OIKOPHOBIA ON THE RISE AFTER TRUMP WIN: In “‘Jell-O Girls,’ a Dark Family History Behind a Candy-Colored Dessert,” Times reviewer Jennifer Szalai drops this clanger:

Jell-O, meanwhile, gets the full semiotics treatment, as Rowbottom shows how it went from a modern, scientific foodstuff to a relic of soul-killing suburbia. As sharp as her insights often are, this is a book in which Everything Signifies. Even a digression about the catacombs in an Italian monastery includes some Jell-O symbolism. You occasionally want to tell Rowbottom to ease up: Sometimes a Jell-O mold is just a Jell-O mold.

To paraphrase Pauline Kael’s infamous (and often bowdlerized) quote about Nixon’s voters, I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who lives in suburbia. Who the others are, I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m writing a book review, I can feel them.

(Via John Podhoretz; classical reference in headline.)