Reading: New Yorker back issues - trying to catch up
Music: grooving to BBC World News
TV/Movie: Leatherheads
Link o' the Day: The Groovy Age of Horror

It's been a while since I've done any more of the "Rumor Has It" series. Here are some tidbits I guarantee you didn't know before. They may be rumors, but why would I lie?

Ask yourself.



Rumor has it...JRR Tolkein based The Hobbit on the life of Venerable Bede, an 8th century Northumbrian monk who is probably best know for his An Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Like Frodo, Bede lived in a hollowed out hill and once traveled down a river in a barrel.



Rumor has it...Chinese-style mustard does not contain mustard seeds but is, rather, a mixture of aged cabbage, kully, horseradish, petton, and tanin. Its color comes from ground fish scales.



Rumor has it...In the entire history of the Catholic church there have only been three documented cases of possession. Two involved popes during the 7th century and the third involved a young man who attended The University of Notre Dame in 1985 who the church claims to have been possessed by a demon who was a supporter of the University of Miami football team.



Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane was once hospitalized for eating three pounds of packing styrofoam. When asked, he said, "It may not have been the smartest thing I've ever done, but at the time it was necessary. If those particular circumstances repeated, I'd happily do it again."



Scientists have observed individual Tibetan throat singers, situated in very specific spots in the Himalayas, have a measurable effect on global weather patterns. They suggest the possibility that global warming may not be the result so much of carbon emissions as possibly the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

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All my work seems to be on schedule at the moment. Much of it relies on various authors, editors, and publishers returning materials to me, but as I wait, I have a book on Doris Day to work on--the second edition of a version I worked on a couple of years ago--and apparently the only one of the several Doris Day books to come out in the past few years to be approved and authorized by Ms. Day.

Speaking of celebrity endorsements, I note that Lonnie Burr, author of Confessions of An Accidental Mouseketeer has been hitting the talk shows. Here's his segment on one such show where he plugs his book. He and another past Mouseketeer, Doreen, were on Bill O'Reilly in February, but the book hadn't quite yet come out by then.

Kind of cool seeing a book you've worked on his the TV airwaves.

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Today's link visits The Groovy Age of Horror, a blogspot site which describes itself thusly: "Formerly devoted to '60s-'70s horror in paperbacks, fumetti, Groschenromane, comics, and movies, this blog is now devoted to all that and more!"

Fun browsing. What drew me were a number of posts about the one and only Doc Savage, but there's a lot more to check out as well.

Cheers!