I was looking at GYPSY's post - not altogether sober, I confess - and to me it just looked like a random collection of names. So I PM'd GYPSY to request an explanation.
It turns out that she moonlights in Special Ed, and that she was willing to direct a seminar, held in a church basement, for nerds like me who score high on the Showdown-Asperger Spectrum. There were a half dozen of us in attendance.
"Guys," she announced, "I can't dumb it down any further. It's simple association. But even though you don't know who Christina Applegate is, you can still come to grips with the process."
We all nodded in agreement, pens gripped in our white-knuckled fists. We were there to take notes, and to study them forever, if that's what it took.
"This," she announced, "is a Spotlight example for Italian Botanists who Like Geography." Then she began scribbling on the blackboard:
Slender-stemmed Monkeyflower
Sierra Nevada
"Foot of the Mountain"
Piedmont
Camillo Benso
Father of Italy
Garibaldi
The Leopard
Guiseppe Rotunno
Fellini Satyricon
Then GYPSY turned back to the class. "Do you doofs get it already?"
Only one or two of us were able to identify Camillo Benso as the Count Cavour; or Rotunno, who had filmed Burt Lancaster speaking flawless Italian in "The Leopard," an adaptation of the elegant di Lampedusa novel, as the favorite cinematographer of Federico Fellini.
"Wow!" one of us exclaimed. "This is actually beginning to make sense!"
"Then I expect to see you on the Final Top 20 on Friday night Playback," Teacher announced, with crisp admonishment.
Then we all of us pricked a vein and commingled our blood, swearing to play Showdown as a team until we finally won.
The Leopard, after all, doesn't change his spots.
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