I’ve been going through the manuscript for the book making up a list of glossary words (a frighteningly long list), and also noting miscellaneous pop-cultural references– quotes, direct mentions, paraphrases, etc. I’m sure I’ve missed a few– many of them occur in section titles, which my eyes tend to slide right over as I read (in the previous book, one section was titled “Clever Section Title Here” until distressingly late in the process)– but for your amusement, here’s what I have at the moment, in approximately the order in which they appear in the book:
- Star Wars
- The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai
- George Carlin
- The Music Man
- Pardon the Interruption
- Groucho Marx
- Lewis Carroll
- Tom Waits and/or Norah Jones
- William Butler Yeats
- The Rolling StonesCrystal Gayle
- Sherlock Holmes
- The Triplets of Belleville
- The Princess Bride
- The Eagles
- Trent Reznor and/or Johnny Cash
- Neil Young
- They Might Be Giants
- Terry Pratchett
- Elvis Costello
- Sesame Street
- Peter, Paul, and Mary
I suppose this list might provide some sort of insight into my psyche, but I’m not sure what beyond the fact that I have too many snippets of pop-song lyrics occupying neurons that might otherwise be used for something productive. I probably ought to offer some sort of prize to whoever can correctly identify all of these, but since nobody else has the full manuscript yet, I won’t bother.