Potpourri's Revenge

So I've spent the past few days (when not curled up in the foetal position, whining and wheezing) exploring one of the bigger problems you encounter writing a weekly column - or at least, a weekly conglomeration of thoughts you're pleased to call a column. Namely, coming up with things to conglom about.

It's not a shortage of ideas, per se; I've started up any number of promisingly thoughful trains...only to have them fizzle and die not much further down the tracks. Clearly I need to come up with more interesting concepts, or possibly just be more interesting period. The quest to find out which it was naturally led me back around to my many and varied influences.

Didn't work. Or rather, worked all too well. By the time I was half-way through the list of workaday idols, it became clear that all of them had either had or were in the process of having really interesting-/exciting-/amusing-incident-filled lives, to the point where my own random irritation with movie posters in the subway was starting to make even Arthur Black look like a raconteur on par with Twain. The only major exception was Dave Barry, but I'm really not into either booger jokes or beer, strong indulgence in the latter I suspect is necessary to make the former that funny anyhow.

I found myself spiralling down through the depths of recall, calling forth every random regular bit of newsprint I'd ever read, finally landing up back in my pre-teen-hood. We had a subscription to the Toronto Sun for a few years...

That's when it hit me. Potpourri Guy.

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