So I head for the MVA Express Office in Kenilworth Mall with my foot in a cast to replace my missing driver’s license and I get there at ten to stand in line just long enough to read all the signs: We Only Do Licenses Not Tags, Leave Expired Tags Here, Register to Vote Here, and No Smoking Food or Beverages, and that was okay, me no longer smoking food or beverages.

Some may call me old-fashioned. Some may call me backwards. Some may say I am standing in the way of the inevitable march of technological progress. I say to those people, “bah!” “Foh,” I say to them! Dear sirs and madams, our society is not experiencing admirable growth, as some may have you believe, oh no! We as a people are being drawn ever increasingly downward into a horrible pit of decadence, chicanery, tomfoolery, and no small amount of monkeyshines. One may be tempted to disagree. One may take the convenient path and brush off my warnings. One may lazily leave society to rot whilst he swills cheap brew and watches muscled men homoerotically grapple in an eight-sided cage. Mind you, gentle statesmen; these are no mere ravings of a madman. There is clear evidence of the backsliding of our society. One needs look no further than the deplorable state of formal letter writing in contemporary times. What was once an exercise in intellectualism and civility has all but vanished, replaced instead by communication so crass I can barely stand to think of it.

R. Carey, D.D.S.: Thanks for sitting down with me briefly to talk about your accomplishments. I want you to know that, if at any point during our talk, I seem aggressive or pressing, I’m just playing devil’s advocate.

G. Clark, D.D.S.: Fair enough. But I’d like you to know that the following topics are completely off limits—

RC: Actually, if you don’t mind, I prefer not to know in advance. I’m skilled at reading nonverbal cues as a means of discerning proximity to taboo subjects. An important part of genuine interview is being able to play this psychological game of verbal mine-sweeper.

Since my days as a teacher in South Korea, I have been intrigued by ESL (English as a Second Language) instruction. After receiving further certification in the area, it occurred to me that there was one important sector of life which English had failed to conquer: birds.

Recently, The New Yorker magazine published its list of young writers to watch, the much-blogged about 20 Under 40. As if in reply, the National Book Foundation announced their own, marginally younger, ranking: 5 Under 35. And Granta has been publishing British and American young writer lists like this since the 80s, but made a change this past year when it brought out its “Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists” issue. The youngest writer in that group is twenty-nine years old.