Casualties of Modern Technology- CliffsNotes (3 of 12)

Today, students have more creative, easy ways to cheat, or they just use Wikipedia. (Ironically, we used Wikiepedia for research on CliffsNotes*).

But, back when I was in high school in the mid-1980s, everyone who was too lazy to read titles like "The Red Badge of Courage" by Stephen Crane, sought the CliffsNotes version. Other CliffsNotes, including everything from William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" to contemporary novels, such as "Less Than Zero" by Bret Easton Ellis.

While looking for images for this entry, we also came across a hilarious satire: "CliffsNotes for The Karate Kid."

The CliffsNotes were started by the late Cliff Hileglass (1918-2001) of Lincoln, Neb., who got the idea from a Canadian. The series started with 16 Shakespeare titles.

But, today, Wikipedia can usually provide info for even the most obscure of titles with the exception of this great 2010 novel called "The H-Bomb and Jesus Rock" by John Manderino about growing up in the 1960s, which I read a few months ago. Perhaps, if Manderino is reading this, he can fill me in!

*- Don't forget the 's!' Yes, many of us used to call them CliffNotes, but it is actually Cliffsnotes and to make matters even more confusing, they used to be called Cliff's Notes. The company is still in business, and published many titles, by the way.

Status Update- Ben Cok Yorgunum (I'm Verrry Tired!)

Under 'normal' circumstances, I may have been tempted to stay up from 2:00 a.m-3:30 a.m., Hartford, Connecticut Time, and watched "Grizzly," a '70s crazy horror film about a bear who really, really goes wild and presumably eats people on TCM Underground.

But, I have been very overwhelmed---to put it mildly, in fact, right now, even though I am not a serial killer or sociopath, I am reminded of that Bret Easton Ellis novel "American Psycho" (1991), a book which I'm not sure what to make of even though Ellis is one of my favorite contemporary novelists, in which the title character Patrick Bateman states the haunting line 'this is not an exit,' meaning there is no escape!

SIDEBAR_One of the entries that I am working on, is another installment of our famous people with long, difficult names list. Nil Karaibrahimgil (perhaps I've mentioned this before?!), a female Turkish pop singer, is among the candidates for the list. They just played one of her songs today on "The Turkish Music Hour," which actually lasts 90 minutes. The show from WUVT-FM (90.7-FM, Blacksburg, Va.) airs and streams online from 1:00-2:30 p.m. on Saturdays.