The Dowager Countess of Deloraine, who was governess to the children of George II at Hampton Court and other royal homes, was a notorious bore — so much so that her “every word” made one “sick,” according to the courtier Lord Hervey. When she naively asked him why everyone was avoiding her, he replied with exquisite irony that “envy kept the women at a distance, despair the men.
In January 2019, I received an email from an administrator at Georgetown University, where I was a graduate student. She and my department chair wanted to meet with me to “discuss concerns that have been raised by some of your peers about classroom comments and behavior.” This meeting, they told me, would “function as the start of a conversation.” They didn’t say where the conversation might lead. I concluded that the next step would be a formal disciplinary hearing. I was terrified. Three-quarters through a two-year program, I was in danger of being forced to leave without a degree. And for what? I scanned my memory for deviant statements. There were a few: I’d alluded in print to certain essential biological differences between men and women.
You’ll find them all over the boroughs of New York City. Multiple-dwelling buildings, usually large apartment blocks, slapped with a faux-Tudor façade defined by fake gables hiding a flat roof. They aren’t particularly attractive buildings. Even 100 years after most were built, they come off as self-conscious, a bit tacky, imparting to the viewer a dreaded feeling of secret working-class shame — a befuddling reproduction of a reproduction. They say New Yorkers never look up. But even during short journeys through Queens or parts of Brooklyn, New Yorkers are bound to have noticed examples, even if they don’t give it much thought.
