(no subject)

I did not mean to give the impression in my last post that the women sitting behind me during North By Northwest were the only, or even the worst, people I've heard talking over movies this summer. To be sure, they annoyed me much more than the woman attending my second viewing of Spider-Man 2, whom I heard from across the theater wondering why Peter Parker didn't just move back in with Aunt May. I had, to be fair, wondered much the same thing myself, though perhaps not as loudly. But they were not nearly the irritant that the elderly lady sitting a few rows behind me during Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind was. Every ten minutes, she would bleat, "This is stupid." And then, apropos Jim Carrey, "I never liked him anyway." The same two statements, ad infinitum. I kept attempting to send the telepathic message, You're in the dollar theater on a senior discount. What do you have to lose by just walking out? Unfortunately, my telepathy is not very convincing.

I would like to take this time to affirm my belief that shooting people who talk in movie theaters is immoral. Even (though less so) if you use a silencer.

I am Roger Bannister!!!

3:54 in the Monday New York Times crossword. An all-time personal best. Of course, I still have to cut a minute and forty-two seconds off of that to contend with Trip Payne and the other big boys of cruciverbalism.