This Just In....Michael Jackson is Still Dead

Not long ago I posted a link here to my piece about Margo Jefferson's On Michael Jackson, from early 2006 -- which, to be honest, I barely remembered reading let alone reviewing, though that says less about the book than it does about the tendency of stuff to fall out of my brain.

And so it seems almost improbable to have suddenly remembered writing this Intellectual Affairs column four years ago, inspired by Elaine Showalter's bizarre yet inane comparison of Michael Jackson's and Oscar Wilde's trials.

Among other things, Showalter wrote that the expression "gross indecency" was an example of Victorian euphemism.

Now it is true that Showalter is "a cultural critic, professor emeritus of English at Princeton University and [as of 2004-'05 anyway] R. Stanton Avery research fellow at the Huntington Library" (per her contributor's note) and no doubt all of that keeps her very busy indeed. But I still think she should find out what "euphemism" means.