All kidding aside, there's a book entitled What Shall I Read Next?  We can just see this title scrawled (without irony) on someone's list of to-be-read books.  (Even more deliciously, as we type this post, the book has not yet been released but is pre-orderable.)  It's like something out of a procrastinator's Calvinoesque dream.

"Believe it or not, there are some [TV] producers out there who are not very nice people."
—Lee Goldberg, Successful Television Writing

We understand this is the first and last time Hollywood extras were acknowledged in a film's opening credit sequence.  The film is the stunning noir masterpiece The Shanghai Gesture:

Two birds fly past.  They are needed somewhere.
—Robert Bly

via A Murder of Crows, An Unkindness of Ravens

Here's one of Nabokov's methods for a secret code.  Note the charming detail that "one-letter words remain undisguised":


Via Gretel und Hänsel

"There are two kinds of truth:  trivialities, where the opposite is obviously impossible, and deep truths, which are characterized by their opposite also being a deep truth." —Niels Bohr

Imagine a game of "What's My Line," in which either a cherub or an imp whispers into a blindfolded panelist's ear.

Are the whispered words pictured on the right of an angelic or a diabolical nature?

Answer: Diabolical. "Some Demon whispered, 'Visto! have a taste.'" —Alexander Pope, "Epistle IV," The Works of Alexander Pope Vol. III, 1881, p. 173. (The answer is in black text on the black background. Highlight it to view.)

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Gordon writes:

"Are you sitting down?  Good.  Now for a dose of reality.  You are not super-leader."
—Blaine Allen, When People Throw Stones (2005)

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

This piece was inspired by Andy Paik and Arcana Chaos.  The red letter C is from the award-winning typeface created for our One-Letter Words: A Dictionary (HarperCollins) by Mucca Design.

We were chatting with a Hollywood screenwriter the other day about the great dramatic pitfall of the wizard genre — problems can be solved with the wave of a hand.  We're reminded of thrillers in which logician savants battle wits (it's fun when the two masterminds form a Yin/Yang connection, each respecting his rival's intellect).  It's a stalemate ... until one of them fails to predict a tiny repercussion that tips the balance.  Every wave of the magic wand initiates an action, but the ripple effects are for the machinations of Chaos to sort out.  Consider the murderer who, with a wave of the hand, throws the incriminating evidence in the river, unable to predict where the material might wash up.  (Or consider the classic Bewitched series, in which a vexing and hexing mother-in-law's action invariably triggers a chain of unforeseen consequences.)  Perhaps a magician's foremost powers need to be of logic and of foresight.

"Too Much Candy for a Dime" by Eddy Raven

ORIGINAL LYRIC:

You're just too much candy for a dime, ain't no way
I can look into those eyes of yours and walk away
You think I would know better, but I fall every time
You're just too much candy for a dime

ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION

You're just too much candy for a tenner, ain't no way
I can look into those eyes of yours and eat my dinner
You think I would know better, but I ain't no thinner
You're just too much candy for a tenner