“To me, they scream: ‘I’m cooler than you, I have a lot of sex, and if you leave your husband with me I’ll devour him,’ ” said Meredith Hays, a literary agent in Manhattan with an unbanged brow.

He says 'Oh, why not', he likes to know the reasons why, but he doesn't get uppy about it […]

What position if any do these theorists take on the giveness of the self?

“Semi-senile, horny-legged, cunning, indefatigable curmudgeonsof-the-sea, tail-baiting their hooks with the spoils of demagogracy, toiling endangered citizenries, political tinkers in the tangle of their griftnets.