Flying the snake-friendly skies

`Snakes on a Plane," the movie for which the title carries the entire ``weight" of the ``plot," is fast becoming the summer release you needn't bother seeing. The Internet has spent months lampooning the upcoming Samuel L. Jackson thriller, and I've seen not only the trailer (``Enough is enough! I've had it with these snakes!"), parodies of the trailer, minimovies cut from the trailer, the music video, and also a hilarious parody of the music video.

So forget the movie, and head over to pilot Joe d'Eon 's website, Fly With Me. (Use a search engine and find the podcast Fly With Me Episode 12 .) What you'll hear is a flight attendant telling the story of what looked like a non poisonous snake that showed up between the windowpane and fuselage of a L-1011. The flight was full, so the captain asked the passengers if they wanted to be delayed forever while the plane was taken apart, or whether they wanted to fly. They opted to fly, and when the plane landed . . . the snake was gone.

I won't spoil the story, but let's just say when the plane took off the next time, the passengers weren't told about the snake, which had disappeared. Or had it? So yes, there can be snakes on a plane, and they can be scary.

I received a letter from retired USPS employee Peter Bollen , of Bridgton , Maine, catching me up on his goings-on since I wrote about him 16 years ago. Bollen was and is a freelance writer, and at the time he had been barred from publishing a handbook of labor quotations by the Ethics Reform Act , which prohibited federal employees from accepting fees or honoraria. Congressman Barney Frank got the law amended, and the New England Legal Foundation championed Bollen's case, which made it all the way to the Supreme Court. The good guys won! By a 6-3 vote, the court ruled for Bollen and other plaintiffs.

A few years earlier, the Supremes had upheld the right of another postal employee, David Berkowitz , to write a book. Berkowitz was the famous serial killer ``Son of Sam." ``He got three more votes than I did at the Supreme Court," Bollen told me last week over the phone, chuckling.

For the majority, Justice Stevens wrote: ``Federal employees who write for publication in their spare time have made significant contributions to the marketplace of ideas. They include literary giants like Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, who were employed by the Customs Service; Walt Whitman, who worked for the Departments of Justice and Interior; and Bret Harte, an employee of the mint. Respondents have yet to make comparable contributions to American culture, but they share with these great artists important characteristics that are relevant to the issue we confront."

Now Bollen has made another contribution to American culture: a new book, ``Frank Talk: The Wit and Wisdom of Barney Frank," intended as a tribute to the Sage of Newton. Available at Amazon.com , or www.iuniverse.com .

In 2002, Yoga Journal published a cover story, ``Life Without Sex," a windy tribute to brahmacharya (celibacy), which the magazine touted as ``an important step along the pathway to enlightenment." ``It was our worst selling cover in years," says spokeswoman Dayna Macy . Four short years later, YJ gets the message: ``Sex and Yoga: They're Good for the Soul" blares the cover line on the current issue, which, in classic YJ style, depicts a lissome, partly clad female adept ``saluting" the sun.

Elsewhere in Yoga World, Bloomsbury Press announces artist Daniel Cota 's new illustrated book, ``Bush Yoga." Cota has twisted a George Bush action figure, wearing the notorious flight suit from the ``Mission Accomplished" photo op, into a variety of yoga poses, e.g.: Virabhadrasana III or Warrior III . Accompanying text: `` I gotta tell ya, you're gonna feel so much like Superman (better yet John Wayne) that you'll be inspired to fly right into Fallujah, and democratize all the heathens with your trusty six-shooter."

You can see what I'm talking about at www.bushyoga.com . I guess this is meant to be funny, but it's not half as amusing as thousands of suburban housewives abstaining from sex because Yoga Journal told them to.

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist.His e-dress is beam@globe.com