One for the Fan

This one is for you synchronicity fans (that is to say McNeil... see also). So, recently, I was watching the Joel Coen version of MACBETH and I was taken with the scene featuring some old dude. I was like, "What's the deal with this old dude?" So this morning I found my copy of the text and I read the scene, and boy has this old dude been seeing some dire portents and such! "A falcon, towering in her pride of place, was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd." That's the kind of dire portent I'm talking about! This I must have heard while watching the movie, but maybe it didn't register so good in my sad brain parts. But when I read that, I thought, WAIT! Wait, I thought, while I was walking around the neighborhood yesterday, listening to an audiobook of FINNEGANS WAKE, didn't I hear something about owls hawking? I did recall that in the graphology section, as I think of it, though, to be clear, I have no idea what I'm talking about, there was something about E's looking "like sick owls." So my investigation began. I got out my trusty and seldom-opened (until now!) hardcover of FINNEGANS WAKE, given to me, as mentioned previously, by a defrocked preacher, and there I found that the passage was one and the same: "crisscrossed Greek ees awkwardlike perched there and here out of date like sick owls hawked back to Athens" (see also the owl's connection to Athena, as hinted at by "hyperlink" in the previous "post")... anyway, so there you have it, owls hawking and owls being hawked, yes, there you have it, all right, but what is it? I mean, I know what it is, but what is it?

Effort

I don't mean to brag, but I was walking on the beach on Christmas Eve, listening to an audiobook of FINNEGANS WAKE. I was listening to Chapter 10... wait! I must already interrupt this wonderful story that has you on the edge of your seat. It wasn't really Chapter 10. More to come on that in a moment. Anyway, I was listening to what I thought was Chapter 10, and, hey, do you remember the comical "French" accent I imposed on a character in my second book? Well, it sure sounded to me like James Joyce perpetrated the same offense, and in a remarkably similar style. So, suddenly, I was proud of myself instead of being so terribly ashamed. I decided that upon my return home, I would double check my physical copy of the book, which was given to me by a defrocked preacher when I worked in a bookstore in downtown Mobile, to see whether Joyce and I had indeed independently hit upon the same inaccurate and even potentially embarrassing method of presenting to the reader a comical "French" accent. And that is what I did, or tried to do. The first thing I noticed upon digging out the book was that there are no chapter headings. I have run into this problem before, notably when I was trying to teach BELOVED during my brief flirtation with doing that kind of thing. Authors! Please number your chapters. Don't be like James Joyce and Toni Morrison. Ha ha ha! What terrible advice. See also the travails of the Dune Book Club. As I leafed through FINNEGANS WAKE - and allow me to state, just to help you understand what I've been through, that the online index to FINNEGANS WAKE I found years ago is now nothing but a zombie "link"! - it seemed to me (as already hinted) that Joyce's chapters were longer than the "chapters" of the audiobook, which, though unabridged, had been broken into bite-sized chunks... bite-sized if you're a hippopotamus! But relatively bite-sized, making my search more of an effort, especially given the fact that I no longer care about anything. I did track it down, though: "you wish to ave some homelette... Your hegg he must break himself." Believe it or not, that's James Joyce, not me. From context, the speaker seems French, though there is some German sprinkled around the passage, too, just to drive me batty. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL! On Christmas Day I was walking along the beach again and the audiobook said to me, "it being Yuletide"... and it was! Dr. Theresa could not walk on the beach with me because she had twisted her ankle. I would not be listening to an audiobook of FINNEGANS WAKE were I pleasantly strolling hand-in-hand along a beach with Dr. Theresa. I am sure you will recall that the last time Dr. Theresa and I visited my parents, we saw a mink run across the road and a pig run across the road. This time, we saw nothing run across the road. While I was taking a bag of trash to a garbage chute, however, I saw a little bright pink lizard of a kind I have never seen before. I want to say it was a salamander, because I have always imagined salamanders - no doubt incorrectly - to be pink. I also saw this guy (above) on the day after Christmas. Oh! I forgot! So I also heard Joyce use "owl-wise," I thought, seeming to mean both "always" and "wise as an owl." And I checked! Like a hero! Just to satisfy myself. And neither my hearing nor my huffing and puffing brain had deceived me, though my brain had added a superfluous hyphen. I found "the eternals were owlwise on their side every time"... and let me state for the record that I do not believe James Joyce was referring to the Marvel superheroes The Eternals, created by Jack Kirby, though, of course, there are certain similarities (see also). I also thought (and still sort of think after consideration) that owlwise could have meant "as regards owls," as, for example, when somebody (is it Jack Lemmon?) in THE APARTMENT says, "That's the way it crumbles, cookie-wise."

The Arts

For our own personal and individual reasons, neither Dr. Theresa nor I eats sandwiches anymore. And I do believe that is correct subject/verb agreement if you think about it for two seconds. So anyway, we were watching a "limited series" (those are terrible!) via "streaming" and it was a mystery thriller suspense drama of action! At one point the guy stops in a diner and orders up three sandwiches to go. And they look amazing, and I believe I will categorize them as "cheesesteaks," though I don't pretend to be an expert. But the scene does take place in Philadelphia. Even so, Dr. Theresa and I were taken by a simultaneous Proustian pang for some Italian beef combo sandwiches we enjoyed in Chicago in 2002. So then the guy gets in his car and starts having action-packed adventures filled with mystery and suspense, not to mention thrills, but we just don't care. All we can think of, and we say it out loud, is that "He's driving around with those sandwiches in his car!" In our distracted state we can't be sure, but it seems like it takes him several hours to get home with those sandwiches, and we're just thinking about how they've been sitting in the car all day. In other arts news, THE OBSCENE BIRD OF NIGHT started to seem too grotesque and disturbing to read in bed at night in the hopes of a peaceful slumber, so I switched over to DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather... and it - unlike THE OBSCENE BIRD OF NIGHT - gave me nightmares! And death isn't even close to coming for this guy yet! Although... never mind. No spoilers! In a final arts thought, was it really a "Proustian pang" (above)? Didn't Proust actually get to bite into his memory cookie? If I may be allowed to stray off topic, the holidays are upon us, and I should mention a funny Christmas wish I received from McNeil, who asked, "Are you doing anything for Christmas? Besides take your blood pressure and hope Santa brings you one more day - JUST ONE MORE, SANTA!" An artful construction by McNeil, in fact, who goes on to recall imperfectly my alleged love, when we knew each other as children, of the snack cakes known as Sno Balls. To be fair, McNeil couched his assertion in the always reliable "if I remember correctly" context. He was, however, thinking of, or misremembering, Strawberry Zingers, a product I ate 5 days of the week for some matter of years without the knowledge of my parents, and it truly is a wonder I'm alive today. I don't know if they still make them. Anyway, my metabolism must have bordered on the miraculous at the time. I was like Matter Eater Lad from DC comics! McNeil, it must be said, was on the right track, as both items in question (Sno Balls and Strawberry Zingers) were sprinkled with poisonously dyed coconut. [The coconut slivers on the Strawberry Zingers may have been unpigmented, actually, but they were surrounded by a spongy cake-like substance soaked in a deep, alarming, and, indeed, unnatural shade of crimson. - ed.] If I, like McNeil, "recall correctly," Strawberry Zingers came three to a pack, which, to my way of thinking at the time, meant that I should eat all three at once. And I was a skinny kid! If I am doing the math correctly, and it is a very simple equation, I was ingesting 15 Strawberry Zingers a week. This brings us back to Proust, doesn't it? But that's not the point. The point is that McNeil says he's spending Christmas in "a neighborhood that boasts a three-legged alligator."

McNeil's Li'l Bogie Bits

I'm sure some of you, if you existed, would be wondering about McNeil and why he hasn't bothered much with his bits lately... specifically, his "Li'l Bogie Bits," which is what we call it when he throws us a couple of bones based on the 700-page biography of Humphrey Bogart he has been reading. Well, here's what happened: he thought he had left the book somewhere and lost it. Maybe in another state of the union, I think? But then he found it at home under a pile of... unspecified stuff. Of course, Freud would say that McNeil just doesn't care about his "Li'l Bogie Bits" anymore, so he effectively hid the book from himself. But Freud would be wrong! Speaking of Freud (and don't worry, we'll get back to the promised bits), McNeil told me he's reading SYNCHRONICITY by Carl Jung. I know what you're going to say! Freud isn't Jung. Well, maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong. All I know is I can't think of one without the other, like the two great flavors in a Reese's peanut butter cup. Like, when Freud and Jung were arguing that time and there was an inexplicable explosion in a nearby bookcase. I think I have that story right. And that reminds me of another story! I made it into a chapter of SOUR BLUEBERRIES, my novel that no longer exists on this planet. So I think I can quote it here and no one will care. And this is a true story, and I didn't even change Leslie's real actual name to protect her innocence: "That made him think of the time he and Leslie were arguing about Kubrick and Mike Nichols on New Year’s Eve and there was a loud bang from the other room and everybody ran in and saw that the oaken bookcase with all the film books on it had cleaved itself down the middle in despair and the film books were in a pile on the floor." Okay. What was I saying? Oh yeah, and then there was the time that Freud and Jung were on a train, I think, right here in the USA, I think, home of the "blog," and Freud got it in his head somehow that Jung was comparing him to a corpse preserved in a bog, and Freud swooned and fainted! I think I have that story right, too. But if I don't, who cares? Oh yeah, and what about when Frasier had a Halloween party and came dressed as his hero, Sigmund Freud? I feel, in a related matter, that Frasier would occasionally (though maybe not in the episode in question) make a sarcastic quip about Jungians. I don't have the sources to back that up. None of this is the point. The point is (well, this might not be the point, either) that I was telling McNeil about an Elmore Leonard novel I was enjoying and McNeil said he was envious, because he wasn't making a lot of headway with SYNCHRONICITY (in a subsequent email, he indicated that he was starting to get into it and groove on its vibes, though not in those words). Explaining that he wished Jung's examples were simpler, McNeil wrote, with what I took as plaintiveness, and I believe this is a quote, "Why not cats walking through a door?" So I closed my email and I opened up Elmore Leonard and I read "A cat walks in the room..." WHAT! So I emailed McNeil back and said, I believe, "Synchronicity!" or some other smart remark along those lines. Now for the bogie bits, which I will now attempt to reconstruct before your very eyes through the power of memory. One of them was... hmm... I guess Bogart was getting sick of Sinatra coming over to the house and drinking up all of Bogie's booze, and also (if I am recalling correctly) putting the moves on Lauren Bacall, who was Bogart's legally wedded wife. What was the other one? It had something to do with Bogart winning an Oscar. McNeil did not specify the movie, but I am guessing it was THE AFRICAN QUEEN. I'm not looking it up because I don't care about anything anymore. Anyway, Bogart's buddy tells him if he wins he should act real cool and snarl "It's about time" and casually walk offstage like some kind of tough customer. So Bogart is like, "Wow! That's a great idea! I'll do it!" And then he wins and gets up there and blushes and giggles and cavorts about the stage all giddy and squealing. That can't be right. But as I have already expressed, I don't care. I was reading more of the Elmore Leonard in a doctor's waiting room today. I took it instead of my prescribed waiting room reading material. After that, I stopped by Square Books because my copy of THE ICEMAN COMETH had arrived. I ordered it because I was watching the movie version the other day, and the character Hugo, played by Boss Hogg from THE DUKES OF HAZZARD, said what I could have sworn was "Life is a crazy monkey face!" So I was going to check the text and see. So Dr. Theresa is driving us home and I'm flipping through the end of THE ICEMAN COMETH and I find Hugo saying "Hello, nice, leedle, funny monkey-faces!" And another time he goes, "Hello, leedle Don, leedle monkey-face!" I don't know, maybe he's all about the leedle monkey-faces the whole way through, though where I got "Life is a crazy monkey face!" I don't know. In my defense, Boss Hogg isn't exactly Demosthenes in this role. And he is forced by the author, as you have witnessed, to say things like "leedle." When I read the whole play, which I promise you I never will, perhaps I'll come across the exact line that I misheard. Thank you. This has been "McNeil's Li'l Bogie Bits." Now leave me alone!

Various Birds

I picked up a book called THE OBSCENE BIRD OF NIGHT by José Donoso, and I was like, hmm, can this obscene bird of night be an owl, perchance? But then I read the epigraph, which is by Henry James's dad, and he is giving his sons some life advice, including "The natural inheritance of everyone who is capable of spiritual life is an unsubdued forest where the wolf howls and the obscene bird of night chatters." Thanks, Dad! (I recall while typing this that some kind of weird monster bird of the psyche attacked Henry James's father in a novel by Colm Tóibín and also, presumably, in real life.) So last night I was in bed reading THE OBSCENE BIRD OF NIGHT and I came across "the ugly chonchón of ill omen." So I was like, "Hey, sweetie, look on your phone and tell me what a chonchón is." Dr. Theresa, who was also lying there reading, picked up her phone and looked up the chonchón. She said - and here I paraphrase freely - "It's a head that flies around by flapping its big ears like wings," which was pretty dang close to how it had been described in the book. I mean, exactly, really. "A horrible head would fly through the air, trailing a long mane of wheat-colored hair... flapping huge sinewy ears that were like bat wings." I flipped to the TRANSLATOR'S NOTE at the end of the book, in which Megan McDowell refers to the chonchón as an "owllike creature," and, as you know, that's good enough for me. Though maybe I should put an asterisk on it for now. Which reminds me! I finished that Julian Barnes novel and I didn't see any owls in it, but there were some luminous geese... I should say, "Luminous Geese," as he afforded them the dignity of proper nouns. As a person who plopped luminous owls into his second book, I took special note of the Luminous Geese. (See also.)

McNeilileaks

Welcome once again to McNeilileaks, in which McNeil confides his darkest thoughts with me via email and I leak them to the world. And there's nothing he can do to stop me! After watching a crisp and clean movie via streaming, McNeil writes to compare it favorably with the version he used to watch via, in his words, a "VHS copy I recorded from an over-the-air station. A copy where as the movie goes along, static lines appear bolder and bolder as a lightning storm gets closer and closer. Those were the days... trying to squeeze it in before the power went out."

Perfect

Allow me to quote THE POSSESSED by Witold Gombrowicz, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, one of the books I am reading right now: "He drank a shot of vodka. It did him good. He had another. Then a large glass of lager, a herring sandwich and two more shots of vodka. Perfect." Yes! That does sound perfect. And I don't even care for vodka or lager. I miss sandwiches, though. They have me on this special diet and I haven't had a sandwich in many months. Anyway, I had feelings of envy toward the fictional character who was drinking vodka and lager and eating a sandwich. I put myself in his place through the workings of my innocent childlike imagination, and the whole experience seemed pleasing indeed, though the character is in a state of turmoil as he begins his enviable meal. Look, I would be allowed the herring, and even the vodka, but not the lager or the bread. Hmm, this reminds me of when my mom kept saying she wanted to have a slice of pizza and a beer for her 50th birthday, though she had never had even a sip of beer in her life... she just thought it looked so good on TV! In the end, she did not succumb to that temptation, nor has she to this very day.

The Meatballs of Yesterday

To my recollection, four things happened yesterday. 1. I got a text from Laraine Newman! She told me that the New York Times (or a newsletter thereof, to be precise) had some nice things to say about MYSTERY CUDDLERS, the pilot I co-created with Pendleton Ward. They say it has a "bright, appealing oddness," if that's the sort of thing you enjoy. 2. A package arrived from my brother! It contained a giant cookie jar in the shape of an owl. The owl is wearing a straw boater and a bow tie, of course. And the hat cleverly serves as the lid of the cookie jar. Thanks, Will! I stare at this cookie jar a lot! I would put a photo of it here, but I feel my masterful description could not be improved upon. Oh, you know what? Screw it! Pardon my rough he-man language of the dirty streets! 3. A cat sneezed all over me. If you have a cat, one day it will sneeze all over you, a fact taken from real life that we worked into episode one of season one of ADVENTURE TIME: FIONNA AND CAKE. I felt the need to change my shirt, which bore tangible evidence of the cat sneeze. So I broke in a shirt that Ace Atkins brought me as a souvenir of his recent trip to New York City. It says "Daddy's Little Meatball" on it. Ace didn't know this, but I once read a New York Times article about such a shirt, which I recall because I put it into one of my many unpublished novels (and subsequently deleted - the detail, not the novel, though I should probably delete the novel). 4. After I "blogged" about Julian Barnes yesterday, I thought of my childhood friend Henry Barnes (no relation, I assume), who dove into the bayou to retrieve a softball once. That was his excuse, anyway. Boy, did Sister Lois chew him out about that! It was 7th grade, the year I went to Catholic school, because Mom had a job there. The school was right there on the bayou. What was Henry supposed to do? NOT dive into the bayou, which was right there? My brother attended the same school and became an altar boy, even though we were Southern Baptists. How did that happen? That has to be against the rules. I hope the Pope doesn't read this! How many masses did my little brother invalidate with his non-Catholic subterfuge? I hate to say it, but there may be any number of souls sitting around in Purgatory to this day, all thanks to my brother. But the point is, Henry grew up to be the mayor of Bayou La Batre, which I believe he still is! I'll have to ask Mom. I haven't seen him in about half a century (see also).

A Walk in the Park

It's too cold to walk in the park right now, but don't you remember the park? The park where Dr. Theresa and I walk? And there's a trash bin of books there? I mean, a "little free library"? Well, a little while back, we were walking in the park and I found a Julian Barnes novel called ENGLAND, ENGLAND. I don't know why, but I thought he was an odd author to find lying there abandoned in the park like that. This book doesn't have an owl in it, at least not yet, but it does have Jerry Lewis in it. I should note that Julian Barnes works a subtle (?) variation on the hoary idea that the French love Jerry Lewis, which is pretty nervy coming from a guy who wrote a novel called FLAUBERT'S PARROT (which had an owl in it), but the execution was deft and casual, so I decided not to cry about it. FULL DISCLOSURE: I say it's too cold to walk in the park, but Ace and I walked around the neighborhood today.