Why high culture is always counterculture, but not vice versa

Tucked inconspicuously in the back of The Mencken Chrestomathy, in a section titled...

Are essays dead?--or just a billion zombies?

The Grand Ponderits of academe frequently stroke their beards over whether the novel-form is dead, although the topic is abstruse and boring enough that it rarely hits mainstream media, and is thus easily avoided. Not given the beard-stroking treatment, however, is the question of...


...usual cliff-hanger...