Disgraced former New Republic writer and sock-puppet-deploying blogger Lee Siegel's new collection of essays, Falling Upwards: Essays in Defense of the Imagination, was reviewed in the New York Times Sunday Book Review section with "Praise and Blame," by Michael Wood, professor of English and comparative literature at Princeton University.

The essay is worth a look. After introducing the collection, Wood writes:

Much of this argument is too shallow to be wrong. The novel is collapsing into memoir only if you pay no attention to what many good novelists are doing, and a person who thinks "best-selling novels, like 'The Da Vinci Code,' read like actual histories" needs to read a little more history. The attractive opposite of the contemporary pecking order is not another pecking order, but a realm where pecking is not the main issue. And if you are seeking audacity or a resistance to convention, perhaps a New York party is not the best place to start, even if you could float back into the early days of The Partisan Review.

And Wood's review scarcely grows kinder from there.

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Sen. John F. Kerry will be appearing in Philadelphia next week with future senator Bob Casey Jr.

The event is scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 1, at the Public House, 2 Logan Square, on 18th Street between Arch and Cherry Streets. The doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the event will begin at 6:15 p.m.

Best news: tickets start at just $25.00, so there's really no reason not to go. They're saying pay at the door and that seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Direct your RVSP here.

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WHYY, 90.9 FM, Philadelphia's NPR affiliate, is running its "fall pledge week." Sure, it's a worthy cause, and a quality station and all that, but right now a couple of guys -- announcers or producers, I haven't caught their names -- are acting rather oddly, I think, suggesting a 50-dollar donation, for which listeners who pledge that amount, they suggest, will be pleased to receive a one-year subscription to Newsweek.

People still read Newsweek, and take the magazine? I mean, in the sense of paying for it?

(I write this approaching and then hitting 6:30 p.m., U.S. EDT, when WHYY puts "Marketplace", with Kai Ryssdal, on the air, for reasons I still cannot fathom. It hurts to listen to this program.)

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The nefarious (so they say) Duncan Black of Eschaton reminds us that potty-mouthed warmonger Dan Savage will be doing whatever it is he does, and saying whatever it is he says, at the Trocadero in Philadelphia tomorrow evening.

Like I said, I can't make it because I have, well, I have a thing.

And generally speaking, I don't enjoy spending time with people who vociferously, nastily, and dishonestly advocated a senseless war that already has killed some 2,700 Americans.

But that's just me.

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If you find yourself completely and hopelessly bored and alone on Tuesday, head over to the home of the Union League of Philadelphia, 140 S. Broad St., for a timely program sponsored by the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, "Red vs. Blue: Two Leading Thinkers Discuss a Divided America," a chat of some sort involving a pair of Martin Peretz proteges -- and that's not a compliment -- Peter Beinart and Andrew Sullivan, a couple of thinkin' guys who are probably just as happy to talk about anything other than their gung-ho support of the war on Iraq.

The W.A.C. says the program will be moderated by Chris Satullo, whom the council indentifies as a "columnist" for the Philadelphia Inquirer, even though he is the newspaper's editorial page editor, a bit of a step up even if in that slot he hasn't (yet) banged out an impressive bestseller about a slobbering dog that any otherwise sane person would have shipped to the pound 'round about week three.

As for the potential impact on your wallet, think nothing of it! For both the dinner and the program, the evening will cost a mere $65 for members (N.B.: That's over and above the sixty bucks, minimum, you shelled out last year to join the frat.) and $75 for non-members (references being to membership in W.A.C., I assume, and not the Union League). If you're just there to gawk at Peter and Andy, whether on a full stomach or not, it's 20 bucks or some kind of "pass" for members, and 25 dollars for peon-type non-members.

Sounds steep? Well, it's going to be an evening jam-packed with activities, with the W.A.C. offering this imprezzzzzive schedule:

5:30 p.m. Registration
6:00 p.m. Program
7:15 p.m. Book signing
7:45 p.m. Dinner
9:00 p.m. Adjournment

I think there might even be face painting for the kids!

Finally, the W.A.C. helpfully advises "business attire required," and warns, "please enter through Sansom Street," which I think is the club's servants entrance.

I'm sorry I won't see you there. I have, well, I have a thing that night.

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Andrew Cassel, the economic columnist on the Philadelphia Inquirer's business page, isn't playing Pollyanna today, he's just really confused or otherwise simple-minded, as indicated in the headline assigned to today's scribblings, the oddly apostrophed essay, "Stocks', Bonds' Puzzling Messages," where we encounter this:

A wise observer of financial markets once observed that every trade involves two views of the future -- and that one of them is wrong.

Think about it. If I buy your General Widget stock, I'm betting that Widget shares will be worth more tomorrow or next month than they are today. You, by implication, are betting the opposite.

We can't both be right.

This is just silly, entirely misguided, and easily refuted.

You see, I might be very happy to sell Cassel my shares of General Widget in order to obtain the cash I want to purchase shares of Consolidated Doodad, not because I think the price of General Widget's stock is going to be worth less in the future than it is now, but because I think my potential gain from investing in Consolidated Doodad will exceed that which I expect to earn from the more modest anticipated appreciation of General Widget.

It's really that simple.

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Yes, it's true: I too have been banned by YouTube.

Unlike Michelle Malkin, however, it's not because my stuff is garbage, and, unlike Malkin, I don't appear there as an often scantily and inappropriately clad self-loathing, racist ignoramus. Instead, it's because my stuff is just too good for them. That's what they're telling me. I swear.

Join the fight!

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I'm pretty disappointed. The otherwise reasonable Liz Spikol of the Philadelphia Weekly seems to expect her readers to be grateful that filthy-column writer Dan -- The war on Iraq is going to be a good and just war, you freaks! (And did I tell you I'm a DAD now?) -- Savage is opposed to the re-election of Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.).

Pardon me if I couldn't care less.

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I found two notable lapses today, just breezing through the Metro (New York/Region) section:

"A Secret Society, Spilling a Few Secrets," by James Barron is an interesting take on the efforts of the Freemasons to boost their long-sagging membership and to reverse their creeping irrelevancy, but New York Times readers might like to know whether the secret society still harbors the religious biases that shaped, and arguably have defined, its history.

"Man Says Youths Accused of Killing Actress Robbed Him That Night ," by Anemona Hartocollis, provides a 550-word update on a January 2005 crime without telling readers where it occurred.

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