Sometimes When The Curtain Falls, The Show Goes On

Hey folks! In the mood for some ghosts and ghouls this Halloween week?

I'm over at the Opera House Arts blog every day this week blogging about different folks who have made the after-life decision to spend all their time in theatres. I don't know about you, but I can see the appeal...

Summertime, and the Livin' is Busy (& Awesome)

I have officially embarked on my first summer season with Opera House Arts. And it is ALL THE THINGS.

First off, it's always fun being the new kid on the block.

The folks I work with are buckets of awesome and completely the right kind of crazy - casually dropping into conversations their love of Empire Records and Step Up 2: The Streets.

Plus, they frequently request mid-day singalong/dance breaks.

And very little could eclipse the collective joy we felt when Magical Intern tracked down that taxidermied seagull we all wanted.

Then, of course, there's the place itself. Seriously, look at this view:

Which sometimes includes pirate ships.

It's July, which means that it's not completely freezing in Maine anymore.

And the summer artists are arriving.

There are so many amazing shows coming up, it's bananas. Of course, this means we're a little bit busy...

...but that just has us holding ourselves to a higher standard...

...and forging forward together....

...as a team.

So, all in all...my new job? I'm okay with it...

And what are all of you up to this summer?

Anthropomorphic Advice

Welcome to the A to Z Blog Challenge! One month, twenty-six posts, Monday through Saturday. It’s gonna be awesome. Check out more information here, as well as all the other awesome people participating! (A huge thanks to Arlee Bird for the awesome challenge!)

And to kick us off, I decided, why not pick the most fun “A” word ever? Seriously, say it out loud. It’s a good time.

You want to do it together? Okay.

ANTHROPOMORPHIC.

Just good, clean fun.

Plus, who didn’t love stories of such creatures (talking animals, non-living things, natural phenomena, etc.) when they were growing up? The Brave Little Toaster was where it was at, am I right?

It makes particular sense to take a look at anthropomorphic animals on this of all days. The day we all come together in the efforts to completely pull a fast one our nearest and dearest. After all, quite a few of our anthropomorphic buddies were tricksters.

It was through a series of tricks and deceits that Puss in Boots got his penniless master married off to a princess. My favorite of all of his nefarious activities was when he convinced an ogre who owned a castle to turn himself into a mouse. The Booted Cat then ate the mouse and passed off the castle as his master’s. Not very nice, sure, but come on, that ogre fell for the oldest trick in the book. The I’ve-been-told-you-can-do-this-but-I-don’t-believe-it-so-you-do-it-to-prove-a-point-and-I-trap-you? You’re better than that, ogre.

I’ll tell you that thanks to stories of anthropomorphs I have a really hard time trusting rabbits. How about Bugs Bunny? Was there ever a rabbit more accomplished at mental warfare? It didn’t matter if his foe were human or animal. Bugs could trick just about anybody. He often didn’t start the trouble, but he could always be counted on to end it. And then there’s Harvey, another tricky wabbit. Not only was he anthropomorphic, he was invisible. Talk about a double whammy. No wonder poor Elwood kept getting into trouble. And don't go following any rabbits who appear to be running late. I don't care how dapper they look with their vests and pocket watches. No good can come of tailing these fellows. No. Good. 

Ones Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle the Moose are certainly remembered for the ingenuity. Boris and Natasha may have been trained spies, but they were never taught how to deal with the superior intellect of talking animals. But, I mean, who is? A serious hole in the education of all humans. (Teachers, this is really something we should look into.)

So, good luck out there on this April Fool’s Day. I encourage you to keep an eye on your friends, but also on your pets. ‘Cause you just never know when one of them is going to decide to strike up a conversation to distract you from the epic joke they’ve planned.

*Cut to me running off a cliff with an ACME anvil whilst my turtles laugh their shells off*

Waiting on Spring

Spring time is here and the living is easy!

Okay, yeah, I’m currently trying to climb into my office heater. And fine, there’s talk of more snow next Monday. Stop bothering me with trivial details!

How about it being lighter later, huh? That’s springy. It’s not called “springing” forward for nothing, am I right? Sure, the month after daylight savings is always a total mind twist where I think I have more hours in the day than I actually do and somehow it’s ten o’clock before I realize I need to stop frolicking in the frost laden fields and eat some mac and cheese or something. But that’s a price I’m willing to pay for warmer weather.

Or, more realistically, the growing hope that one day the weather will indeed be less frigid.

So, I’m going to celebrate spring. Not let all those naysayers who keep reminding me that it’s supposed to be in the 30s tomorrow. THE THIRTIES. JUST ABOVE FREEZING. WHAT?

No, no, I’m sorry. That’s not what this is about. This is about the celebration of spring. Ignore the cold. Ignore. The. Cold.

Okay, I’m having a little bit of a hard time with that. If you are too, here are my suggestions as to how to get your mind off the, I don’t even want to say it, wintry temperatures:

-          Watch a spring themed movie, such as classics From Justin to Kelly or Shag: The Movie. Seriously, turn away from you computer and go watch these movies. I give you my guarantee that afterward, you will not be thinking about how cold it is. In fact, you may be robbed of the ability to think entirely.

-          Belt out some tunes from The Secret Garden. It may be a bit to cold to start your gardening, but that doesn’t mean you can’t sing about it. Plus, if you like to dance whilst you sing, you’ll be feeling warmer in no time!

-          Do some spring cleaning. Or if you’re not feeling quite that ambitious yet, read The Berenstain Bears Clean House. Might give you some ideas for when you finally do feeling like organizing all your things.

-          Nothing chases away the cold like new love. For some seasonally appropriate tales of devotion, check out Come the Spring (Julie Garwood) or Scandal in Spring (Lisa Kleypas).

-          Solve a mystery! That’ll totally keep you from thinking about the fact that you’re wearing three sweaters. Maybe you have one in your own life that you want to look into, but if not, Rita Mae Brown’s got you covered with the spring time themed Catch as Cat Can.

-          Perhaps reading about warmer weather isn’t helping. In that case, I suggest Ice Hunt by James Rollins. It probably still won’t be springy out when you’ve finished, but at least you’re not in the Arctic. Or, you know, fighting prehistoric creatures. Unless you’re into that sort of thing. Who am I to judge?

Okay, those are my tips. If you have any of your own, please share below. In the mean time, I think I need a forth sweater. And maybe some hot cocoa.

Captain Hook and My Big Brother

So, how is everyone surviving the storm?

Thanks to the back-up generator in my apartment building, as far as electricity goes, I haven’t had to deal with anything more than some prolonged flickers. So, I’ve been super lucky. I even got to keep my TV, which was surprising and lovely. I caught up on all those shows that I haven’t been able to watch for weeks.

During all of this TV time, I was particularly interested to see the arrival of Captain Hook in Once Upon A Time. I’ve always been a fan of Peter Pan. I’ve seen the various movies and staged productions. Watched mini-series. Read books (if you haven’t checked out Peter and the Starcatchers, you really should). Kids fighting pirates? I’m there. Not quite as interested in the never aging aspect of the story. I like progression.

As my mind often connects stories to specific memories in my life, doing all this thinking about Peter Pan, my mind immediately went back to when I was a kid, obsessed with the Mary Martin version. I could watch it over and over again. And you can bet that every time she pleaded with us to help save Tinker Bell’s life, I clapped until my hands were red.

I remember one particular night that I was watching it for the umpteenth time. The little sis was sitting by my side, singing along with me. And my brother was in the kitchen making us popcorn. My parents were out and he was watching us. His friends stopped over to say hi for a few minutes and then headed out to wherever they were going. Because they were boys, they naturally wanted to take a moment out of their night to scare the little girls.

They made a slight mistake, though. They told my brother their plans.

He nodded and smiled. And the moment they went out the door, he carried into us a big bowl of popcorn and told us not to get scared when someone banged on the windows, because it was just the guys. He sat down with us, watching the movie and eating popcorn. And we all laughed and rolled our eyes when all the noise started.

It wasn’t the last time that the attempt to scare us was made. I mean, we were all kids. Where would the fun in that have been? I still can’t look at American Girl’s Samantha Learns A Lesson without also thinking about that damn Freddy Krueger mask.

But I always knew that if my brother was forewarned about the scare, I would be as well. So, now when I see Captain Hook, I don’t just think “fearsome pirate, most well known for his hatred of children,” but “man, I have a great brother.”

It’s downright confusing.

Hope you’re all staying safe during the storminess!

The Real Magic

Once upon a time, there was a young girl who was truly enamored of fairy tales, but kept finding little things about the stories she was reading or watching that nagged at her.

Why didn’t Cinderella’s glass slipper change into a ratty old shoe at midnight when everything else did? Then, at least, it would have narrowed down the pool of subjects the prince had to go door-to-door to.

Why were the fathers all so crappy? The love of a father for his child was often mentioned, but where were the actions to back up these claims? The fathers of Cinderella and Snow White apparently loved their daughters whole heartedly, but were too dumb not to notice that they were marrying horrific, abusive women. Hansel and Gretel’s dad was said to love them tons too, but ditched them in the forest twice. And only took them back at the end because his wife died. Father of the year, right there. The miller basically sold his daughter to the King under false pretense, leading to that whole Rumplestiltskin fiasco. But at least he never really pretended to be overly enamored with his offspring. So….that’s something, maybe?

Why were all the stepmothers evil? I knew a number of stepmothers, all of them were lovely people. So, it never made sense to me that every single stepmother in fairy tales wanted nothing more than to kill off all the children. I believed in all sorts of magic and mayhem, but this strange stereotype was too unrealistic for my young mind.

The questions went on and on. Probably because I kept going back to all the stories over and over. I loved them and they drove me crazy.

I’m not the only one who has cast a skeptical eye toward these classic tales, of course. There are tons of different takes out there. My father told me stories where Ariel stayed a mermaid. In high school, I was introduced to Into the Woods and Shrek, both of which, I was happy to see showed that happy endings aren’t always what we expect them to be. When I was in college, one particularly awesome roommate used to read stories to me from James Finn Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories. (Nothing speeds you off to sleep like Red Riding Hood’s stirring speech to the sexist, speciesist woodsman.) And now, I get to regularly enjoy blogs and tumblrs like “Introvert Fairy Tales” and “fairy tales for twentysomethings.”

All of these things have been on my mind a lot lately, as I work on a new story. And I think I’ve figured out what the real magic of fairy tales is – They can be whatever we want them to be.

So what are your favorites, be they traditional or reimaginings?

Books: A Constant in All My Lives

Good morning, all!

It's Friday, the loveliest of all days, with all the possibilities of the weekend stretched out before us. Any plans?

I'm going to be doing quite a bit of singing and dancing. Which is pretty much my normal weekend plan, regardless of what else is going on in life. But this weekend it's going to be a little bit more formalized.

I'm currently in the ensemble of a production of All Shook Up. First musical I've done since 2006 and it's fantastic. (For all of you who don't know the show, it's based off of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and the score is made up entirely of Elvis songs.)

Well, our director very much believes that everyone on stage should have a backstory even if they are not main characters. To that end, he had each of us write one up and share them with the cast so that he would have a better jumping off point for how he wanted to block us and who should be spending the most stage time with who.

Here's mine:

Name: Margaret “Peggy” Lennox

Age: 26

Job:

Peggy has worked as a librarian in the town library for three years, since moving back to her hometown. Once a week, Mayor Hyde performs an inspection of the literary works available, never failing to add more to the town’s extensive banned books list. Once the Mayor has deemed a book to be inappropriate for public consumption, Peggy dutifully takes it off the shelf, promises to set it aflame, and then proceeds to hide it under her bead. She’s running out of room, but thinks there may be a way to reorganize her closet to fit next week’s haul.

Relationship Status:

Single. She was once engaged, but her fiancé broke things off without any explanation. This was a contributing factor to Peggy’s decision to move back to her hometown after her grandmother’s death.

History:

Peggy was born and raised in this small town. However, when the U.S. joined the fight in World War II, both Peggy’s parents felt it their duty to offer their talents to the war efforts. Peggy and her older brother were sent to live their maternal grandmother in Checotah, Oklahoma. Neither parent survived the war. Serving as a WAC in North Africa, Katherine Lennox succumbed to an outbreak of malaria in 1943. Daniel Lennox, a medic in the 42^nd Field Hospital, was killed during an air raid a few days before the Battle of the Bulge.

Peggy continued living with her grandmother, eventually becoming a librarian. When her grandmother passed away, rather than moving to Topeka, Kansa, where older her brother and his family live, Peggy opted to return to her hometown. Her happiest memories were here. Of course, the town has changed quite a bit over the years.

She rents a small attic space from an older couple, Bill and Susan Sanders, who remember her family. Due to this connection they asked only for $20 a month in rent and that she cook dinner on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Having now been there for three years, Peggy finds herself eating with them more nights than not and has taken to assisting in the upkeep of the house. They’ve become close over time, though Peggy doesn’t agree with Bill’s opinion that the town has improved under Mayor Hyde. As a result, she keeps her book rescue project a secret from them. She has, however, confided in two friends, Lily and Virginia. They were close as children, before her family moved away and reconnected as soon as she returned. Now they hold a scheduled Banned Bookclub Meeting once a month.

Overall, she’s content, but hasn’t quite succeeded in achieving the happiness she was looking for when she returned. Something’s still missing. She just can’t quite put her finger on what.

Likes:

-          Films (though she has to go a couple towns over to see any fun ones), particularly any with Marlon Brando or Gene Kelly.

-          Going to the high school football games. Doesn’t really care too much about the sport, but it’s one of the few places it’s okay to yell in public.

-          Silly putty. Finds it fun showing kids how to make the words from books appear on the putty when the mayor’s not around to see.

-          Hula hoops, but don’t tell anyone because they’re not allowed in town.

Dislikes:

-          Birdwatching. Susan loves it, so Peggy has spent many an afternoon looking at birds. It makes her want to scream.

-          Knitting. Doesn’t matter how many time’s she’s tried, she just can’t work the needles.

-          Horses. Peggy broke her leg once while riding with her brother. Now she won’t go near the animals.

-          Pickles.

Seems that even in my fictional lives, I just can't shake the book obsession.

King Of New York

I’m always interested to see translations of stories, whether it be from book to screen or stage, or from screen to stage, or stage to screen. Each medium allows for the audience to experience the story in a new way. There are always changes, whether they be in plot, character, or both.

I particularly like to look at story movements between stage and screen. There’s more of a contest for me as to which I’ll prefer (between book and anything else, I almost always choose the book).

Over the years there has been a lot of back and forth between the two mediums and I’ve seen a number of them. But seeing as I just saw Newsies on Broadway a week ago and am a big fan of both versions, I thought I’d compare some of my favorite characters and relationships from each story to see which one truly is (in my eyes) The King of New York.

Characters:

Jack Kelly

-          Our young hero. Both the movie and the play show Jack as both a fighter and a dreamer. He’s a little desperate to get away from a lifestyle that’s weighing on him. In the play they go a little bit more into his different escapes. It’s not just dreams of Santa Fe. He also is an artist. This storyline showcases Jack’s wistfulness much like the storyline involving Davey’s family did in the movie. He takes failures to heart. He’s torn between wanting to do what he believes is right and wanting to ensure a better life for himself. There are small changes here and there from screen to stage, but overall, he’s still the character everyone wants to win. Point: Tied

Katherine Plummer

-          Katherine is a character unique to the play. She takes the place of the movie’s Sarah Jacobs and Bryan Denton. Sarah doesn’t exist in the play, which is okay with me. Not because there was anything wrong with the idea of her, but because she was never really given anything to do. She was primarily there for Jack to love. No idea what she wanted out of life or if she had any goals for herself. Katherine, on the other hand, has a life going on before she meets Jack. She's a young reporter who is trying to get the paper to allow her to cover something more than fluff pieces. Sure, Bryan Denton, the former war correspondent, had greater credibility as the character who was covering the strike, but what personal stake did he really have in it? Mostly he just appeared to want to help the boys out of interest and altruism. Katherine is interested in helping the boys, but she also wants to help herself. If she and Jack fall in love, that’s great. But it’s not the sole reason for her existence. Point: Stage

Spot Conlon

-          Spot Conlon may have been one of my absolute favorite characters of the movie. He was just so damn cool. (Plus, he's kind of what my sister and I picture my dad to be like as a child.) The play focuses on slightly different subplots within the overall story than the movie does. As a result, some subplots from the movie are cut. Spot is discussed more in the play than he appears. Point: Screen

Joseph Pulitzer

-          Like Spot, Pulitzer’s scenes are trimmed down in the play. He still looms large as the antagonist, but the audience just doesn’t spend as much time with him. And while he certainly seems like a jerk, I was always partial to Robert DuVall’s slightly manic portrayal. Of course, that might just be because Roomie and I like to yell, “Go home! Go home to your mothers and your fathers! Go home!” when we’re stuck in traffic. Point: Screen

  

Relationships:

Jack/Davey/Les

-          Davey and Les’s family doesn’t have a great deal of bearing on the play's storyline, other than their father's injury being the reason they've become newsies. No scenes of Jack wistfully watching their relationships. Because of this Jack in the play has less off the clock time with the other two. They come across more as coworkers who like each other and have a common goal, than the brother-like figures they became in the movie. Point: Screen

Jack/Crutchie

-          Here’s where the play gives Jack his “brother.” He and Crutchie are much closer here. Sure, Jack and Crutchie got along in the film. Jack defended him and tried to get him out of the Refuge, but I always felt that Jack would have done as much for any of the Newsies. In the play, Jack and Crutchie have a special bond, with Jack even going so far as to try to talk the other boy into going to Santa Fe with him. It makes Crutchie's eventual stint in the Refuge even sadder. And makes me want to yell "Soak 'em for Crutchie" even more. Point: Stage

Jack/Katherine vs. Jack/Sarah

-          In the movie, Jack was immediately attracted to Sarah and she to him, and it was very sweet. But that’s it. Jack and Katherine’s relationship develops. The audience sees how they challenge and help each other. Ultimately, there’s more to root for. Point: Stage

Choreography:

-          I loved watching all the dancing in the movie, but there’s something kind of incomparable to watching a group of people fly across the stage in unison and knowing that’s it. There are no second take if someone screws up. The show just keeps on going. And again, I must ask, HOW do people go from what looks like a fairly stationary position into a midair flip? As someone who can not even do a cartwheel, it's pure magic to me. Point: Stage

Okay, I could go on like this forever and this is already an obscenely long post. So, I’m calling it.

As of right now, I’m deeming the stage production of Newsies the current King of New York, by a thin margin of four to three.

But, I may have to go see it again. You know….just to make sure.

And maybe to do a little seat dancing.

And the World Will Know....

Everyone’s life has little mysteries, you know? Small events and oversights that never quite make sense when you look at the whole picture. Here’s one of mine: I didn’t see Newsies until eight years after it was released. More than that, I’d never even heard of it until 2000.

It’s totally baffling. An avowed lover of musicals from the first time I saw Wizard of Oz. A big fan of Disney movies. How, in the name of all things good and holy, did this film slip through the cracks?

To be honest, it’s a little embarrassing.

Thankfully, though, this is why I got my parents to give me that little sister I wanted. So, that she could inform me of any possible oversights I was making in life. Sure, it took her a little longer than it should have, but I’ll cut her some slack. She was only four when the movie came out. And she did eventually rectify the problem.

She came to me whilst I was sitting in my parents’ bed (their room had a TV) with some kind of ailment I can’t remember (I do remember that I was watching the season one Buffy episode “The Pack” though, so clearly my memory has its priorities straight). Holding the movie in her hands, she told me that she’d just seen it at a friend’s and immediately borrowed it because she knew I would love it. She threw that bad boy in the VCR and climbed up next to me, risking whatever germs (probably extraterrestrial) that were infecting me.

Those fellas started singing about their days carrying the banner and I thought, You know what? It’s true. This is what has been missing from my life.

In addition to enriching my existence, however, this film led to a continuing battle against my urge to yell, “Soak ‘em for Crutchie!” at inopportune times.*

Last week, thanks to my brother and sister-in-law, the fam got to go see the Newsies flying across the Nederlander stage. I sat next to the sis and we were both beside ourselves excitement wise. Our fourteen and eleven-year-old selves were in rare form. The sis blanked for a second while she was singing “Carrying the Banner” and ended up singing it to the tune of “Gary, Indiana.” Which, in addition to being a great musical nerd moment, actually fit pretty well. Seriously, try it.

Then the show started and it was pretty much magic from start to finish. Some changes from the movie, which worked really well for the show, but more on that tomorrow. Today, suffice it to say, I continue to be baffled and amazed by people who can go from a standing position into an air flip. I mean, how the hell does that happen??

*The biggest obstacle to my stifling this urge is the fact that I don’t want to. Still haven’t figure out how to handle that.

Proud to be Feared

When I was a kid, my uncle was in a production of Pinocchio where he played the bad guy. I was young enough that I no longer remember the performance, but I do have a clear memory of my reaction to my poor uncle. I wouldn’t go near him and hid behind my parents when he tried to give me a hug.

Before the show he had been my uncle, after he was the jerk who went after that nice wooden boy.

My reaction to this performance, while it did make me a little wary of my uncle, did not put me off the idea of acting. I wanted to be part of the story and what better way was there than to perform it? More than that, what better way was there to get the stories in my head out where the people could hear them? You guessed it, there wasn’t. At least not that I could find at the time. So, I entered into the time honored tradition of kids all over the world: I made up plays, coerced my sister and friends into being in them and forced our families to watch. (For which I offer up my sincerest apologies.)

The writing was, not to put too fine a point on it, a little raw. Not quite up to my full potential. It was bad. No, it’s insulting to bad things to compare them to my theatrical works. I don’t even think “abysmal” does justice to those shows.

Needless to say, it is a testament to unconditional love that my parents didn’t leave me staked to a tree in the front yard after sitting through one of these productions. Let alone, the dozens I put them through.

Eventually I realized that perhaps these plays were slightly counterproductive. I decided to try something a little more mainstream. Acting at the local YMCA. I was in sixth grade when I performed in my first show there, Amahl and the Night Visitors. I was a shepherd with one line. Something about pomegranates.

And it was glorious.

Standing in front of those, maybe, thirty people, I knew there was no going back. It was in my blood. And two years later, when I played the Wicked Witch of the West, I got to watch kids hide behind their parents from me after the show. One gentleman carried his daughter over and said, “If you don’t behave, we’re going to have her come babysit you.”

I’d never been so proud.



Side note: For all of you who were worried, years after the Pinocchio debacle, my uncle had the cast of another show he was in sing “Happy Birthday” to me backstage. So, we’re all good now.

Probably Should've Read It First

People like to talk about books. It’s common ground. You may know absolutely nothing about the person sitting next to you on the plane, but you’ve read the book they’re reading. Instant conversation starter. Find out that you share the same opinions on the plot points and character development? Best-ies for life. Or, for the very least, the duration of the flight.

Even if you are not the kind of person who enjoys mid-air chats with strangers, you probably can’t prevent someone from talking to you about your reading material if it’s something they’ve read, as well. The reason for this is very simple. The book may have gone through a plethora of stages before ending up in your lap -- author to agent to editor to publisher -- all these different hands involved in making what you now hold. But this fades away once you’ve read it.

The story touched you and now it’s yours.

Which for some, depending on personality and level of connection to the book, makes it nearly impossible not to discuss it when you spot a person who may share your feelings. This leads to a great many conversations with the potential for immediate connection or soul-sucking awkwardness. Even with the SSA risks, many find it difficult to forgo the chance to chat about something that is simultaneously personal and communal.

I do offer one friendly warning: Be careful of exercising ownership over books you have not actually read.*

Last spring, I went to see a production of Les Miserables. Needless to say, the soundtrack has been playing, on and off, in my head ever since. Particularly now that there are more articles coming out about the movie version.

Do you hear the people sing? Singing the songs of angry men!

Yeah. I hear you. Now, if you could stop singing them in my cranium, I would greatly appreciate it.

I went to use the restroom at intermission. The line was characteristically daunting, but I prevailed! A fact that I am extremely grateful for, otherwise I would have missed the following conversation between the two women behind me.

Woman 1: “The play does a really good job of squeezing a lot of the book’s plot in. They definitely left stuff out, but you’d have to. It’s like making War and Peace into a play. The book is huge.”

Woman 2: “Oh, you’ve read Les Mis?”

Woman 1: (pause) “No, but I’ve seen it and.... it’s like.... a really big book.”

I’m assuming that Woman 1’s thought process was, Uh oh, this person actually read the book. I’m not going to know what to say when she starts talking about it. Better come clean. Woman 2 had not, in fact, read the book, her boyfriend had. She wasn’t going to quiz Woman 1, but merely confirm that she heard the book was quite intimidating.

When Woman 1 realized this she prolonged the awkward exchange, trying to explain that she has always wanted to read Les Mis. Really. She just hasn’t gotten around to it yet.

Finally, the line came to an end and these two strangers were able to go their separate ways, both probably equally relieved. And leaving me with a shining example of why, as tempting as it is to claim intellectual prowess through literature, it’s generally better to wait until you have the opportunity to discuss a book you actually have read.



* OK, don’t really be too careful about this. Such caution would severely limit overhearing conversations like the one found above. Which would be less fun.