An assortment of oddities

1. I recently noted that the Wikipedia entry on Frost’s “A Masque of Reason” had some errors.  I then wondered whether noting that fact would prompt any reader of this blog to fix the entry.  The result surprised me.  Who knew that people who read this blog have a sense of humor?  If you want a laugh, look at the current version of the entry.  Now imagine the poor high school student who for some reason was assigned this poem, and uses that entry as a source.

2. Someone did fix the quotation in the Wikipedia entry, but to the Person or Persons Unknown (though I have my Suspicions) fixing this entry, Job’s wife does not complain about her punishment when she was accused of witchcraft.  Job’s wife complains that a friend of hers, the witch of Endor, was burned for witchcraft.  That is when God notes “That is not/Of record in my Note Book.”  How the original writer of the Wikipedia entry missed that fact is quite beyond my Powers of Comprehension.

3. Speaking of oddities of the blog.  My post on Common Sense is now in the top 5 if you do a Google search for “The cause of America is the cause of all mankind” or anyhting along those lines.  I think there is a school in Pensacola, Florida that assigned an essay on that quotation—either than or people in Pensacola, Florida are really interested in Thomas Paine.

4. For the past week I have been listening to Arcade Fire’s album The Suburbs.  (The deluxe edition—Amazon Deal of the Day, obviously—seriously, that is the only way I buy music any more--$4 for the album!)  I liked Neon Bible—the ethereal organ was interesting.  I can’t figure out whether I like The Suburbs or not—it won the Grammy, so somebody obviously thinks it’s good.  But, I keep going back and forth on whether it is interesting or monotonous. 

5. Speaking of getting a second album; Steve Martin’s The Crow is really good—he’s a great banjo player.  But, then the next album, Rare Bird Alert is just OK; I don’t like it nearly as much.  Though, the latter album does have the immortal song, “King Tut.”  I still love that song—I remember listening to it endlessly at Randy’s house (he had a copy on cassette) when it originally came out.