A Charmed Life: Growing Up in MacBeth's Castle

The strongest/most interesting parts of the book are Campbell's stories of medieval Scottish history and her descriptions/perceptions of the natural (sometimes supernatural) world around the castle. She relates well what it was like to walk in two worlds - the historical and the present and of her growing awareness of the rift between the two.

If I were directing MacBeth, this would be one of the source books even though Cawdor was never MacBeth's castle. Campbell captures the bloody battles and competition amongst the highland warrior clans explicitly - including a tale about Muriel, the only woman ever to be Thane, who was branded as a baby (strictly for identification purposes in case of kidnapping) and whose nanny bit her little finger off above the joint (when the feared kidnapping finally took place, just to be absolutely sure, should the girl ever return home that she was indeed the heir to Cawdor). Campbell's chronicles of her father's erratic behavior, addictions, and abuse along with a very long list of eccentric ancestors makes great material for creating the characters of MacBeth and Lady M.

Mr. Snow Miser: You done me wrong.

What is it with summer? Last year I contracted Fifth Disease (you may know it as Slapped Cheek) and had painful arthritic symptoms in my hands and knees for two months. Last week my back went into spasm during a water gun fight we had at a picnic for my husband's startup. Let me tell you it is painful. Still. It's been a whole week. A friend loaned me an inversion machine, but I can't lift it and since Roger is out of town - it is left sitting in the garage. I'd probably just get myself stuck on it and life would turn into one of those wacky I Love Lucy episodes.

I've been managing the pain by taking hot baths, icing, and taking Tylenol gel caps. Which was working fine until I burned my back by over-icing. This is something you should never do. Oh, we've all been warned - ice for no longer than twenty minutes. I studied sports massage and worked in a physical therapy clinic - I guess that's why I thought I was immune to the rule.

I was not. I climbed into the bath last Saturday and felt this hellatastic pain at one point on my spine. I reached around and a gooey gob of skin came off! Like I'm fucking Thomas Covenant!
I screamed for Roger to come look at my back. He reported that along with a small circle void of epidermis there were two long reddish rectangles on my back that resembled the cells on my icepack. The pain and the itch are exquisite.

Do Not Adjust Your Television Set


Andy on Love Boat. Does it get any better? No. It does not.

315 Johns: Authentic Warhol or Fo Fo Fo Faux?

When is a Warhol not a Warhol? Apparently when a Factory boy makes it and Andy doesn't know about it.

The title, “315 Johns,” sounds less like the name of an artwork than a headline describing a prostitution bust. But in the second volume of the catalogue raisonné enumerating the works of Andy Warhol, it is listed as a 1967 Warhol creation: a series of silk-screens made from a photograph of the artist John Chamberlain and arranged in a heroic grid.

And in 2000, documents show, Mr. Chamberlain sold it for more than $3 million to an unnamed collector after securing a declaration from the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board that the piece was genuine.

But in a lawsuit now making its way through state court in Brooklyn, Gerard Malanga, a poet and photographer, angrily contends there are a few problems with this. For starters, he says, the work was not Mr. Chamberlain’s to sell; for another, it should never have sold for so much because Warhol, who died in 1987, not only did not make it, but was never even aware it existed.

Nathan Coley: There Will Be No Miracles Here

Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them. - Lemony Snicket

You've Got to Break Many Eggs to Get a Few Flat or Give a Kid a Flat Egg & He'll Maybe Eat for a Day- Afterwards You Must Feed Them to the Wolves

Donut Friday. That's the day Roger takes the kids to school and stops by the donut shop. Donut Friday's the day dad makes breakfast - flat eggs made to order. Salt. No pepper. Not ever! Flat-freakin-eggs.

The kids think their dad's ability to make flat eggs is a skill of the highest culinary order- no gently curdled scramble over medium heat for them. But today Dad was in Seattle and I was left to make the eggs. Who knew that it could be so hard to render an egg rubbery and crepe-like? Can I tell you? I went through half a dozen eggs trying to emulate their dad's flat egg technique. Olivia screamed at me after each failure - "that's not how dad makes them!" When we were down to two eggs I warned them that if they didn't like these then -horrors!- no donuts. But the threat of a Donut-less Friday did not deter them - oh no! They will have their freakin' flat eggs and their donuts too. And I did manage to make two serviceable flat ones. Carter sighed and agreed to eat the last one even though it had a rise, nay an indentation, an inexplicable microscopic formation, a minor change in elevation that rendered it un-flat. "Okaaaay, mom, I'll eeeeat it," he sighed. "I'll eat it. Can you cut in slices like Dad does?"

Slices?????!!!!!! Slices????!!!!!!!!!

Children ask better questions than adults. May I have a cookie? Why is the sky blue? and What does a cow say? are far more likely to elicit a cheerful response than Where’s your manuscript? Why haven’t you called? and Who’s your lawyer? - Fran Lebowitz

Where the Streets Not Only Have Names, But Cameras

Where in Dublin is Bono? Check out the Bono Probability Positioning System. Click on Bono's face to find out the probability of actually seeing Bono at that location.