That's Typing Tuesday #20: "Genius 'Round the World Stands Hand in Hand...

... and One Shock of Recognition Runs the Whole Circle 'Round"—Herman Melville or Art Linkletter or possibly even Hunter S. Thompson, but certainly not me.

Not that anyone has ever mistaken me for a genius—least of all me (I myself subscribe to Henri-Frédéric Amiel's definition which is that talent does easily what most people find difficult, while genius does easily what talent can't do at all)—but that process of an idea passing on from hand to hand is a pretty apt description of the internet, and is one of the happiest reasons for blogging.

In this case, once upon a time, Danny Peary wrote a book called Alternate Oscars ...

... which I bought and took to heart and started my own alternate Oscar list, which I e-mailed to mister muleboy who in turn announced at The Mouth O' The Mule that I would be starting a movie blog of my own ...

... which would lead me to eventually post about Mary Pickford's performance in My Best Girl which would inspire a comment from the host of Carole & Co. pointing out that Carole Lombard had had a bit part in Pickford's movie ...

... which led to a post about Lombard ...

... which led Carole & Co. to send an e-mail asking me to participate in Carole-tennial+3, which led to my inclusion of this photo of Carole in my post for the blogathon ...

... which indirectly inspired this sketch by Alex Ashman, an illustrator/animator and longtime follower of the Mythical Monkey living in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Now if The Mouth O' The Mule or Carole & Co. or, for that matter, Danny Peary picks up on Alex's portrait of Carole Lombard and re-posts it, the shock of recognition will have run the circle 'round ...

Postscript: And now we've come full circle ...