Out of the Murk

Well, I've had this copy of MERCIER AND CAMIER on the shelf for 20 years, at least, I bet, without opening it. Probably more like 30! Did I read in a Samuel Beckett biography that he didn't like it much? I don't know. Maybe not. Something kept me away from it. I don't know what. It was on just the shelf where I thought it might be, though. The pages are brown with age. A sticker on the front tells me I bought it used at A Cappella Books. Six dollars! Which seems like a lot. The back cover claims that it is "the first paperback edition" of the work. I knew an owl would be too on the nose, and I was right. I did not find an owl. For a while, the dual protagonists... and that's how I ended up reading it. Tom Franklin texted me, asking about novels with "dual protagonists" (of which he has written a couple himself). That's how MERCIER AND CAMIER popped into my old noggin. Anyhow, Mercier and Camier are stumbling around in the dark for a long time, out in the middle of nowhere, perfect place for an owl... too perfect. "Strange animals loom, giant horses and cows, out of the murk do you but raise your head." Then, on the next-to-last page, as if to taunt me, "We did not meet many animals, said Camier."

Monocles, Bullets, and Cigarettes

Like the world at large, I have completely forgotten about the book I wrote about cigarette lighters. But yesterday I was watching Erich von Stroheim's version of THE MERRY WIDOW, that's right, a silent operetta, what could be more fun? Lots of things. And let's say Erich von Stroheim doesn't exactly have the Lubitsch touch, as I wittily texted to Megan Abbott, and oh how she must have chuckled at my waggish observation. For example, it takes Stroheim an hour and a half to get to the point where Lubitsch's movie STARTS! To be fair, the stories are pretty different. But why should I be fair? Who is reading this? You? You don't exist! Anyhow, I guess you, if you did exist, would be wondering what this has to do with my cigarette lighter book. Fine! I'll tell you. In THE MERRY WIDOW, as undertaken by Stroheim, there are a man and woman with cigarettes in their mouths, and they are standing so that the tips of their cigarettes touch. It might be that one is giving a light to the other, a process described in my book, in which I thoroughly explore the obscene slang term for such an action. I tried to search the "blog" to see if I had mentioned it here before, but I don't see how I could have, except by such euphemistic means as I have employed above. If you want to read dirty talk like that, you'll just have to buy the book! Anyway, so these two are standing there with the tips of their cigarettes touching and the bad guy, who is across the room, and in a hilarious mood, takes out his little gun and shoots off the ends of both of their cigarettes with a single bullet. Then he shoots the eyes out of a statue, which has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. He is, however, wearing a monocle, and monocles figure heavily in my cigarette lighter book for reasons I would tell you if we weren't both asleep by now. But! The relationship of guns to cigarettes and lighters is another theme of the book, so you can see clearly that when you tabulate all the various themes and subthemes and so on of my book you've never heard of and will have forgotten by the end of this "post," I am obliged to add THE MERRY WIDOW (1925) to my appendix of stuff that really should have gone into my cigarette lighter book but didn't. You know what else has a lot of monocle action? NIGHTWOOD! What pie and ice cream were to Kerouac, monocles are to Djuna Barnes. There's one chapter where a guy fiddles with his monocle in every conceivable way. You should take a drink every time Djuna Barnes uses the word "monocle"! (The surgeon general advises against it.) In a movie, the actor playing Felix, the guy with the monocle, would be like one of the pipe-smokers I have observed in at at least three movies "letting the pipe do most of the acting," except with a monocle instead of a pipe. And in an earlier chapter, Felix's monocle pops out, I believe, the way your monocle is always popping out when you're shocked. You may recall that I also found a person whose monocle pops out emotionally in Fitzgerald's TENDER IS THE NIGHT. You know what else had lots of monocles? That Erich von Stroheim bio we read in the Million Dollar Book Club! (Did you know Anita Loos affectionately called him "Von"?)

The Latest St. John Chrysostom News

Now, I am sure you recall 2016 as the year when I was reading a book with St. John Chrysostom in it, but it was too big to take on the airplane, so I brought a smaller book on the airplane, and to my surprise, it ALSO had St. John Chrysostom in it! Okay, stay with me. Now cast your mind back to mere days ago, when I took NIGHTWOOD on an airplane, but didn't finish reading it, even though it is short, because of all the things to distract me on the airplane. Well, yesterday, I continued NIGHTWOOD, and a character asks, "Am I the golden-mouthed St. John Chrysostom, the Greek who said it with the other cheek?" He goes on to answer himself, and bear in mind, these are not my words, but those of Djuna Barnes, writing in 1936: "No, I'm a fart in a gale of wind, an humble violet under a cow pad." Take it up with Djuna Barnes! She died in 1982 and is beyond caring whether or not you like fart jokes. You know, as I continued to read, and got deeper, I began to realize - again to my surprise! I get surprised so much! - of whom the rhythm and flow of the words in this book remind me... Barry Hannah! I almost didn't "post" any of this because I knew no one would care but then I decided to "post" it because I knew no one would care.

Butter Knife

Attention! My friend Sarah will appear in this "post." I happened to notice yesterday - Sarah would never mention it herself; she's too nice! - that I've been dropping the h from her name for how long? Months? Longer? I have decided to investigate no further. But I did want to record my shame here for all to see. Now we may move to happier matters. It's back! The precious little jotting book has been removed from its mothball-filled cedar chest. Now that I have stopped pretending to stop "blogging," I am allowed to take said jotting book with me to Los Angeles, California, and, upon my return, to transcribe my jotted experiences into the form of little numbered jottings. 1. Ace Atkins printed out my boarding passes for me! He said he had left them in his mailbox, and I was concerned, having noticed on our many walks around the neighborhood as we exchange wise thoughts, that the door had fallen off of Ace's mailbox. What if my boarding passes were to blow away in a gentle breeze? I discovered, however, upon my arrival, that Ace has a BRAND NEW MAILBOX! This is the biggest thing to happen in the neighborhood for years. And it reminded me that Dr. Theresa and I had driven past Tom Franklin's house not that long before, and I had admired their sleek, modernistic mailbox. I couldn't decide whether it was new or if I had simply never noticed it before. One day, I vowed, I'll get to the bottom of this! But such thoughts would have to wait, for I was on my way! To wherever I was going. 2. My chosen reading material for the airplane: NIGHTWOOD by Djuna Barnes. My friend Eugene recommended it. He's been dead for 26 years, but I finally got around to it! 3. The new jotting book has an interesting flap on it that it is not within my writerly powers to describe correctly. It also has a built-in ribbon bookmark, burnt orange in color - a jotting book with a bookmark! A first for your correspondent. 4. So, we stayed at the Peabody in Memphis the night before my trip, because the plane left so damn early. Pardon my language! Anyway, I knew I would be rising before the Peabody started serving breakfast, so I ordered a pot of coffee the night before, thinking to down it cold in the morning. Guess what? When I poured a cup, 10 hours after having received it, the coffee was STILL WARM! Here's to the magic coffee pots of the Peabody Hotel. 5. I admit to eating half a Biscoff, my favorite airplane cookie, to help with my fear of flying... the first cookie or sweet of any kind in which I've indulged since the fun little medical incident I enjoyed in March. The king of cookies! The mighty Biscoff. 6. Should I boast that my old iPod is still working hard and well to provide my inflight entertainment? I seem to be listening to a version of "I Love How You Love Me" featuring bagpipes. I jotted as much during the flight. Only when the plane landed did a guy sitting behind me and across the aisle lean forward to ask if he had seen with his own eyes an actual iPod. I was proud to extol its existence, longevity, usefulness, and capacity. He was happy to hear it. 6. I found a Burbank hotel in which my accommodations included a full kitchen - you see, ever since my little medical hiccup, in which part of my human mind was zapped (despite my decision not to investigate further, I did investigate further, and, as I feared, I started dropping the h in Sarah around that point), it is much better if I cook for myself. But the full kitchen did not include any knives of a sufficent sharpness for the necessities of ordinary meal prep. Friends, that is how I ended up cutting up shallots with a butter knife! Let me tell you, it is no easy thing, attacking a shallot with a butter knife, even though a shallot presents itself as a small and tender thing. But don't we all? (See also.) 7. Stopped by the front desk in the morning to see where to get coffee. The "night auditor," as he called himself, was still on duty, a jovial man named Randy. When he asked if I had received my 10% off coupon to the restaurant, and I replied that I had not, he exclaimed, "What the devil!" which I found charming. The way he said "I'm Randy!" was reminiscent, without any of the unsettling atmospherics, of the way Steve Buscemi says "I'm Chet!" in BARTON FINK. 8. When I went to get coffee and asked about a kitchen knife, the server explained that they don't allow sharp things in the rooms. Hmm! She, like Randy, was very nice, and said they would cook anything I wanted, off the menu, to my specifications, so I wouldn't have to stand there brutally murdering a shallot with a butter knife like a chump. Her name was Lourdes, which I found to be a cool name, especially as I was sitting there reading a discussion of miracles in NIGHTWOOD. 9. Not until I returned to the room did I notice for the first time that it was decorated with a large photograph of Jayne Mansfield carrying Bob Hope down some steps (see above)! My powers of observation! They have never been great. 10. Saw a crow in a palm tree but failed to get a decent pic. 11. Elizabeth Ito brought me an illicit steak knife! Which I smuggled into the room, wrapped in a dishcloth (the steak knife was, not I). Elizabeth and I wound up in a photo booth. 12. In NIGHTWOOD: "He'll look as distressed as an owl tied up in a muffler." There! Unlike smiling or drunken owls, this is the type of owl comparison I can understand! Although I cannot approve of the owl treatment described.

13. I met Quinn's cat. He looked like a tiny human person! 14. Met Ashly Burch in Beverly Hills, where I was given a fork with a dramatically bent prong with which to eat my egg whites. No, it wasn't some sort of fancy Beverly Hills utensil for eating rarefied egg whites, it was just a peculiarly, even obscenely destroyed fork (see evidence below) and the egg place just didn't give a damn, presumably. I defiantly swallowed my eggs with the aid of the monstrous fork! You know, and this is true, the last time I ate with Ashly Burch, in January of 2022, as I sat on a wooden bench waiting for my "ride share" to arrive to take me to a fine sushi dinner, I glanced over and saw a fork lying there on the arm of the bench! I took a photo of it at the time, and no doubt shared it on "social media," but I see that it is no longer in my phone, so you'll just have to take my word for it, as I have quit "social media" to the acclaim of millions. What I am saying is that every time I eat with Ashly Burch, there is something weird about a fork. About the bent fork, I made a Uri Geller joke, prefacing it, or softening the blow, by saying, "Now, if I were Dennis Miller, I might say..." and also adding the caveat that Ashly Burch would have no idea what I was talking about when I presently mentioned Uri Geller, which turned out to be true, but she laughed anyway, because she is so nice. Later, I described the incident to Joe Wong, who said I had not really imitated Dennis Miller, because there were not enough allusions to obscure celebrities in my remark. So I gamely tried again, saying, "Looks like Uri Geller and the Amazing Kreskin had a brunch date, cha cha," which Joe kindly deemed passable, though I had added but one allusion. Or maybe "brunch" is an allusion of some kind to something or another. 15. That night, Kate was giving me a ride and I said, "I remember these seat covers!" She has these sheepskin (?) seat covers in her car. Kate laughed and said, "They're old!" She told me I was sitting on the same seat cover where Stan Lee had once parked his bony ass, though she didn't use such crude language, and neither would I, so I don't know what happened just now. Anyhow, it reminded me of the time ("click" here) that Kelly Hogan once touched William Faulkner's buttocks through the very fabric of time itself. I felt the power of Stan Lee's butt! 16. They have spectacular grocery-store brand frozen mango in California. Look, frozen fruits are part of my medically induced breakfast ritual now, okay? So Sarah with an h took me to the grocery store and I was walking around pouting and crying and knocking over huge pyramids of canned goods, as I believe happens in THE DISORDERLY ORDERLY and maybe BACHELOR IN PARADISE???? I am exaggerating my reaction to Sarah's favorite grocery store, but I really was going around saying, yeah, so what? We have these same eggs in Mississippi! And so on. But now I publicly admit that grocery-store brand frozen mango in California is plucked at the peak of flavor and texture. The stuff I'm getting here at home just doesn't measure up! 17. Going home, my inflight screen prominently announced BATMAN RETURNS as an entertainment choice and I felt it was a sign, because I had just been praising that film to Ashly AND Kate AND Adam on my exciting trip. Man, I was ready to watch it. It really struck me as the perfect airplane movie. But the screen was broken! The flight attendant, a very nice person named Davi, showed me that the kids' entertainment selection was working, anyway. "Wallace and Gromit are funny," she assured me, which might be true, I guess, but who cares? Wallace and Gromit can go to hell! I'll tell you what she did, though. I couldn't get my phone to connect to the wifi, so she entered her own password to give me special flight-attendant access to whatever the hell I was doing. I ended up watching Chaplin's A WOMAN OF PARIS, because my headphones didn't fit my phone, and a silent feature seemed to be a good option. 18. I had purposely arranged a 4-hour layover in Atlanta for reasons best left unexplored. 19. As the plane descended, the guy next to me asked if we were landing in Atlanta, which I thought was a funny question from a person on an airplane, but I said yes. 20. As I was leaving Cat Cora's airport restaurant, where the service was excellent - thank you, Ana and Winsome! (That's right, Winsome, another cool name... to Sarah, yes, Ana had but the one n in her name, I checked) - a guy stopped me and said he was a missionary. He said he could sense with his missionary powers (though he didn't put it that way) that I had had some health issues recently and he wanted to pray for me. He might have said "over" me. I said, "You can pray for me later, but I have a plane to catch now." He said it would take 10 seconds. I said all right. Wait! I should mention he was wearing a shirt that said "Fudgie Wudgie" on it. I asked him what "Fudgie Wudgie" meant. He said he was a chocolatier as well as a missionary. I said okay. He prayed over me as advertised. Then he said, "I can see the Holy Spirit all over you." I said thanks.

McNeil's Li'l Bogie Bits

Why, hello. I didn't see you standing there. You're just in time for "McNeil's Li'l Bogie Bits," your one place on the "internet" for McNeil and his bogie bits, so li'l, and extracted so lovingly from a 700-page biography of Humphrey Bogart that McNeil is reading. I'll hand it over to McNeil, who writes, "In 1951 Bogart and Bacall had a radio show called 'Bold Venture.' Thirty minutes once a week. It lasted about a year and made them $500k in 1951 dollars." In a subsequent email, McNeil includes a clarifying detail of the show's plot, adding just the sort of zesty zing for which his vaunted bits are so justifiably famous: "Bacall is his young charge...kinky!" McNeil's chosen adjective may be explained by the fact that Bogart and Bacall were, of course, husband and wife, whereas "young charge" is a phrase one hears more often in connection with, say, Batman and Robin, or maybe that's just me.

Art Chimp

Dr. Theresa and I watch many monster movies and such every October as part of our personal Halloween festivities, of which watching movies is the only component. So last night we watched REVENGE OF THE CREATURE, which I remembered parts of surprisingly well, though I have not seen it since I was a child and it aired, I assume, on "The Big Show," the WKRG afternoon weekday movie hosted by Max Goodman, a man in glasses and a suit. I sure remembered the part when people were having a nice time at a seafood restaurant with a spacious dance floor and then a monster strolls in! But what I wanted to say is that REVENGE OF THE CREATURE had a chimpanzee that painted paintings in it, a "trope," as I call it, to which I have alluded in my masterful fiction, ha ha ha. Here! I have quoted myself once, and I will do it again: "Henry knew that a lot of times people just pretended to like art so they could be cool. They would stand around and drink alcohol and eat weenies on toothpicks and make a big deal about some piece of junk that was supposed to be great art, but then it would turn out to be nothing but a knocked-over garbage can or a no-smoking sign or a spot on the floor where somebody had thrown up, which was a situation that Henry had observed in many comedy movies. Like the one where the supposedly great artist had trained a monkey to ride around on a tricycle with paint on the wheels, and that was how he had made his supposedly great art!" That's from my second book, and you shouldn't confuse the author with the character and so on. I must say the chimp came off pretty well in REVENGE OF THE CREATURE! There was no making fun of chimps OR artists. He just happened to be a chimp who painted! And it was fine! And no one was worried about it and no statement was made about whatever people usually make statements about.

Didn't Mean to Be So Hilarious All the Time

Hey, remember when I said I was going to "go out on a limb" and call something a "viola da gamba"? You were probably chuckling wisely that I had spouted a real mouthful, like something right out of a Frasier script! Because, of course, as the OED tells us, "viola da gamba" means "literally, 'leg viol.'" Yes, I left the final "a" off on purpose, just like the makers of the OED. Hey, man, if you don't know what a viol is, I just feel sorry for you. Anyway, as I am sure you put together long before I did (just minutes ago), a leg is a "limb" of the body. Ha ha ha, wonderful. Mine is such a waggish wit. It hurts! This reminds me, in a roundabout fashion, of the time Kent asked if I wanted to see the stoop from SEX AND THE CITY and I replied with an astonishing swiftness worthy of Churchill, "That's no way to talk about Sarah Jessica Parker!" My witticism in that case, while demonstrably unfair to Ms. Parker, was based on the word "stupe," as I am sure you will recall will fondness, which I felt called for explanation at the time, thus ruining the joke, such as it was. The OED tells us that "stupe" goes back as far as 1722, and provides this example: "Leaving this Old Stupe, the Keeper conducted me to a Gentleman, who was not so far advanc'd in Years," proving that ageism, among other things, was alive and well in 1722! I think my wonderful twinkling humor has taught us a thing or two today. POSTSCRIPT: My records reveal that it was Tom Herpich, not Kent Osborne, who offered to show us the stoop from SEX AND THE CITY. And here I was just yesterday, getting on McNeil's case for misplacing a bellhop. We're still learning and growing as people! And it's all thanks to the miracle of jesting and humorousness which is such a balm in our trying times of nowadays we've been enjoying lately.