Bro

You know what I thought of as I was falling asleep last night? That part of the Bible where Jesus kills a disappointing fig tree! I was like, "Hey, McNeil may be onto something." ("Click" here for some of McNeil's interesting reflections upon the character of Jesus.) So I was looking up the passage this morning, and I couldn't decide who was more annoying, the people on the "internet" who know exactly why Jesus absolutely needed to kill a fig tree at that moment and want to justify it to me in depth or the people on reddit who are like "What the ding dong!" (I here modify their colorful cursing.) They are like "Jesus straight up murdered a fig tree, bro!" (I paraphrase only slightly, if at all.) They are like, "This proves it! Religion is over! We did it! High five, dude!" You know what? Yes, they are worse. I'll stick with McNeil. McNeil is neither fish nor fowl! Ha ha! People say that like it's a bad thing.

Schism!

I'm going to tell you some of McNeil's thoughts about the Apocryphal Gospels. Get ready! Hold onto your hat! McNeil goes, "This young Jesus, I think, bears a resemblance to the Jesus of the The Gospels." WHAT! That's me talking again, not McNeil. You may recall that from my own superficial reading, I found Boy Jesus, as presented in the Apocryphal Gospels, quite unlike what I will refer to as "Regular Jesus." For example, Boy Jesus (once again, apocryphal version) murders a schoolteacher who gets on his nerves. But listen to McNeil's point. It's interesting! Says McNeil, "I'm willing to believe it's the same guy. He's here to do a job. But he'd rather not be here. He's impatient." All right! Well put, honestly. I can see that. McNeil goes farther than I might, however. First, you will need to revisit McNeil's old interpretation of "Regular Jesus" as a guy who sighs a lot and, to repeat McNeil's words as quoted in a previous "blog" "post," "barely puts up with these dumb-ass disciples he's saddled with." Now, the latter is not an assessment of apocryphal material. That's just McNeil reading the regular old Bible you can find in any decent motel. I can't get with McNeil on that view of Jesus, exactly. I'm not radical enough in my thinking! But one must admit that it makes McNeil seem like some kind of visionary, considering that the apocryphal Young Jesus who, in McNeil's words, "just throws tantrums anytime someone comes near him, or kills them," might conceivably evolve with maturity into the petulant, put-upon, passive-aggressive Jesus in McNeil's unique reading of the New Testament. McNeil's reading! It's all McNeil. Don't come to my house!

The Toastmaster Who Wasn't There

Now, how was Ace to know of my disenchantment, or whatever it is, with the idea of the Oscars? So he casually mentioned that he thought Conan O'Brien did a good job. "Well, we'll see about that!" I thought with churlish... I don't have a good noun to finish that sentence. The adjective churlish stopped my brain! So I scurried around on the "internet" like a little rat and watched a couple of minutes of Conan O'Brien doing his monologue. In my foul mood, I couldn't concentrate on his razor-sharp wit or whatever everybody thinks it is. All I noticed was how he amateurishly clapped his hands together every 10 seconds. He didn't know he was doing it! Such was my interpretation. His body was out of his control! And so on. Such was the content of my bitter thoughts. So I used email, the old person's medium, to craft a sentence only a 200-year-old man could appreciate: "All I’m saying is you wouldn’t see Bob Hope clapping his hands together every 10 seconds like the toastmaster at the Kiwanis Club." Ace responded that the Kiwanis make excellent pancake breakfasts and have programs to help children in need. So I really felt like a jerk after that. After some thought, I realized what a few of my problems were, and I encapsulated them thusly: "Once I was in a play and someone videotaped it, and when I watched the videotape I was horrified to see that I was involuntarily and unconsciously clapping my hands together every 10 seconds for no discernible reason. Conan's only real crime was reminding me of my own many failures! Also, I picked the Kiwanis Club at random, assuming they were a generic men's fraternal organization such as Fred Flintstone used to belong to. I didn't know anything about them! I should have turned the merciless spotlight on myself, not on the innocent members of the Kiwanis Club! I don't even know if they have toastmasters!" It was like when the guy in MULHOLLAND DR. (above) said "There is no band." That is, there was no toastmaster. Or to paraphrase Stanley Kubrick, I have always been the toastmaster. It's like in ANGEL HEART when... never mind. I don't want to spoil ANGEL HEART for you. I know you've been meaning to get around to it. Similar to the plot of that one Dan Duryea movie of which I can't recall the title. Wait! BLACK ANGEL. Why do they all have angel in the title? Let's forget it. Please join us tomorrow, when we start over with a clean slate, beginning with McNeil's revelation of some startling theological insights. I'm unemployed. PS The toastmaster I'm imagining wouldn't clap his hands together every 10 seconds anyway. He'd be gripping the podium in white-knuckled terror.

Single Digits

By now you must be aware of how sullen my sister and I are when it comes to the Oscars. More accurately, at this stage of our lives, we just don't care. I say "at this stage" even though she is fourteen years younger than me. I guess she just got jaded at a much quicker rate! That is really none of my business. Anyway, for whatever reason, we have become like zombies or ghosts, helplessly replaying the actions we once undertook with (though it is impossible to recall it) enthusiasm (?). By which I mean that we still try to beat each other at guessing the Oscar winners. An empty endeavor! This year, we both achieved, if you can call it that, single digits as far as correct guesses went. But I am honor-bound to report that my sister's single digit was higher than mine. And I'll tell you why. She kept guessing FRANKENSTEIN. Every time she guessed it I would laugh and mock her with harsh sarcasm... no! I would never do that to my sister. It was mild sarcasm at most. A delicate hint of sarcasm! Almost soothing! I would be like, "Snort, snort, that's not going to win anything!" All in all, a disheartening experience. Life, I mean.

Two or Three Huge Controversies

The Million Dollar Book Club got into one of its famous debates! I was saying that Witold Gombrowicz reminded me of a Bob Hope character because he was distracted by a sexy ballerina and didn't realize that, in the background, so to speak, there was a fiery political debate raging in which he should have chosen a side. So he gets called on the carpet by the Polish Legation in Argentina and they don't care for his excuses about the sexy ballerina. Can't you just see Bob Hope getting into a fix like that? I know, I know, you've never heard of Bob Hope, well, why don't you just go to hell. Anyway, Megan contends that Witold Gombrowicz is "in his head a lot more than Bob Hope." That sums up the lively discussion in question. Wow! It was really something. Anyway, the next day, I was thinking, huh, Witold Gombrowicz could have gone to see a lot of Bob Hope movies! But I bet he didn't. He never writes about the movies in his diary. That's something Megan and I discussed. He does mention television: "We cultivate television and use electric blankets, but we die wild." Ha ha! Pure Gombrowicz. But it is a generic allusion as far as popular entertainment is concerned. I'm up to 1959 in the diary... even characters in THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN go to the movies, and when does that take place? Well, it spans the course of several years, but I think they're going to the movies in 1913 or so. That's an estimate! Don't base your MAGIC MOUNTAIN book reports on my "blog." Don't use A.I. either! Yesterday, A.I. told me that I wrote a novel called YOUR BODY IS CALLING ME... ha ha! I wish! It also said I wrote GRAVESEND, which is a novel by Bill Boyle. Again: I wish! All right. How many controversies does that make? Zero? Well! Puttering around on the "blog" not too long ago... here, I'll tell you what I found by quoting an email I sent to McNeil: "According to a 'blog' 'post' from April 18, 2008, based on your own sworn testimony, you never wear a belt, not even when you tuck in your shirt. How does that square with your claim on May 7, 2024, of having [a] belt you have worn every day for almost 20 years? We're asking for your comments before we run with the story." Here is McNeil's reply: "I was probably referring to wearing a belt only at work, because my pants were too big. Outside of work, everything was 'snug'. But now it's the opposite. I have to wear [a belt] with all my pants - except I just don't anymore at work because they make me take it off anyway to go through security - which is a drag, man." Do you know where McNeil was when he sent his response? The Grand Canyon! I subsequently accused him of visiting the Grand Canyon every other week. He replied that he's been just three times, most recently in 2016. Well, now that I'm old, 2016 seems like yesterday to me. You'll find out. (I have a lingering idea that someone in Gombrowicz's novel THE POSSESSED may go to the movies. I'm probably wrong.) Wait! While innocently searching for the proper "hyperlinks," I just blew the lid off of something else! According to the "blog," McNeil was at the Grand Canyon in 2015, NOT in 2016 as he claims above. WHAT IS MCNEIL COVERING UP?

Witold Gombrowicz Is Like Jim Gaffigan

Time and time again we have established that I am wrong about everything. Here, let me give you a recent example! So, remember when I said I remembered going to Square Books and... wait. Please remind yourself that my brain was zapped by mysterious forces just a couple of years ago. But remember when I said I had seen a version of THE ILIAD blurbed by Emily Wilson but not translated by her? That can't be the case. Because I went to Square Books yesterday and saw with my own eyes Emily Wilson's translation of THE ILIAD, which I had convinced myself did not exist. And why would she blurb an ILIAD when she had a fresh new ILIAD of her own? I said to Mevelyn... wait! Let me tell you about Mevelyn. Mevelyn is from Cuba. She is a great bookseller. Case in point, she has forced me to buy a lot of Alejo Carpentier with her hypnotic powers. She tells a good ghost story. She knows everything about books! You can ask her about the different translations of DON QUIXOTE, for example, and she'll point out all their strengths and weaknesses. I always hope that Mevelyn will be working when I visit Square Books so I can hear a good ghost story or a nightmare she had about Karl Marx. Anyway, I grasped Emily Wilson's translation of THE ILIAD in my wizened paws and I says to Mevelyn, I says, "Hey! Mevelyn! Wasn't there a recent version of THE ILIAD with a blurb by Emily Wilson, but she didn't translate it? I feel like I'm going crazy!" So it sounds familiar to Mevelyn, too! She feels like she saw it recently. So we stand there a long time trying to figure out what the hell we are talking about. We are having one of those folies à deux that people enjoy so much. Anyway! When I got home, I realized what I had seen was a new translation of THE AENEID for which Emily Wilson wrote the introduction. Not a blurb! An introduction! Not THE ILIAD! THE AENEID! The important thing is that I had a coupon, so I was able to get Emily Wilson's translation of THE ILIAD for free, just about. That's the thing! Get yourself a "Constant Reader Number" at Square Books! Then you too will be able to grab an almost-free book once in a while. And so it came to pass that THE ILIAD is my current "nighttime book" and the DIARY of Witold Gombrowicz is my current "daytime book." I have reached the point in the diary where Gombrowicz has begun to attack himself, sotto voce, the way Jim Gaffigan does in his standup act. You know, Jim Gaffigan will tell a joke and then he'll switch to a soft, high-pitched, almost strangled voice, pretending to be an audience member, questioning his own premise. Is that a good description of what Jim Gaffigan does? No? How the hell would you know? Anyway, now Witold Gombrowicz is doing what Jim Gaffigan does... in diary form! It's like when Milhouse said that ALF was back in pog form. Everything is like when Milhouse said ALF was back in pog form.

I Gave Up

I thought I should tell you I stopped reading that giant hardcover "omnibus" of comics I mentioned yesterday. Why? Why did I give it up, I mean, not why did I think I should tell you. I don't have an answer for that one. Maybe because I'm unemployed and don't have anything else to do? As to the former question, however, it's not because I had shamed myself by mentioning it. It's because this "omnibus" is no damn good! The comics are too goofy. Yes, yes, I know I have often boasted perversely of loving the uncool, goofy comic book characters (not to be confused with the Disney character Goofy) the best... your Captain Marvel (the version often called "Shazam" by dimwits, for reasons I could get into here if I felt like it), your Metal Men, your Plastic Man, and so forth. But this glossy pile of junk I was reading was goofy in the wrong way. The goofiness it poured forth seemed born of bitterness and irony. The bitterness and irony of persons who have placed themselves high above goofiness. That's 1989 for you! There's a reason I originally stopped reading comic books when the price went up to 30 cents. Well, the reason was it became too expensive. Thirty cents is a lot of money! But the point is that the goofiness I like, the goofiness of your Plastic Man, your Metal Men, your Captain Marvel, is sincere and joyful... an embracing mechanism, not a distancing one. Anyway, I'd put this volume in the big overflowing garbage box of books they have for urchins to pick through in the park, but it's too damn big.