Oh man. Are you following the who-is-impersonating-New-York-Times-book-critic-Michiko-Kakutani-on-Twitter thing? SO GOOD. Yes, sure, it's an inside joke for the publishing world (a crowd not usually super good at jokes) and the joke is all about tone (are you already asleep?) and it heavily involves the word "limn" (no one uses this word except Kakutani), but it made my weekend. Every book nerd on Twitter is currently thinking: Why did this not happen sooner, and happen in my own mind, so I could take credit for it?

The fake Twitter account (@criticmichiko) started on December 29, with the post:

Domino's seems incapable of producing serious crust, though it did make a good pie a few pizzas ago. This pizza is an embarrassing new low.

Later the same day:

It is with frustration that the reader tries to affix the new Swiffer pad to the Swiffer base. The user's manual is self-indulgent blather.

Then yesterday, someone claiming to be the real Michiko Kakutani (@actualnytmk) started a Twitter account.

And the first tweet was:

Please stop impersonating me. I am me.

And then the fake Kakutani wrote:

Vague, uninspired plea. You offering anything?

Kakutani:

I don't understand. Offering?

Fake Kakutani:

Yes. For example, "If you stop tweeting, I won't use the word 'limn' for one year." That would be an opening to negotiations.

HAHAHA. That's just the beginning. In follow-up tweets, the real Kakutani (who may not be the real Kakutani, of course) wonders if the impersonator is Lethem, and asks if he would please enable direct messages so she could correspond with him one-on-one, rather than in front of God and everyone? But of course the fake Kakutani doesn't want that. The New York Daily News has written about this twice now. They have some theories about who the faker is. They are really trying to get to the bottom of it. I hope they never do. I hope it lasts forever.

Adding to confusion to the confusion, there's also now a third Kakutani on Twitter (@therealkakutani), but as of right now, no one's following that person except for three other people and me (@thefrizzelle). Who has popcorn?