It’s Friday; I’ve got links for you.

Mandy Brett pens a nice defense of the professional editor.

Alex Carnevale contemplates “the macabre unpleasantness of Roald Dahl.”

Alan Jacobs wonders why writers make writing sound awful.

Cynthia Haven hears Orwell when public figures “take full responsibility”—and when she looks at book-blurbs.

The “100 Reasons NOT to Go to Graduate School” blog is up to reason #61, “unstructured time.”

Reviewing In the Basement of the Ivory Tower, Jake Seliger highlights a useful term: “dispossessed of context.”

Interested in medieval jousting? Historian Steve Muhlberger has a $100 book for you.

Katy Perry sings a poignant cover of the Fountains of Wayne song “Hackensack.”

I like this: a blog devoted to parodies of “American Gothic.”

Ephemeral New York sees the strange and scary faces of Chelsea.

Lingwë looks at a Hogwarts professor’s curious name.

First Known When Lost marks the start of cruise-ship season with Philip Larkin.

A Momentary Taste of Being reads The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham.

Hats & Rabbits hears what kids say about their parents.

If you have a background in Greek, Latin, and French, speak at least one additional language (Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, or Japanese), love drama and the arts, can teach philosophy while helping sail a yacht, and have mastered at least one martial art and you exist outside of a J.D. Salinger novella or Dos Equis commercial, then Gwyneth Paltrow would like you to tutor her kids.

The Chronicle of Higher Education sees “students who are full of it.”