Kirkpatrick Sale = Sideshow Mel?

= ???

On The Simpsons, Sideshow Mel once popped up to second a comment by Thomas Pynchon, referring to him as “my fellow Cornell alumnus!”

I don’t know if Mel believes the theory, propounded three decades ago by a writer named John Calvin Batchelor, that “Pynchon” was simply a pseudonym for J.D. Salinger.

But in reading about that now-debunked controversy, I learned that Pynchon and America’s most prominent Luddite writer, Kirkpatrick Sale (who ends his speeches by literally smashing a computer), were Cornell classmates and co-wrote a musical there (Is it mere coincidence that Sideshow Mel once had his buttocks frozen with liquid nitrogen and smashed with a hammer?).

I saw Sale speak once (at the old Libertarian Book Club at one time run by scientist and political activist Robert Goodman — who could use a job, if you’d care to contact him at robgood[at]bestweb.net). However, now that I think about it, I’ve never seen Sale and neo-primitivist Sideshow Mel in the same place at the same time. Could this be the real case of double identity?

And then, of course, there’s that Shakespeare/Bacon theory. Mmmm — Shakespeare-bacon…

Sorry. Helen’s been talking about making chocolate-covered bacon, inspired by ThisIsWhyYoureFat.com. So I’ve got bacon on the brain — but I’m not the only one. I once saw an interview with a guy who was searching for the Loch Ness Monster by dropping bacon into the Loch. His sophisticated scientific reasoning? “Everybody loves bacon.” I guess so.