He was a great storyteller. I can hear his voice in those quotes above. He came to speak to one of my college classes. They set him up with a seat behind a keyboard on a stage in a lecture hall and he talked and talked and talked. That great voice telling story after story. The whole time everyone entranced but…

The book is fun but it's not great Steinbeck. It's been years since I've read it or seen the movie but as I recall it Kazan makes something different and better than Steinbeck did.

This attitude that values people's lives by box office and limelight is depressing me now.

I love the first album but I think it's a much better band that made Join the Army.

You are entitled to your opinion no matter how wrong it is.

It's nice that you and your dad can bond over ridiculing insecure adolescents.

I have no idea what that means but it makes me feel kind of ashamed.

First, eff yourself with this whine or revelation or whatever that is about hitting the "big 3-0." There's nothing magical about a certain birthday. You're not crossing some bridge or something just because we happen to use base 10.

That's actually JD on the slowed down version of Jolene.

I had no idea that Meet the Parents was so loved. Seriously. I knew it got a sequel or two but I thought it was widely acknowledged as just a passable film. I don't think I've been paying close enough attention. I'm still not planning on watching it.

Meet the Parents is a 1? Cop Land only a 2?

I think of Tom Hanks and how happy he'd be every time I see the enormous bottle of Kirkland vanilla extract in our cabinet.

Leave Linda Ronstadt alone. She has to live with the trauma of having unleashed the Eagles. Everything she has done since then has been either atonement to the world or therapy to repair her soul. Let her heal.

Are you dissing Ronnie James Dio? Unwise.

I disagree.

It's very good but…yes. Just read it. Also important for your appreciation of the Thursday Next books.

Have you read Wuthering Heights yet?

I loved those diversions but I totally get what you're saying.

I just finished Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending. Good, not great. I read it based on a recommendation so it was kind of disappointing.
Now reading Suttree. I've picked it up a few times before but never got past the first chapter. The beginning "with its closely-woven mosaic of unusual and unknown words" as Ebert…

(I like this not in the sense that I agree with it necessarily but in that I like the comment itself.)