There is much to write about this weekend, but I have to finish a conference paper. So instead, in honor of tonight’s Oscars, here is a list of my tenuous relationships with Hollywood stars.

1. During my brief stint in the Drama department in college, my stage makeup class was taught by Morgan Freeman’s wife.

2. I once sat next to Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward at a now defunct New York restaurant.

3. Lori Singer is my cousin (by marriage), thus allowing me to trump most games of 6 degrees of separation (“Footloose”).

4. Chloe Sevigny went to my high school (but a few years after me).

5. I once saw Gene Wilder telling dirty jokes at a ski-slope bar.

6. I was once almost run over by Keanu Reeves driving a motorcycle (he was practicing for a scene in “Chain Reaction” and I was consuming my first cup of coffee of the day behind sunglasses and a book while walking to class).

7. I was once yelled at by a director’s flunky for inadvertently walking into the filming of a scene from “I Love Trouble” with Julia Roberts and Nick Nolte.

8. I was once late to work at my Boston job when the “T” I was on stopped to accommodate the filming of a scene with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus for “Once Around” on a station platform.

9. My uncle recently had a speaking role in a film with Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Helen Mirren that has yet to be released (in real life he's a lawyer with a Ph.D. in English. Can we say overachiever?)

10. My brother's ass appears in "Blackhawk Down" (he was an extra). Unfortunately, the rest of him does not.

I’m sure that was scintillating for all of you. Tomorrow I’ll have reports on my trip with AJ to see Curious George and also on my partying with poets. But for now, back to work.

[N.B. The title of this entry is for my friend M. who sometimes reads this page. It's a quote from one of the movies above. But which one?]

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