April 30, '04

You won't find me gassing on interminably about the 60s.

The 60s in Boulder were great fun as a personal experience, but it's hard to say what their enduring legacy might be. There sure aren't many relics of the era left on campus these days except the faculty. The United States is in a war again, protecting ourselves not against the Evil Empire this time, but against "evildoers," with likely as inconclusive an outcome. Without a draft, though, the students actually support the war.

The Young Republicans have become the campus clowns because they're really almost passé. About all they have left to do is (with the Legislature playing straight man) snipe at the liberal faculty. But those left-leaning profs are just part of the edutainment package, like ivy on the sides of buildings. The idea they have any pervasive influence on the student body is not to be taken seriously.

The student puppet government just passed a stiff fee increase, rushing it through without a student body vote because the proposal was "too complicated" for students to understand, and there wasn't time to "educate" the students on its complexities. Educate students? Impossible! Besides, as a student-gov pol sniffed, if they let the students vote on it, there wouldn't be enough of a turnout, so they decided not to let them vote.

And forget crusading campus editors eager to confront the administration or galvanize students. CU's current organ, though it retains the Colorado Daily name, tries to be as unlike the crusading Daily of the past as it can be, an innocuous conduit for campus-targeted advertising. "Dull as dishwater," wrote a disgruntled reader.

Could Old Joe Coors himself have wished for more?

            —Bozo

April 26, '04 -- Today is the birthday (1452) of Leonardo da Vinci, the patron saint of modest geniuses.

When the Colorado Avalanche Info Center's forecast last Thursday said, "For Thursday aftn/evening into Friday night some east slope locations could see around 3 ft of new snow accumulate. The potential for some of these heavier snowfall amounts look pretty good with a moist unstable air mass moving in," I went to battle stations. I propped up the lilacs as best I could and got the car loaded and ready to head up.

It didn't happen. Those must have been elf-feet. But yesterday morning at Lake Pandora actually seemed like a little bit of winter. It was snowing lightly onto what looked like a recent several inches. That stuff had already turned to strofoam, but it covered a lot of the rocks and dirt that had been appearing, and the previous night's buttering of new snow was very sweet.

The first run was delightful. The old snow was a firm surface, and the new coating still dry and fast. By the time I could plug up there again, the increasing bouts of sun had heated the snowpack up to that magic point where the old snow started breaking and the new stuff turned to glue. It didn't resemble fun in any particular way.

Time to go higher.

              —Bozo

Must everyone get, as you put it, stoned?

the greatest people I have ever known were neither republican nor democrat. the most effective and concerned people (top 10) were republican. your front page is of childlike quality and there is nothing wrong with that, but your disdain for republican people indicates your climb to adulthood and beyond will be longer than need be. Try not to be so adjectively simplistic in your approach and your effectiveness can grow beyond your wildest dreams. Maintain your present mentality and you will flutter in circles of self love. I do not defend republicans for any personal reason. You choose to attack people. I choose to defend anyone who is blanketed in such a suppressive manner. Words are easy, and it seems your taking it easy . Way to easy for someone who belies to seek spiritual perfection. Spirtuality first, then later, much later you may begin to probe the essence of perfection. To even ask such questions without attempting to lead an impeccable life is nothing more than self-gratification. Maybe if I see more dimension to your presentation I will explore your site more. If not all you lost was someone who lived off the grid and truly wilderness bound at times when it was neither fashionable nor comfortable nor safe. Put away your safety ropes, your hi-tech outdoor gear, your helicopter rescue services, your water filters and your northface parkas and you will learn more in one day than in all the theasaurus born diatribes fostered on the web. Hitchhike to the Roosevelt Range in northeastt colorado and climb it alone and in mid winter. If you live you will never take words for granted as I believe you are doing now. Please try harder to be more direct. Superflouous people tend to read their writings alone and quake the most when destiny knocks on their door. Take Care and Be Well so you can pass it on to the next in line. Would you like to help the iraqi people who have been put thru more hell than you will ever know? If you answer no, consider your true essence to be self serving. If you answer yes, then you understand that effectiveness is more important than self promotion, and can only be used appropriately when that is understood. Bye Bye

(Unsigned)

Dear Unsigned:

The short answer is, "no."

       —Mr Smart Answer Man

April 24, '04

Toots did not disappoint.

Despite a lack of any particular local media buzz, the Fox was packed tight. The touring Maytals are a strong band, and the show was a family affair with two of Toots' beautiful daughters singing backup and brief appearances by his son, who seems to be serving an apprenticeship for life on the road. Toots, whose recording career started in 1963, has been touring more or less continuously since 1975, when the Maytals opened for the Who.

True Love, a well-produced and engineered new album may have helped swell the crowd. This is one of those albums crammed with guest stars, in this case from both the pop and reggae worlds, and the session notes at the new Maytals website give a fascinating look at how such an album is made. Some stars (Clapton, Jeff Beck, Willie Nelson) were never physically in the studio, while others (Bonnie Raitt, Keith Richards, Trey Anastasio) had a very personal interaction during the recording.

Now nearing 60, Toots' voice remains supple and powerful, and his appetite for the road seems undiminished. He sang "I Never Get Weary Yet" and let's hope he keeps singing it for a long, long time.

              —Bozo

April 23, '04 -- Today is St George's Day, the national day of England. It was in 3rd century Libya that St George slew the famous dragon, but he got promoted to patron saint by appearing in the sky as English Crusaders fought the Muslims. He is not known to have shown up for any of the Brits' colorful adventures in Iraq.

It's also the birthday of W.S., Mr Witty Sarcasm himself, Bill Stratford, actor, businessman, and horse-holder. Despite those Shakspur biographies as thick as phonebooks, there have been many people through the years who believe that Stratford Bill, about whom there's so little documented information, just loaned his name to whoever actually wrote all those poems and plays. Many identities have been suggested for the literary genius behind the rather prosaic Stratford Bill, for instance William Stanley, the sixth earl of Derby. But there are serious problems with all the pretenders, too.

The truth is, the towering genius of English Lit remains a shadowy figure despite living so close to modern times, and will likely remain shadowy. Today is also the day that Bill Stratford died (1616). A tough break, dying on his birthday, but a very literary day to croak. Cervantes died the same day, and both Wordsworth (1850) and Rupert Brooke (1915) shuffled off the mortal coil on April 23.

In honor of Bill and these other literary lights, you are invited to drop by The Poets' Corner and whip up an elegy.

It's not easy running a complex cyber-empire like Mondo Boulder. Occasionally, like an iceberg, chunks break off and drift away into limbo.

One of our Three Alert Readers (Curly, I think) wanted to know what happened to Spring Break in Baghdad. It turns out it had broken loose and was drifting free, taking The Amazing Karma Coupon along with it. Well, we got out the cyber-gaffhooks, dragged the errant featurettes back, and lashed them firmly to The Wittier Neighborhood Association page.

There you can peruse and repuruse these vintage didos along with the other long time residents.

April 22, '04

April 21, '04 -- Today (1918), the Red Baron was shot down, dying in the crash.

Lawyers for the University of Colorado called the lawsuit filed by women who claim to have been raped by football players, a "broad attack on the university's football program." If we didn't know they were vicious, we'd think they were stupid.

Speaking of broad attacks, it was one of those "man bites dog" stories that editors are supposed to love, but the Camera didn't do much with it. The ex-girlfriend of a University of Colorado football player is accused of assaulting the player and his truck after breaking into his apartment and confronting him in bed with his new girlfriend.

It's an interesting twist in the ongoing athletic sap opera.

I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.

— Falstaff, in King Henry IV Part 2, Act 1. Scene II

A Boulder woman complained in Saturday's Camera letters column that in said soapbox section "a kind of haughty sarcasm parades as intelligent discourse; the wittier the put-down, the greater the presumption of superior perspective." There's no need, she went on, "to impugn the intellect of someone who disagrees."

But it's such fun!

Seriously, ma'am, since "wit" is a synonym for "intellect," that is, "powers of thinking and reasoning; intellectual and perceptive powers," witty sarcasm does not parade as, but is, a form of intelligent discourse. And if there's anything we can't get enough of here in our underground nerve center deep below Mork 'n' Mindy's House, it's intelligent discourse. (Some locals think discourse is where you play Frisbee golf.)

Studies have shown that Witty Sarcasm is 99.44% effective against Bogus Civility. B.C. is the pursuit of a shamelessly self-interested agenda or the seeking of respect for utter nonsense while affecting a tone of high-minded, saintly superiority. Bogus Civility is a particularly dishonest form of interpersonal hostility very popular here in Boulderia. Talk about impugning intelligence!

Think how flat our literature would be if purged of W.S. Give me honest Witty Sarcasm any day!

Boulderia was shocked to read in the April 16 Camera there's a parking crisis at Scott Carpenter Park, and it's only going to get worse. "We've got to cross our fingers," a Mum tells her 5-year-old son as they head for the park in their giant SUV. (OK, I made up the SUV part.)

"The folks that work across the street tend to park over in Scott Carpenter because it's free," a parks employee said. This means Parking Enforcers are going to have to lurk and write tickets to people who park without playing. And that will cost taxpayers money.

According to the Camera:

Skaters and BMX riders at the skate park estimate that as many as three-fourths of the people parking at Scott Carpenter walk across the street to CU's research labs.

"Sometimes it's really inconvenient," said Justin Schutrumpf, who rides BMX bikes with his friends several times a week at the skate park.

"It can get to a point where it's completely dominated by CU," he said. "You really have to get here early to get a spot."

What they didn't mention: The Boulder Creek Bike Path (and hence, the entire Boulderian bike path network) runs right through the park. Also, a few hundred unused parking spaces are about a hundred yards away in the Mall Formerly Known as Crossroads.

Boulder merchants get no respect.

Tomorrow, the Boulder County Aids Project is again having its scavenger hunt fund-raiser. And once again, it is not having it in Boulderia, but in its evil twin, Broomfield County, at FlatIron Double Crossing, the retail Death Star that has been sucking the lifeblood out of Boulderia's precious tax revenues.

And BCAP's Executive Director, Robin Bohannan, is on the Boulder City Council. Ouch.

Say hello to Jon Caldara while you're there.

     —Bozo

April 20, '04, 4:20 PM

They that sew in tears shall reap in joy.
  He that goeth forth and weepeth,
  bearing precious seed,
  shall doubtless come again with rejoicing,
  bringing his sheaves with him.

     —Psalms 126

April 17, '04

Where there used to be skiers going fast, it's now the snow that's going fast. But the fun isn't over quite yet.

The place is the same, but the whole feel is different. It takes all day to ski what would take an hour only a week before. The wide open runs are still (mostly) there, but gone are the throngs and the supervision, replaced by that sense of isolation and the faint, ever-present tension of the backcountry. It gives that feeling of having gone to a different place without going anywhere at all.

The snow was good, probably because it has still been freezing over night. Eventually, the snow will turn into isothermal, impossibly sticky glop, forcing diehard ski junkies like me to seek higher elevations.

There were a few telltale tracks, but I saw only one other skier, leaving as I arrived. I met a group of Colorado Mountain Clubbers who had been practicing self-arrests on the snow. After that, it had that ghostly, abandoned feel evoked by Nevil Shute's novel "On the Beach."

I like it.

Note to snowboarders: It seems some fiend broke into the ski area, took a snowcat and laid total waste to the halfpipe, in case you were thinking of a little post-season aerobatics at Lake Pandora.

                 —Bozo

April 15, '04 -- Today (1843) is the birthday of Henry James, who, the beautiful Helen Wright said, "bestrides the centuries like a nutless colossus." Also, today, in 1755, Dr Johnson published his Dictionary, and in 1912, the Titanic sank. The latter is a pretty appropriate metaphor for Tax Day. We expected to be rolling in dough because of the Bush tax cuts, but something must have gone wrong.

   

...and the Fat Lady¹ sang the aria, "OH- Gott, ist es schön, aber ich kann nicht meine Knie finden!" ("Jeez! I can't find my knees!") from Schussbaumer's new opera "Die Stadt, in der der Schnee Esel-tief ist"² (Dump City) ...

     —Willie Everhard, Collected Letters

It has long been an unofficial tradition at Lake Pandora, the enchanted ski area in the rugged Boulderian Range, to close with some of the best, if not the best, conditions of the season on the slopes. This year, in the week before closing day, it sure didn't look like that tradition was going to hold. The snow outlook was for "dirt, later rocks, with huckleberry bushes, coniferous forests and scattered patches of snow." March had been the worst since 1911. Skiing in the trees, both inside and outside the area, was a perilous enterprise, following narrow isthmuses of snow down through the rocks and snags, leaving a trail of P-tex behind.

But in the 72 hours preceding the final day, the ski area got 26 inches of new. Even in elf-inches, that's a good shot. Just west of the area, it was even more, transforming terrain that was pretty sketchy into a Winter Wonderland for closing day, April 11. So even though I was due for a theologically appropriate dinner of roast lamb at Wing Commanders Sandy and Bill's, I was able to catch a ride on the lift, go out the gate, and head down into those south facing glades one more time. What a difference a few days can make!

There were still plenty of concealed rocks and snags to hit, but it was worth it. As I left at 11:30, all the lower parking lots were full, with a steady stream of cars arriving. That steady stream reached all the way down the canyon.

But nothing, least of all snow or skiers, interferes with the Fat Lady singing at Lake Pandora. The Dump of the Century, last March, didn't change the closing date. I'll keep skiing there, of course, probably squeezing out another week or two, depending, but it will be without the luxury of lifts.

Climbing skins are the Poor Man's Season Pass.

Through the years, I've complained about these closings. Slush and corn snow have their charms, too. I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "The Forest Service won't let us stay open past our closing date!"

So this year, I called the Forest Service and asked them about this. "Completely untrue," said a F.S. representative. Barring some compelling environmental reason, it's up to the ski area when it closes, and that decision is made based on profitability.

Now, I'd like to see a regulation that forbids the Fat Lady singing, in the public interest, as long as there is enough white stuff to ski on.

         —P.A.

^{____________________________________}

¹Scholars have long debated the identity of The Fat Lady mentioned in Everhard's letter, written from the then-fashionable spa of Bad Sitz, in 1884, when Schussbaumer was employed there in the capacity of Schläuche-meister. Long thought to refer to Frau Zaftig, who taught music to the young Schussbaumer, and maybe a thing or two besides, others now feel this was undoubtedly Mme Nessel Rode, who kept an inn on the outskirts of Bad Sitz and was renowned for her extensive repertoire of naughty songs about the Hundred Year's War. Some scholars, citing Schussbaumer's enigmatic epitaph, "Er wurde wie ein Pferd gehangen," feel it could have meant either, or both.

²Schussbaumer's "lost opera" which is known only from a single manuscript of the orchestral part for Wurst-Flöte.

April 14, '04

Talk's cheap, but speech is free.

     —Whatsisname

Drop your paintbrushes, boys.

For now. The Counter-Intuitive Agency has put on hold its devious plan for an orchestrated mass demonstration of what City Attorney (designate) Ariel Calonne called "self-inflicted expression" in yesterday's City HOTLINE. Certain homeowners, sympathetic to the alternative-alternative movement¹ would emblazon their domiciles with sly lit and art refs ("Up the Arsenal," "God is a shout in the street," "Any tool can be the right tool," "Rosebud," etc.). Then they would all call up the City and complain bitterly about each other's work.²

"I expect that the Council and community can be sure the First Amendment is alive and well in Boulder," Mr Calonne assured Mayor Toor. And indeed, the language of the graffiti ordinance itself is: "except by permission of the owner of private property." Now this raises a deeper mystery: In his column today, Clint Talbott says, "Only six summonses were issued last year; they yielded three convictions and a total of $575 in fines."

I should think so! Why would anyone but a total fool pay a fine under the graffiti ordinance? Even if the property owner loathes the graffiti and plans to obliterate it as soon as he wins the Lotto, wouldn't he say it was there with his permission rather than pay $250?

I wouldn't think the densest doofus in Punkin Center would choose to pay, let alone Boulderia's Highly Educated Population. Does this make sense? Is it supposed to? Can you talk like Donald Rumsfeld?

Also, Mayor Toor and Councilperson Eldridge assured me in e-mails that Council is going to fix the spinning barber pole anomaly in the sign code, so this is good news on the common sense front. I assume in the legal emendations the rotational prerogative will be restricted to the poles of genuine barbers³.

Otherwise, I might be tempted to put one on my house.

           —P.A.

___________________________
¹These are the so-called "sleepers" because they have reached a level of revolutionary consciousness where they can appreciate a good nap.

²Maybe we could even wind up with "Write On Your House Week!" with some kind of literacy tie-in. Boulderians will still do goofy things if properly organized.

³Have you ever thought how much fun it would be to be a fake barber? You'd sit there in your shop, in your white smock, your pole spinning gravely outside. When someone came in, before they could even pick out a magazine, you'd say something like, "It's perfect. Don't change a hair!" or "Too short, I'm afraid. Please grow it out for three weeks and come back to see me" as you push them out the door.

You haven't?

April 13, '04 -- Today (1732) is the birthday of Lord North, who levied the hated tax that provoked the Boston Tea Party.

The language needs a new word for that mixture of amusement and disgust, the feeling one is near either tears or laughter, it is not clear which, a feeling becoming all too familiar these days.

It was that feeling that was evoked upon reading in today's Camera that it falls to a City of Boulder inspector to decide what is free speech and what is art, and if it isn't either of those, it must be "graffiti."

A local resident, Phil Brittin, painted antiwar messages on his house, and this was written up in the paper. Someone complained. The City wrote and hinted darkly that Brittin might be in violation of Boulder's anti-graffiti ordinance, an inspector would be visiting soon, and that he faced a $250 fine.

After Brittin painted out the message, the City got defensive: It was possible the Culture Police might have deemed it was not graffiti, they said, and the homeowner would have had ample time to comply with the edict before the full force of the Boulderian state was brought to bear.

Oh, that's different.

How did this come about? The ordinance was intended to curb property being defaced (that is, vandalized) by other people. Not the property owner. Somehow a simple mandate has inflated into city bureaucrats making judgment calls on free speech, art and aesthetics.

Dear City of Boulderia ... are you listening? ... This needs to be fixed. This is not Highlands flipping Ranch. Will it be necessary for a number of us to paint slogans on our houses and, if necessary, take the City to court, in another one of those embarrassing, but unfortunately necessary flap doodles that generate so much comic relief in the state's newspapers?

I hope not.

P.S. While we're on the subject, what's up with Boulder's war on barber poles?

                       —Peter Aretin

April 9, '04

There will be no entries in this chronicle of Boulderian folklore for a few days. Today will be occupied with the construction of a coconut cream pie, a complex technical operation involving the famous Two Coconut Problem.

Tomorrow and Sunday, important snowpack inspection duties will take me to the Boulderian Highlands, where there have been rumors of actual snow.

Sunday afternoon will involve dinner with Wing Commanders Sandy and Bill, a religious experience concluding with the consumption of the sacramental Just Dessert.

              —Bozo

April 7, '04 -- Today (1943) is the birthday of LSD, first synthesized on this date by Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman.(And I wish I had some right now.)

I'm an old cowhand from the Rio Grande,
And I come to town just to hear the band.
I know all the songs that the cowboys know,
'Bout the big corral where the doagies go,
'Cause I learned them all on the radio.
Yippy-I-O-Ki-Ay,
Yippy-I-O-Ki-Ay.

          —Johnny Mercer

Another iconic American figure has entered the ranks of victimhood: the cowboy. If you believe clothes make the man, anyway. People who dress up like cowboys are being picked on in the Independent Republic.

"Boulder doesn't like cowboys," complained an April 2 letter to the Camera. Shouldn't that be "don't like"? It seems this buckaroo went to an Irish-themed bar on St Patrick's day in Boulder dressed in "a traditional ten-gallon hat and equally traditional western wear" and people acted as if he were dressed too weird.

Maybe it's because they know the tall-crowned ten-gallon hat was made a "tradition" by short cowboy movie stars of the 20s and 30s who were trying to look taller. Or maybe they've never read Flan O'Brien's surreal tale of a gang of cattle rustlers in Dublin. Or maybe they could just sense, as the writer confesses, that he voted for Nader in 2000. In any case, "It was clear they felt I did not 'fit' with Boulder's image," the wrangler writes plaintively.

Yesterday, a second victim in the growing scandal emerged in the Camera's public confessional, this time a cowgal who has "been questioned and verbally harassed by strangers in Boulder's public places for wearing traditional Western wear." She writes, "The Western wardrobe that used to express my heritage and personal style is now in storage. I hope to wear those clothes again when I move to a more diverse and tolerant town." Like Detroit or East Orange, maybe.

Well, my heart goes out to them.

In ancient times, I myself was harassed in Boulder for wearing traditional hippie wear — by people dressed like cowboys. These sagebrush hooligans didn't seem "well-educated", to have "studied abroad," and to be "politically and socially progressive" as the dude of the letter describes himself. In fact, they seemed like mean, drunk S.O.B.s. If they studied a broad, it was from a barstool. Going after longhairs with sheep shears used to be a regular feature of the Stock Show in Denver.

So Bozo's First Rule of Sartorial Eccentricity is, "People with thin skins shouldn't wear funny clothes."

Will Rogers used to dress like a cowboy, too, but then he had a sense of humor.

              —Bozo

April 5, '04

Spring is here, and the hills are alive with, OK, ticks, but besides that, the sounds Boulderians love so well: that delicate chorus of backhoes, power nailers, air compressors, jackhammers, circular saws, concrete pumping trucks, and cash flowing freely.

These augment the normal summer sounds of chainsaws, wood chippers and the industrial power mowers, gas-powered string trimmers, and perhaps that dumbest of damned inventions in history: the 5-horsepower leaf blower, all of which must be plied by the squad of turf technicians the average Boulderian needs to mow his or her lawn, no matter how small. He or she feels (s)he's getting gypped if there aren't a couple of these blowers being ceremoniously waved around while the lawn operation is in progress. Most Boulderians don't have time for such homely husbandry themselves, because they're down at the health club working out, trying to stay in shape.

Now, the particular part of the Central Boulderian highlands where Dr Sweetie and I live is as neighborhoody as can be, in all the warmth and fuzziness that word embodies. That means the residents are willing to go to the mattresses and slug it out with other neighbor(hood)s for all the enhancements and entitlements and publicly financed concrete work they can get.

But in a nice way, of course.

Our neighborhood denizens are Sensitive Souls, at least when appealing to the city poobahs. They are terrified and tortured by the presence of, and the sound of, people from other neighborhoods who presume to try to drive their cars through our 'hood, and occasionally even dare to try and park on our sacred streets. They are kept awake by noise from that business they moved next door to.

But all that doesn't stop our doughty burghers from unleashing a daily anvil chorus of their own noise. The sight of undeveloped yard space, contributing nothing to home equity, doing nothing to maximize investment, causes the Boulderian home owner to break out in hives. He (or she) can hear that dirt obscenely increasing in value, and wants to build something on it before it blows away.

Or the homeowner may have already popped his (or her) top and be looking for new worlds to conquer. One of the more popular moves is to build a garage. Now, if you are an old person or from the sticks, "garage" probably means to you a very simple structure or shed to shelter an automobile, maybe even two. That is not what the word means in the language of Central Boulderia.

The Boulder Garage is an intrusive life form that threatens to wipe out the native back yard once and for all. Schoolchildren may one day visit Wormwood Acres just to see a back yard with nothing in it but some grass, flowers, and a some Old Boulder Bozos sitting out under an ash tree.

First of all, the Boulder Garage is a two story structure, and consequently needs full-blown foundations, maybe even a basement, and requires the use of earth moving machinery to build. It has full utility service, and a couple of bedrooms in the upper story. Maybe these are for the chauffer and his family. One of these automobiblical palaces has been under construction nearby for a couple of weeks now, and they're still on the foundations.

All this is nothing but good news to the county, who will be quick to see the great benefit to me of living close to rich folks, and ratchet up my property taxes another notch or two. It's just part of the joys of life here in what Dr Sweetie and I have come to call "The Industrial Zone."

This year for vacation we're going to rent a storage locker in Commerce City.

And get some peace and quiet.

              —Bozo

April 2, 2004

Few found it convincing that I would take a job. Besides, the Old Boulder Bozo would be lost without me.

I do wish Al Franken's radio show the best, but its chances of success are slim. The Left has the lucrative university professor racket sewed up; the Right rules the intellectual realm of radio talk shows.

There must be a reason for that.

Weirdness Alert: The Fifth International Edible Book Show & Tea will be held at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, tomorrow from 4—6, 5 bucks at the door. Don't let the art museum setting fool you, there's more hippie hijinks than high Art in the concept: Artists make books (or things suggestive of books) out of edible materials, display them, then eat them at tea time. Some arty types dreamed this up over Thanksgiving dinner, 1999, and it has become a worldwide, if somewhat obscure, event in which bibliophiles become bibliophages on or near April Fools Day. Previous Boulder edible orgies may be viewed at the website of the Book Arts League, for whom the event is a benefit.

Viewers can join in or stick to more conventional goodies as they sip various kinds of tea. Do feel free to wear a costume. And have a merry un-birthday.

I feel like I actually invented this event. In the mimeographed zine I printed in seventh grade was a proposal to publish alternate pages on bread, ham, and cheese, and call it Reader's Digestion.

Har. Har.

             —Peter Aretin