center for Les Miz -- proximity to the stage shouldn't be a factor in enjoying this show, even in a relatively scaled-down production. As long as you can see that red flag, you're probably doing fine. But this was a special case, because I actually know a couple of the principals, and so it was worth springing for great seats.

Here's the part where I brag! I once had the honor of sharing a stage with Ali Ewoldt, this production's luminous Cosette, back when we were just the names in tomorrow's papers -- we were both in the chorus of a college production of Merrily We Roll Along ("Have you seen? How was it? You're not SE-rious!" etc.), which was the beginning and end of my onstage career, but happily not of hers. And that's how I ended up grinning at her from the audience as she transitioned from menacing factory worker to listless whore to trilling ingenue. (This show has a very hardworking ensemble -- none of this hanging around backstage until your character gets introduced! Put on a shawl and look destitute!) You can read an interview with Ali here, and for a peek backstage you can read her blog from the early months of the production.

The other reason my sister and I attended last night's show was to see her college friend, the fabulous Marya Grandy, as an exceptionally funny Madame Thenardier (opposite the one and only Chip Zien!). So I felt very cool by proxy.

The cast includes many other performers whom I'd love to claim as friends, but do not actually know. These include Drew Sarich, the youthful and faintly heavy-metal Jean Valjean (you need to hear him wail "I am warning you, Javert!"), who turns in a super rendition of "Bring Him Home" -- even if his claim of "I am old" doesn't quite ring true. Also, Megan McGinnis, a more endearing Eponine than I imagined possible. And, of course, Chip Zien, who makes an energetic and vivid Thenardier -- and whom I finally got to meet, backstage after the show! Amy and I slipped inside the stage door to say hello to our old schoolmates (and her old neighbor). Four Yalie performers, three of them talented, all in one spot! Notify the class notes!

I have just remembered that Ali, Marya and I actually performed together on Broadway, in a technical sense, a few years ago. We were all participants in a Yale-related concert called I Get a Kick out of Blue, which was held on a Monday night in the New Amsterdam Theatre. I'll save that story for another post, but suffice it to say, Broadway is lucky to have them both back.

Shoulda stuck with "Untitled Jodie Foster Project"

Talking of lousy film titles: I see Jodie Foster's latest tough-girl drama is called The Brave One. Based on what I've read, Foster stars as a woman who turns vigilante after losing her fiance to a violent crime. But if I had to guess what a movie called The Brave One would be about, I'd say it was probably a war movie, made with a small budget in the 1950s, with no women in it at all. My second guess would be that it's some kind of animal picture, about, say, an intrepid sled dog who must cross treacherous terrain against great odds to find food for his litter of helpless pups. When I hear The Brave One, I don't think "movie with female characters," which may be the point... But I also don't think "well-made movie" or "movie I'd like to see," which is my point. Are we running out of available titles? Is that the problem?

Another recent film title that fails to impress me is A Mighty Heart. That movie, in case you missed it, stars Angelina Jolie as Marianne Pearl, the real-life widow of slain journalist Daniel Pearl. The film is based on Marianne Pearl's book, which I have not read, and it's certainly possible that the title sounds deeply resonant, and appropriate to the subject matter of international terrorism and personal tragedy, after one reads the book or sees the movie. But with nothing but the title to go on, I don't think "gripping and relevant tale of real-life violence and loss, with Oscar potential." I think, "touching made-for-TV movie based on the real-life story of a teenager with Down Syndrome who competes in the Special Olympics despite a congenital heart defect." Either that or, as above, something involving an animal -- in this case, I would expect the story to center on the bond between a human and his/her unusual pet or service animal. I guess I'm thinking of something like Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken -- which, for the record, also strikes me as a terrible title, unwieldy and too clever by half. Remember that movie? About the hoydenish Depression-era girl who dives horses off high platforms, even after [SPOILER ALERT] she goes blind? IMDb says the tagline was "The inspiring true-life adventure of a courageous young rebel who defied the odds...and won." And I say, that's the movie that should have been called A Mighty Heart. And if they wrote the movie from the horse's perspective, they could have called it The Brave One. But I propose that movies for grownups that star Oscar-winning actors should not be released with titles that suggest cheaply-made films for preteen girls.

Jill Hunter Pellettieri wrote about "movies with the same name" for Slate in 2005, when the Will Ferrell movie Kicking and Screaming borrowed its title from 1995 Noah Baumbach film. It occurs to me that either or both of the films discussed above could have been improved by re-reusing the title Kicking and Screaming. Do you have other suggestions? (And don't you kind of want to rent Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken? You know you do.)

How Rude(y)

The fiance and I spent a refreshing weekend at a retreat house, participating in a marriage-prep program, and now I'm easing slowly back into the cyberworld. I made it through the August 20 issue of the New Yorker during the train ride up and back -- just in time for the next issue to land in my mailbox -- and aside from the article I mentioned on Friday, this issue is notable for Peter J. Boyer's lengthy profile of Rudy Giuliani. It contains many little anecdotes to support my long-held suspicion that Giuliani is, more or less, a snake, but this one was my favorite:

When controversial police shootings stirred racial unrest, [Giuliani] seemed reflexively eager to leap to the defense of the cops. After an unarmed black security guard, Patrick Dorismond, was shot and killed by undercover narcotics officers, in March of 2000, Giuliani sanctioned the release of Dorismond’s juvenile arrest record and suggested that Dorismond wasn’t “an altar boy.” (Dorismond actually had been an altar boy, and had attended Giuliani’s old high school, Bishop Loughlin.)

Perhaps in the future we should amend the expression to: "He wasn't a Caucasian altar boy!" Just to be clear.

Tomorrow I am planning my first trip to Broadway, and to the theatre, in much too long! I'll let you know how that turns out.

Lost in the stars

Most magazines take a vacation at some point during the summer, sending out a "double issue" to tide readers over. There may be readers somewhere out there who find this disappointing, but I am deeply, profoundly grateful when these double issues arrive in my mailbox, with a note to let me know that "The next issue of [magazine title] will be dated [in the future]." I can taste freedom! Freedom from the pile of magazines that crouch next to my desk, demanding to be read! Sometime before that designated future date arrives, I may reach the bottom of that pile! I may even be able to -- dare I hope -- read a book!

Alas, the summertime reprieve is never quite long enough, and it's always followed by a renewed onslaught -- in late July/early August, brand-new issues of all the magazines I subscribe to, even the bimonthly college alumni magazine, land in my mailbox at the very same time, and I'm right back where I started, toiling under a pile of magazines-to-read. Most of this pressure comes from The New Yorker: nearly every issue is densely packed with articles that are well worth reading, and a new issue arrives every single week. Keeping up involves as much work as pleasure on my part, and in the process, all of my other relationships suffer (I finally had to break it off with Harper's; I still care about you, I told Lapham et al., but I'm giving so much to high-minded magazines that I don't have time for myself anymore). One of these days my attachment to the New Yorker may weaken enough that I'll be able to resist renewing my subscription -- "I think I should try seeing other magazines," I'll say, and when they try to sweet-talk me into coming back ("Become a member of WNYC and we'll give you a subscription for free!" Oh, I know all their tricks), I'll just focus on what a fabulous time I'm having flirting with The Atlantic Monthly and exploring the possibility of a long-term relationship with Evelyn Waugh. You would think the fact that my affair with The New Yorker recently turned abusive would be enough to send me packing, but for now I'm still trying to make it work.

At the moment I'm in that post-vacation spot where, after taking advantage of the chance to come up for air, let my mind wander on the subway, and bring a book with me on vacation (albeit one written by a New Yorker staffer), I have more reading to do than ever. So I'm slowly making my way through the pile. But I wanted to stop and call your attention to a terrific article in the August 20 issue of The New Yorker that I just finished reading this morning. It's a feature by David Owen entitled "The Dark Side" (and hampered with the dry subtitle "Making war on light pollution"). I am sorry to report that it is not available online, aside from this dull abstract, but it's worth seeking out -- especially if you already have this issue sitting in a pile in your home, awaiting your attention.

Owen begins by describing the work of Galileo Galilei, who made his observations based on the astonomical bodies visible to him in 1610, and the obstacles met by modern-day astronomers hoping to see what Galileo saw. "The stars have not become dimmer; rather, the Earth has become vastly brighter, so that celestial objects are harder to see." This is a simple yet astounding fact, and Owen spends the rest of the story laying out its causes and results. Reading the following excerpt will keep you awake at night (but that's okay, since the too-bright lights in your neighbor's yard and the glow of your alarm clock's digital display are probably disrupting your sleep anyway):

Civilization's assault on the stars has consequences far beyond its impact on astronomers. Excessive, poorly designed outdoor lighting wastes electricity, imperils human health and safety, disturbs natural habitats, and, increasingly, deprives many of us of a direct relationship with the nighttime sky, which throughout human history has been a powerful source of reflection, inspiration, discovery, and plain old jaw-dropping wonder.

There's no hysteria here, just simple, frightening facts, in a piece that's a joy to read because it's so very well written. It moves forward at a steady pace, never lingering too long in any one place. Owen can be funny without calling attention to himself in the process (something the New Yorker's staff writers often have trouble with) -- I laughed out loud at his description of "an empty parking lot so bright that you could deliver babies in it." And he talks about himself and his experiences researching and battling light pollution in a natural way -- his presence and his personal perspective add to the story, rather than distracting from it. Most important, Owen combines technical clarity with provocative, even poetic insight, as when he points out that "pervasive artificial illumination has existed for such a brief period that not even the species that invented it has had time to adapt, biologically or otherwise." Or: "In a truly dark sky, shooting stars are too numerous to bother wishing on."

Even before I got to his description of newborn sea turtles being lured to their deaths by artificial light, the article had won me over. Though I've never been particularly interested in astronomy, or space exploration, or outdoorsy activity of any kind, as I read I found myself mourning the loss of darkness and wondering what the cost has been for all of us. By the end of the piece I was convinced that light pollution, and its ill effects, is an issue I should care about, and an area where I am obliged to take some action. But at no point along the way did I feel Owen pushing me in that direction. He wrote an elegant article about a fascinating topic, and I enjoyed reading it so much that, when I reached the end, I flipped to the "Contributors" page to see whether he'd written anything else I could seek out. Not that I need anything more to read right now, but I might have made some time... and then I read, "David Owen is the author of Sheetrock & Shellac: A Thinking Person's Guide to the Art and Science of Home Improvement, which is out in paperback." You know, I think I'll wait for the movie.