January 13 was a fairly eventful day, at least for pre-pandemic times. Cory Booker dropped out of the presidential race. LSU trounced Clemson in the college football national championship game.

One of the seminars I taught last term was on the theme of ‘Mindless Modernism’. We read Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons, along with B.F. Skinner’s essay ‘Has Gertrude Stein a Secret?’, in which he ...