Stand Like Two Trees Apart, But Together, Except When a Hotter Tree is Watching and Then Definitely Apart

According to this New Yorker piece, Shakespeare is considered the best-selling poet of all time. Which sort of blows, because I once read that Ethan Hawke was the best-selling poet of all time and I have often cited this fact when trying to underscore my argument for the death of American intellect.

However, my poet-enemy number three (EH is first, Jewel is second) is Kahlil Gibran, author of The Prophet, the most over-quoted sentimental pseudo-spiritualist script ever published.

If you have only been to one wedding in your life, chances are you got to watch the weepy single BFF of the bride earnestly read from its yellowed pages while an entire reception hall of heads nodded drunkenly along.

I also blame Gibran for encouraging generations of women to date dipshits with drugs habits and no jobs, thanks to his brilliant quote: "To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to."

Yeah, I dated a lot of guys with big aspirations. They bummed my smokes, drank my booze and didn't give me back my change when I sent them in to buy condoms.

So, thanks to Joan Acocella's essay, it is with measured delight, and not a lot of surprise, I find out the Propheter was an egotistical a-hole who led women on so that they'd foot his bills. Oh, and he dreamt that he ate watercress with Jesus.

Which is almost as good as the guy I dated who looked like Jesus...