Jessica Goldstein has style, so much that The Washington Post named an entire section for it. (Well, that’s not true–others in DC also have style, to judge from the section–but it’s conceivable Ms. Goldstein was the inspiration.) Style is her zephyr as she sails out into the culture and brings back all manner of sparkling things to be considered, from the chicanery of Ricky Jay to guilelessness of Olivia Newton-John. And she’s funny, winsomely dropping Taylor Swift‘s name into an article about the Rocky Horror Picture Show. (It could also be that she just got the currently ubiquitous memo from her bosses: “Please namecheck T. Swift whenever possible; she sells copies.”)
Slowly though, while readers gaze and envy, marvel and wonder, laugh and nod knowingly at Ms. Goldstein’s celebrated quarry, we start to realize she captains a glass-bottom boat–and that below the glinting surface there is more to see. She takes us to see the Taffety Punk Theatre Company do Shakespeare–and not something easy like Hamlet (!) but The Rape of Lucrece. (They rock it, apparently.) Indeed it’s in the theater where her love of subject especially shines through.