Truth be told, Steve, having spent my adolescence sitting in the front row of some flea-bitten revival house pinning my own nose bridge to my face manually as I squinted through another bad work print of Vittorio De Sica’s Miracle in Milan, I’m in no position to tweak anybody about their geekitude, either.

I must also admit to having entertained a brief flirtation with the “ekpyrotic universe” theory, but I was in college and you do stuff like that when you’re young. (I may also have broken the Second Law of Thermodynamics during a New Year’s Eve party, but two weeks’ community service and all trace of the infraction was eradicated from my permanent record.)

Otherwise, I agree with you completely about . . . all that stuff you said, if for no other reason than I have no idea what you’re talking about, so what else can I do? After all, you’re a real-life physicist and I call the Metropolitan Avenue volunteer fire department every evening around 5:40 because someone keeps making the sun go away.