The Owl of Conceit

I called it! When the 2-person book club began reading this biography of Polly Adler by Debby Applegate, I said to myself, "Jack," I said, "If this book has an owl in it at all, it will be a so-called 'night owl.'" And what do you know? Applegate gives us "night owls lingered over a bowl of matzoh ball soup." Right again, Pendarvis! You're a genius. But that's not all. After I put down Polly Adler, I picked up my nightly tonic, an old comic book. Of course you recall how Tom Franklin brought me some old comic books in the hospital, and some more old comic books when I got home, and soon I was buying my own old comic books like a deranged fiend. But what you didn't know is that Tom brought me even more old comics books after that! He's like a golden goose that keeps laying old comic books and I promise never to open him up to see how it works, as in the old fairy tale. That story taught me a lesson! Anyhow, I was reading an old comic book from Tom's most recent delivery, a story about a character of whom, like El Diablo and The Shroud before him, I had never heard. And this lively fellow's name was The Viking Prince. So this here Viking Prince meets a princess, and this here princess says, "I WILL NEVER MARRY THIS -- THIS -- OWL OF CONCEIT!" So I shut my old comic book and lay there thinking my wise thoughts. And I thought and thought, and the thought came to me that the hilarious idea of an owl of conceit reminded me of a book I read at least a few times as a teenager, a book called THE PLATYPUS OF DOOM AND OTHER NIHILISTS, and I lay there trying to remember any of the contents, of which only a salacious detail or two came back to me. I still have my copy! As you can see in the photo above, it resides on the drugstore-style paperback spinner I have right here in my home office where I type these mesmerizing words that appear before your wondering eyes like magic. Okay, now I must move on to a spoiler for one of the stupid word puzzles in the New York Times. I know people are serious about their stupid New York Times word puzzles, so if you get up every morning and do a stupid New York Times word game puzzle (not the crossword) like some kind of glasses-wearing egghead, I advise you to stop reading now. All right! Here we go. Have you stopped reading? Ha ha! You don't exist! And if you did, you wouldn't have read this far anyway. So, one of the producers of a secret project I can't tell you about got me going on this particular stupid New York Times word game puzzle thing. So, you must recall that I spent the night tossing and turning and thinking about the platypus. Not something that comes to mind often! Not to my mind. This morning, I get up and do my stupid New York Times puzzle word game puzzle game puzzle thing. And one of the answers is... TRADEMARKS OF A PLATYPUS. In conclusion, I leafed through my old copy of PLATYPUS OF DOOM and there is a cigarette ad in the middle of it. That's how it used to be! I don't think my grandfather owned a book without a cigarette ad in the middle.

The Belt of Dorian McNeil

McNeil has been following all the recent developments about my new belt with great interest. He was reminded, in fact, of certain details about his own belt, which I quote here in part: "I have this belt I wear every day. I bought it in Toronto in October 2004. It shows no signs of wearing out before the fall, so I feel comfortable saying it will last 20 years... On the inside of the belt, if that's what you call it, there was a sticker with a maple leaf on it. I guess to let everyone know who took off my pants that my belt was made in Canada. That sticker only began to fade after about 15 years, and now has completely disappeared. But the belt still looks brand new. It's like a magic belt. Or maybe as I get older, my belt gets younger." Obviously, the title I bestowed on this "post" only works if the picture had stayed young while Dorian Gray got older... which is how pictures work in real life, which wouldn't have made old Oscar much of a story. But "The McNeil of Dorian Belt" didn't sound right.

Bible Belt

I have something else to say about that belt. So, it had a price tag on it, of course, and this price tag was the size and shape of a fortune cookie fortune. When I clipped off the price tag, I saw that it (the price tag, not the belt) had a Bible verse printed on the back of it! (See also, the bottle of water that had a Bible verse printed on it.) Now, the verse was a translation from what I took to be the New English Bible or such. That doesn't cut it around here! So I'm going to give it to you from the King James Version. As everyone knows, I'm a KJV stan. "Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye." What that has to do with the price of belts, I'm not sure. Well! As long as I have you here, McNeil read a book with an owl in it. I am sure you recall that McNeil has been going through his grandfather's old books. Before he found the owl, McNeil was primarily struck by the fact that the detective in the novel he is reading is, quote, "naked a whole lot in this book - just walking around in a dead guy's apartment talking to cops and reporters and whoever wanders in. Weird." The owl, he tells me, appears in the guise of a character who "grinned owlishly." Naturally, this put me in mind of the Travis McGee novel in which someone is said to be "smiling... like some kind of owl." Once again I find myself forced to state my belief that owls do not smile or grin. What else? Oh! McNeil has an idea for a comic book about a character he has created, Professor Moon Menace. I hesitate to reveal too much about Professor Moon Menace, but his name gives you a fair idea of some of his interests.

Lightly Fictionalized Belt

I thought you'd want to know that Dr. Theresa bought me a new belt! The last time I bought a belt was 2015, as I know because I bought it to wear to the Peabody Awards, for which reason that belt was lightly fictionalized in Chapters 67 and 312 of my novel SWEET BANANAS. How could anyone ever forget that belt and all the adventures we had together, considering how I immortalized it so much? Now I will tell you something really remarkable. As I was doing the necessary belt research for this "post," I discovered that in 2008, I had made a joke here about nominating my own reflections on the subject of belts for a Peabody Award. Little did I know then that a mere seven years later I'd be going to the real Peabody Awards wearing an actual belt. In other literary news, I was reading an old comic book last night, and a man traveled back in time, where he scared off a panther with his modern cigarette lighter. I don't think it would work, but that's not the point. I just want to say that there was a whole section in my cigarette lighter book (cleverly titled CIGARETTE LIGHTER) devoted to the common narrative ploy of people going back in time and scaring people or animals with their modern cigarette lighters. This old comic book might have supplied yet another example that no one would care about. But life is filled with such regrets! In conclusion, I am sure you recall my "blog" post from 2007, about the time I lost weight so Dr. Theresa (who was not even a Dr. at the time!) took a hammer and a nail and made me a fresh homemade belt hole from scratch. Well, I've lost weight again and this time she was able to buy me a new belt. But a part of me misses the olden times when Dr. Theresa spent her days and nights making new holes in old belts like a tireless magical elf.

Hot Dog Island

I really should have finished reading the Huya and Tuya section of JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS before I filed my report yesterday. On the next page, Tuya refers to herself as a "she-owl"! She also calls herself "your little mouse... your green frog... your coney." She has more cute nicknames for Huya, too: "my little bat... A crafty corncrake... dearest toad... my penguin... my mole..." I had to look up coney, I'm sorry. I know you think less of me now. In this case, it's a rabbit. The OED tells me it can also refer to a hot dog, a meaning going back at least to 1902. When you think about it, Coney Island is Hot Dog Island! Endearingly, one of the citations in the OED is a newspaper article from 1959: "Jim enjoys eating coneys and fried chicken." I don't know who Jim is, but it was big news in 1959!

Be of Good Cheer

JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS features a domestic scene of Potiphar's aged parents, adorably named Huya and Tuya. Tuya addresses Huya with a number of peculiar endearments. "Right you are, my swamp beaver," she says. (This is the excellent translation by John E. Woods.) A couple of paragraphs after that: "How true, my good spoonbill." Soon afterward: "Then be of good cheer, my little owl." I only had to read to page 703 to find the owl! The book isn't even half over yet. I read 702 pages thinking, I bet there aren't even owls in the region. My mother-in-law is Egyptian, and yet, shamefully, I wasn't sure whether there were owls in Egypt (see also). I'm still not sure. I guess I'm just taking Thomas Mann's (implied) word for it. I've read three Thomas Mann novels now (well, 2.5, but I'm getting there!) and they've all had owls in them. Could Thomas Mann be the German Charles Portis? By which, of course, I mean to remind you ("click" here) that every Charles Portis book has an owl in it. Wait! I just remembered there are owls in the Bible. So I must have known there were owls around there somewhere. I haven't had my coffee yet! And I'm down to a cup a day for health reasons! Which is why I must conclude with my accidental discovery just now that the "blog" addressed the question of owls in Egypt a full decade ago ("click" here), with similarly lazy results.

Wolves

I had nightmares about wolves the other night... and let's leave aside for a moment that the very first dreams I recall from childhood are nightmares of wolves... so naturally I was telling my ADVENTURE TIME: FIONNA AND CAKE coworkers about my nightmares of wolves, and believe me, they are always thrilled to hear my descriptions of my inner turmoil. Anyhow, Adam wisely asked whether I had read something about wolves before going to bed. I said yes! In fact, I had read an old comic book in which Dr. Doom plunges to certain death, having been attacked by a pack of wolves. Adam reacted to this news with surprise: "Dr. Doom was defeated by WOLVES? He fights the Fantastic Four!" If I paraphrase, it is only slightly. I did not get into this part, but Dr. Doom had removed his chest shield for reasons too dull to explain. I will (and did) say that he was fighting a character called the Shroud, of whom I had never heard, despite the fact that the comic book in question came out in 1976, possibly the peak of my comic-reading years. The Shroud, by the way, is a shockingly blatant Batman rip-off. Shockingly! However, that need not concern us here. It is much more important that I use the excuse of wolves to mention something loosely related. I was in Square Books the other day, poking around, and I opened up a book called THE SLAVIC MYTHS by Noah Charney and the delightfully named Svetlana Slapsak. In it, I read "Count Jan Potocki was one of Poland's most revered writers and Enlightenment intellectuals. His masterpiece, THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA..." blah, blah, blah. I knew that already. BUT! "On 23 December 1815, this brilliant, worldly man absconded with one of his mother's silver teapots, made out of it a bullet, had this silver bullet blessed by a priest and then shot himself in the head with it... because Jan Potocki believed he was a werewolf." That's something I didn't know! This revelation caused me to purchase the book. As you know, I consider standing in a bookstore and reading no better than being a sneak thief. As long as I have you here, let's tidy up some "blog" business. I see that this will be my ninth "post" in April. I have not "blogged" with such frequency since October 2020, troubled times during which, as you know, I was required to revive this most decisively defunct "blog" in order to cheer a grateful nation with my wry reflections on the foibles of humanity. I need to reemphasize here that the combo of quitting social media and forced recuperation have left me with little else to do. I told Tom Franklin, "Hey, I've been 'blogging' about those old comic books you gave me," and he was like, "I didn't know 'blogs' existed anymore." And they don't.