The Orin–Steeply interview — "You’ve got accreditation reports and structuring…"

You’ve got accreditation reports and structuring both quadrivium and trivium three years ahead of time at the start of every year. You’ve got writing prescriptive linguistics books that come out every thirty-six months so you could set your watch by them. You’ve got grammatical conferences and conventions, which she doesn’t leave the grounds ever anymore but she’s there videophonically rain or shine for them all. You’ve got the Militant Grammarians of Massachusetts, which she co-founded with a couple quote cherished academic friends, also bats, where the M.G.M.s for instance go around to Mass. supermarkets and dun the manager if the Express Checkout sign says 10 ITEMS OR LESS instead of OR FEWER and so on. The year before The Mad Stork’s death the Orange Crush people had an ad on billboards and little magazine-fall-out cards that said CRUSH: WITH A TASTE THAT’S ALL IT’S OWN, with like a possessive IT’S, and I swear the M.G.M. squad lost their minds; the Moms spent five weeks going back and forth to NNY City, organized two different rallies on Madison Avenue that got very ugly, acted as her own attorney in the suit the Crush people brought, never slept, never once slept, lived on cigarettes and salad, huge salads always consumed very late at night, the Moms has a thing about never eating until it’s late.