4xitems from the 3/17 issue of the WSJ

GNB (Goober Nota Bene):  the 3/17 issue of the WSJ is unusually good - I am just sending a sample of the good stuff

1. 

Fred R. Shapiro Sets the Record Straight

How 'The Yale Book of Quotations' was researched on the Web

By TERRY TEACHOUT
March 17, 2007; Page P18; WSJ

'It ain't what you don't know that gets you, it's the things you know that ain't so." Thus spake Anon., or maybe Mark Twain, and that celebrated piece of folk wisdom can easily be applied to apocryphal quotations. From "Elementary, my dear Watson" to "Play it again, Sam," most of us know our fair share of sayings that didn't actually get said the way we recall them, more than a few of which are commonly attributed to famous people who never said them in the first place.
. . . .

2. 

Lives of Noisy Desperation

By TERRY TEACHOUT
March 16, 2007; Page W7; WSJ

New York

Twenty years ago, Eric Bogosian was one of the hottest young guns in American theater, a performance artist whose blisteringly intense one-man shows were must-see events. Now he's a regular on "Law & Order: Criminal Intent." Was he really as good as he seemed back in the days when "Drinking in America" and "Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll" were the talk of the town? Second Stage's wan revival of "subUrbia," Mr. Bogosian's 1994 play about life among the slackers, heightened my retrospective suspicion that he was more a magnetic performer than a convincing writer, and so I've been anxiously awaiting the Broadway revival of "Talk Radio," whose original Public Theater production remains one of my most vivid theatergoing memories. Now that I've seen it, I can report that "Talk Radio" makes the same impression today that it did in 1987 -- which isn't entirely good news.

3. 

Spanning the Impossible

The building of the Golden Gate Bridge defied the odds

By BRIAN M. SOBEL
March 17, 2007; Page P18; WSJ

For 70 years the soaring magnificence of the Golden Gate Bridge has captivated millions world-wide as one of the so-called seven wonders of the modern world. The building of the bridge is a story of mathematics and engineering genius combined with the fearlessness of those who braved the elements and danger to construct what many deemed impossible to build.

That such an audacious project could be envisioned and then built is a testament to a Chicago engineer named Joseph Strauss.
. . . .