Just Think

This is not what I came here to tell you, but THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES has owls in it: "But just think of those summer nights! The owls whimpering, the night moaning, and when it all got too spooky we both got into my bed so we could go on talking." But no, I came here to say that I watched a Tim Holt western called THUNDERING HOOFS, and... well, first let me say something about these Tim Holt westerns. They're just great. The average runtime is about 65 minutes, I guess, and they all have the same plot. There's some kind of corrupt businessman or official who is messing around with the welfare of goodhearted townspeople, and here comes a stranger, Tim Holt, riding in to save the day. At some point, though, the bad guys twist it around so it looks like Tim Holt is in charge of their rotten scheme! So he gets locked up or ostracized or what-have-you, and things look pretty bleak for a minute, but it's okay, because he figures out how to expose the jerks and be celebrated as the hero he truly is. It's an incredibly comforting formula, and reminds me of some of Julia Pott's observations about the basic template of romantic comedy, but I put all of her thoughts on the subject into one of my unpublished novels, so I won't repeat them, not because I think anything will ever happen with any of my unpublished novels, but just because it seems exhausting to type it all up again. Or even to think about it! The main point is that I mused wisely to myself, regarding THUNDERING HOOFS, "'Hoofs' looks very wrong to me. I always thought it was 'hooves!'" So then I opened up Kafka's diaries, and in the next passage I read, the translator Ross Benjamin used "hoofs"!!!! So, boy, that was something. So I was like, I guess Tim Holt and Ross Benjamin know what the hell they're talking about, I'll leave this matter in their capable hoofs. BUT THEN! I told McNeil all about it, because he had just emailed me to relate his own uncanny coincidence. Oh, you'd like to hear about it too? Okay! You twisted my arm. Ouch! So, McNeil happened to idly pick up his novelization of the Dean Martin vehicle WHO'S GOT THE ACTION? and read a couple of pages. Wait! I must add that McNeil scrupulously clarified that the book may have been a novelization OR maybe the movie was based on a novel with, in its original printing, another title, and then they changed the title of the novel to tie it in with the movie. Nobody knows for sure! Because, like me, McNeil no longer cares to look things up. It's presumptuous of me to say that. Maybe he still likes to look things up. Anyway, he picked up the book on April 11 of this year... then, by chance, a few days later, he picked up an old notebook (a very old notebook) and learned that he had recorded a showing of WHO'S GOT THE ACTION? on... are you ready?... April 11, 1983!!!! You can pick your jaw up off the floor now. Anyway, though, the point is that McNeil issued a statement that he had never once in his young life seen "hoofs" used and he found the very thought of it unacceptable. And I was like, to McNeil, "Now that I've discussed this with you, I won't have to 'blog' about it!" Which, as you can see, was a dirty lie.