I think I first heard it in the Really Rosie song, "The Awful Truth" -- "He had bloodshot eyes and a ghaaaastly smile."

My childhood anthem! I was listening to it on my iPod earlier today.

I wonder how filming it will change the impact of the scene, since the last book will be out and we'll know wheter Snape's a goody or a baddy.

I'm curious how they are going to catch movie Snape up to the point of book Snape, since they already downplayed a lot of the character's history in the movie of PRISONER OF AZKABAN. I'm memfaulting, but was the scene where Dumbledore basically forced Sirius and Severus (heh - never quite noticed how close those two's names are before) to reconcile at wand point in the movie of GOBLET OF FIRE? I don't remember it being in the movie, but I only saw it once (and at that point in the story I was surprised how much the big death affected me in the movie vs. the book where it barely registered for me).

Anyone know any good first-hand accounts of physical rehab? I could use them for something I'm writing.

A strange story for fans of "The Master and Margarita": [link]

Thanks for the link, Ginger. That makes me kind of sad and boggled.

Religious fanatics vs. art again. Oy vey.

Speaking of religion and books this interview with Karen Armstrong is fascinating.

Didn't a lot of people say God is beyond language? We could only experience the glimmer of God.

That's what the Buddha said. You can't define nirvana, you can't say what it is. The Buddha also said you could craft a new kind of human being in touch with transcendence. He was once asked by a Brahman priest who passed him in contemplation and was absolutely mesmerized by this man sitting in utter serenity. He said, "Are you a god, sir? Are you an angel or a spirit?" And the Buddha said, "No, I'm awake." His disciplined lifestyle had activated parts of his humanity that ordinarily lie dormant. But anybody could do it if they trained hard enough. The Buddhists and the Confucians and the greatest monotheistic mystics did with their minds and hearts what gymnasts and dancers do with their bodies.

You're saying these ancient sages really didn't care about big metaphysical systems. They didn't care about theology.

No, none of them did. And neither did Jesus. Jesus did not spend a great deal of time discoursing about the trinity or original sin or the incarnation, which have preoccupied later Christians. He went around doing good and being compassionate. In the Quran, metaphysical speculation is regarded as self-indulgent guesswork. And it makes people, the Quran says, quarrelsome and stupidly sectarian. You can't prove these things one way or the other, so why quarrel about it? The Taoists said this kind of speculation where people pompously hold forth about their opinions was egotism. And when you're faced with the ineffable and the indescribable, they would say it's belittling to cut it down to size. Sometimes, I think the way monotheists talk about God is unreligious.

Heh. I'm watching an old Bones and DB just went on a riff about adjectives v adverbs ending in "ly".

Can I beg some research assistance? I am trying to track down an association I picked up someplace, involving the phrase "The Devil is sweet." I think it is related to Biblical metaphor, but I can't quite place it.

(The only Biblical hit that seems anywhere appropriate is Proverbs 27:7, about how to a starving soul even the bitter honeycomb may taste sweet.)

No thanks to Google, I know I am not looking for the song by Ayatollah nor the lyrics by Laura Nyro. Anybody got a secret Boolean idea, or the right variation on the concept of devil, that would help me out?

Google tells me that Stephen King wrote, "The devil's voice is sweet to hear." Perusing several actual quotation books under "devil" and "sweet" got me nothing except a lot of really cool quotes about the devil that are not relevant to your search.