Runcible blog.

Many tasks for the day, but no more hours in which to do them.

The following is from Geof Huth, who asked me to use his full name, instead of "Geof H.," which he says makes him sound like a criminal.

"We, of course, own Spirited Away, which I think is probably the best animated film of the last few decades. (I'm still an aficionado of animation, and I love Pixar films, so this is no easy toss of a phrase.) Also, Nancy [his wife] brought home the same Citizen Kane DVD you wrote about, but she didn't want to watch that little feature about William Randolph Hearst fighting Charles Foster Kane."

At first I thought that was a slip on Geof's part, but then I decided that in fact Hearst was fighting Charles Foster Kane, in a sense. A real millionaire doing battle with a fictional one, and, as the American Experience episode about Citizen Kane pointed out, Hearst lost. Lost in the sense that more people would probably think of him as being like Kane than the other way around. As a historic figure, he's been crowded out by a fictional one.

Then again, maybe that's intellectualizing the dispute too much. It could well be, as many have asserted, that the old man was really upset about how Marion Davies became Suzan Alexander Kane. Not a particularly flattering transformation, that.

Geof continues: "By the way, Hearst Castle is pretty much worth the visit. A beautiful place. I will never forget learning the term marrow spoon there. (Why people would eat marrow -- out of bones, not out of garden patches -- enough to require a special spoon is beyond me.)"

Me too. But it would be even more remarkable if they had a runcible spoon.