I'm Pretty Sure I Know All the Lyrics to "Milkshake and Honey," Though

You know that recurring meme where they tell you that there was a study at X University that determined that as long as the first and last letters of a word are in place, the rest of the letters can be all jumbled up and you'll figure them out in a snap? I'm calling BUSHLILT on that. OK, that one wasn't so bad. But the thing is that it only works if the rest of the word is gibberish. If, say, the scrambled word contains actual words, it's not so easy. PRIMET a SLAML DOMESTARTOIN. AWAYNY. Why have I become so bugged by this linguistic theory that I wish to debunk it? I don't know. BESAUCE.

A headline from the past, as remembered by Archie Bunker: Hippies still trying to ruin the country! You have to wonder if the editorial staff (I mean, EROADITIL staff) wasn't deliberately trying to undercut this one with the title.

I cannot account for the fact that last night's episode of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" did not, in fact, suck. I mean, there were actually funny parts, and the characters acted in ways that were oh, I don't know, CHATCARTRESTIIC (I'll stop now). Good things: Matt and Danny, as usual. Harriet seeming more human. Actual conflicts and realistic compromises. Ricky and Ron, particularly Ron not being a cardboard cutout. Lucy Davis being set up for a much larger role. (Considering that the last time we saw her character she was reduced to the girl-who-cries-to-her-boss-about-her-bad-relationship.) There are still bad things, Amanda Peet being number one. Since I don't believe that she ever got the network president job in the first place, and she is consistently annoying and unbelievable, I couldn't care less that her job is in jeopardy. Good. Get rid of her. Steven Weber's character is far more interesting. Overall, though, the show may be on an upswing. Now if we can just get Sorkin to stay in the studio and stop talking about the ghetto and/or the Midwest, neither of which he knows a damned thing about.

Am still working my way through Austen; finished Emma (good, but a bit long, and you can see why they named the movie "Clueless") and Northanger Abbey (wow. I can't say it's a great book, because as it's so clearly a reaction to a certain sort of book it can't really stand on its own merits; but it has some great moments--Catherine Morland as Don Quixote?). In addition I'm reading Cops and Robbers by Donald Westlake. For those who aren't familiar, Westlake is the guy who wrote The Hot Rock, which the Robert Redford film was based on. I'm assuming that it also inspired the Sleater-Kinney song, but it falls into that half of Sleater-Kinney's songs where I can't really understand the lyrics so I'm not sure. What Westlake does well is write ordinary guys who feel like they can't get anywhere through legal means. He convinces you that they really don't see an alternative, and that they're not bad guys, and the whole time they're planning their jobs you wish they would just give up and go home because you're so damned worried about them but you're also rooting for them to get away with it and also wondering what it would take for you to plan that big caper and get Gwenda to work the toll booth. I don't really know what that means, it's just something she said once. What I'm saying, Westlake is good stuff.

In major earth-shattering news, yesterday I submitted things, for the first time in, like, MONTHS. And I got to put "my first novel" etc. on the cover letters. Coooool.

Not sure I'll be blogging again before I head north for the holiday (complete with writerly get-together!), so for all of you who will be eating on Thursday I just want to wish you a DICELOUIS meal. (You knew I was going to do that at least once more.)