Artist's Oaf Is Mall Fave*

The cat's out of the bag. The jig is up. Uh... All's well that ends well...?

What I mean to say is - the Sarasota Film Festival announced it's line-up last week. So now everyone knows everything that they absolutely can't miss (160+ films! Parties! Tributes! 160+ films! Events! Special Guests! Let's not forget the 160+ films!) - and it was all wrapped up in a neat little press release. (You can read all eleven neat little pages of it here: http://www.sarasotafilmfestival.com/2009/news/latest-news/ )

Now I'm no journalism expert, but where's the fun in that? Who on earth wants to just SIT and READ all the information they want at precisely the moment they want to know it? After all, the suspense is in the waiting! (Am I right or am I right? You can tell me I'm right; it's okay, I can handle it.)

So what would I do? Why, release all the information in a press release of course.

Except.

In aggravating anagram form!

You don't really want to know all the stars who are coming... because once you do know, it just ruins the surprise of not-knowing. But a press release full of anagrams that you have to tediously solve keeps the surprise alive longer - at least, for a few infuriating increments of precious time!

I mean, what if I told you that the Sarasota Film Festival special guests would include Known Acids, Honorary Dowels, or even Newsroom Ninja?

I can tell you're excited.

'Who are these people?!' you would say.

You would wrack your brain. 'Who? Who!'

You would lose sleep.

(And I'd be really sorry about that. You really should get a decent night's sleep.)

And you would get to the Festival and say, 'Ohmygoodness! Nick Dawson! Woody Harrelson! Norman Jewison! I should have known!'

But like I said, I'm no journalism expert. So you go ahead and look forward to seeing Steve Buscemi, Illeana Douglas, Bill Paxton, Richard Schiff, Jon Voight and all the rest. You know they're coming. How exciting.

(No, seriously. That's pretty exciting.)

-Wendy

*Let's see you come up with a better anagram of 'Sarasota Film Festival'.