Neil Gaiman's short story collection, Smoke and Mirrors, is still on the remaindered table at Cody's. Only $3.98. I'm thinking of getting it myself.

The other day a fella asked, "Where do you keep your conspiracy theory?" -- in a non-ironic way. Now, most people go looking for texts on some particular conspiracy, say, the Freemasons or the Zionists, but this guy was really open-minded, and perhaps I should admire that.

Among other things, I showed him David Icke's The Biggest Secret. David Icke has written several conspiracy theory books, but only The Biggest Secret features a montage on the cover that includes the globe, several politicos, and many government and royal insignia. Also, the lower right-hand corner of the cover informs the reader that this edition of the book includes new details on the death of Princess Diana.

The back cover gives one a picture of friendly-looking Icke, and snippets from the book. The very first one is almost exactly like this:

As a kid I always wondered how a few islands which you can hardly see on the globe could have an Empire that spanned the world. Now the reason is clear. It was not the British Empire at all. It was the Empire of the Babylonian Brotherhood.

I really enjoy how reasonable Icke sounds until the last sentence. Like Captain Archer on Enterprise.

Another of Icke's books, Children of the Matrix, uses a cover graphic suspiciously similar to graphics from the 1999 movie The Matrix, and posits that the premise of that movie was true. However, the blurb never explicitly mentions the film; I would be curious to see an interview with Icke in which the interviewer brings up this point.

David Icke's new book is Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center. I won't be recommending that we order it.