Deep inside Tom Scocca's 'Off the Record' report on multitalented books/TV/art critic Lee Siegel in The Observer is this quote from Siegel's New Republic colleague, Literary Editor Leon Wieseltier:

"Mr. Wieseltier said he s unconcerned about Mr. Siegel s decision to start wearing so many hats. 'I come from a tradition in which you re not supposed to have your head uncovered,' Mr. Wieseltier said."

True enough. But not always. Way back in a 1995 Vanity Fair profile of Mr. Wieseltier by Lloyd Grove (yes, that Lloyd Grove), we learned that senior year at Columbia,

"[W]as also the year [Wieseltier] wrenched his yarmulke from his head. 'I remember it was the winter,' he says. 'I remember it was a rainy night and I was on College Walk, alone. For me it was not a Karamazovian gesture. I didn't shake my fist at the heavens and say 'God is dead.' To this day, I feel not that the yarmulke disappointed me but that I disappointed the yarmulke.'"

That's the problem with those yarmulkes: they're always making you feel so guilty for letting them down.
Off the Record [NYO]
Pop Goes the Wieseltier [VF, not online, suckas]

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