uTopianTurtleTop

There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium
And gold, protactinium and indium and gallium [inhale]
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.

There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium
And strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium and barium . . .

and it occurred to me that as sharp as writer-impresario Aaron Sorkin's dialogue can be, the classic screwball writers mainly worked with writing partners, and it worked better, such as for Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur (pictured), who wrote The Front Page, which became His Girl Friday. I hear there have been so good shows on cable in recent years, but I haven't lived with cable since I left my parents' home, except for that brief time 12 years ago or so when a roommate got it to watch the NCAA basketball tournament.

Midnight update: I watched it. It was funnier than last week; the Tom Cruise-as-religious-fundamentalist-wingnut sketch was amusing, and guest star Rob Reiner (playing guest star Rob Reiner in the show-within-the-show) was funny. The closing montage made it clear that the show will be the love story of Matt & Danny -- I should have gotten this already. It's kind of sweet. I'll watch it again.