Justin Erik Halldor Smith

I, like everybody else, have a crush on David Gergen. I, like everybody else, have a crush on Fareed Zakaria, even if he doesn’t sport an eloquent swirl of comb-over. There is something so soothing these days about intelligence that is not afraid to speak its name, softly, modestly, openly. Even on TV.
Now, I also have a new crush, and so should you, on Justin E.H. Smith. He is not, alas, on TV. He is a professor of philosophy and a philosopher who also happens to write for 3quarksdaily, which is how I came across him. He is also a master of parody, by which I mean his work, in its own rareified way, reminds me of Veronica Geng at her best, the highest humorist compliment that can be paid. This sentence alone, from a post called “Divers Quaeries,” originally posted in 3quarksdaily, won my heart forever:
Hi-ho, to all those expert in the arcana of Finno-Ugric inflection: Won’t you kindly let us know how the vocative case is faring in Samoyed?
click here! and enjoy…