Q: How can I open the door when there is no keyhole?

A: Break through it with words, blows, prayers, or music.

—Leonora Carrington, The Stone Door

"The whole of life consists of nothing but questions which have taken on physical form and which bear the seed of their answer within them, and of answers which are pregnant with questions.  A man who sees anything else in it is a fool."
—Gustav Meyrink, The Golem

In the British comedy series "Absolutely Fabulous," a life coach gives this ridiculous "daily aim": "Have a great idea and write a pop song."  We couldn't help but think back on that line when we saw this advice:

Q: Why do I have to ask the questions?
A: Do you think that is the question to ask?
—Geof Huth, personal correspondence

Jeff asks today's question:

Q: What is it about rhetorical questions?

A: Yeah, I know, right?

Q. And, after all, is not eating well what the culinary arts are all about?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. That was actually a rhetorical question. Aren't you supposed to be on break?

—humorist, playwright, neologist, palindromist, parodist, and wit Jonathan Caws-Elwitt

"I was surprised anybody had answered my rhetorical question."
—David Farris, Lie Still, 2004

Carly Simon's song "You're So Vain" doesn't identify its subject, yet actor Warren Beatty has asserted that it's about him.  Beatty's assertion begs a question: if anyone takes "You're So Vain" personally, is he or she technically correct?

The answer is Yes!  According to Hugh Everett's "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics, every possible quantum vanity is realized.  In the many-branched tree of parallel universes, each and every vain human being is the true subject of Carly Simon's song.

This is very comforting! Imagine being vain enough to think YSV was about you, but finding out it wasn't. The very world might cease to revolve around one.

Technical question: Does Everett's theory still hold for values of "a" (a = age of vain individual) that are < Y (Y = years elapsed since song was written)? In other words, was Simon farsighted enough to build infinite references to unborn vain people into her song? 

Similarly, I note the problematics around individuals who were alive when the song was written but not yet vain, their vanity only to develop later on. In their case, I hypothesize a "critical vanity threshold," or CVT--the discrete moment at which someone's vanity has matured to the point where Simon's song begins to refer to him or her.

Q: "Everything can't be Kafkaesque, can it?  I ask myself this over and over, even though I know it's a rhetorical question." —William Keckler

A: Yes, everything is indeed Kafkaesque, except at the antipodes, where everything is reversed.

Courtesy of William Keckler:

QUESTION: If Roman augurs read entrails, does that mean libraries once had guts?

ANSWER: YES, parchment was indeed made from intestine.

Our burned-out flatbed scanner delayed our mention of how tickled we were to see our rhetorical question mark appear in Martha Brockenbrough's hilarious Things That Make Us [Sic].