That Day April Fool's Day actually seemd quite subdued this year, perhaps because of state of national mouring. Although pretty successful from this end. The full process of the sting is posted here, but in brief. The Guardian posted this fabulous parody of their own interviews, with a meeting with a fictional it-girl, Harmony Cousins. To add plausability, a colour photo accompanied the article of someone who looks suspiciously like Fiona Apple. It's an intriquate little thing, which is entirely plausable in comparison to similar pieces about people like Rachel Weisz and Renee Zellwegger:

"Indeed, over the several days that Cousins and I spent together at the Palace, she never lost this electric charisma: whether walking across the lobby to an elevator, hurrying down a corridor to her room, or pointing me out to the concierge, clearly anxious - though I couldn't quite catch their conversation - to ensure that the hotel treated her journalistic companion with the same starstruck courtesy that they extended to her."


So good was the piece that I posted it to Metafilter, but at the last minute I decided to pretend she was real in in the post, even Googling her name looking for a suitable (alright only) reference to her. I suppose I hoped that others would also buy it and pretend the girl was not fiction. I didn't think it would go this far:

"My sister moved in the same circles as Cousins for a few months in 2000 (more like her boyfriend moved in those circles--my sister tagged along). She said that Cousins' charisma was remarkable, but that she was always sort of walking a line between genius and madness. Apparently, she had a habit of finishing her sentences with nonsense syllables. Weird shit."

Or that it would spawn a Metatalk thread, which proved that not everyone was in on the joke ...

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