You Bet!

I know what you're thinking: "HENRY VI, PART 1 has an owl in it and so does HENRY VI, PART 3, but aren't we skipping over something? Does HENRY VI, PART 2 have an owl in it?" You bet your ass it does! Pardon my language, Shakespeare! Of course, in Shakespeare's time, an ass was nothing but a donkey. I assume. Ha ha "assume," get it? Neither do I! Anyway, from an owl perspective, the three parts of HENRY VI are like the old shell game... if there was a pea under every shell! What, you don't know what the old shell game is? I can't help what you know or what you don't know. I'm not your mother! I remember when I was working on Julia Pott's television show SUMMER CAMP ISLAND and for some reason I brought up three-card monte - I'm sure it was very important to the story we were working on; either that or I was just babbling away as usual - and the person who was taking notes wrote down "Three-Card Mafia." She had led a blameless life! She never heard of three-card monte, and why should she? What is she, a carny? Nothing against carnies! What was my point? I can't remember. That maybe I mumble? Anyhow, "The time when screech owls cry and bandogs howl, and spirits walk and ghosts break up their graves..." Which reminds me that I want to look up possible relationships between HENRY VI, PART 2 and MACBETH. Which came first? And so on. There's some kind of overlap happening. One great advantage of being ignorant is you can get old like me and have a lot of things to find out, if you can work up the energy, which is doubtful. Like, the other day Dr. Theresa and I were taking a walk and I said, "What is sweat, anyway?"

I Guess So

Well, am I going to start telling you every time I run across a book with the phrase "night birds" in it? I guess so! Last night, I thought otherwise. I lay there reading in this book, "They sat and listened to the night birds and the surf." And I was like, well, those are definitely not owls, so there is no need to wonder whether or not I should put this excellent crime novel I am reading on my big long list of books with owls in them. Allow me to explain my thinking! The book takes place in Hawaii. Now, are there owls in Hawaii? I am happy to say yes. But I couldn't imagine owls hanging out at the beach (see the part of the sentence about "the surf"). But maybe they do! Maybe that's my next pitch for an animated TV show: OWL BEACH. Owls on surfboards! Oh boy! Yeah, but this morning, my curiosity got the better of me and I wanted to know what kind of owls they have in Hawaii. Now, I usually don't care about anything, especially looking up facts, and just look at the kind of trouble looking up facts gets you into. You discover things that seem interesting. It's a real pain. Like, I found this article about the owls of Hawaii ("click" here). And look. I know that one day it will become a zombie "link." That's one of the reasons why I don't "link" to outside sources anymore. But come on! There is a lot of prime owl material there. For example, "In a legend from Maui, Pueonuiakea, an owl god, guides lost souls safely back to their homes." This is nice to hear! Especially because owls are called upon to be scary death symbols so often. It's a pleasant change of pace for the owls, guiding lost souls safely back to their homes. Although, when you think about it, could this be applied to heaven above? Oh, let's not think about it, nor all the hymns I heard as a child that would back me up on this questionable theory. It's too much! I've gone too far! Now, let me tell you, I'm really enjoying this book, FIVE DECEMBERS by James Kestrel. I even sent McNeil a copy! And I don't even know the ending yet. I emphasize my admiration because there was one meaningless little detail that nagged at me. See? This is what you get for caring about things! Caring about things is useless. But, so, these characters go to a movie in 1945. They leave at the end, after "the credits rolled." Did credits roll in 1945? I feel that they did not. Most movies, I believe... almost all! Not all, but almost all. Most movies, as I was saying, did not even have closing credits in 1945. And if they did, I don't think those credits "rolled" very much. They just sat there. Maybe, in a very few instances, they rolled a tiny little bit. But by any stretch, I don't believe a case could be made that it was a period-appropriate thought in 1945 for closing credits, if a character was even aware of the existence of closing credits (and our protagonist has never heard of Ingrid Bergman or Gregory Peck! So his knowledge of credits may be assumed to be... ha ha, I'm boring myself so much), to be "rolling." Who cares? I don't! Why is this stuck in my head? I just feel like... I guess James Kestrel doesn't have any friends who watch TCM. A friend who could have told him about the history of closing credits! A friend like... ME??? Is this the kind of pedantic little thing I'm going to worry about now? I guess so! Is this the kind of close examination of an unimportant fragment that I would wish to be applied to my own work? Never! As I have remarked repeatedly in my long life, "It's okay when I do it." Now, the movie is SPELLBOUND, and for all I know, maybe SPELLBOUND ends with one of those rare little credit rolls. I guess I don't care enough to watch it again and find out. But maybe that's the case and this is just like the time I couldn't imagine a dog "resting her chin on her four paws." We see where that got me! Nowhere. Which is where I like to be. POSTSCRIPT! I was asleep, and sprang awake thinking that of course to "roll the credits" just means to roll that part of the film through the projector, justifying my knee-jerk four-paw dog-fear presumption. Maybe? If so, it does not mean, as I implied, that the credits can be seen to roll or scroll from the bottom of the screen to the top. Sorry I doubted you, James Kestrel! However! Most of what I said still makes sense. In 1945, no one would expect a movie to "roll credits" at the end, no matter the meaning of the phrase. I leave you to your thoughts and trust that you all will kindly go to hell.

Ideas and Opinions

Our friend McNeil was walking by a bookshelf recently, and... well, I'll let him speak for himself: "I noticed 'Ideas and Opinions' - Albert Einstein. And I suddenly remembered buying that book off the bargain table at The Intimate Bookshop [sounds dirty! - ed.], thinking it would make me look smart. I got it off the bookshelf and the receipt was still in it. Now, on the inside of the dust jacket someone clearly marked in pen $3.88. But according to the receipt (dated 9-7-83) I am charged $3.98!!! I was not a wealthy man in the summer of 83. Nineteen years old and living off tips in my parent's attic. That dime. That precious dime!!! Someone should figure out the compound interest on that dime if I had invested it in something fancy and I'll get a lawyer for some of their money - if they weren't out of business already. And I don't think compound interest is the term I'm looking for."

A True Story of Real Life

The other day I had to, in the words of Kool Moe Dee, "go see the doctor," but, let me emphasize, not for the reasons put forth in that work. Anyway, having recently finished off a couple of smaller books, all the books I took up subsequently are gigantic monsters, impossible to sit with in a waiting room without making an unseemly spectacle of one's self. So I plucked a manageable book from my big pile of books to pluck, and it happened to be RUN MAN RUN by Chester Himes, which I found at Skylight Books on my most recent visit to Los Angeles, California. So I started reading it while I waited to see the doctor and then, to use a well-worn phrase, I "couldn't put it down." So, last night, just near the end, there came a "replica of an owl's head" where I least expected it... on the butt of a gun! That's the end of my story.

A General Comment

Well, now, I'm sure y'all sit around your campfires or your cozy hearths and talk all night about the owl in HENRY VI, Part 3. But did you know that there is also an owl in HENRY VI, Part 1? No? Then sit back and get ready to be amazed. This here French general calls our man Talbot "Thou ominous and fearful owl of death." Ouch! As I look at these two plays, all smushed up so close together in dramatic chronology, I think to myself, Jack, I think, is there an argument to be made that Shakespeare's plays were not intended as "books," exactly, and that they do not, in that case, have a legitimate place on your big long list of books you have read since 2011 with owls in them? And then I remember that I don't even care that a chimpanzee is not technically a monkey.

Awful Stuff

Content warning! This "post" will have some gory junk in it, mostly compliments of Mr. William Shakespeare, with some help from Tom Wolfe. Okay! First of all, I am finally reading that paperback of HENRY VI, Part 1 I got at Square Books. All right! Pin a medal on me. Oh! Before you pin a medal on me, I was casually glancing through the "blog" for previous Henry VI tidbits, and I found one that says his favorite activity was sleeping. I get it! I really do. But I want to talk about this guy Talbot. A pal of his gets mortally wounded and Talbot asks him, "One of thy eyes and thy cheek's side struck off?" Which is a funny thing to ask a person in that position. Like, what's the guy supposed to say, am I right? Come on! Get it together, Talbot! You know, it's the same thing that happens to Chuck Yeager at the end of THE RIGHT STUFF, both the movie and the book. I mean to say that his face catches on fire after he ejects from his plummeting aircraft. Don't worry, folks, unlike Talbot's friend Salisbury, he's fine! But a detail they leave out of the movie is that after he hits the ground, the kid who finds him vomits all over the place because old Chuck's not looking so good. I wonder why they left that out of the movie! Getting back to Talbot, he's real upset, you see, about how dirty they've done his pal. He's mad in particular at Joan of Arc and her buddy the Dauphin, and he vows to get 'em! Get 'em good! "Your hearts I'll stamp out with my horse's heels and make a quagmire of your mingled brains." Holy cow! Mingled brains! He's going to mingle their brains all up! What! It's going to be brain soup when he gets through with them! Just horrible, as promised. Well, the guy is upset, like I was telling you. Later, though, a French lady calls Talbot a "weak and writhled shrimp." Ha ha! Writhled! Ouch! Ooh la la! Zut alors! Anyway, okay, Shakespeare, you've got me hooked! What's up next with this crazy crew of lovable lunkheads?

Pioneers of Not Caring

By now you know the time-worn old story - nay, legend! - of how Ace Atkins drove up one fine day to Memphis, Tennessee, and I rode along with my handy digital recorder and interviewed him about the time he went to Hollywood to work on a Pauly Shore movie. Well, sir, I promised not to bother you about it very much, and I do think I have lived up to my word. But! Just the other day, right here on the old "blog," I was lamenting our relative lack of monkeys as of late. And that is why I feel obliged to tell you that baby chimpanzees figure prominently in the latest installment of ACE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD on the "web" site FLAMING HYDRA. Sure, I've told you about MY baby chimpanzee encounter before ("click" here - you won't! Ugh! Why are you so awful? Have you ever asked yourself?) but did you know about ACE'S encounter with a baby chimpanzee? I'll wager you did not. Who are you? And why do I hate you so much? In conclusion, I know that chimpanzees are not monkeys, and I don't care. I'm famous now for not caring about anything - it's my brand! - but not caring that chimpanzees are not monkeys is something I was doing years ago. I cut my not-caring teeth on the difference between monkeys and chimpanzees! I also don't care that I said "in conclusion" but now I'm going to talk about something else. I also don't care that I'm writing, not "talking." Anyway, speaking of Hollywood, USA, a (formerly) secret project I've been working on got written up in VARIETY. I just wanted to make a correction. Kent and I are referred to in the article as "game masters," when everyone on the show, including ourselves, calls us "gamekeepers," a humbler and more fitting title. Do I seem to care about this one thing? I don't care if I do!

Sure Do Know My Stuff

I really know my stuff. What's my "stuff," you may ask? First of all, go to hell. All right! Well, remember how I said this Megan Abbott novel has a night bird in it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's an owl? And then I went on to suggest that an owl might be forthcoming? Remember all that? Do you? Okay! So, here's a quotation for you: "'I bet it was an owl,' Becky said." BOOM! So, to answer your impertinent question, my "stuff," as you call it, is knowing when an owl will be in a book. It's all I've got, okay? To quote beloved ADVENTURE TIME character Root Beer Guy, "It's all I've got!" And then, as you might recall, his wife, Cherry Cream Soda, dressed as a French maid for marital reasons, ran weeping from the room. We weren't messing around on that show!

What Was Jacked Up

Not much funny stuff happening in our interesting modern times they're handing out these days, but here's the funniest phrase I read in today's New York Times: "this symphony was jacked up by the addition of a second tuba." I'll be perfectly frank with you people. I've taken that phrase out of context for extra delightful humor purposes. "Jacked up" actually modifies "magnificent brass section" from earlier in the incompletely quoted sentence, and does not refer to the symphonic composition itself. But I can't help it, I thought it was funny when my poor old eyes fell upon "this symphony was jacked up by the addition of a second tuba." They sure do get excited by some funny things over there at the old New York Times. And then they make it cool for the tuba-loving kids of today. Anyway, this is how I have a good time now, leave me alone, I hate you! Waaaaah!

Orange Vinyl Spider-Man Sequel

I finished reading THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES but no I didn’t. Because you get to the end of the first book and then you have to – by law! – read the next volume, which is called INTO THE MILLENNIUM, or, I suppose, THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES: INTO THE MILLENNIUM. Either way, it sounds like a Spider-Man sequel. I need to get over to Square Books and order it up! Meanwhile, the Million Dollar Book Club is working on THE RIGHT STUFF. And here’s what I noticed! Wally Schirra, one of the Mercury astronauts, is a real prankster. Like, he has a little box and tells people he caught a mongoose in it. Then when they try to reach in and pet it, well, it jumps at them like one of those snakes out of a peanut can. You know those snakes. Wally Schirra’s mongoose is some kind of furry sock on a spring. And that made me remember my short story collection MOVIE STARS, when a character goes to an auction and tries to buy a novelty mongoose in a box, operating on the same principle. I got out the catalog from the auction of Bob Hope's personal effects, which I actually attended, and confirmed that Bob’s mongoose box, as pictured in the aforementioned catalog, appears to professionally assembled, whereas Tom Wolfe sure made it sound as if the mongoose box was something Wally Schirra thought up and slapped together himself. I think that’s an accurate memory of my reading experience. But the book is downstairs by the bed and I don’t care enough to go get it. Then I started imagining whimsical fancies, such as, maybe Wally Schirra gave Bob his very own homemade mongoose box! Wouldn’t that be something? It doesn’t seem overwhelmingly plausible, really. Although I’m sure Bob Hope hung out with the Mercury astronauts at some point. Nor does it seem plausible, though, that Wally Schirra was manufacturing his own trick mongoose boxes when there were plenty of trick mongoose boxes, apparently, in the nation’s many novelty emporiums from coast to coast. Maybe Tom Wolfe got this one thing wrong! Unless! What if Wally Schirra saw a novelty mongoose box in a store and thought, "I could make this myself for half the price!"? I guess we'll never know. Speaking of stuff we'll never know, I noticed again that the Bob Hope auction catalog wasn’t too heavy on provenance, which reminded me that I wanted to check it, and not for the first time, to see if I could find a clue (I couldn’t) about what cartoonist made these clever Bob Hope caricatures I bought at the auction. When Quinn came to town, I was like, “Look, this guy made pictures of Bob Hope as if rendered by Goya… and, uh… [trying to think of some names of other artists]” And Quinn was like, “Are these supposed to look like Bob Hope?” And I was like… “!” Because of course! Why would Bob Hope have these hanging in his office if… and my voice, as well as my thoughts, trailed off as Quinn stood there with a doubtful look on her face. So let’s get back to THE RIGHT STUFF! As I texted Megan with photographic proof, I still have an orange vinyl 45 RPM record with recordings from the actual Mercury space flights. It came with my G.I. Joe space capsule, the interior of which glowed in the dark. I got scared and thought it was a ghost! Give me a break, I was three years old. (Speaking of Megan Abbott and Square Books [see above], I’ll be “in conversation” with Megan about her new book EL DORADO DRIVE on August 13. I wouldn’t mention it so early, but I just started reading it and on page 4 [of the galley, anyway] there’s a “bird crying in the night.” As a review of the owl-spotting portion of the “blog” will remind you, we have given much thought to the matter, and just because a bird cries in the night, that does not make the bird an owl. Maybe it’s just an upset bird. I’m not worried! There are plenty more pages to come that might have a definite owl in them.) But I really came here to report about THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES, didn’t I? I think it’s going to end up being JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS length. And contrary to my advice (usually about Thomas Mann), which is, essentially, read the first 200-400 pages and then you’ll be hooked, I was really bopping along with TMWQ for, oh, let’s say 200 pages… then I hit a real dry spell until page 630 (though, miner-like, I uncovered, here and there, random chunks of boldly glittering sarcasm that made it worth the trouble). So you have to get over a very big hump in the middle. Can you handle a 400-page hump? (Remember, this is just the first volume I’m talking about.) But when I got to page 630 I think I said out loud, “Things are starting to happen!” On page 630. Then the book was over not many pages later. Well, it was and it wasn’t.

McNeil's Heart

Another email from McNeil. This time he wanted me to know that Trump has "gone full Peter Beter!!!" (punctuation McNeil's), a phrase ("full Peter Beter") that will mean nothing to those of you who have not studied the "blog" for at least a decade, unless you have the stamina or intellectual energy to "click" on one or two "links," which statistics show is unlikely. Anyway, I found it hard to swallow McNeil's claim that the aforementioned elected official believes President Biden to have been replaced during some part of his administration by a robot or clone, so McNeil forwarded a news report showing that indeed Trump had retweeted (or whatever they call it in our strange new times; bleep blorp?) something to that effect. To quote McNeil more extensively: "my heart leaps up! He has gone full Peter Beter!!!" McNeil's heart, it should be noted, is leaping up ironically, if I may interpret, assuming I understand irony correctly, which I don't. So I replied to McNeil's email something clever like "We're living the dream." Maybe the word I'm looking for is sarcasm. I believe McNeil is alluding to Wordsworth, by the way, whose heart famously leapt all over the damn place when he beheld a rainbow in the sky. Good for Wordsworth! It must be nice.