No, we don't have to take Houlihan seriously as a reader. She is the best possible example of a non-reader, someone who refuses to read in any meaningful sense of the word. When the vast majority of printed matter is written for those with more conventional tastes, it seems perverse for those with conventional taste to go after the hundreth of a percent of printed material that offers the reader a little bit more of a challenge. Let us have our fun! We are smarter than you, it's true, and in an anti-intellectual society like ours that is supposed to be a bad thing. Why is the prejudice against smart people still considered legitimate?