Yesterday I received an email from a very nice gentleman with a diacritical mark in his name. Such ornamentation always inspires both excitement and frustration here in the Playhouse offices as, while it is thrilling to establish contact a country that puts strange marks in and around their letters, it also means we have to somehow figure out how to repeat these diacriticals in our response, so as not to appear the gun-toting, Bible-throwing, science-fearing Americans we are.

And, really: Hòw dô ýóû ƒo®êígñ péoplè d☼ †hî§ ã∟∟ Ðå¥? Do you have special buttons on your keyboards? Or is the rest of the romanized world just walking around with a catalog of special ALT-character codes lodged in their brains?

Because I can tell you, we fat, lazy Americans sure as hell aren’t. Does that piss the rest of you off? Is this just futher damning evidence of our 68-oz economy-size American privilege? Is this why the furriners be takin’ our jobs to Bangladesh?

Anyway, Érico wrote me yesterday from the exotic, Xanaduesque shores of sunny Brazil. He wanted me to know that a Brazilian website, Omelete, just gave my book a good review* in Portuguese! This has made my heart as sweet and warm as a fresh malasada — not least because this in some small way increases my odds of one day winning over the heart of my favorite soccer player.

Thank you, Brazil. Thank you, Google Translate.

*(scroll down a bit)