Thing One & Thing Two

October 30, 2010: Two things are on my mind this morning, and so in an effort to clear my mind and get back to something important (like fantasizing about naked women), I want to dump them here and move on with my life.

The first involves the dictionary, or at least the stupid "pocket" paperback dictionary I have. Per se, there's nothing wrong with it -- American Heritage is a fine company, I'm sure, and it has more than served my purpose for the 10 years or so I've owned it. What I find so terribly annoying, however, is the fact that they include so many strange and irrelevant entries, but leave out so many others -- in particular people.

For starters, who the fuck is Margeret Bourke-White? Does anyone know, and do those who know really care? Yet this weird little dictionary feels compelled to include a picture of her and everything. James Boswell gets an entry on the same page, although sans picture. What makes him so special? He never won a Super Bowl. (And by the way, couldn't they have done us all a favor and left out Joyce Carol Oates' picture instead; she looks like a disturbed owl who snuck into the medicine cabinet.)

Saint Theresa also gets a picture, but there's no entry for Deepak Chopra, or Sid Barrett for that matter! I can see Winston Churchill making the cut, but why James Baldwin? Is it just because he's black? Then where's John Amos?? Or Sinbad?? Or even Harry Belafonte, who's both white and black. Equality is one thing, but I call that an embarrassing double standard? (Yes, Lena Horne is there, but her picture makes her look like a Jack O'Lantern.)

Toni Morrison is there too. (How many black writers do we need to equal equity? And I even like her!) Yet there's no entry for Truman Capote or Jack Kerouac. I mean, What the fuck?!! And I don't mean to harp on race. It's just that it's a great source of comic material.

On the whiter side, who the hell (except perhaps Lindsay) cares about Thomas Cranmer, the English Archbishop of Canterbury from 1533 to 1553. Seriously, isn't this just a tad ridiculous??!! (I mean, come on Lindsay!)

Locations are another mystery. Who the hell needs to know, especially in this limited paperback edition, that Swansea is a borough of South Wales, or that Bursa is a city in northwest Turkey?

Anyway, you get the point I hope. (Don't make me drum it into your head, like I would if you were a panda bear.) Instead, let me move on to the second item, which involves knowing what the world is up to.

I'll need to explain this in detail, but you see I've become exhausted, and so can't. I'll have to try another time, because it's important ... but I guess not that important ...

Well, okay, to be perfectly honest, none of this is really that important, is it ...

Thanks for listening!