The subscription gods are apparently in retrograde. My New York went missing, so I was spared some Pollan wannabe’s reportedly idiotic attempt at eating locally. Other delivery guys managed to get through with a decent Panchito finally noticing that accessibility is meaningless in the Rbox (crutches are no easier than a wheelchair when there’s “one step at entrance”) but also, unfortunately, with a Mighty Wind that, a far-off friend pointed out, nattered on about a jellyroll pan but depicted the usual casserole. And for some reason the real birdcage liner just will not take no for an answer and keeps sending us the hometown’s worst paper (well, maybe after the Sun, which has only the food pages and oversized photos of photo shows to redeem its waste of trees). A great young friend in Italy with an especially endearing way with his second language once used the term “bust-ballers,” and I thought of it on reading “impeccably serviced” and “designer-clad” (they’re actually wearing the human Armani?), not to mention “corpulent” dumplings. It’s as if this pretentious prattle is being written in Roget’s English and run through Babelfish. And they won’t make it stop.