WHCD ’15: I’ve been boycotting the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on principle ever since I stopped getting invited (except for the couple three or four — OK, it was six or seven — times I snuck in). An absurd event, of course — close to my vision of Hell. The Hilton ballroom is circled with rings of yellowish light, and it’s easy to imagine them as the flaming pits into which lobbyists are hurled in the afterlife. The Bosch-like qualities are part of what makes it fabulously enjoyable, especially for non-bigshots, assuming they still let non-bigshots attend. You may not be paid well, but it’s worth a month’s salary to feel you are part of this powerful, corrupt, yet insecure, preening and tacky fake community. Sorry I missed it.

Update: Daily Beast‘s Lloyd Grove ably uses the event to divine the capital’s mood! (“‘The Obama people are really bitter.'”) …