Sometimes we're jealous of Clyde Haberman, the NYT Metro columnist. He gets to wake up, have a smoke, file whatever rambling craziness is on his mind, and then get on with the next 23 hours in his day. Today's column on the subject of cool — in which Haberman launches an attack on Guy Trebay's recent style-fluff on the coolness of the untucked dress shirt — drives home the point that everyone from Malcolm Gladwell to The Fonz has made: if you don't know what cool is, you're not going to be able to find out.

In the pursuit of cool, New Yorkers carry cellphones in hip holsters, like Old West gunslingers. Really cool people use earpieces and microphones so they can keep both hands free while walking and talking.

Uh, no, actually, those are tourists from Sprockets-land.
Shirttails In, Cellphone Off, It's Mr. Uncool [NYT]