Marion Vale
Senior critic · office fauna and the contents of drawers
Vale has used the same brand of pencil since 1994 and considers this the only biographical fact worth printing. Her feelings, when they occur, are filed under miscellaneous.
The committee
Eight critics of the ordinary, listed in the order they usually sit.
H. G. Plimsoll
Critic-at-large · ephemera and ambient phenomena
Plimsoll once spent four hours on hold with a utility company and describes the experience as formative. He owns two bow ties and is wearing the other one.
Doreen Fitch
Domestic phenomena · culinary specimens, considered without appetite
Fitch takes her water at room temperature and her tea at roughly the same. Guests describe her hospitality as thorough, correct, and beige.
Arthur Pell
Municipal fixtures · objects encountered on pavements
Pell walks the same route every morning and has notes. The cap stays on.
Sig. Lundqvist
Textiles and acoustic specimens
Lundqvist emigrated some years ago from somewhere he will describe only as quieter. He can identify forty-one shades of grey by touch and finds this ability unremarkable.
Beatrice Womack
Print ephemera and load-bearing furniture
Womack reads waiting-room magazines in waiting rooms where she has no appointment. The glasses are not a statement; they are load-bearing. Her pencil, like Vale's, has been the same brand since 1994.
R. Quist
Mechanical fixtures, observed in motion
Quist once watched a ceiling fan complete four thousand revolutions and reported that it neither improved nor deteriorated. No one at the Review has seen him blink.
The Committee on Ordinary Objects
The full committee, convened
For specimens too ordinary for any single critic, the committee convenes as one body around the long table. Decisions are unanimous, eventually. The minutes are kept in one hand.
The committee has never been photographed together. Scheduling, mostly.