AND NOW, A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR: And while I’m thinking of something new to put here, I should point out that The Passing Parade is a blog for the entire family, even if your family is the Gambino Family, and consequently we may not have what you are interested in here. By this I mean that there are no Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, or Paris Hilton crotch shots here; it also means that I do not know what Roberta Vasquez is doing with her life these days, although it is, no doubt, much more interesting than what I am doing with my life these days, and there are no pictures of Pamela Anderson urinating here, either (just as an aside: why would anybody find pictures of anyone taking a leak erotically stimulating?). I do not know what a passing out parade is, although my high school graduation probably came pretty close; out of a class of at least 275 I’d say at least fifty of my fellow seniors were under the influence of something other than the spirit of the day. It was the mid-1970’s, you see, and the consumption of non-FDA approved pharmaceuticals, if not approved of by the relevant authorities, was often overlooked as youthful hijinks until someone did something incredibly stupid like robbing a liquor store or becoming a Red Sox fan. The trimmings in the phrase turkey and all the trimmings refer to the cranberries, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and other traditional side dishes Americans eat with their Thanksgiving dinner. The name Akaky Bashmachkin comes from a Russian short story entitled The Overcoat, and the author’s name is Nikolai Gogol. Gogol was actually a Ukrainian who wrote in Russian, probably because there wasn't much demand for stories in Ukraininan at the time, and no, I don’t know who Samantha is or why she would be in an ass parade. Any number of reasons come immediately to mind, like she’s working her way through college or she’s a stripper for Christ, but in any case, you won’t find her here. You won't find pictures of her here or over at my photoblog. You will, however, find a link to Joseph Addison’s works somewhere in my archives, as well as a link to Jonathan Swift’s A modest proposal and one to George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language. It’s been a while since I last tested those links, so I have no idea if they're still any good, but I am sure you can Google these names and find the relevant posts. And yes, I will be reposting my history of Christmas shortly, for those of you who are interested in that sort of thing.