The Navigator: Keep 'em Coming... By Linton Weeks Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, June 11, 1998

(Illustration by David Brion for The Washington Post)

Dear Navigator: What a surprise it was to learn of the Pencil Sharpener Club! (One Man's Hobby, April 16.) My late father began collecting sharpeners in the mid-1920s when he was 5 years old and recovering from scarlet fever. He continued collecting for almost 70 years, until his death in 1991. By then, the collection totaled 600-plus pieces. He tried, unsuccessfully, to track down other collectors (this was before the availability of the Internet). I now display most of the collection at my home in Springfield, Va. – Chip Deale

Dear Navigator: I just finished reading your piece about the online communities' responses to the recent tragic killings of schoolchildren (Remembering, May 28). Shame on you for using this horrible tragedy to promote the destruction of the right of the people (as used in the Constitution meaning the individual citizens) to protect and defend themselves and their families.

Were it not for the degradation of the value of human life promoted over the past two generations by the media in the name of freedom of "choice," these children might have the respect for life that would prevent such actions. How can you expect anyone to hold life sacred when they are bombarded with the message that destroying the most innocent of lives, the unborn child, is accepted practice simply because of convenience of the mother. – Richard B. Pyne

Dear Navigator: Hello! I am the detractor who created the Anti-Jordan site you mentioned in your article (Jordan the Giant, May 21). I have just read your article and I'm still laughing over your opening sentence: "The only reason to watch the National Basketball Association is Michael Jordan." It's with the help of statements such as yours that so many people are brainwashed into worshiping MJ.

A true basketball fan watches the NBA for the game – not for one player, not for the 360-reverse dunks, not for "showtime" and definitely not to hear the commentators praise Jordan's every little move. I can actually enjoy a Mavericks/Grizzlies game! – Janet

Dear Navigator: I truly enjoyed your article about Michael Jordan. You mentioned various Web sites selling "Michael Jordan perfume and shower gel and wall clocks and videos ... [and a] Michael Jordan Jam tuxedo." Would it be possible for you to forward me the URL addresses of these Web sites? – Rand E. Sacks
Getting There: Michael Jordan perfume and shower gel, wall clock, videos and tuxedo

Linton Weeks can be reached at
  weeksl@washpost.com

Click: It's Stare Down Sally!     Sally mercilessly mocked you with her plutonium green eyes after blowing the curve of every high school math test. With her unnaturally symmetrical widow's peak and perfectly plucked brows, you knew she was the evil wunderkind incarnate. Ready for sweet revenge? Try to stare down Sally without blinking. It's hard. This site's computer-generated 1950s witch may stare you back for several seconds or an eternity, depending on her mood. But even if you win, you lose: You just flushed several minutes of your life down the toilet while Sally went on to run a high-tech company. —Dan Pacheco

Surfing: Perturbations, pleasures and predicaments on the I-way

So? Want to Talk About It?
Your mother used to tell you that if you laugh, the world will laugh with you, but if you cry, you'll cry alone. Looks like the Web has changed even that once-reliable oldie.

Kvetch.com is a site where surfers who are mad as hell about any subject whatsoever can broadcast their peeves about the plight of modern man. The site, which has the stylings of an old-fashioned TV or radio, will also treat you to a random broadcast of rants and raves. An on-screen knob lets you pick from time-honored complaints: work, love, family, politics. Kvetches run from the ordinary "I hate my job" to the downright mysterious: "Why is [it] that everyone I meet has not enough or too much hair?" offers one kvetcher. – Mike Musgrove

Pick a Book, But Inly One!
The best beginnings are simple. In 1994 college student Paul Phillips posted a message to a Usenet newsgroup: "I would like for each of you to decide on a single book that you would most like for the world to read." Today the One Book List encompasses more than 600 books.

Submissions remain heavy on philosophical works, fantasy and Utopian literature. Ayn Rand's epic "The Fountainhead" is second only to the Bible; Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings" comes next. An obscure John Irving novel, "A Prayer for Owen Meany," rises above the threshold of four or more people recommending it. Phillips's own choice for the One Book? Hofstadter's "Godel, Escher, Bach."

Comments range from the succinct ("Even economists love Lewis Carroll") to the floridly incomprehensible ("A collage of dream-like symbolism reveals each character's survival within their own sanity"). – Laura Bligh