Lie detector. (An inconvenient truth?)

I’ve always been wary – nay, downright suspicious – of the role of the so-called creative workshops much touted in magazines like Writer’s Digest and Fiction Writer and various websites for writers as the ideal way to master the art and craft of creative writing. The saga of the Blacksburg mass murderer has however given me solace by throwing up a hitherto unimagined alternative use for the panacea for wannabe writers. Join the Virginia Tech Creative Workshop this Fall to find out if you’re a killer in the making – even if you have not a chance in Hell of evolving into a potential Pulitzer Prize winner! I’m kidding, of course. Because all this talk of how Cho’s English teacher and course mates sensed that something was not quite right, if not downright wrong, by reading his workshop output is just that: so much talk. The two scripts posted at http://news.aol.com/virginia-tech-shootings/cho-seung-hui/_a/richard-mcbeef-cover-page/20070417134109990001 and : http://news.aol.com/virginia-tech-shootings/cho-seung-hui/_a/mr-brownstone-title-page/20070417141309990001 ape the way contemporary American writers write. Explicitly even at the risk of offending the reader. No different from what a Stephen King, a David Mamet or a Quentin Tarantino would do. And then it’s called a stroke of genius. Even granting these know-alls and see-alls knew all and saw all, why did they not insist on doing something about it? Yeah, I know, I know. Cho refused all offers of friendship and help. I guess nobody could have prevented what was meant to happen. The DVD of Destiny had already been burnt.

Never judge a book by its title. The cover is probably the better bet.

We owe a lot to Shakespeare including many a famous book title. Aldous Huxley borrowed from him, if memory serves, at least two titles for his novels (Brave New World, Time Must Have A Stop). On 6 September 2003, I had written in my weekly column about a BBC opinion poll. Poor Willie had to play fourth fiddle to Newton, Churchill and Princess Diana in it. http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_361190,00030007.htm. Then I stumbled on another gross miscarriage of justice when Stephen King walked away with The United States' National Book Foundation’s 2003 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. This puts him on par with John Updike, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow and Toni Morrison. I like the way Yale University Professor Harold Bloom sums up the situation in his comments to The New York Times: "He is a man who writes what used to be called penny dreadfuls. That they could believe that there is any literary value there or any aesthetic accomplishment or signs of an inventive human intelligence is simply a testimony to their own idiocy." http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s946535.htm. One is tempted to say at this point: “What did you expect from the moronic Britons and Americans?” The temptation is a passing phase, though. Soon, one remembers it happens all the time anywhere and everywhere. The entire human race is subject to the hypnotic influence of top-of-mind icons and images – irrespective of caste, creed, gender or nationality, I guess. But wait a second, there's solace for those who're discouraged by the ignoble defeat. Read No doubts about his genius at http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mag/stories/2003083100270400.htm. Did you know that 'the genius' used as many as 9,36,433 words in his literary output in the 16th Century – which works out to five times the number of words in modern German!

More about Shakespeare from my personal QuiteATake.com Archives [Issue #76]

AS YOU LIKE IT. Sites-for-types department.

For Shakespeare aficionados, Hamlet: an executive summary (and S-W-O-T analysis) in PowerPoint at bmillar1.users.btopenworld.com. For nitpickers and one-person fault finding missions, Movie Mistakes, Hollywood's Big Brother movie-mistakes.com and for movie goers in a hurry, Ruined Endings ruinedendings.com. For surfers who prefer to pose their queries in plain English, French, Spanish, German, Italian or Portuguese, Answer Bus (it doesn't work at times, though) misshoover.si.umich.edu. For disbelievers of the 'real' computer bug, NMAH Object 1994.0191.1 americanhistory.si.edu.