Well, dear readers, this is book to the publisher day, so I have to make these here notes short and sweet, which, I suppose, is better than making them long and sour. I shall make up for this heinous (heinous, do you hear me?) happenstance tomorrow, when I shall write notes that are so long it will make the film The Ten Commandments look like a Three Stooges short. Actually, some of the film The Ten Commandments is funnier than a Three Stooges short. Speaking of short, these notes will be very short, or, in Hainsian terms, brief. Well, brevity is the soul of whit, they say, and frankly I'd like to find "they" and throttle them for saying "Brevity is the soul of wit" because it is such an oblique and obtuse saying. I would prefer "Soul is the wit of brevity" or even "The wit of brevity is soul" or even "The sole of wit is filet" or even "Brevity is the sole of my shoe". Oh, let's all click the Unseemly Button below and be done with this section. After all, brevity is the sole of wit and why should we linger here when we can linger elsewhere?

My goodness, these notes are brief, aren't they? In tomorrow's notes, I shall talk about not one but two of my favorite musicals, I promise. Today I shall talk about none of my favorite musicals because these notes must be brief and I tend to the verbose when talking about my favorite musicals.

I have given myself a cut-off when I must be through writing these here brief notes, and that cut-off is in four minutes. How much writing can I get done in four minutes?

Apparently, the minute one says that one has a cut-off in four minutes, all thought stops and one sits at the keyboard like so much fish, and all one can think is, "I have four minutes to write and yet all thought has stopped and I am now sitting like so much fish writing nothing whatsoever."

Has anyone noticed that I have been writing these here short notes in short bursts? Perhaps, after finishing them, I shall eat some shortcake, and then perhaps I shall find a stick and I shall get the short end of said stick. Well, one thing is for certain, I am giving these notes short shrift, whatever the hell that means, and they are coming up short. I'm going to give other things shrift today, too, both short and long, just because the word "shrift" is so amusing in a nauseating way.

Well, dear readers, four minutes is up. Or, should it be, four minutes is down. Certainly these short notes have had their four minutes of fame and it is time for them to go back to their well-deserved oblivion. After all, brevity is the soul of James Brown. As Douglas MacArthur once said, "I shall return".
And return I shall, and I shall be in fine fettle, I shall put pedal to the metal, and I shall boil up some fine notes in the kettle.