Can This Urban Legend Actually Be True??????????????????????????????????

                                           I am sure, darlings, you have heard the legend that if a monkey is placed in front of a typewriter, or, these days, a computer keyboard, it will eventually write "Hamlet."

                                            I have more faith in that one than the following.

                                             First,  what is it  about Joan Didion?  First Dan Levy, and now  Greta Gerwig, call her their inspiration?  Am I missing something, here?  Or is miring oneself in depression a  prerequisite for success?  Sure, it did wonders for Sylvia Plath, but if  alive today, she would be 89, and  who knows what she might have produced?????????????

                                                So, I don't get Joan.  Worse,  I consider Hemingway to be vastly overrated. I only got through two of his books, as I was required to read  them--"The Old Man And The Sea," in high school, and "Green Hills Of Africa," in  college.  On my own, I gave  "A Farewell To Arms" a try,  knowing some considered it  one of the great romantic  novels.  I  could  not  finish  the last sixty pages.

                                                     Is it any wonder I  question the notion bandied about that Joan Didion acquired her writing style by sitting down at a typewriter, and typing out Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises?"  I think  this is some kind of  urban legend; I admit  I am  slightly intrigued to try Didion and  Hemingway--but not till after the colonoscopy, if then.

                                                       I'd just as soon type out "Valley Of The Dolls!"

                                                       As Christine Penmark says, at the close of Act One of "The Bad Seed," "No, it can't be true.  It can't be true!"