Report from the Interior (30 page)

… the incarnation of a monstrous evil …

… an anti-human force of global destruction …

… your dreams were populated by gangs of Nazi infantrymen …

… and the three notables from the land of baseball (Hank Greenberg, Al Rosen, and Sandy Koufax, who broke in with the Dodgers in 1955), but they were such flagrant exceptions to the norm that they qualified as demographic flukes, mere statistical aberrations.

George Burns had been Nathan Birnbaum.

Emanuel Goldenberg was transformed into Edward G. Robinson.

Hedwig Kiesler was reborn as Hedy Lamarr.

… studying the principal stories of the Old Testament, most of which horrified you to the core …

Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and the Everly Brothers … stacking the little 45s on their fat spindle and blasting up the volume when no one was around …