Monday, March 10, 2008

Ask Artie

Awhile back, when I was contemplating the origin of the mysterious third verse of "Wonderful World" that he found for his version with Paul Simon and James Taylor, I found that on his Web site, Art Garfunkel was actually fielding questions from his fans. I sent in my question, both because I really wanted to know and because the quality of question Artie was getting was, shall we say, subpar. Consider this one:

Do you ever play Sudoku and do you find it difficult or easy?
(Submitted by Marcia from Ireland)

* Don't play.


So don't you think he'd love to handle a challenging one like "Where'd the third verse of 'Wonderful World' come from?"? But no such luck. It appears that Artie has given up on answering his fans' questions, and Marcia's penetrating Sudoku query will have to stand as the last word from Garfunkel.

Art may have learned the craft of the non-answer from his old partner. I believe it was in Rolling Stone where the following exchange, concerning "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard," was originally printed:

Q. What is it that the mama saw? The whole world wants to know.
A. I have no idea what it is.

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