Daniel J Boorstin, Librarian of Congress

(On why he writes at home from 6:30 to 8:30 AM) "I write to discover what I think. After all, the bars aren't open that early."

Speaking of bars and writing, I neglected to mention that I was again the guest-blogger of the spelling blog on Monday night. It was a warm and wonderful crowd, though somewhat diminished in esprit de corps by the absence of Tim Moyle and Greg Hannahs. This time I managed to capture more of everybody's names, numbers, and words, but I think the trade-off is that it's a bit less sparkly. I just felt so bad before about always missing those central details that I was determined to get them this time, no matter the cost. Oh, and fair warning: there are a kajillion (I counted) typos and misspellings in my coverage. That's an awful lot. As I kept pointing out in my ongoing metatextual commentary, I was somehow unable to get the spell-check function to work for me, and now I don't have access to the blog to go in and clean it up. But I'll definitely pursue this further.

Fun highlights: We were alerted that the next bee (September 12th) will be the first anniversary bee. Some notable words: gibbosity, menticide, hamartia, barbicel, rasorial, farriery. . .and many more. We ended up needing an Elimination Round, and that always cranks up the excitement. Our first-placer this time was fresh-faced newcomer Josh Malamy in the adorably stripey shirt, who spelled his heart out, all the way to the $25 bar tab. My friend and associate Dilip Babu elegantly smacked down a whole bunch of weird words, and pulled way ahead of me for second place. (I earned the third-place sandwich prize.) I think we need to ferret out a way to ensure that we get more photos for the spellingblog. Something about the haze of spelling, camaraderie, and bar lighting makes everything and everyone seem so lovely and photogenic.