Happy Shostakovich's Birthday!

First of all, I made the Reader's Digest, but in a rather unsatisfactory way. The good news is I received a check from the Reader's Digest yesterday for $300. Here is the bad news.

Maybe 6 or 7 weeks ago I sent in an anecdote (the first time, BTW, I'd ever done so) for consideration for inclusion in one of their many anecdoteries (Life in These United States, et al.). It read thus:

My fellow baritones and I were sitting around after rehearsal one night discussing possible definitions of "geekdom" when one opined that the members of our singing group were geeks because, collectively, we're seldom at a loss for information or answers. I disagreed, saying that geek rather connotes the tireless cultivation of specialized knowledge, and that "having command of a large body of general information does not a geek make." My friend Peter, without missing a beat, said, "Yes, but verbs at the end of your sentence putting does."

In mid-August a representative of the Reader's Digest called me ( ...the horror...the horror... )