Midnight Ink

Why did I pick up another Norman Mailer novel just after finishing a 1,200-page Norman Mailer novel? I have no idea. I thought I was going on a "Kennedy kick," but I guess my "Kennedy kick" has been delayed. Somehow I'm reading THE DEER PARK. And it has Jell-O in it. I guess this is the seventh book I have read with Jell-O in it since I have been keeping score. Jell-O! An American metaphor. I suppose it would be a good academic study to ponder which authors spell Jell-O the way the makers of Jell-O intended (Adrienne Barbeau, for example), and which get all loosey, goosey, artsy and fartsy with it (Kerouac, Mailer). Mailer writes of "colored lights changing the water into a lake of tomato aspic, lime jello, pale consommé, and midnight ink." And so it seems to me that Mailer is the third of our authors to find lime Jell-O especially "fruitful" - ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! We have good times, don't we?