“I asked a well-known figure in national security and Russiagate circles what he thought of my Gloria obsession. I expected him to dismiss it, but he didn’t. ‘There’s a lot of spies around,’ said the well-known figure, who asked to remain nameless because of potential legal issues involved in speaking to the press. ‘These days, whatever paranoid fantasy you can come up with has a halfway decent chance of being true. I mean, the NRA really was infiltrated by the Russians.'” Julia Ioffe on her Uber driver: The Spy Who Drove Me. “Was the mystery woman some kind of covert agent—or simply a figment of these hyper-paranoid times?” (The answer to that question, of course, is yes.)

+ 1 Hen, 76 Ducklings. And you thought your childcare load was taxing…

+ What a musical conductor actually does on stage. (Now I feel bad for so often yelling, “Down in front!”)