User:Robertissimo
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Areas of special interest include films (and the often hapless people who star in them), British literature, the lives of minor royalties, and the finer points of obsolete etiquette, rather than anything even vaguely practical. As a result, I am quite prepared to discuss the work of Theda Bara or to meet a viscountess, but not to balance my checkbook.
Things I've done here including starting articles for Nasdijj, Ethan Mordden, Hedda Nussbaum, and Peggy Hopkins Joyce (a group of people who, however interesting in their own rather different ways, might not make the happiest table at a dinner party), as well as for writer Helene Hanff (a far less saccharine person than the reputation of her best-known book might lead you to think), and the remarkable 1943 extravaganza The Gang's All Here.
I've also done some editing on articles for a variety of entertainers including Kay Francis and Beatrice Lillie.
Even before the James Frey, JT Leroy, and Nasdijj stories broke, I have been thinking a lot lately about the surprisingly fluid nature of identity, in part as a result of stumbling across figures like Laurel Rose Willson and Kola Boof while rambling around Wikipedia. I also spend too much time thinking about Nancy Ajram and the inimitable Sabah.
Some lucky editor beat me to the punch in helping document the long-wikiless Charlotte Greenwood. That spurred me to fullfil the longtime goal of wikifying Teala Loring, a task that in turn disclosed the sad lack of any gathered information regarding her Poverty Row colleague Maris Wrixon (two great names, no?)...
Pages I've created lately have filled in surprising gaps, such as Hollywood's Julie Bishop, truly a startling oversight although she was never a major star, and artist/socialite Florine Stettheimer, a woman whose memory is sadly less fresh than her wonderful paintings. The less vital has crept in, too; I wonder who if anyone will ever go looking for Swedish pop ensemble Chesty Morgan, which I created only to find a place for some text that was cluttering up the actress's article.
A growing off-wiki interest in Middle Eastern film has caused me to consider the gaps in that area herein. I was truly amazed that there was no article on Egyptian movies, and so created one. Now I'm mentally reviewing actors that seem notable by their absence and adding them -- to date, dancer-actress-whirlwind Fifi Abdou and the Jerry Lewis of the Nile, Mohamed Saad.
I also find myself increasingly interested in WP's deletion process and enjoy the factchecking it sometimes requires. I am amazed by the persistence of some content-pushers, and I find myself still doing a quick search now and then to see if the inevitable return of Linda Christas* in one form or another has begun...
Apparently my interest in human identity is now expanding to products; I've been riveted, as 2006 gives way to 2007, by the saga of NōKA Chocolate and so decided I had to try and write an NPOV starter article on the firm. Fascinating stuff. Robertissimo 20:32, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
*And return it did...twice as of January 2007. (Update: make that three! One has to admire their nerve, if nothing else...)
