More about that new Sam Shepard book: IT IS THE MOST AMAZING COINCIDENCE IN THE WORLD OF HUMAN PEOPLE that he mentions Jerry Lewis on page 19 and Bob Hope on page 119. Look at that symmetry! What else? Well, the Bob Hope reference is unflattering. Mr. Shepard seems guilty of confusing the politics with the art, and who can blame him? So did the one guy who wrote that other book. So did the National Park Service. And yes, I said "art." Forget the "random picture rule." I am going to find a nice, new one of Bob. And stick it in Sam Shepard's face! Even though I love him. I bet Flannery O'Connor, whom Sam Shepard probably loves, was a million times more conservative than Bob Hope. There is a section of the Shepherd book called "Nephophobia." It means "fear of clouds." You know how the "blog" loves clouds. And it reminded me about something from my book that will never, ever apparently be published - actually, something from an early draft: "I wonder that there was never an ancient vogue for reading clouds. It seems to be something they overlooked. They would have called it nuagology." That was a line of dialogue from a character called Pearlie Withers, who was edited out anyway. And I guess according to Sam Shepard they would have called it nephology, which is actually a lot better. Finally, Sam Shepard quotes a "Separatist leader at Plymouth, 1620": "Our dwelling is but a wandering, and our abiding is but a fleeting, and in a word our home is nowhere."
