How does Cecil do his thing?
From what we have been able to piece together, Cecil works in fits and starts. First he rummages through the mail looking for mash notes from groupies. Our favorite (no kidding): “Dear Cecil, are you married? If yes, do you fool around?” Then he looks for enough interesting questions to fill a column. He ruminates for a while. He cleans the oven. Finally he calls over his editor and dictates. This part takes twenty minutes. Then the editor has to check the facts. This can take years. YOU try definitively establishing what the H stands for in Jesus H. Christ. Finally the finished column is produced and turned over to the typesetting department, which inserts random mistakes. Nah, just kidding. The people at the Chicago Reader never goof up. But stuff happens. Like the other day. We start getting grief from residents of a city in which the column appears because Cecil wrote milliMETERS when it was clear from the context that he meant milliLITERS. Well, it went out of HERE saying millilit
