Wes Phillips

Fans of Sandman will recognize this outbreak as one of the points of departure for the story arc begun in issue #1. What they may not realize is that Neil Gaiman wasn't making up the Sleeping Sickness: there really was an outbreak of Encephalitis lethargica from 1916 through the '20s.

At last, a theory that explains that I probably do have more readers than Stephen Mejias, John Atkinson, Buddha, Adam Sohmer, Alan in Victoria, Jeff Wong, Al Marcy, my wife, and Monty. According to the 1% rule, I actually have almost one hundred readers!

Huckleberry says it's too hot to be cute or amusing this week. Some other time, maybe.

Based on the chap with the season tickets next to my concert seats, I'd say so! Hermione Eyre weighs in.

Site hero Fred von Lohmann weighs in. Read it all for the long of it; the short of it: "YouTube's 10-minute clip limit and tiny video window cater to clip culture, not pirates."

What, no Angels and Insects? No Blade Runner? No Giant? Okay, I'm wrong about Giant—I've always over-rated it because it was almost exclusively made up of boring parts, so I got to make out with my girlfriend in the movie theater for nearly three hours. Now that was a visceral cinematic experience.

Part of NPR's You Must Read This series, which mostly seems like a better idea than it is. Anyway, this one intrigued me because The Dain Curse always struck me as nigh unto incoherent—perhaps it's time for a reconsideration.