Edward Champion's Return of the Reluctant

Cutting Off the Collectors

Patrice Moore, a 43 year old one-time mail clerk, was trapped under a pile of books and paper. Emergency workers filled 50 garbage bags with paper. It's still not nearly as bad as the Collyer brothers, extreme reculsives who never threw anything out, got caught within their own debris, and who died of starvation and being gnawed upon by rats, respectively. (And, in fact, there's a book on the Collyers called Ghosty Men.)

A Moore-Collyer type in training might be this 18 year old, who chooses books over partying. An admirable Hobson's choice, but how does this kid expect to meet people?

French book commercials are a big controversy.

Linguist Charles Berlitz has passed on.

And, apparently, there are a few Bernard Goldbergs running around in France.

Posted by DrMabuse at December 30, 2003 07:55 AM