About

Me

Don't be scared by my earnest politics and ghoulish pigmentation. I'm friendly. Write to me at glenna.goldis @gmail.com.

Fiction, reporting, and criticism

Law School Story

"Great job in class today," said one of the guys who groped people. "You're really coming out of your shell."

Ugly Person

"I hated reading fiction. It was all the same. Kittens played organized sports outside the window and surly PHA’s turned out to be Jesus keeping an eye on you in his shy sort of way. Only sick people enjoyed literature, I thought."

Lazy and Greedy

“I think America is finally ready to read about an octopus-gold fish romance,” Dorian said. “Like Finding Nemo meets Lolita.”

Clam Dinner

By the time Paul had opened both taped-glass doors, the foyer bats had already flown to the second floor, then the third, because Helen was singing her ugly Christmas Carols.

New Teacher

There are two Advanced Language Arts classes for sixth grade. One is taught by Mrs. Santoloho. She rides her bike around town even in the winter and says, “notice how I always wear a helmet?”

How Judges Think

Judges aren’t good at foreseeing systemic consequences because they probably have paranoid worldviews. They’re the risk-averse wing of the risk-averse legal profession.

Meet the Email Retentives

While those afflicted often insist that they are victims of circumstance—employers such as Mr. Obama impose a buttoned-down ethos—evidence suggests that it goes deeper.

Shake Your Booties, Ladies

Ankle boots are, in fact, the shoe of the year. (They’re also known as “booties,” but because that word sounds like two different slang terms plus one type of children’s footwear, we’re not going to use it.)

Leave It to the Republican...

Interestingly, the clearest-cut and least technical challenges to the administration's proposal came from Republican Councilman James Oddo.

Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong

The author aspires to mischief, but his honors thesis stylings make it a grind.

A Great Idea at the Time

Is melodrama useful to learning about texts? Does learning the texts even matter, or is clever analysis really the point? If not, why the fetishistic care in selecting the books?

Boyfriend Jeans Baffle

“People wear all kinds of shit,” said Elaine Kaufman, the proprietor. “And they shouldn’t, because some of them are chubby.”

Protesting Judge Jeanine Pirro

“I don’t think people want to watch a show of a woman involved in putting innocent people in jail,” said Sam Zherka, perhaps optimistically.

Trick or Treat? Michael Bloomberg, Vera Wang Dress Up as Themselves on Halloween

She'll be trick or treating somewhere near her home in Midtown, which she shares with "Miss Universe and Miss Teen USA."

Sandra Day O'Connor Is Not Talking Politics

Brandenburg encapsulated the argument against elected judges when he complained that they were "vulnerable to whatever the political wind is." As a justice, O'Connor herself was often accused of blowing in the political wind.

Critchley on Embracing Obama's Listlessness

After a pause, Critchley said, “There is a relationship between charisma and libido.”

Tales from the Rubber Room

In the teachers' view, a new mayor is their only shot at freedom.

Si-Bling Rivalry

So far she has melded the beer can to the cuff; next she will attach strands of diamonds. “I like the idea of recycling and making it into something cool. Like, ‘I rescued this beer can and turned it into a $5,000 piece of jewelry!’ No, I’m just kidding. ‘I turned it into something beautiful.’”

Blink Bling

Doe in the headlight eyes.

Oh Noes! It's Bows

A burgeoning trend, bows, threatens to remystify women.

Smile Straight or Smile Crooked

Braces, once a luxury, aren't for the beautiful people anymore. They're mostly for middle class kids whose parents don't want them mistaken for poor or foreign.

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