point of honor

I think Amazon.com, or more specifically its Anonymous Random Recommendation System, just did the Internet version of slapping me across the face with a glove: it not only urged me to buy the Cliff Notes version of War and Peace, which would be bad enough, it did so because I had bought . . . the new Pevear and Volokhonsky translation of War and Peace. Please. Please. As if! One has already read Tolstoy, of course. One is re-reading. If one wanted a cribbed version, one would turn to Mr. Prokofiev.

At first I figured Amazon was sulking and lashing out because I’ve cut my purchases way back (you know I can’t visit you without buying something, baby! just hang in there till I’m back on my feet! and I mean it this time!). Then I thought that maybe everyone gets these recommendations, and Amazon has never really understood me, and how I feel about only reading unabridged books.

Whatever. I just hate to see my longest-lasting and most successful love affair come to this. There’s always a tiny hidden crack in the golden bowl, isn’t there?

Barnes and Noble is on line now too, you know! And Borders! I don’t need you!

Enjoy the comical italics – it's all post-Sudafed euphoria.

In further Amazon amusement, they are offering a disc called The Only Choral CD You’ll Ever Need. Strong words! But once again I am flummoxed by art marketing: choral CDs seem pretty much like the very definition of something that either you don’t need at all, or you need in unquantifiable numbers. And I’m not sure the Only Choral CD One Will Ever Need should be quite so heavy on opera choruses: the Humming Chorus from Madama Butterfly is very beautiful, but maybe the choral finale of the Beethoven 9 should be there instead?

There’s also a separate CD called The Best Choral Album in the World. You’d think the Best and the Only One You'll Ever Need would be the same, but apparently you’d be wrong. I leave it to others to analyze the differences, partly because my thumbs are still hurting and I’m having a little trouble typing. My thumbs are hurting because I chopped a lot of wood this weekend – I know that sounds like a saucy euphemism, but I actually was chopping wood – and apparently the thumb muscles are of the meekly hidden but essential type that is frequently overlooked during strength-training in favor of the mirror muscles.

I also have been so doped up on allergy medications for the past three days that the effects of allergies have blended indistinguishably with the effects of anti-allergens, and I’ve been too zoned to post the entries I meant to write instead of this one. But here’s a tip for Bay Area theater-goers: this is your last weekend to catch Thick House theater’s production of Blade to the Heat, and though Cutting Ball’s production of Endgame has been extended, you really need to see it now.