# Maids of honor

So you’re reading a [profile of Chinese musician Yang Yang in The New
Yorker](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/08/04/080804fa_fact_remnick)
(link leads to an extract only) and you come across a passage that goes

> When he is handed flowers, the first thing he does after smiling and
> saying thanks, is look around, eyes darting, for somewhere to ditch
> the flowers. For nine days I felt like a maid of honor.

… and then you flip back a few pages to check that, yes, it _was_ [David
Remnick](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Remnick), the editor of The
New Yorker himself, who wrote the piece, and who is now graciously
subordinating himself to the subject of his profile.