Okay, it sounds oh so much less ominous now....

Pop Quiz: name the book that the powder Ever So Much More So comes from. Good luck. Answer after this word from our sponsors...

Heh. This one.

Did you look that up, or did you really know that? It's important to me.

OH MY GOD I LOVED THAT BOOK!! I had completely forgotten about it! Everyone gets rhyming aphasia -- and the forty-foot-tall ragweed -- okay I have to go put a copy on my wish list right now this second.

Has anyone read the sequel Centerburg Tales as well?

I have a special fondness for turn of the century America. The days of transition from horses to cars, barbershop quartets, the whole Music Man/River City mystique.

Probably my favorite Homer Price story is still the doughnut machine. It combines the best of the endless-machine genre (gotta wonder if the Lucy Show chocolate assembly line had this in mind), the friends-from-crisis genre, the kid-knows-more-than-the-adults genre, and the "how many times can the author up the stakes" genre.

At the Mall of America Krispy Kreme there's a visual assembly line for the doughnuts, but even that can't compare to the elegant simplicity of the Homer Price story.

I read all of them. All these years later, nearly every one of the names and situations is as familiar as if I'd read it... oh, last week. I could probably have drawn the doughnut machine from memory and still got it about 90% right. Super-Duper. That record in the jukebox. "Labor-saving devices" -- hee. :D

"All of them"? There are only two. That would be "both of them," right? At least Wikipedia says two, and I trust them almost implicitly.

Along with being a great author Robert McCloskey is a favorite children's book illustrator of mine, up there with Mercer Mayer. Anyone remember the story of the guy who lost his head, so he tried replacing it with a carrot, parsnip, pumpkin, etc. before carving a new one out of wood?

Oh, and I hope you enjoy my new Kataan probe avatar. I found it someplace and knew I had to use it eventually. I did write the fiver, after all.

I read Homer Price 15 times when I was a kid, but I'd forgotten about it too. For some reason the main thing I remember is that it was the first time I encountered the phrase "nothing new under the sun" (it was a chapter title).

Scooter! Where ya been?

He was backstage grooming his three felt hairs. Too bad Gonzo stole all the conditioner. :)

Two words: Grad. School.

Oh, and how are you liking that? I intend to go back for my master's one of these years, and I always appreciate input.

It's great if you're not also working full-time and teaching. I love teaching and I love being in grad school and I kinda wish those were the only things on my plate.

Oh yeah, I would definitely stay on campus. It'd be kinda fun to be a TA, I'd think. Having my own office (figuratively speaking, of course :)) and all that. My biggest conundrum is whether to go back to my alma matter or head to a church school halfway across the country.

Um....

Signed fivers?