By Calvin Trillin for "Shouts and Murmurs" in the February 27 issue of The New Yorker

Trillin's three scenes are great fun, but I'm really posting this because I adore the illustration for the article and don't know where else to put it:

Prince Neymor was frustrated. He was expending a lot of energy—using almost all his powers—against his former teammates. But 'teammates' was hardly the proper word for the odd group he faced.

Dedicated to our heritage of books.

Thanking God—the one, true Catholic God—for another glorious morning, Rick drove up to the gleaming Santorum Headquarters. Despite his devoted staff, the operation had barely turned a profit in recent years, especially after the profound misunderstanding over his house in Penn Hills. But private consulting had been lucrative and the boyishly handsome conservative icon remained confident that recent efforts to expand his base would bear fruit.

   Oh, Emilie!

This poem---opon

a rose stem...fixed

may pose within--

or blossom yet...

From your eyes

may doubt leap---

never so close...

my conversion lies.

From slanted windows framed high

in the barn's gable end, I mind a day

the garden patch was strafed, the late

melon patch was ruined, and hickory

switches chastened the granite ledge.

Arctic slices have invaded the Yankee

I was thinking some about the equivalence that has been made in the Supreme Court between money and speech. What if money actually were speech? What would that mean?

The Earthman boldly stalked into the arena. Far up in the stands, he saw his prize: Ballista Thorax, Princess of Barstoolm. He had left one wife on Earth, and already had taken another in Helium, but Newt was not one to let a healthy, unclaimed princess go begging. To impress her, he must defeat all comers.

Cute to see Bloomberg tell Sadik-Khan to stay in the bike lane, but hardly the funniest part.