Well, I didn’t go as far as suggesting he went shopping wearing a Reader.
In fact, I’m not at all sure it would be a good idea. The trouble is that Adams has such an iconic status in the message board world that he would certainly inspire copycat behaviour.
At present, wannabee Cecils can only wander about at parties telling everybody who will listen that the capital of Mali is Bamako, or that Paris Hilton is a slapper. If somebody, purporting to be Adams, started going to the shops dressed only in a newspaper, these wannabees would pretty soon get to hear of it.
Before you know where you are, the shopping malls of Chicago will be bursting at the seams with naked men holding newspapers over their genitals telling startled passers-by that Affirmed was the last horse to win the US Triple Crown (in 1978, ridden by Steve Cauthen I believe).
On the other hand, sales of the Chicago Reader will go through the roof.
If Cecil Adams is such a recluse, why not assume his identity and start milking the lecture circuit at $85,000 a pop?
By the time your audience discovers you aren’t anywhere close to the world’s smartest human, you’re safely ensconsed back in your armored Humvee and heading for that televised death match with Marilyn vos Savant.
He’s real, all right. I saw him playing cards with Betty Crocker, Johnny Walker, and Mr. Clean. Poppin’ Fresh was in the kitchen making snacks. Pretty bizarre, I tell ya.
The Reader is a weekly free paper, supported solely by advertising, AFAIK. I went to Chicago once to attend a modmeet, and I picked up a copy. Upon examining the personals section, I found that some people in Chicago have very…sophisticated…sexual tastes. They know what they want and they’re not afraid to ask for it. However, these sort of personal ads seem to be common to the free newspapers I’ve read.
OF COURSE Cecil Adams plays by different rules. It’s his board, after all. The idea that you’d show up to whine about the hypothetical and sniff that it’s not fair when Cece rarely posts anyway is just ridiculous.
Of course I would normally ask for a cite. However, requesting a cite from the Reader via a Reader staff member on a Reader message board administered by said Reader employee is an irony too far for me, and certainly an irony too far for the author of the post which precedes this one.
Why don’t you go and see about him first, maybe get an autograph for proof. After all he’s much higher up on the list. Once you get that mystery solved you can then start on the whole Cecil thing.
I think I saw him in the Oscar Meyer Wiener Mobile strangling Mr. Peanut, as Big Boy was driving in what was I would say a very careless manner at about 70 MPH. I say “think,” because the person he was strangling didn’t have a monocle.
