Perhaps you might use Miette’s short sabbatical to catch up on some of the classics that you might have missed the first time around.

True to form here’s a nice short one to balance out the more time-demanding Gogol from last time. And let me add that just because it’s short doesn’t mean it’s not gruesome, contentious, vitriolic, or even a little caustic, because when lagged by the potentate of a jet, that’s all you want waiting for you at home:

Ahh, so you’ve noticed that I still hadn’t read any Gogol, despite a-hundred-some readings including enough of a Russian contingency to keep a stronghold on the world weight-lifting championships for the next few centuries, and despite a story by an Italian all about Gogol, in its own peculiar way.

I’m going to keep this one short, because you really ought to be phoning your mothers right about now. And tidying your rooms. And standing up straight. And not talking with your mouths full. And not wasting your money on chewing gum and nosejobs. And not making that face, unless you want it to get stuck that way.

Do you know about Ben Hecht? I only ask because a lot of people don’t, and because as a responsible Purveyor of Fine Information I ought to clue you in, and in the interest of living up to such, I should tell you that Ben Hecht was best known to many as a screenwriter, that the same mind is to be held accountable (in some ways) for Hitchcock’s Notorious, His Girl Friday, Gone with the Wind, and Scarface, although largely in an uncredited stop-the-presses-who-can-fix-this capacity.

Maybe I’m obsessing a little over the idea of tissue cultures, but I can’t help it – it’s my personality. But tissue culture and bedtime stories, of course! It takes me back to when I first discovered I could put the -expensive- mustard on my tofupups: prior to the discovery, it seems inconceivable, then suddenly nothing short of self-evident.