The title of today's entry comes from the always brilliant Oscar Wilde: the above were apparently his dying words as he lay in a drab Paris hotel room. [Note to self: Think of something incredibly witty and profound to say when "the Consumption" (perhaps better known as tuberculosis, the disease of choice for artists) finally claims me.]

All right, so I lied; I didn't write another entry the other day like I swore I would. Sorry about that. Moving on to (marginally) more important matters...

I can't say that there's much to report, to be honest. I'm currently partaking in a John Irving marathon: I read Hotel New Hampshire and A Widow for One Year, then tore through Cider House Rules, and I'm now revisiting The World According to Garp and A Prayer for Owen Meany. I've also rented the film versions of Hotel New Hampshire, Cider House Rules, and The World According to Garp (I'd forgotten that Simon Birch was based on Owen Meany). (Anyone not familiar with John Irving, by the way, is commanded to go and read Garp (the first of his novels I read, and my favourite thus far) or anything else he's written—his writing is masterful.)

Another novel that carries my highest recommendations is J.D. Salinger's Franny & Zooey, which now holds a place in my (rather long, admittedly) list of favourite books. Read it. Today. (It's short, if that's any consolation—only about 200 pages.)

Also, check out this website: http://www.bookcrossing.com. The concept is that you leave books (preferably ones you've enjoyed and want to share with others) around in public places in the hopes that someone will pick it up, read it, and continue passing it on to strangers by leaving it at Starbucks or on a bench somewhere—you place labels on the books with barcodes (after registering the books on the site), which people enter when writing a little entry about where they found the book and what they thought of it. Armed with that barcode (or just the title of the book), you can track the book's progress across the country (or the world!). I think it's a spiffy idea, and recommend that anyone interested register some books and release them into the wild, so to speak. (My username on the site is EruditionInc, if you're interested in seeing what I've released (nothing yet, unfortunately).

All right, this bloody library computer just informed me that I have only five minutes of Internet access remaining, so I'll have to keep this short. Until next time, I bid you farewell. Goodbye, all you beautiful people!

[Exit Orpheum.]