Never Cried Crack

I was rereading ULYSSES yesterday or the day before and came upon "by the holy farmer, he never cried crack till he brought him home as drunk as a boiled owl"... I don't "blog" anymore. But I do let you know when I read a book with an owl in it. And the idea that owls are drunk or seem drunk is prevalent, so it must be noted.

Action Northam

Spoiler alert for the movie MIMIC, which Dr. Theresa and I were watching last night: when noted action hero Jeremy Northam needs to light his lighter to blow up all the monster bugs, it won't work, and he is forced to strike a spark by using an ice pick against a metal grate. Now! As you may know, I am somewhat like the Ancient Mariner, though my predicament is different. I am forced to roam the earth, noticing things I should have put in my cigarette lighter book but didn't. This scene would have fit comfortably into one of the sections in which I mention sparks being struck by unusual methods OR in my reflection on lighters that won't work at crucial moments in popular culture.

Important Bone Happening

You know I stopped "blogging" for good but sometimes something happens that MUST be reported. Like, McNeil was walking his dog today and A BONE FELL OUT OF THE SKY. McNeil took a picture of the bone and sent it to me and here it is. (See also.)

My Slowly Growing Appendix

Hey, you remember how I wrote a book about cigarette lighters then immediately stopped caring about cigarette lighters, but once in a while I see something that really should have gone into my book about cigarette lighters so I add it to a very slowly growing appendix. Well, last night Dr. Theresa and I watched STARGATE, and when an alien kid grows mesmerized by Kurt Russell's cigarette lighter, it speaks to a trope I introduced on page 46, if you want to grab your copy of my cigarette lighter book and pencil it in, because I knew this trope existed, but I didn't provide any examples, because I really couldn't think of any, so I wrote about things that were sort of like it (accurately noting, as does become apparent in STARGATE, "It's always a short leap to the more ominous flare of gunpowder") and now, thanks to watching STARGATE last night, I have an example of the rather gross trope where the white man comes to a "remote" place and blows everybody's mind with his cigarette lighter, goodbye.

Dense

I was reading this article ("click" here) that Megan Abbott wrote about Raymond Chandler, and I thought that in the illustration (above) Chandler resembled the actor Edward Norton. So I googled "edward norton" + "raymond chandler" to see if anyone agreed with me and it doesn't appear that anyone does. What came up most often was the movie BIRDMAN, in which Mr. Norton appeared. A surprising number of news outlets seemed to believe that the short story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" (which plays a large role in the movie BIRDMAN) was written by Raymond Chandler. One of them... I'll name them and shame them!... IndieWire... IndieWire thinks that BIRDMAN itself is a Raymond Chandler short story! "Based on a Raymond Chandler short story, the narrative centers on a former actor who once played an iconic superhero," claims IndieWire like a bunch of dummies. Okay! Well, I crafted a "tweet" on the subject but it was really too dense for a tweet, so I deleted it, and though I don't "blog" anymore, here we are, and nobody cares, and why should anybody?

Dean Cake Birthday Head

For my birthday McNeil sent this photo of Dean Martin's head coming out of a cake. For the first and only time in his life, Jerry appears to be embarrassed.