From the Golden Toilet

Speaking of... what? Well, I know what I mean. Going from Queen Elizabeth in my fuzzy little brain to Dr. John Dee, I was put in mind of the chronovisor, a gadget McNeil emailed me about recently, under the heading "Forget the Golden Toilet." Perhaps I should explain the subject line of McNeil's email. Have you not heard of the famous artwork that was fashioned in the beauteous form of a golden toilet? McNeil and I used to amuse ourselves thinking of clever ways to steal the golden toilet, but then someone stole it in real life and ruined our fun. Now, according to all the newspapers, the golden toilet is back - and better than ever, I assume. But why am I telling you this? After all, McNeil has commanded me to forget the golden toilet – review the title of his email for confirmation - and think about the chronovisor instead. I’ll provide a "hyperlink" (here) so you can begin your own stupid journey of discovery about the chronovisor, a device that allows you to see back in time! Supposedly. Well, the idea behind the chronovisor put me in mind of my own big idea for seeing back in time, which involves an impossibly powerful telescope and a faraway galaxy. The narrator of Flann O’Brien’s THE THIRD POLICEMAN (or is it his hero de Selby, much quoted in footnotes?) has a related (?) notion involving an infinite series of mirrors, if I recall correctly, which the structure of this sentence throws into doubt. McNeil declared that my idea would indeed allow us to see ourselves eating lunch in high school, what a dream come true. Anyway, as our email chain became longer and longer, I kept misreading McNeil’s subject header as "From the Golden Toilet," which I finally told him. I think he said I could put that on his tombstone, but I countered that it might work better as the title of an edition of our collected letters.

Royal Glue

Okay, in this Million Dollar Book Club selection, I just read about "a twenty-four-foot-long mechanical dolphin whose belly contained a large group of musicians." Is our subject a Miley Cyrus show? No, but that's a good guess! It's just a little party set up in a private home for a traveling Queen Elizabeth I. "Now, wait a minute," you'd be saying if you existed. "Doesn't the Million Dollar Book Club read celebrity bios and books that are celebrity-bio-adjacent?" What, you don't think Queen Elizabeth I was a celebrity? Okay, okay, I admit she's not even really what this book is about. She's kind of the glue that holds it together, but don't tell her I said that. I don't think she'd like the comparison!

Book Club Newsletter

The Million Dollar Book Club (formerly the Doomed Book Club) has just embarked on its 125th selection, according to Megan's calculations. I'll let you know if it has an owl in it. That's all we can look forward to in this crazy world, I tell you. And at my back I always hear time's wingéd chariot hurrying near.

Spy Beans

Still reading THE NIGHT MANAGER, the John le Carré novel recommended by Ace Atkins. There's something in it called Operation Night Owl. What is Operation Night Owl? Hell if I know, and it doesn't seem as though John le Carré feels like spilling the beans. You know him! I don't. I've never read one of his books before. And I never will again. Just kidding, John le Carré! He doesn't care. He's dead.

Reading Stinks

The other day the thought occurred to me that I might have become eldery enough to start reading John le Carré. I asked around among some friends, and Ace boasted that he had started reading le Carré at the age of fifteen. Ace was already elderly at the time! That's my conclusion. Anyway, as you know, I have been reading ancient (as opposed to elderly) things, or about ancient things, for quite a while now, so when I picked up John le Carré from the bedside table last night and read (I paraphrase lazily), "The stock market was troubled in Zurich," or something like that, my immediate reaction was "Zzzzzz," because I had fallen fast asleep after two paragraphs. But it's not John le Carré's fault! Or maybe it is. I mean, on Halloween, I was finishing up Seneca's plays and reading stuff like "They say the spirits groan here in the dead of night, the grove resounds with the clattering of chains, and the ghosts howl... Old tombs break open, releasing hordes of wandering dead." You try going from that to the Zurich stock market.

Lost Souls of the "Internet"

Well, Season 2 of ADVENTURE TIME: FIONNA AND CAKE started today, and I do not believe you will consider it a spoiler if I mention that Fionna's clock radio awakens her in an early scene. You know how people's clock radios are always awakening them in early scenes. Whom should we hear on the airwaves in this particular case but DJ Slime, spinning the hits? Now! In some misguided areas of the "internet" I have run across speculation that this character is a version of DJ Plop Drops, who was played by John Hodgman in the original series. There are several reasons why this cannot be true! Personally, I immediately came up with four such reasons without even trying, because my brain is lightning fast despite recent "difficulties." But think about it for a second. I could list the reasons, but then I ponder how many times I would have to type the phrase "DJ Plop Drops" and I lose the will to live. For you see, simply put, DJ Slime is FionnaWorld's answer to Slime Princess - a sentence that will make sense to some people. I am happy to clarify for those people, and kindly invite all other people to go to hell. And I am happy to tell you that DJ Slime, the Slime Princess of Fionna's world, will be portrayed, vocally, by my brother, my actual brother, who is actually a radio DJ in real actual life. Here is a video ("click" here) he made about his childhood hero (and current, though dead, hero) Mel Blanc, who led him to... well, just "click" on the "link." Do I have to do everything for you people?

My Interesting Life

I was watching the Robert Altman adaptation - much maligned! - of the Sam Shepard play FOOL FOR LOVE. Noticing some purely cinematic gestures, I couldn't help but wonder whether there were analogous effects in the stage version... this is just one example of the interesting ideas that enter my large head as I sit around doing nothing for days on end. So I dug out a copy of the play and, examining the scene in question, came upon the line "And these white owls kept swooping down out of nowhere, hunting for jackrabbits." Needless to say, I had perked up when hearing that line in the movie, and the way it was situated in the scene that had captured my curiosity was just a bonus, considering my sick compulsion to catalog literary works with owls in them. Speaking of which! I grabbed out of the big pile of books on the floor of my home office a history of magical beliefs and practices - I don't know why. It's just what I grabbed to read. Look, I've got a lot of problems, okay? And I was reading along about this and that, including ancient Mesopotamian civilization, where you might run into a guy on the street called an "owlman"... a shadowy figure, the author calls him! "It is not always clear what these people did... The snake-charmer and the owlman were regularly accused of witchcraft," writes the (rather credulous, by the way!) author. Thank you for joining me in my pursuit of whatever it is.