Errata is a web journal written by Robert Davis who has neither spent a night in a ghost town nor pulled a turnip from the earth. He doesn't even know if turnips grow in the ground. Perhaps on trees, like candy corn. Therefore, Errata is a non-commercial project.

Observation #1: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious."

Observation #2: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious" at the top of your lungs. Bring your eyebrows together before you say it. Effective!

Observation #3: Same for books. Even at libraries.

There is a prize for people who correctly guess the thing about Metropolis, Nevada.

Except where the text specifically states otherwise, Errata's vagaries are indicated vaguely and its authors are indistinct in the traditional way of the Internet, except where the authors lay claim to their work. In some cases Robert Davis lays claim to work that is not his own but has been abandoned like so many ghost towns. Except where held presently, fistfuls of dirt are suspended via dispersal, or dispersed via suspension (in the air), and thus their dissolution is their transcendence, or their transcendence is their dissolution. And yet our eyes tear, and our vision is impaired, demonstrating for the umpteenth time that one entity's gain is another's fit of sneezes. Except where indicated, storms shall outlive the clay upon which they rain, unless storms are improperly delimited by their clouds, which dissolve, rather than by their inevitable return. Thus the clay loses, unless the clay is said to own the storm, to use it to make itself heavy, to make itself cling to white garments, refuse dispersal, cake upon the facades of abandoned buildings, and sit like Man [sic] upon the earth where it is pelted by a storm that it owns. In which case the clay still loses, if you ask us.

Some of the above is legally binding and should be considered a mental contract between Errata and those upon whom it acts. The bit about the prize should be considered an overstatement insofar as prizes differ from dirt and prize dispersal differs from dirt dispersal. Please recall that ownership is a weight and, therefore, hope that you do not win the prize.

One day Errata or its representatives will call upon you for a favor. It is expected that you will hop-to without delay.

You may contact Robert Davis by email unless it's about the rock that was thrown in anger. The rock is more properly called a clod. Why do you continue to raise the topic?

31 July 2004

Teller on Reading, and Writing, Reviews

This weekend's Sunday New York Times includes a witty review of Penn Jillette's new novel, Sock. The review is written by Teller. It makes me curious about the book, I suppose, but it also contains some insights about both reading and writing critical reviews:

In 1985, Penn Jillette and I opened our show ''Penn & Teller'' off Broadway. At the opening-night party, our producer read one review aloud. It was a rave, a career maker. The guests burst into applause. But Penn and I were appalled. What the reviewer had described was nothing like the show Penn and I thought we were doing.
Later we talked. ''A reviewer,'' Penn said, ''is always on a first date. He's not actually watching the show; he's thinking about what he's going to say to his date afterwards.'' So I wrote a grateful letter to the generous critic, and Penn and I made a solemn vow never again to read our own reviews.

It's nearly two decades later, and I find myself trying to write about Penn's novel, Sock. I have sympathy for that old theater critic now. As I sat and read Sock, every time I laughed or felt my pulse pounding, every time I was struck by an insight or charmed by a piquant phrase, I suddenly began hearing in my head what I'd say afterward to you, the reader — my date. To any thinking person, this undermines my credibility.

There's another reason not to trust me: I'm biased. But do you really want an unbiased review? An impersonal report that weighs a work of art on antiseptic scales in units of cosmic goodness? Of course not. That's no fun. You want to learn the bias of a hotheaded reviewer and read him in that light. Since I've chosen Penn as my lifelong artistic partner, my prejudices should be obvious. I can't react impartially to Penn's newborn baby. I see in its fierce little eyes all the traits I know in its father.

I have to admit that I only skimmed the rest of Teller's review, because I sometimes don't like to read too much about a book I may read soon or a movie I may see soon. But here's the last paragraph:

Finally, in the interest of full disclosure: six times a week onstage in Las Vegas, Penn fires a .357 Magnum revolver at my face. It's a trick. I end up alive and healthy with the bullet neatly caught between my teeth. I survive, in large part, because Penn always does his part of the trick correctly. I assure you, however, this would never skew my view of Penn's literary achievement.

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