…thanks, Jason!

This will be a post of truncated sentences, since I have birthday cocktails to attend to. Here’s some more pre-festival excitement.

The headline says it all: Calvin Trillin always remembers his roots.

A cinematic, soulful photo essay about the Coney Island we’re about to lose.

Here’s a ruckus you’ll want to jump into one way or another. “Boy is everyone up in arms about Adam Gopnik’s New Yorker piece in this year’s food issue. Okay, by ‘everyone’ I mean anyone insulted by his just-this-side-of-snide implication that locavorism is a weird little fad practiced only by the privileged, nostalgic, and naive.” Read all about it! I loved that piece, by the way. Gopnik’s account of setting up a chicken hit and returning for his slaughtered fryer (I typed “pullet,” but that doesn’t seem right), only to find that the aghast farmer had misconstrued his request, is one of the drollest and most skilfully written in the issue, or several issues. (Judith Thurman’s stories of the mysteries within us is a very close second.) Really nicely done.

Princetonians drink bee juice.

The good citizens of Salon discuss Shouts and whether it’s funny. And whether women are funny (but that’s not much of a discussion—we all know they are).

Hey, art dept., it’s not too late to not overlook the considerable talent of this adorable man.

And look at some of the gorgeous work of the travel photographer Samantha Appleton, whose work has been in The New Yorker.