Betcha can’t read just one sentence.

A close encounter of the rare kind: a sentence that compels the reader to keep reading. I triple-dog dare you — I’ll just skip the mere dare and double-dog dare — to stop reading when you finish this opening sentence in today’s New York Times: “Now added to the list of banned performance-enhancing substances for female distance runners: men.”

Oh, to write a brief that opens so well.

Jeré Longman and Juliet Macur, For Women’s Road Records, No Men Allowed, N.Y. Times, September 22, 2011, p. B12 (national edition).

(cgw)