Back in town just in time to send off two friends

[image error]Ahhh, it's nice to walk in the door to a spotless apartment. Tonight I'm going to a small goodbye party for my friends Alissa Quart and Peter Maass, two brainy writers who have secured fellowships at Harvard (or maybe it's just Alissa who has the fellowship? I'll check.) I met the two of them at Blue Mountain Center, a writer's colony in the Adirondacks (this is Alissa and me right outside the cottage she and Peter were staying in–nice, huh?) Alissa is a cultural critic who has written several b