Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.
Not that I lacked the material. Oh no, not with Bob, never that. The column where he does a computer search on variants of the phrase “I’ll be honest with you” and spools off examples, one after the other? (“Why does everyone always have to be so honest?”, Oct. 23) That would have sufficed. It has the trademark Bob lack of self-awareness. He is complaining that the variants of “I’ll be honest with you” are meaningless filler that a careful editor would delete in a heartbeat. Then he gives 30 examples to prove his point, filling a column.
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I started to go through the motions. And then I stopped. Isn’t that the core of the Bobian crime? Forced repetition. The same quartet of emotions–fear, nostalgia, pity, and scorn–trotted out like exhausted circus ponies for yet another obligatory prance around the miserable ring.
–Ed Gold
