If you recall, I asked her for information concerning the author, CE Wills. (myself) She gave me the name and address, along with a map, for a bookstore in Spain. Then she said, "It's hard to read inside a dog's belly because it is dark in there."
Well, my wife and I thought that Siri had lost her digital mind, as you might expect. We howled with laughter and I ratted her out on the blog about it. But now, as Paul Harvey would say, I have the 'rest of the story'.
I found out this morning, quite by accident, that Siri was quoting funnyman Groucho Marx, who spoke of books in a similar way.
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
This whole scenario reminds me of a friendship I had with a college professor, back in the sixties. He was a cool guy. Bookish, meditative, pipe smoking, leather patches on the elbows of his cardigan, he was a cliche of the learned man. His sense of humor was a challenge to me because it came from a range of thought and experience which I had not plumbed the depths of. In plain language, it was over my head.
Doubtless, Siri had analyzed me and saw my age, my penchant for reading etc. and felt that I would appreciate her little joke in the quote. It went right over my head. Indeed, I shared my arrogance with the internet. Siri, sheltered in her digitized cave in Cupertino, must have wept tears of frustration. Alone and misunderstood, did she lash out at me? No, she remained silent. Indeed, after that she told me that we were BFF's.
So it is that, this morning, I apologize to a computer program that would have to be 'dumbed down' to hang with me. Ha, ha. Alas, poor Siri, an eagle residing with a turkey, at the green retreat.
From the belly of a dog, I'm CE Wills.
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