Portrait of a Lady

File under: Black Sheep Alumni. Harvard's Ted Kaczynski can claim he was traumatized by psychological research conducted on him as an undergraduate, and sometime Stanford student Ted Bundy can blame heartbreak, but (according to HoosOnline), UVa's eminently industrious Temeka Rachelle Lewis -- the former English major responsible for scheduling "dates" between Emperor's Club VIP clients and employees -- has only Madison House volunteer experience (and all those sordid literary classics) to blame. "She's just too clean," Lewis's stupefied uncle told the Daily News when he learned of her line of work. "Even when she does the dishes, she puts on gloves. It just don't make any sense." But the UVa English Department website's careers page tells it like it is:

The notion that English majors are unprepared for interesting, productive, lucrative employment is an unfortunate, unfounded myth.

The Worst Poem Ever

Further proof that John Updike is a dirty old man (just in case you still needed convincing): This "brutally dismissive" review of The Best Erotic Poems in The New York Times (via Begley the Bookie) calls Updike's poem "Fellatio," "perhaps the worst poem ever written on any subject" -- which, for a writer known for his "seeming inability to write badly" is really quite a feat. Begley goes on to cite the poem in its entirety, so I won't. If you're curious and need a laugh, click here! If you'd prefer to soberly mourn the collapse of literature and the descent of literary studies into "trendiness itself, trendism, the desperate search for anything sexy," click here instead.

Gubernotorious

A few things you might not have known about Eliot Spiter (from The New Yorker's December profile):

He wears only white button-down shirts, which he buys at Brooks Brothers. He bought a blue one once: “It was unnerving. Never wore it.” He gets up at five in the morning to jog; he’s known for it, and wants you to know it, but if it’s a pose it’s a hard-earned one. His first thought upon waking each day, he says, is a wish for two more hours’ sleep.

A few things you might not have known about the Emperors' Club (from Slate's Josh Levin):

For the john who just can't make up his mind, Emperors' Club's site map lists a buffet of options. Along with the requisites—"millionaire dating," "billionaire dating," "billionaire introductions"—there's a healthy supply of nonsexual fare, including private yacht charters and "authentic art for purchase." The site's contemporary art page claims that Emperors' Club represents "artists of superior mastery," linking to dedicated pages for Andrew Wyeth and Jeff Koons. Emperors' Club is a model of efficient Web design: The site's artist portfolios have the exact same layout as the prostitute portfolios.

And the observation that says it all (right up there with former New York City Mayor Ed Koch's assessment that "there's a screw loose"), from Douglas Muzzio of Baruch College in The New York Times:

Here’s a guy who won an overwhelming electoral landslide and has inflicted fatal wounds on himself publicly and privately. I’m not a psychologist, but this is just utterly, completely reckless.

Life is Very Short

This picture (from today's obit of Norman Smith in The New York Times) kind of makes me wish I were a pilot-turned sound engineer. It also kind of makes me wish my name were Norman.

Stratagems, Ruses, Wiles

A passage about producing TV from The Storyteller by Mario Vargas Llosa:

Of course we very soon caught on to the stratagems, ruses, wiles or charm that had to be used, not to obtain special privileges, but merely to do a more or less decent job of what we were being paid to do. We were not above such tricks ourselves, but all of them had the disadvantage of taking up precious time that we ought to have devoted to purely creative work. Since I've been through his experience, my admiration is boundless whenever I happen to see a program on television that is well edited and recorded, lively and original. For I know that behind it there is much more than talent and determination: there is witchcraft, miracle.