When Kendall was drunk, when he was in odd surroundings like the Coq d’Or, when someone’s misery was on display in front of him, in moments like this Kendall still felt like a poet. He could feel the words rumbling somewhere in the back of his mind, as though he still had the diligence to write them down.

One’s country was like one’s self. The more you learned about it, the more you were ashamed of it.

– Jeffrey Eugenides, from this brilliant short story about democracy, money, and white-collar crime, “Great Experiment,” in the 3/31/08 New Yorker.