In yesterday's New York Times, Frank Rich says the George Clooney flick Up in the Air will, "salve national wounds that continue to fester in the real world." Did he see the same movie we did? Because he's totally wrong.

Though the invite said "bring your swimsuit," the melange of authors and editors and overly friendly publicists who gathered at the Hotel QT for the release of Jesse Ball's novel "Samedi the Deafness" chose not to. Jonathan Franzen left early and it was probably a good thing anyway that we didn't catch his bare…