Which is your favorite baseball movie?
a) The Sandlot, an allegory for Congressional power struggles, where John Boehner is the misunderstood “Ham” and Paul Ryan is Wendy Peppercorn.
b) The Rookie, which spoke eloquently about the impossible European project.
c) Major League, because it reminds me of when Charlie Sheen and social welfare were reasonable.
d) The Natural. My ideas sometimes have the power to blow out the lights, and can be short-lived, too.
e) Angels in the Outfield, a movie about animal spirits.
f) The Bad News Bears, because Walter Matthau is SUCH a Grover Cleveland.
g) 61*, because there is always an asterisk.
h) Fire in Babylon. Let’s get serious.
i) Field of Dreams, in which mom jeans played a key role as liberator.
j) The Pride of the Yankees. Prideful.
k) The Sixth Sense. He died but NO ONE WAS TELLING HIM.
l) Fever Pitch. I know what I did wrong.
Finish this sentence: “Opinions are like _____”
a) mason jars; everyone’s got one, and they’re all using them incorrectly.
b) microwaves; more complicated for me to explain to you than should be the case
c) chins; sometimes it’s easier to just copy one from a celebrity
d) chia seeds; I just discovered them!
e) monetary stimulus; they have a multiplier effect.
f) William Henry Harrison; sometimes they only need a month to have a lasting effect.
g) empty strollers pushed into traffic; challenging to people’s preconceptions.
h) marmalade; sometimes people need a bigger helping to develop a taste.
i) smiles; give them away for free as often as you can.
j) buttholes; Wall Street executives can afford to have multiples.
k) Jeb Bush; sometimes you just have to glom onto the least offensive one.
l) whiskey; sometimes the really dated ones are the best ones.
What is your favorite snack?
a) Momos; politically moderate dumplings native to the Himalayas and coined by me.
b) Shredded pork with bamboo shoots.
c) Steamed hackles.
d) A masochistic gin martini and maddeningly good bite of truffle risotto.
e) Soup dumplings, which make for an irresistible liquidity trap.
f) Hot dogs, served tied to the roof of a car.
g) A surprising take on an old classic.
h) Tartine.
i) Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Give him a bicycle, he can do tricks and stuff.
j) Nuclear wings.
k) A Chardonnay spritzer, with a touch of green corduroy.
l) Arthur Sulzberger.
Which U.S. president would you
most like to go on date with?
a) The exceptional Dwight D. Eisenhower.
b) Famed rhetorician Warren Harding.
c) Calvin Coolidge. He was okay.
d) Zachary Taylor, who from memory dealt capably with a bifurcated nation and was wonderful in Home Improvement.
e) Bill Clinton, a man of surplus character.
f) William Howard Taft and his bathtub.
g) Millard Fillmore, who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps using a log cabin for balance.
h) Connoisseur of boulangeries Thomas Jefferson.
i) James Garfield, who tried to do nice things and was rewarded with a bullet to the guts.
j) Chester Alan Arthur by a whisker.
k) My dear, dear family friend Harry Truman, or my dear, dear friend Hillary Clinton.
l) James Madison.
What is your go-to cosplay?
a) Jared, Goblin King. You have thirteen hours in which to solve the labyrinthine constitution, before your baby brother becomes a moderate Republican… forever.
b) The fourth doctor, Tom Baker. That should be a given.
c) Katie Holmes, is that the idea?
d) Mrs. Potts, the penultimate host.
e) Indiana Jones, economic archeologist.
f) Michele Bachmann, away with the faeries.
g) Mr. Freeze, who gave sick ice burns.
h) Lance Calrissian, who taught us diplomacy is complicated and house guests who stay longer than a week are a scourge.
i) Daenarys Stormborn, mother of dragons, holder upper of half the sky.
j) Hulk Hogan, 1986 season.
k) Poison Ivy (she wore fishnets, yes?).
l) Jessica Rabbit. I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.
What word do you wish you coined?
a) Bobos
b) Memnoir
c) Snowpocalypse
d) Brolemodels
e) Stagflation
f) Frisbeetarianism
g) Obamacare
h) Shoegasm
i) Imagineer
j) Frickles
k) Caribou Barbie
l) Refudiate
Tally your results!
Mostly As… You are David Brooks
You have trouble ordering at restaurants because everything “looks just so culturally relevant tonight.” You’re a bit of a hypochondriac: the last doctor who told you that your purple feet were not indicative of an underlying pathology was met with a protest of “But they’re symptomatic of everything!” You’re a master of tiny homemade sushi rolls—your trick is applying reductive thinking to normal-sized sushi rolls.
Mostly Bs… You are Thomas L. Friedman
You’re not known for your temper, but have on occasion yelled out “How would you like a fistinomics sandwich!” at other drivers while out on the road. If baristas had a dollar for every time you ordered a “cappuccinomics” they would still have limited spending power, because Americans who rely on earned income are doomed to lose in life under the current economic regime. You like to help old ladies across the street, taking their arm to patiently explain why Western society is on the decline.
Mostly Cs… You are Charles M. Blow
You know that the great equalizer is public rhetoric, and the great sub-woofer is a column consisting only of New Year’s resolutions. You’re not afraid to call people out on their bullshit, unless those people carry out Pew surveys.
Mostly Ds… You are Frank Bruni
You know that all good meals have one ingredient in common: passion. And all good arguments have one ingredient in common: food analogies. In the move from chief food critic to chief man-with-an-indisputable-opinion-on-Roman-pizza, you went from eating as many as five meals out a day, to spouting opinions on as many as five topics a day—in both cases, the trick was taking tiny nibbles.
Mostly Es… You are Paul Krugman
You have made an impressive quantitative argument that the high concentration of Paul Krugmans at the Times makes for impressive economies of scale on articles about deficits—the Times is in fact the largest producer of Paul Krugman orthodoxy in the world. You have also achieved an impressive economy of scale where the girth of your ginger cat, Albert Einstein, is concerned. You refer to after-dinner brandies as “post-docs.”
Mostly Fs… You are Gail Collins
You know that paddleball, tunafish, opinions, and Rand Paul are four things you should never bring to a barbecue. You devote your life to speaking up for those history would sooner forget, like Tea Party challengers, politicians’ pets, the Tea Party challengers that establishment Republicans keep as pets, and the pro-cider platform of president William Henry Harrison.
Mostly Gs… You are Ross Douthat
You do the Lord’s work on Sunday. Monday through Saturday, you are the guy who drives past the clogged highway exit in rush hour, cutting in at the last minute to demonstrate to people the flaws in their thinking.
Mostly Hs… You are Roger Cohen
You bring your own teacup to Starbucks, horrified by the waste that America creates from disposable goods, but mostly rankled by the lack of respect that tea bags are accorded. You’ve watched Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown seventeen times.
Mostly Is… You are Nicholas Kristof
You’re the last earnest blogger and have handbuilt villages—sometimes inside your very own home. You love a good road trip, particularly one where you first lay the black top with your own bare hands, then build the bicycle you will use to traverse our sense of cultural responsibility.
Mostly Js… You are Joe Nocera
In speaking eloquently about today’s society, your secret weapon is I Will Always Love You: The Best of Whitney Houston. Given 500 words, a portable CD player, and 30 minutes of quiet time, you can get to the bottom of what the founding fathers meant when penning the original constitution, leaving you time to catch the end of the WNBA semis.
Mostly Ks… You are Maureen Dowd
If a zipper gets stuck, you will make that zipper zip, even if the two sides are so at odds as to be from different zippers, yanking your material into a pastiche of zesty commentary that weaves the foibles of today’s celebrity petit fours through today’s political blazes.
Mostly Ls… You are Bill Kristol
You don’t even work there anymore. WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?