From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook, the frontispiece to How to Believe in Your Elf.

Though few people believe in elves outside of Iceland (where the majority entertains the possibility that the "hidden people" exist), elfish mischief afflicts every high-tech society that has traded the Otherworld of folklore for the virual world of computers.  We call a sudden malfunction a "glitch," an acronym for "gremlins loose in the computer housing" (Nigel P. Cook, Practical Digital Electronics, 2003.  Similarly, Safire's Political Dictionary defines a glitch as "the mischief of a computerized gremlin").  Gremlins are, of course, troublemaking sprites, namesakes of those pesky unexplained characters that appear in text documents.  One might be tempted to posit that the folk of fairyland believe in themselves, even if non-Icelanders daren't allow for the possibility (all evidence to the contrary).  Meanwhile, let us recall this nuggest of wisdom from How to Believe in Your Elf: "Know the enemy and know your elf."

My ratings are always based on how much energy a product generates in me. Sometimes the trigger is usefulness, at other times it's the production quality or other things. That means that I ignore aspects of the product that aren't relevant to my focus.

In this case, the four stars are based on the fact that this book makes me muse about myself and my life and makes me smile at the same time.

I'm a nut for off beat playfulness that balances between nonsense and seriousness. This book (as well as most book by Prof. Oddfellow) does just that. Obviously the 'One's elf/Oneself' is the running theme here. I can see how you can look at it as lame wordplay. To me it isn't. Something weird happens if you place your personality traits, ego and whatnot in the elf of your choice. One separates one's elf from oneself. Distancing yourself from yourself is always a good way to see bigger pictures and wonder about why you're behaving the way you're behaving. It opens up new possibilities and ideas.

Some examples:

What you do not wish done to your elf, do not to another.

Maturity consists of no longer being taken in by one’s elf.

If you be not pleased, put your hand in your pocket and please your elf.

Listen at the key hole, and you’ll hear news of your elf.

Can't help it, I just like this kind of lighthearted play with words, sense and nonsense that sometimes strikes an unexpected chord.