1. Travelling in America, I watched a discussion on NBC‘s Today show about whether the producers of the movie The Da Vinci Code should submit to a request from religious lobby groups to begin the film with a caption pointing out that audiences are watching a work of fiction (F). René Magritte made quite an artistic career from comic mislabelling – by asserting, for example, that a pipe was not a pipe.

2. Forum÷ Book News and Reviews The image on the cover of Todd Hasak–Lowy‘s short–story collection, "The Task of This Translator" (Harvest Books, an imprint of Harcourt), released in June, shows a hat floating over a necktie–wearing headless man – nearly identical to the one on a 1''' story collection, Barry Yourgrau‘s "Wearing Dad‘s Head" (Arcade Publishing). The hall of mirrors continues÷ both books appear to riff on Fred Marcellino‘s celebrated floating–bowler–hat illustration for Milan Kundera‘s novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," which itself appeared to be a homage to the Belgian Surrealist painter René Magritte, who frequently depicted men with bowlers.