When Fortuna spins you downward, go out to a movie and get more out of life. Ignatius was about to say this to himself; then he remembered that he went to the movies almost every night, no matter which way Fortuna was spinning.

He sat at attention in the darkness of the Prytania only a few rows from the screen, his body filling the seat and protruding into the two adjoining ones. On the seat to his right he had stationed his overcoat, three Milky Ways, and two auxiliary bags of popcorn, the bags neatly rolled at the top to keep the popcorn warm and crisp. Ignatius ate his current popcorn and stared raptly at the previews of coming attractions. one of the films looked bad enough, he thought, to bring him back to the Prytania in a few days. …

When the credits had ended and Ignatius had noted that several fo the actors, the composer, the director, the hair designer, and the assistant producer were all people whose efforts had offended him at various times in the past, there appeared in the technicolor a scene of many extras milling about a circust tent. He greedily studied the crowd and found the heroine standing near a sideshow.

“Oh my God!” he screamed. “There she is.”

The children in the rows in front of him turned and stared, but Ignatius did not notice them. The blue and yellow eyes were following the heroine, who was gaily carrying a pail of water to what turned out to be her elephant.

“This is going to be even worst than I thought,” Ignatius said when he saw the elephant.

From the Fifth Gospel.

Can’t stop … must stop … must avert gaze … O Fortuna, come to my aid! Minkoff, help!

UPDATE: Heard here, just now: “Daddy, please stop calling me that Honey Boo Boo thing.”