{"id":96236,"date":"2016-03-29T17:05:28","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T21:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=96236"},"modified":"2016-03-29T17:13:19","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T21:13:19","slug":"object-lesson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/","title":{"rendered":"Object Lesson"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Andreas Stolz.<\/p><\/div>\n

I was in a cab with a radar detector. \u201cRed light camera ahead,\u201d droned the automated voice from the front seat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDoesn\u2019t the city mind those?\u201d I said. \u201cIt\u2019s great, but doesn\u2019t the city lose a lot of revenue? Because they point out speed traps, too, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, is very good,\u201d said the driver.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut on the other hand, I guess it\u00a0does<\/em>\u00a0prevent speeding\u2014which should be the real point anyway, right? Maybe that\u2019s a better way to think about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He smiled and made a polite but noncommittal noise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I think it\u2019s great, anyway,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, it\u2019s very good.\u201d<\/p>\n

We drove down the West Side Highway and exited onto Fourteenth Street. The robot woman\u2019s voice sounded again.<\/p>\n

\u201cCaution\u2014object ahead.\u201d But she said it object<\/em>, as if someone would soon pop into the middle of the road and interrupt a cross-examination.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the object, usually?\u201d I said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d he said. Then we drove a little bit further. \u201cObject<\/em>\u00a0is bus,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There was indeed a big bus sitting in the middle of the street.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope they can detect smaller objects than that,\u201d I said. \u201cIs that even an \u2018object\u2019? It\u2019s funny, you don\u2019t normally hear it used to refer to really big things, do you? When does something become too big to be an object? When you can\u2019t move it around?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can move a bus,\u201d he pointed out. \u201cThat\u2019s what they do\u2014buses move.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s true,\u201d I said. \u201cAnd I guess UFOs are big, too.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He did not humor me in this, nor should he have.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review, and the <\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was in a cab with a radar detector. \u201cRed light camera ahead,\u201d droned the automated voice from the front seat.\u00a0 \u201cDoesn\u2019t the city mind those?\u201d I said. \u201cIt\u2019s great, but doesn\u2019t the city lose a lot of revenue? Because they point out speed traps, too, right?\u201d \u201cYes, is very good,\u201d said the driver. \u201cBut […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[12627,21703,15695,12511,12526,124,21704],"class_list":["post-96236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-buses","tag-cabbies","tag-cabs","tag-city-life","tag-driving","tag-new-york","tag-radar-detectors"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nObject Lesson by Sadie Stein<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"March 29, 2016 \u2013 I was in a cab with a radar detector. \u201cRed light camera ahead,\u201d droned the automated voice from the front seat.\u00a0\u201cDoesn\u2019t the city mind those?\u201d I said.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Object Lesson by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"March 29, 2016 \u2013 I was in a cab with a radar detector. \u201cRed light camera ahead,\u201d droned the automated voice from the front seat.\u00a0\u201cDoesn\u2019t the city mind those?\u201d I said.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-03-29T21:05:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-03-29T21:13:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/jelcz_120m.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"654\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"489\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"Object Lesson\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-03-29T21:05:28+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-03-29T21:13:19+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/\"},\"wordCount\":304,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/jelcz_120m.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Buses\",\"cabbies\",\"cabs\",\"City Life\",\"Driving\",\"New York\",\"radar detectors\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Our Daily Correspondent\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/\",\"name\":\"Object Lesson by Sadie Stein\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/jelcz_120m.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-03-29T21:05:28+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-03-29T21:13:19+00:00\",\"description\":\"March 29, 2016 \u2013 I was in a cab with a radar detector. \u201cRed light camera ahead,\u201d droned the automated voice from the front seat.\u00a0\u201cDoesn\u2019t the city mind those?\u201d I said.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/jelcz_120m.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/jelcz_120m.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Object Lesson\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\",\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Sadie Stein\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sstein\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Object Lesson by Sadie Stein","description":"March 29, 2016 \u2013 I was in a cab with a radar detector. \u201cRed light camera ahead,\u201d droned the automated voice from the front seat.\u00a0\u201cDoesn\u2019t the city mind those?\u201d I said.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Object Lesson by Sadie Stein","og_description":"March 29, 2016 \u2013 I was in a cab with a radar detector. \u201cRed light camera ahead,\u201d droned the automated voice from the front seat.\u00a0\u201cDoesn\u2019t the city mind those?\u201d I said.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2016-03-29T21:05:28+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-03-29T21:13:19+00:00","og_image":[{"width":654,"height":489,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/jelcz_120m.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Sadie Stein","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Sadie Stein","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/"},"author":{"name":"Sadie Stein","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9"},"headline":"Object Lesson","datePublished":"2016-03-29T21:05:28+00:00","dateModified":"2016-03-29T21:13:19+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/"},"wordCount":304,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/jelcz_120m.jpg","keywords":["Buses","cabbies","cabs","City Life","Driving","New York","radar detectors"],"articleSection":["Our Daily Correspondent"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/","name":"Object Lesson by Sadie Stein","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/jelcz_120m.jpg","datePublished":"2016-03-29T21:05:28+00:00","dateModified":"2016-03-29T21:13:19+00:00","description":"March 29, 2016 \u2013 I was in a cab with a radar detector. \u201cRed light camera ahead,\u201d droned the automated voice from the front seat.\u00a0\u201cDoesn\u2019t the city mind those?\u201d I said.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/jelcz_120m.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/jelcz_120m.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/29\/object-lesson\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Object Lesson"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9","name":"Sadie Stein","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Sadie Stein"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sstein\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96236"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96252,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96236\/revisions\/96252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}