Wow! I naturally assumed that at this point Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak was number two. I mean people are afraid not to quote that daunting postcolonial critic.

And let's not forget about Edward Saïd. He may be the only literary critic to ever receive a fat royalty check for an academic publication.

Right. Orientalism was huge. I think it was a bigger seller than Judith Butler's Gender Trouble, no? Look, they both deserve second place.

Which leaves the number one spot for you, naturally.

No, no. By all means… for you.

Great. I'll take it.

Well done on that one. But thumbs down on buying the freshly re-commodified copy. It's the same movie, being resold to gullible suckers—I mean consumers like you. Don't give your money to the man.

Noted. But don't you love that montage at the beginning of the film?

Actually, I found that it specialized time, thus sacrificing a sense of history.

Okay… how great was Pacino, though? His character mesmerized me. He stole the show.

Actually, he was but one part of a class-bound triangulation involving him, the police chief, and the FBI officer. He's part of a system, not one man outside of history.

Have you seen Saw IV?

It's all about power with those Tea Partyers.

I'm sensing a feeling of threat from her claim to masculine authority.

I'm sensing a feeling of threat from the fact that she is in the Tea Party at all. I get the whiff of a free-market economy that only benefits the wealthy.

…in which the government regulates nothing…

…and then people worship money like a god…

…and the people begin to believe that it's the natural order for the rich to get richer and the poor poorer…

This sounds like a dystopian novel!

Or one of my books!