Dave Barry is not making this up
All righty,
We're temporarily back in business! So, here's a collection of things that I am absolutely not making up.
1. Dickens Statuary-- Based on the caveats Laurel brought up in her reply to my Philly post, I was SURE that there had to be other Dickens statues out there, just not ones of him with Little Nell. (Does anyone still read The Old Curiosity Shop? If so, why?) But, after ten minutes of internet research, my search remains fruitless. Interestingly, most of the sites I looked at (Wikipedia, Answers.com, etc.) used the same sentence, "The only life-size bronze statue of Dickens, cast in 1891 by Francis Edwin Elwell, is located in Clark Park, Philadelphia, in the United States," which leads me to believe that this may be misinformation recklessly propagated by internet hacks. After all, Wikipedia also says of Dickens that he’s "Acclaimed as one of the most famous authors that ever lived." So, you know, these folks may not be too up on their Dickens either. (Acclaimed because he's famous?) I know I have approx. three readers, but if anyone has seen or heard of another statue of Boz, I'd like to hear about it.
2. I swear I am not making this up. The grocery store nearest me, Xtra Supermarket, sells cacti and guinea pigs.
For eating.
They have prickly pear pads, or nopal, in the produce section. I myself own a tiny prickly pear, Opuntia johnsonii.
Obviously, I am firmly cactal ("allied with the cactuses," says the OED) on this one. But to make matters even worse, and also may I say disgusting (forgive my cultural bias), they have "fresh frozen guinea pigs" in the freezer section. Each one has been skinned and individually packaged. I have owned two guinea pigs and I loved them both very much. I don't think I'm going to be shopping at Xtra anymore.
3. From pets to people. While researching a woman named Elizabeth Robins for my seminar class, I came across her husband's suicide note, dated May 31st, 1887. I would reproduce the whole thing, four pages in all, but I don't want to take up too much space. Let me just cite a few passages. "Your love for me is dead-- 'tis true-- 'tis better so." "I will not stand in your light any longer. I seem to be in everybody's light these days." "At twelve o'clock I shall go under water with a weight at my feet-- there shall be no trace of me left in the world." "Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye. Yours in death, George."
I had been looking for this for a long time and I got so excited when I found it that I actually yelled "Yours in death!" triumphantly across the library. I was promptly shushed. But it was really something to hold this hundred-year-old note in my hands and imagine him writing it. Further info (and please remember that I am not making this up): he was an actor, as you could probably tell from the histrionic note, and so put on his stage suit of armor and walked into the Charles river. It's true. Don’t you think there was a moment there when he thought “This is a bad idea” but then couldn’t do anything because of, you know, the armor?
4. Unbelievable conversations edition. I was walking down the street with Andrew and we passed a wedding cake display. I started to hum the wedding march and we had the following conversation.
Me: Dum dum da dummmm!
Him: If you can tell me who wrote that, I'll marry you.
Me: Uh, Mendelssohn?
Him: Oh.
Me: Right?
Him: Yeah, but uh... what was his full name?
Me: F. Mendelssohn?
Him: Ha! Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy!
Me: Huh?
Him: It doesn't count!
Me: Of course it does!
Him: Name the piece it's from.
Me: What?
Him: Spell "Mendelssohn."
5. And finally, a selection from our radical transformations edition!
My brother used to look like this:
And now he looks like this:
Enough said.
-Moi
We're temporarily back in business! So, here's a collection of things that I am absolutely not making up.
1. Dickens Statuary-- Based on the caveats Laurel brought up in her reply to my Philly post, I was SURE that there had to be other Dickens statues out there, just not ones of him with Little Nell. (Does anyone still read The Old Curiosity Shop? If so, why?) But, after ten minutes of internet research, my search remains fruitless. Interestingly, most of the sites I looked at (Wikipedia, Answers.com, etc.) used the same sentence, "The only life-size bronze statue of Dickens, cast in 1891 by Francis Edwin Elwell, is located in Clark Park, Philadelphia, in the United States," which leads me to believe that this may be misinformation recklessly propagated by internet hacks. After all, Wikipedia also says of Dickens that he’s "Acclaimed as one of the most famous authors that ever lived." So, you know, these folks may not be too up on their Dickens either. (Acclaimed because he's famous?) I know I have approx. three readers, but if anyone has seen or heard of another statue of Boz, I'd like to hear about it.
2. I swear I am not making this up. The grocery store nearest me, Xtra Supermarket, sells cacti and guinea pigs.
For eating.
They have prickly pear pads, or nopal, in the produce section. I myself own a tiny prickly pear, Opuntia johnsonii.
Obviously, I am firmly cactal ("allied with the cactuses," says the OED) on this one. But to make matters even worse, and also may I say disgusting (forgive my cultural bias), they have "fresh frozen guinea pigs" in the freezer section. Each one has been skinned and individually packaged. I have owned two guinea pigs and I loved them both very much. I don't think I'm going to be shopping at Xtra anymore.
3. From pets to people. While researching a woman named Elizabeth Robins for my seminar class, I came across her husband's suicide note, dated May 31st, 1887. I would reproduce the whole thing, four pages in all, but I don't want to take up too much space. Let me just cite a few passages. "Your love for me is dead-- 'tis true-- 'tis better so." "I will not stand in your light any longer. I seem to be in everybody's light these days." "At twelve o'clock I shall go under water with a weight at my feet-- there shall be no trace of me left in the world." "Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye. Yours in death, George."
I had been looking for this for a long time and I got so excited when I found it that I actually yelled "Yours in death!" triumphantly across the library. I was promptly shushed. But it was really something to hold this hundred-year-old note in my hands and imagine him writing it. Further info (and please remember that I am not making this up): he was an actor, as you could probably tell from the histrionic note, and so put on his stage suit of armor and walked into the Charles river. It's true. Don’t you think there was a moment there when he thought “This is a bad idea” but then couldn’t do anything because of, you know, the armor?
4. Unbelievable conversations edition. I was walking down the street with Andrew and we passed a wedding cake display. I started to hum the wedding march and we had the following conversation.
Me: Dum dum da dummmm!
Him: If you can tell me who wrote that, I'll marry you.
Me: Uh, Mendelssohn?
Him: Oh.
Me: Right?
Him: Yeah, but uh... what was his full name?
Me: F. Mendelssohn?
Him: Ha! Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy!
Me: Huh?
Him: It doesn't count!
Me: Of course it does!
Him: Name the piece it's from.
Me: What?
Him: Spell "Mendelssohn."
5. And finally, a selection from our radical transformations edition!
My brother used to look like this:
And now he looks like this:
Enough said.
-Moi