1. I was actually thinking about that after I posted and before you replied. In the link to the article you posted (a really good one, btw), he was talking about the whole JK Rowling nonsense and he was talking about the first things you change if you plagarize, how you usually worry about the inconsequential things (hair/eyecolor, etc) if you're really ripping something off. the rest of the time, it's just happenstance. I thought what he said was very true. It just floored me how similar the two were, you know? In my head, I guess I just conjured up the images I'd had stored from all those years of TV, but the stories are anything but new.

(and yes, I've read many of those authors, and I believe you have been after me to read Poppy Z. Brite since HS.)

and I love his soup theory. It sounds like him - his descriptions are really marvelous, and I'm amazed that I can honestly smell some of the things he's talking about in this book.

speaking of soup, it's lunchtime!