School loans, Spalding Gray, and Skull and Bones

As I burst a blood vessel trying to finish Barry Trotter and the Dead Horse, I thought I'd pass along a few interesting links. The first is a neat essay about meeting Spalding Gray.



The next is Generation Debt, the Voice's cover story on how rapacious tuition, dwindling school loans, unprincipled credit card companies, expensive health insurance, and under- (or un-)paid jobs to break into many industries (like, say, publishing) combine to heave young Americans into Debt Hell. I could relate, and perhaps you will, too; I spent my 20s paying what the author calls "The Ambition Tax," and were it not for the blessing of Barry Trotter, would surely be staring down the barrel of a punishing, gray life of debt right now.



Finally, in The New York Observer, Ron Rosenbaum is calling for Bush and Kerry to resign from the Yale undergraduate society Skull and Bones. It's a nice thought.