Day: October 24, 2001

Some more customer comments from Amazon.com, because I’m bored and for some reason I find this stuff amusing:

About King Lear, a reader from Washington, D.C., offers this sage advice: “Hey Shakespeare: Stick with one topic at a time. Nobody’s gonna think you’re smart just because you use big words and try to be complicated.” Oh, and death scenes are apparently a downer.

Richard III proves no less problematic. “Heres what i would say to Shakespear…” writes one dissatisfied reader from New Jersey, “Welcome to America Now speak english.” So that’s what that is!

Finally, about Julius Caeser, a reader from “Standed on an Island” says simply, “Boring, boring, boring, boring, boring boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring boring.”

Well sure…with all those words…

It looks like rain,

the way rain looks

when it hasn’t happened yet,

when it’s just waiting to happen,

thirsting for itself, hungry overhead.

I will be disappointed, I think,

if I don’t need my umbrella later on.

It made him sad, not because he saw some instructive allegory or harsh sermon on the vanity of all human hopes and utopian imaginings in this translation of a bright summer dream into an immense mud puddle freezing over at the end of a September afternoon–he was too young to have such inklings–but because he had so loved the Fair, and seeing it this way, he felt in his heart what he had known all along, that, like childhood, the Fair was over, and he would never be able to visit again. – Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Any given creativity is magic. – Alan Moore, in conversation with The Onion

More from eHow:

Shut your mouth and know your role, jabroni! Trick-or-treat as the World Wrestling Federation’s main man, The Rock…. Wear black elbow and knee pads. The right elbow pad may come off if you decide to drop the “people’s elbow” on an unsuspecting trick-or-treater.

I’m reminded of a time, two years ago, when my friend Christine dressed herself in a homemade Mankind costume, complete with sock puppet and face mask. It was really quite impressive, and the drunks along College Avenue certainly seemed to appreciate it. We later got kicked out of the local diner because of the large box my friend Rob had on his head (he was Max Headroom that year), but I guess it was just as well. I was pretty tired of people thinking I was dressed as Al Borland.

So far, I have no Halloween plans for this year.