Calling all Confederacy of Dunces fans! As longtime readers know, I name all of my computer equipment for characters in The Greatest Novel Of All Time. For instance: My desktop’s drives are Jones, Ignatius, and Gonzalez. My iPod is Myrna. My 60GB Firewire drive is named Claude.

I recently sold Miss Trixie, my aging iBook, to a friend, replacing her with a Powerbook named Santa Battaglia. And now I’ve got a buyer for my 40GB Firewire drive, Mancuso. Today UPS brought me my Mancuso replacement, a sleek, lovely 250GB drive that should finally be large enough to hold all my MP3s.

So…what should I call it? Gus, for the long-suffering owner of Levy Pants? Lana, for the aging proprietor of the Night of Joy? Miss Annie, the neighbor who always complained about the noise coming from Ignatius’ room? Dorian, the gay French Quarter denizen/failed political activist? Mr. Clyde, Ignatius’ boss at Paradise hot dog vendors? Darlene, the bird-loving stripper? So many options!

CoD movie update: Variety tells us that filming could begin this spring in New Orleans. The principals attached to the project: Will Ferrell (Ignatius), Drew Barrymore (Darlene), Lily Tomlin (Mrs. Reilly), Mos Def (Jones), and Olympia Dukakis (Santa Battaglia). Steven Soderburgh and Scott Kramer are adapting the script, and David Gordon Green will direct. I like Ferrell, but I’m still not sold that he’s an ideal Ignatius. Time will tell.

Finally: If Ignatius J. Reilly got get-rich-quick spam.

29 March 2004

Comments

30 March | 11:19 | GE

Well, not Lana. Save that for your local area network. :)

I suggest you skip the proper name and just call it your exercise board.

31 March | 17:42 | Chuck

How about Fortuna, Boethius or Hroswitha?

I'm not unhappy about most of the casting -- Lily will be brilliant if she can get the accent down. When I heard Will Ferrell had been cast as Ignatius, though, I nearly had an aneurysm.

I had heard that Philip Seymour Hoffman was offered the role, but declined; rumors indicated it was because he thought the script was terrible. (Uh oh.)

I may be wrong; I was wrong when I had a conniption over the casting of Robin Williams as Garp ("Mork?! They cast Mork as Garp?!"), and he was really good.

06 April | 12:55 | cindy

I love that book! My mother used to perform for old folks in New Orleans when she was a kid. John Kennedy Toole and his mother were part of their group. He read poetry. I can't wait for the movie.

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Joshua Benton

Joshua Benton is the director of the Nieman Digital Journalism Project at Harvard University, among other things. Before that, he was a staff writer and columnist for The Dallas Morning News. (More.)