Umberto Eco

Dangerous Minds: When Cuckoo‑Bird Conspiracies Become Real Menaces

It would seem that I’m getting paranoid myself with two back-to-back posts about conspiracies. In truth, it’s merely a coincidence, or synchronicity if you’re in a California state of mind: I was already midway through Umberto Eco’s The Prague Cemetery before I saw and reviewed The East.

It was at that midway point that I tweeted, “No historical novelist can touch Umberto Eco. How does he do it?” This was before I got to the end and realized, to my horror, that how he did it was by fictionalizing a true story,

Unequal Opportunity Offender

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES | THE INDIA FILES

by James Killough

Let me immediately state that, despite the title, there will be no borderline pornographic body parts in this post.  But just the fact I have willfully boxed PFC into a corner where I have to make that caveat is relevant to this article.  I think.

First, take a look at this viral video currently eliciting belly laughs across the Interweb:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IYeETAVsQA&w=425&h=349]

It’s a fake, of course.  The bride sort of gives it away, but the drunk woman herself is also too alert; her face lacks the woozy, careless expression of someone who is no longer in control of her actions.  In a way — in a convoluted, forced association sort of way — the video is representative of what I’ve been doing with the content of this blog.