The Duff, directed by Ari Sandel and based on the novel by Kody Keplinger, will bring you back to familiar moments of invisibility (and worse, unasked for visibility). The film stars Mae Whitman as Bianca Piper, the “DUFF”—designated ugly fat friend—who is cyber-bullied by the popular girl (played by a wicked sharp Bella Thorne) when…

Oscar Wilde said that artists are useless. Of all the useless artists out there, some have to be more self-obsessed than others. In literature, Philip Roth comes to mind as one of the most masturbatory and indulgent of all time, as his own name appears in many of his novels. If it doesn’t, his alter…

“I was a judge at a recent Literary Death Match in Miami. One of my co-judges was [Tina Fey. The other was] Prodigy of Mobb Deep, who was one of my heroes growing up. I used the opportunity to tell him that I’m producing a series of bilingual rap songs with my 8 month old…

Ben Marcus was a philosophy major at NYU grappling with Wittgenstein and Hegel, planning on continuing his studies at the graduate level. Somewhere in between, he found his calling in writing fiction. Marcus, 46,  published his first book of short stories, the delightfully knotty The Age of Wire and String, at age 24, to wide…

Ah, the season of GUSA campaigns is upon us: “Connect to Georgetown,” “Together with Georgetown,” and “Building your Georgetown.” These slogans come together in the comforting hum of subtle smiles and provide a sense of belonging. While slogans are necessary to distill a candidate’s message, they have fostered a culture of bandwagoning. There is a…