Literary Matters

It's time once again for "Literary Matters"! No one enjoys those. They're not enjoyable. 1. I covered this one on twitter yesterday, but it's sticking in my mind. I read in the New York Times about Jimmy Buffett "grinning and splashing Tabasco on a modified Cobb salad." The editorial machinery of the New York Times saw fit - for the sake of accuracy, one supposes - to make sure the reader did not receive the false impression that Jimmy Buffett was eating a completely traditional Cobb salad. BUT! They did not care to let that same reader know in what way the Cobb salad had been modified. That's really all I have to say about that, except that I can't stop thinking about it. 2. EVERYBODY has been telling me to read BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL. Why, Randy Yates stopped me on the corner outside his own restaurant just to ask whether I had read it. And he was only one of many to make that query. And I needed something to read after MEASURE FOR MEASURE. (Ha ha, don't worry, I haven't given up on THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY; I just read this in it: "Cupid and Death met both in an Inn, and being merrily disposed, they did exchange some arrows from either quiver; ever since young men die, and oftentimes old men dote"... but I need a new "carry-around" book.) BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL is done up at least partway in that poetic style that Chandler made permissible for crime stories (instead of bubbles in the bathwater there are "little zeroes of suds"), and I'm more than fine with that! Okay! But then I had to stop on page 12 when he referred to the "trashy tune and words" of a Hank Williams song. The idea of someone sitting around proclaiming something "trashy" has never set well with me. And I know I should not confuse the author with the narrator! But here's a guy working in a genre that has been (unfairly) called "trashy" and he is going to have his narrator refer to the towering melodic and lyric achievements of Hank Williams as "trashy"? He should be on Hank's side! The irony (?) is compounded by the fact that this is a slick nyrb paperback, which has "rehabilitated," I guess, his "pulpy" novel. 3. Have you ever noticed in those books how your tough-guy narrator always wants to tell you when he takes a hot shower and eats some steak and eggs? It's a tendency I noticed in Spillane a lot. Maybe it's realism! I always thought it would be interesting to write a detective novel where there's no crime to solve and the detective just tells you about all the eggs he eats and hot showers he takes. The narrator of BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL "had no more idea of falling in love with her than I had of making a meal of the big yellow cake of soap in the Victorian bathroom," curiously combining both tendencies. 4. So I put down BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL. I'm gonna come back to it! I just have to shake off that unnecessary sideswipe at Hank Williams, though it's really got its claws in me. But in the meantime I thought I'd see what some of these here Shakespeare experts had to say about MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Out of three scholarly tomes I opened, two fell open EXACTLY and AT ONCE to the part about MEASURE FOR MEASURE, as if guided by the ghostly hand of Shakespeare himself! 5. Okay, I told you I'd read some more of this novel. Just three pages later the narrator is complaining that descriptions of women's legs in books are "trash." I don't know whether he's obsessed with trash or I am. But he's used the term twice in three pages. And now he's washing down seconds of potato salad with ice cold beer. Don't get mad at me, kind recommenders! I'm going to give this guy more of a chance than he gave Hank Williams. 6. I WAS WRONG! It's more like Cain than Chandler, but that's not what I mean. See, he's using the Hank Williams song ("If You've Got the Money, Honey") in a much more complex way than I expected... as a kind of shifting leitmotif. "Before it had sounded frank and functional. Before it had sounded gay and uncomplicated. Now the tune had a nasty taste to it." So, see, he was going somewhere with that, and I'm the sap. 7. I'm "not 'blogging' anymore, but I thought a late addendum to an old "post" would be okay. I'll probably come back to brag when I finish THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY too. But in the meantime, from BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL, "She split some canned wieners and fried them with the eggs." See? I told you this kind of narrator always tells you when he eats eggs. 8. "... his hand busy as a tarantula in a fly cage." Gross! And I don't even know what a fly cage is. I assume it is a cage full of flies. And then you put a tarantula in it. But with its obvious debt to Chandler's "tarantula on a slice of angel food," the pendulum of influence swings back. I said I'm not "blogging" anymore but I keep sneakily adding to this list. Pitiful.

Melted Fezzes

Well! Megan and Dan came to town and we went out and had a ball. Bill Boyle appeared on the scene and we drove out to Water Valley to a place called the Crawdad Hole. Somehow Megan knew about it. Dr. Theresa and I had never heard of it. As Dan pointed out, a restaurant has to have a well-placed sense of confidence to put "Hole" in its name. It was great! Great enough for "hole." I'm kind of sorry to tell you about it, because they only serve food until they run out of whatever is fresh that day, and I don't want you to eat it before I get there next time. We had so much stuff spread over the checkered oilcloth (was it checkered? It should have been!) - crab legs and sausages and corn on the cob and Mississippi tamales - that's a famous thing, if you didn't know! - and oysters, both sweetly raw and succulently grilled, all superb, and all washed down with a pitcher of ice-cold beer that went perfectly with the food. No crawfish because they were out. Megan said they told her it wasn't crawfish season. But we didn't even miss the crawfish. Then we were supposed to meet Ace at a "secret bar" but we went to the "secret bar" and it wasn't a "secret bar," it was the shabby back room you have to walk through to use the toilet at a local pizza restaurant of small repute. So we were like, "THIS IS ACE'S SECRET BAR?" But the story hasn't ended. MORE LATER. Because we had made a basic mistake about the "secret bar" and it wasn't Ace's fault! Now I'm going to start looking at whatever I jotted down last night on scraps of paper in my wallet and on bar napkins. As I recall, some of it might be bawdy and shocking! You know I don't like to "go there." Blame the liquor and high spirits of rekindled camaraderie. The first note I see just says, "Remember the Night." I'm like, hmm, this isn't as scintillating as I recalled. Was I just telling myself to remember the night? Then it occurred to me. It's the name of a Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck movie that Megan thinks Dr. Theresa and I would like. A nice sentiment, but a disappointment in the realm of fevered inspirations scrawled on tattered scraps from bars. Muttering, we left the (temporary) debacle of "secret bar" and went up to City Grocery. There we encountered Randy Yates, owner of Ajax, who was talking about his former fez collection. That seemed bar-napkin worthy. I wrote down what happened to Randy's fez collection: "I lived in such a [crappy] house all my fezzes melted." That didn't seem like a sentence I had heard before. Oh yes, I have noted here on the back of a postal receipt that Bill Boyle claimed, "If you were stranded on a desert island, all you'd need was Guinness and breast milk." I told you you'd be scandalized! Ace came to CG and took us back to the secret bar. We had lost Megan and Dan by now, but Angela had appeared, a delightful and special treat! And the bar really was different all of a sudden. It was darker and there was a fancy man to make Bill Boyle take off his baseball cap! When we sat down, the server asked if we'd like a complimentary shot, and unless I am crazy, the shots were being offered in empty shotgun shell casings. You know, the way they do in a secret bar. Bill was the only one who drank one and - still miffed about his forcefully doffed baseball cap - said, "That was terrible!" But he said it in a gruffly charming way that made even the server laugh. And when they brought out ice water, they offered to put drops of rosewater in it. Which we accepted! Now, rosewater was popular in Cairo, Egypt, when Dr. Theresa was growing up there, but I believe in the U.S. I have witnessed only her little brother Hesham (he's a full grown man, not a "little brother"!) spiking anything with it. Bill had gotten himself into a rare mood I enjoy seeing him in on those spare occasions when it happens - a touch of lovable surliness that comes over him with just the right amount of fluid help. Surliness isn't the right word. Sweet irascibility? Acting the wiseacre? I don't know any good words. Anyway, he didn't seem to care much for the rosewater. He said - and I was afraid this didn't even show up on the napkin! It was so dark and the server gave me a pen that wrote in PALE ORANGE INK, and I couldn't tell whether words were falling upon the napkin at all - "They're serving us old lady sweat and we're drinking it like we got nothing better to do." Then he said, "It's like you're licking your grandmother's armpit." And then I THINK he said (I didn't write it down) "Don't get me wrong, I'd lick my grandmother's armpit, she's a great lady!" But I may have made that part up. I'm afraid I haven't done justice to the secret bar, which was very pleasant and conducive to much convivial talk and served excellent grilled cheese sandwiches.

Clink

And now it comes to pass that I must tell you how I went to New York City for the Peabody Awards ceremony and all the marvels and wonders that the Good Lord did cause me to witness there. I know the first thing you want to know is "WHAT DID YOU READ ON THE AIRPLANE?" Calm down! Thanks to my precious book of jottings, I can tell you everything. 1. That cursed book about the Middle Ages got me thinking about THE DECAMERON. Wouldn't you know that Bill Boyle, knowing of my keen interest, purchased me a nice chunky mass-market paperback - perfect for airplanes - that promised "the complete text of this ravishingly rich and robust work." So I started reading THE DECAMERON and the guy starts right off about how people are dying like goats in the street. But he's quick to reassure us that he has to get that part out of the way so the fun stuff can start! 2. I turned down a Biscoff offered to me by a flight attendant! The world's greatest cookie. All part of my ongoing effort to button my suit for the Peabody Awards. 3. Met Megan Abbott at the Temple Bar, a great bar of the darkest kind, where I had the most refreshing gimlet of my young life. I mean, it was a dark bar. Megan took pics of our drinks and gee just look how dark they are.

Having sworn off hooch for two weeks (part of the aforementioned jacket buttoning resolution) I was ready for some gimlets. Kent Osborne showed up! And soon enough, Pendleton Ward! A fellow there in the Temple Bar pooh-poohed the artistry of BARRY LYNDON and I cursed him succinctly! That's not like me. OR IS IT? Pen drew several pictures of me on coasters and gave them to Megan. They were much like the religious icons of yore, immortalizing my various stages of peacefulness and cursing. In one of them I have my arm around Kent and I believe I am saying of him, "This guy is the king of love." I'll show you that one. The others are hilarious and I will keep digital copies of them for my own enjoyment and, perhaps, edification, but I shall never show them in public, festooned as they are with the vilest profanities. 4. We went to the hotel, where Pen taught Megan to rhumba! There is a vine of it happening if you would care to "click" here to see it. 5. Then Pen taught me to rhumba (as he had once promised to do). He had to remind me not to lead. He warned me before he dipped me. Today I don't remember how to rhumba. 6. On the bathroom wallpaper in the hotel room: whimsical black-and-white line drawings of wry cartoon birds. Closer inspection revealed that a previous guest had taken a pencil and decorated random birds here and there with graphic bits of anatomy I shan't shock you by naming.

7. Now here's the part about the Peabody Awards. I wore a tie pin that Megan had given me the night before at the Temple Bar. This picture was supposed to show off the tie pin for Megan (that's why I'm pointing) but you can't see it. It's in the shape of a cigarette lighter! 8. Before we left for the Peabodys, Pen's mom gave all of us really nice pens! Because her son's name is Pen, as she explained, and also because of our professions. Very thoughtful! 9. Now look. Here is the gang who went up onstage to get the Peabody Award for ADVENTURE TIME.

You can see that we are all dudes. I feel very lucky to have been invited, but I am also sorry for whatever quirk of timing or fate or scheduling or process that means you don't see any of the women here who are so integral to giving ADVENTURE TIME its voice. The show wouldn't be the same without Seo Kim (last night's episode was a perfect example!) or Rebecca Sugar or Natasha Allegri or Ako Castuera or Ashly Burch or Elizabeth Ito, and I could name many, many other women, past and present contributors to the show, who put their personal stamp on it and just as easily could have been up there with Pen and Adam and Kent. Not taking away at all from the immense talent of the guys you see assembled above. In fact there are infinite combos of women AND men absent from that picture who would be just as appropriate to share that stage with Adam and Pen and Kent (three people who should be in ANY picture celebrating the show). Once again, I feel really lucky that it happened to work out that I could attend. But I'm getting ahead of myself chronologically; don't you want to hear about the delicious pigs in blankets they had at the pre-Peabody reception? The server called them "cocktail franks." 9b. Speaking of bad chronology, and speaking of Natasha, she tweeted this last night: "bury me with my husband hugging me." That reminded me of the "Classics Illustrated" comic book of THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, which I probably haven't thought of in at least 40 years. So I dug up the final panel, and boy what an impression it must have made on me, because it's just the way I remember it:

To which, when I tweeted it back at her, Natasha responded: "so romantic!!! so romantic that i can't think of a good bone joke!" And that's just one reason I love Natasha. 10. Fred Armisen hosted the show. Remember when I met him before he was famous and he was just some non-famous guy having a sour day? 11. We stood backstage behind Amy Schumer and her gang, who were to receive their award just before us. Tina Fey was there! Kent pointed her out to me but I could only see a vague figure gracefully flitting in the dark.

12. Steven Soderbergh was at the table next to ours! I told him how much Dr. Theresa and I love THE LIMEY and he said, "That's not something I hear very often." Ha ha ha! Here's a shot from Dr. Theresa's very favorite scene in THE LIMEY. 13. And at another adjacent table sat Ray McKinnon.

You remember him from beating up George Clooney in O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU! I met him at the Ajax Diner here in Oxford, Mississippi, a couple of years ago, so I was able to strike up a little conversation about some mutual friends of ours. Sadly, I didn't get a chance to introduce him to Tom Herpich, who is a huge fan of Mr. McKinnon's TV show RECTIFY. I missed my window on that! Boy did I feel guilty. For a good portion of the "after party" I chased Mr. McKinnon around like the prince going after Cinderella, but I never found him. I really wanted to introduce him to Tom. I apologized to Tom perhaps to a point at which I should have begun apologizing for apologizing, which I may have also done. 14. Ray McKinnon wasn't the only Peabody recipient I knew from home. Isn't that weird? Tina Antolini was there to pick up an award for a radio show she works on. And I've had drinks with her at City Grocery Bar! Oxford is weird. 15. The Adventure Time folks rode to the show in a stretch limo that had tiny lights on the ceiling that kept changing color. I said, "I want the inside of my coffin lid to look like this." And Pen's mom said, "That's the sixth joke you've made about death!" 15b. Somewhat related: I guess after I went to bed on that previous night, the night before the Peabodys, a few people stayed in the hotel bar and Pen decided with some passion that we should all dress as English peas for the Peabody ceremony. These would be, then, our "pea bodies." And according to Kent, it came close to happening, if only a quick enough delivery had been possible. Look at the casual morbidity of this tweeted report:

"ADAM!! We're all gonna die in 30 years! ORDER THE PEAPOD SUITS!" - Pendleton Ward

— Patrick McHale (@Patrick_McHale) May 31, 2015

16. I talked to Amy Schumer at the Peabody "after party." I was curious about the dynamic in an interview I'd seen her do with Jerry Seinfeld. I think I kind of put down Jerry Seinfeld...? For being "old-fashioned"? Ha ha! I don't know what I was talking about. Why was I trying to subtly badmouth Jerry Seinfeld? What did he ever do to me except try to make my life a little nicer? Amy Schumer told me that he's like her best friend now, pretty much, so I was like, "Okay!" I kept clinking her glass with mine, like giving her a toast, every time I told her how great she was. Ha ha ha! What a jerk. I just kept habitually clinking her glass each time I made another expression of genuine if hackneyed praise. I suddenly realized I had clinked her glass about half a dozen times and I apologized. She was nice and said, "No, I like it."

17. Okay! So after you go onstage, you're led to a "press area" and you miss most of the rest of the show. (We've completely abandoned chronology now, who cares?) When I finally got back to the audience area, my chair was gone! The ADVENTURE TIME table had one less chair. So I went and sat on the other side of the room with the people from the show Radiolab. I have to say they were the nicest, sweetest bunch of people at the Peabodys! Everybody loved talking to them. They love ADVENTURE TIME and Pen feels just the same way about their show. I have a lot of happy memories of riding around in a car with my brother and my nephews and all of us just enjoying Radiolab. So, anyway, those people are just as nice as you might think. They let me sit at their table a long time! 18. I have to say this about the Peabody Awards: the people who win them are doing serious work! This one guy came out and introduced his friend who shared the stage with him. The Chinese authorities had tried to take her bodily organs! Just take them! I mean, what can you say? And here she is. It's a miracle she's alive. And there was another winner who showed a clip of a beautiful child singing a song about freedom, and as she's singing, a bomb suddenly destroys the street she's standing on. Just right at that moment! It was one of the most powerful and visceral things I've ever seen and it was an introductory clip at an awards show. And I want to say this about Pen: he watched all of those documentaries in their entirety to prepare for the show. Pen is a man with great perspective. He cares about the world and that's one thing that makes his work so personal and good. 19. Pat McHale was part of the ADVENTURE TIME contingent, so I got to meet him for the first time and he was a treat to be around. I talked about how much I loved his casting of Jack Jones as a crooning frog in his masterpiece OVER THE GARDEN WALL and after saying a lot of nice things about Jack Jones, he began to analyze Rudy Vallee's singing technique.

You can't know, as an old man who works with young people all the time, what a tonic it was to my poor heart to hear a fresh-faced youngster such as Pat McHale rhapsodize about Rudy Vallee. IT JUST DOESN'T HAPPEN IN MY LINE OF WORK. Then Pat said that his grandmother had been a dancer at Radio City Music Hall! He said she had a problem with Frank Sinatra... something about how he handled a microphone. 20. Now I'm going to type about how I ate a lot of good vegetables. Ha ha ha! Vegetables! Too bad for you. I went to a place that had great fresh seasonal vegetables. Tom Herpich brought us there. And pleased were one and all by his felicitous choice. Lunch with Kent and Pat and Adam and Tom. Kent was talking about the films of Eric Schaeffer, which he finds morally, emotionally and aesthetically repugnant.

I hope I am not misrepresenting Kent's opinion! Blame me, not Kent. Let's say that I am not sufficiently describing Kent's complex attitude. Anyway, Kent was describing a particularly pornographic obsession that haunts Mr. Schaeffer's oeuvre and I said, "Hey, Kent, there are some little kids at that table over there!" and Kent said, "They have to learn about Eric Schaeffer sometime." Ha ha! Kent's witty implication was that the very idea of Eric Schaeffer was the offensive part of the conversation, you see. The next day my old friend Ward McCarthy suggested the very same place for lunch and I was only too happy to go back. I was excited! Like, "I will try different vegetables this time!" Vegetables! 21. I had eaten so many vegetables that I felt no guilt whatsoever about the mountain of fried clams I consumed that evening at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station. Clams are something we just don't have in the South... or shouldn't. I recall a time that Caroline Young and I had clams in a seedy dive in Atlanta, GA, with unspeakable results. BUT! I am getting both ahead of and behind my story. It's not a story, is it? 22. Megan and I went to MOMA and saw Martin Scorsese's collection of movie posters, which were on display. Here's one for THE KILLERS, the Don Siegel version, and I am standing under Lee Marvin's legs, I guess.

But you can't see the guy so there is some possibility that I am standing under Ronald Reagan's legs. They could be Clu Gulager's leg's too. I would rank the possibilities like this: first, Lee Marvin, second Clu Gulager. There is really very little chance that I am standing under Ronald Reagan's legs. Honestly, they are abstract legs and could belong to any "killer." 23. We went up to the Yoko Ono exhibit, which I found to be a barrel of fun! I just loved it. I can't speak for Megan. She would go around a corner and come back and command me, "Don't go around that corner, Jack!" Later, telling Dan about our day, she described whatever was around that corner as "very gynecological." She was looking out for me! Well, Megan I both saw the movie of the waddling butt that just waddles along and I guess we averted our eyes from it most of the time. It doesn't do anything but waddle along, we got the gist. I believe Megan read the placard next to it, in which the waddling was described as "a sexless march," if I am remembering what Megan read aloud correctly. But I found Yoko Ono's art to be fresh and fun. Once again, I cannot speak for Megan. 24. But I was disappointed that Yoko's apple was in pristine shape. There's an apple on a pedestal and (I think) it's just supposed to stay there until it rots. I have to say, that is one hale apple she has there! In sadly perfect condition. 25. As we were leaving the exhibit, we had a chance to participate in the "bag performance." There were two "facilitators" there and no line. Megan urged me to do it. But the bare feet of the facilitators seemed ominous and then Megan and I read the plaque and discovered that we were expected to take off all our clothes and get in a bag together and, I don't know, stumble around. We didn't. 26. Speaking of facilitators, Megan took me to St. Patrick's cathedral to show off its beauty. She said the lines on Ash Wednesday had been crazy! But once you got inside it was very efficient, with 25 ash stations, and 25 priests - facilitators, I call them - just throwing that ash on you in frenzied handfuls (from what I imagined were large buckets); sounded like to me they had a real penitence factory going there.

27. After dinner at the Oyster Bar, Megan and Dan and I went to the famous 21 Club for a nightcap. I remembered from reading (as much as could of) that Errol Flynn autobiography that something big happened to Errol Flynn at the 21 Club... either an unexpected moment of graciousness from a kind friend or stranger at his lowest point of abjection or maybe he beat up some guys there, or maybe both! 28. So the mural in the men's room at the 21 Club is hard to understand. It shows a guy peeing into a goldfish bowl. I'm pretty sure! From an impressive distance. And the goldfish is surprised and for some reason a lady's skirt is flying up. Also in surprise? And as long as we are talking about restrooms, let's go back to the Oyster Bar, in which Megan snapped this shot of a sofa in the Ladies' Room:

29. Megan's nightcap conversation at the 21 Club! She said that she's a direct descendant of Mary, Queen of Scots! Probably the least surprising news I've ever heard. Then she said, "You know, Frances Farmer never got a lobotomy." I'm pretty sure that came out of nowhere. "After she went on a binge," said Megan, "she said to the arresting officer, 'Hasn't anyone ever broken your heart?'" Then Megan asked us rhetorically, "Doesn't that just kill you?" And it did! It killed us.

Then We Got Home

Then when we got home there was a feral kitten stranded on our roof! While we were trying to get it down ineffectually with a stepladder Lee Durkee strolled by and enticed me to join him at Ajax, where we quoted a lot of poetry at each other, including Browning. I saw Kaitlyn there and I think almost convinced her to take the poor roof-dwelling kitten home one day soon. We'll see!

"Blog"trospective 12: Kent Eating Chicken

Listen! I'm not sure what you take me for! But I know it is not funny that Kent Osborne enjoys eating chicken. I guess practically everyone who is not a vegetarian eats tons of chicken. I know it is a dumb joke like when Ed Helms started calling Jim on THE OFFICE "Big Tuna" because he once ate a tuna sandwich (isn't that what happened)? Yet at the same time it is hilarious that Kent enjoys eating chicken. Life is complicated! And that is why you need the following index, or "'blog'trospective," listing for your quick and easy reference every time I have "blogged" about Kent eating chicken. Also, don't forget to avail yourself of the priceless research opportunities represented by our extensive library of previous "blog"trospectives: 1. Tom Franklin 2. Phil Oppenheim 3. Movies 4. The Moon 5. Sandwiches 6. The United States 7. The Beach Boys 8. Arnold Stang 9. Books With Owls in Them 10. Gelatin 11. Monkeys Riding Dogs... and now the most important one of all: 12. Kent Eating Chicken: Abbott, Megan; observes Kent eating chicken wings---after lunch at a chicken place Kent and I see a nice woman with two pet rats for which she seems to be making clothes---almost chokes---bar where Kent used to work is turned into a wings joint; Kent seems glad---Brazilian experimental novel from 1881 reminds me of Kent eating chicken---character in a Hitchcock film shares Kent's attitude toward chicken---chicken cooked in his honor---chicken coop on the roof of a bar where Ward McCarthy and I once took Kent; I hilariously hint that Kent would be thrilled by this news---chicken Kent probably didn't eat, a---coincidental wing eating---I eat an "Osborne sandwich" (the chicken sandwich named for Kent Osborne because he ate so many of them)---I eat some things I think might be chicken livers and think of Kent---inspired by Kent's love of chicken, I eat so many "Osbornes" (chicken sandwiches) that a restaurant owner is shocked to see me eating a hamburger for a change---Kent as "Galactus - Destroyer of Chickens"---Kent ate a ton of wings on this trip but I forgot to mention it on the "blog"---Kent eats a certain chicken sandwich - in considerable quantities - whenever he comes to town---Kent eats a chicken sandwich during a meeting---Kent eats a number of chicken po-boys over the course of a week---Kent eats chicken as I ramble about my t-shirts---Kent eats chicken in two Tennessee locations---Kent eats eight consecutive meals with chicken in them---Kent eats terrible chicken nachos only to discover he could have had some Gus's Fried Chicken instead---Kent eats wings after 50 SHADES OF GREY---Kent eats wings and tenders in the same meal---Kent eats wings in a hotel lobby---Kent eats wings on Christmas eve---Kent finds a restaurant called Chicken and Beer---Kent finds Alicia Silverstone's egg salad sandwich recipe; this is not about Kent eating chicken, but chickens lay eggs---Kent fries his own chicken---Kent has wings for lunch and fried chicken for dinner on the same day!---Kent might enjoy hearing about Walt Disney eating fried chicken at the shrine of Joan of Arc---Kent not the only person to enjoy chicken---Kent orders a single chicken wing---Kent reads William Boyle short stories while waiting for chicken to arrive---Kent relates a story of eating Chicken Française---"The Osborne" chicken sandwich (named for Kent) mistakenly called "The Pendarvis"---owner of Ajax nearly remembers Kent's surname due to Kent's love of Ajax's grilled chicken po-boy---Pen brings Kent some fried chicken from a shawarma place---plans to eat fried chicken during a business meeting. Yeah, I know, half of these are about ME eating chicken. I've learned a valuable lesson about, as Michael Jackson would put it, "the man in the mirror."

Generally

I walked into Ajax today for a late lunch and Randy, the owner, said, "He'll have a Pendarvis!" Once again, he meant the "Osborne Sandwich," which was exactly right, it was what I wanted. As I sat at the bar waiting for my Osborne Sandwich, a priest walked in wearing his full priest uniform and noted a saintly icon that Randy had over the bar, correctly identifying the saint. Then the priest suggested that Ajax would be better off with another saint as its patron, and he named the saint, but I couldn't hear the name because the priest was at the other end of the bar, and then I could swear that the priest said to Randy, about that saint, "He was literally grilled to death." Then the priest cheerfully and innocuously laughed, but my brain interpreted it as maniacal laughter (I am certain it was not): "He was literally grilled to death. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!" After I ate, I walked up to Ace Atkins's office and interrupted his writing. We caught up on things. I tried to talk him into going to City Grocery Bar for a drink, but he was about to take his son to "the squirrel movie" (see also). Then I walked to Square Books and talked to Richard Howorth about history and Kaitlyn, who works there, about WUTHERING HEIGHTS, and I was like, you know, this town is all right. I was having a good time. And by then the bar was open and I walked up and saw Megan Abbott and Bill Boyle there, both recently returned from New York. Megan showed us some pictures of a wax museum she had gone to and said, "I like wax museums, generally."

All Bets Are Off

Lee Durkee heard about McNeil's trouble with the misprinted book, and McNeil's feelings of being all alone in the matter, so Lee wrote me with a message of encouragement to pass along to McNeil, a little story of something that happened to Lee, which I quote for you now: "I once, on a flight to Sri Lanka, was reading a book by Tobias Wolff, IN THE PHARAOH'S ARMY, and midway through the memoir due to a publishing error the book switched into a novel by a different author and kinda blew my mind. I thought Wolff had gone all experimental on me. Later I noticed it was a slightly different typeset. I left the book at a hostel where perhaps it is still bewildering people. It was really odd. I kept reading and reading trying to figure out how Wolff was gonna wrap this all together." Last night I saw Lee at a party, and he told me that what further confounded him was how the change happened between the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. I forwarded the email on to McNeil, who responded: "Well, obviously, what happened to Lee isn't at all the fault of the publisher, but rather a result of longitudinal chicanery by that longitudinal laugh riot of the universe - the globe. You see, in order to get to Sri Lanka, you have to cross the 'International Date Line,' which of course means 'all bets are off!' I forget who said that. Once you cross that imaginary (not so imaginary in my book!) line, ships often sink, standardized language melts away, gold flies out of your teeth, and typeface often changes type. I wouldn't be surprised if my Jerry Lewis book had been shipped from Hong Kong. It's a nice touch the way Lee left the novel in a hostel. Now someone we know needs to accidentally buy it used online and the circle will be complete." Cutting-and-pasting these messages for "blog" "publication," I note that both Lee and McNeil adhere to the elegant and traditional practice of following each period they type with two spaces. Classy! I gave up on that years ago. Think of all the energy I've saved. BUT AT WHAT PRICE? (I removed their "extra" spaces so that the "post" would "adhere" to "blog" "standards." Think of all the work I did to reduce the quality here. Is that "ironic"?) Hey, I'm just going to keep typing. "All bets are off!" as McNeil once observed. Nobody reads these long "posts," or the short ones either, but perversely that's what keeps me typing. Like, yesterday I wrote a long "post" containing the words and phrases "Joycean technique" and "Faulkner" and "palimpsest" and "portent" and "unspoken emotion" but then I deleted it. WHY? For all practical purposes, a deleted "post" is the same as a "posted" "post." It was about this sentence in Adrienne Barbeau's autobiography: "We were married four months later, on New Years Day 1979, in Bowling Green, Kentucky, by a one-armed judge who years earlier had lost his hand in the mixer at the bakery where we'd gotten our wedding cake." I'm way past that now. The marriage is over. Adrienne Barbeau has just met a man who has "the ability to alter bacteria with his hands." She says of him, "I wonder who gave him the huge pearl ring he's wearing. I wonder why the nails on his pinkie fingers are so long." In other book news, I was lurching around Square Books yesterday and found myself strangely drawn to a paperback of JUNKY by William S. Burroughs. I found myself wondering why I've never read it. I read the first couple of pages and thought they were pretty good. So I bought it. It was only afterward, going through the introduction as I sat at the counter at Ajax, that I put it together: Old Bull Lee from ON THE ROAD is Burroughs, as I well knew. What I didn't know is that this edition of JUNKY has, as an appendix, a whole deleted chapter about William Reich, fave theorist of Adrienne Barbeau and Norman Mailer! Who cares? Randy, the owner of Ajax, saw me eating a hamburger and asked, "Why aren't you eating a Pendarvis sandwich? I can't remember the right name." I reminded him that he was thinking of "The Osborne Sandwich." Don't worry! I still think it's going to catch on. Books! As you know, I always like to have a little pocket-sized book to carry around in my little pocket-sized pocket as I promenade about the town like Blazes Boylan. And the other day when I was at Off Square Books I found just such an item, filled with poems using the great old spelling I love: "YEE dainty Nimphs that in this blessed Brooke/ Doo bath your brest;/ Forsake your watry Bowers, and hether looke/ At my request." There are a lot of "hey ho's," so that even the most dire subject matter takes on a jaunty hue: "But whether in painfull love I pine,/ hey hoe pinching pain:/ Or thrive in wealth, she shall be mine,/ but if thou can her obtaine./ And if for gracelesse greefe I dye/ hey hoe gracelesse greefe:/ Witnesse, she slew me with her eye,/ let thy folly be the preefe." He's talking to his sheep. All the narrators in this book are talking to sheep. Pretty early in that poem, the narrator sees "the bouncing Bellybone/ hey hoe Bonny-bell:/ Tripping over the Dale alone,/ shee can trip it very well." Bellybone! I have no idea. Bonnibel (sp?) is Princess Bubblegum's first name, FYI.

Owl Sick

Man am I sick of being right all the time! Yes, there is an owl in every book, as I weary of telling you, and you - if you exist, which by all accounts you do not - are tired of hearing. Norman Mailer's little paperback about the moon landing got buried under some other stuff at my "work station" and I forgot all about it. But yesterday there it was peeking out at me, and I was looking for something to read, something small enough to carry in my pocket to the Ajax Diner and the City Grocery Bar (ISN'T THIS INTERESTING?) and the bookmark told me I had stopped at the end of Chapter Two. So I started Chapter Three, in which Norman Mailer describes all the kinds of animals you can see around Cape Canaveral, and he hits us right away with some owls, which I noted with a resigned sigh and record here with a sluggish sensation of duty. But allow me to add a postscript in which I find my spirit uplifted. Double checking the passage for owls just now I read again a description of palm trees "as ravaged and scabby as the matted backside of a monkey."

The Blurt Not Blurted

I was thinking it would be of interest to no one were I to continue keeping a little "blog" diary of all the things I almost say out loud but then refrain from saying as I sit alone eating lunch at the bar at Ajax Diner. So here goes! Today as I enjoyed my "Osborne Sandwich," a guy next to me, who had already slathered his catfish in tartar sauce, cried out to the bartender, "Can I get more tartar sauce?" And I almost said, "Ha ha! You are just like my wife! She loves tartar sauce!" But I said nothing. Still, why the impulse to "connect"? Is my emptiness so vast? This fellow could have learned a thing or two from Dr. Theresa, who always asks for an extra serving of tartar sauce preemptively, while placing her original order. This is a woman who knows herself! Plus her thoughtfulness saves time and trouble for everyone. As I ate my sandwich, by coincidence "Blog" Buddy Wright Thompson was being interviewed on the television set over the bar. The sound was muted but his glowing, benevolent presence watched over me.

Vegetable of the Day

Stopped by Square Books and noticed that there's a new bio of Alexander Wilson... but I didn't buy it because I no longer wish to think about the horrible death of Meriwether Lewis. Because I recently planted a tree I went upstairs to the nature section and looked up what color leaves are supposed to be. Green. Uh-oh. Then it was off to Ajax for lunch. I heard the bartender tell the guy next to me at the bar that the vegetable of the day was corn-and-tomato salad, and I had an impulse to shout, "I highly recommend it!" But I said nothing (see also). Why? Why so withholding, Pendarvis? I was reading a Tao Lin book as I ate lunch, and thanks to my famous suggestibility I started daydreaming about what a Tao Lin character would make of my repressed desire to suggest the corn-and-tomato salad. It seemed to me like the sort of mental behavior a Tao Lin character would self-analyze. (I could imagine it, but I don't have the talent to set it down properly here.) I noticed that every time the guy took a sip of iced tea he slammed his glass on the bar with what appeared to be unconscious violence. I kept thinking, "This guy is intense!"

Most Dedicated Consumer

Dr. Theresa and I had a late lunch at Ajax yesterday. When we sat down, Randy Yates, the owner, came over and asked whether we'd like "an Olsen sandwich." Seeing our baffled looks, he said, "What's that guy's name?" He meant Kent Osborne! Yes, friends, we are that much closer to getting the grilled chicken po-boy at Ajax renamed for Kent Osborne, its most dedicated and evangelistic consumer. PS Dr. Theresa ordered "The Osborne" with a side of delicious, chilled corn-and-tomato salad, the vegetable of the day.

The Campari Decision

I was sitting at the bar at Snackbar and having dinner - soft shell crabs! - when I noticed that a young woman was drinking Campari. I almost said, "Hey, Richard Nixon's favorite drink was Campari and soda!" But I didn't say that, because I suddenly realized I have no idea whether that is actually true. Where did I read it? Did I read it? Who knows? I have been going around for years just casually saying it like it's true. THAT ENDS NOW. Randy Yates, the owner of Ajax, sat down next to me at the bar, and I told him how every time Kent Osborne comes to town he orders Ajax's chicken po-boy numerous times, and I petitioned Randy on the spot to rename the chicken po-boy "The Osborne" but I must admit Randy just didn't care.

More Owls For Lee

So when Ben Greenman was in town Lisa Howorth was bragging on me, telling Ben how "well-read" I am for some reason, and then Jimmy started saying something about the treasure in TREASURE ISLAND and I asked him not to spoil it because I'm not done yet, and Ben said, "Yeah, but you know there's treasure, right?" Ha ha! Well-read. I just got to this part: "'Clumsy fellows,' said I; 'they must still be drunk as owls.'" So TREASURE ISLAND is a book with an owl in it, and more than that, a book with a drunken owl in it, though I am no closer to understanding why owls are the supposedly drunken birds in the whole world of birds. This reminds me! Lee Durkee is sick of me "blogging" about owls all the time. He claims I only "blog" about owls and Jerry Lewis, whereas the subhead of my "blog" vainly promises "JERRY LEWIS - MONKEYS - UFOS - OATMEAL - OWLS." Where are the monkeys, UFOs, and oatmeal? That is Lee's reasonable question. In answer, I tried to suggest that the subhead of the "blog," is, I don't know, Platonic or something...? Lee wasn't buying it. Then I mentioned that I had gone the ENTIRE MONTH OF MARCH 2013 WITHOUT "BLOGGING" ABOUT JERRY LEWIS but Lee wasn't buying that either. He's a tough customer! I just "blogged" about monkeys the other day, but Lee is right, it had been too long between monkeys. And this much is true: I never "blog" about UFOs, really. But Dr. Theresa just listened to a phone message from my mom, and Mom's phone was breaking up, and Dr. Theresa said it sounded like Mom was saying, "I'm just calling my children about the aliens." But she wasn't. But we could easily believe that she was! (See also.) That's a true story, and it just happened! Also true: We just got back from lunch at Ajax to find in the mail a copy of Lauren Graham's new novel personally signed to me! I detect the handiwork of Ace Atkins, who shares an agent with Ms. Graham. I may also advance with some modesty that I have very nearly talked the entire Doomed Book Club into reading Ms. Graham's novel next. I trust and hope her book has an owl in it! You'll hear it here first.

Leather Goods

Melissa Ginsburg is reading from her new book of poems DEAR WEATHER GHOST at Off Square Books tomorrow. DON'T MISS IT! Recently, Melissa told me about a book I should read because it has some interesting stuff in it about Emily Brontë, my fave. So I bought it at Square Books, natch. It's a book of "lectures" called MADNESS, RACK, AND HONEY, by Mary Ruefle. Hey remember how I love to say dumb things like "this book is like Sam Shepard's 'blog'" or "that book is like Clarice Lispector's 'blog,'" and it's never true? Well, I want to say that this book is like Mary Ruefle's "blog," and it's still not true. She IS irritated (fascinated?) by commercials the way someone with a "blog" would be. Take the print ad for leather goods featuring Albert Einstein's great-grandson sitting under a tree reading a book called WISDOM (!). Ruefle quotes the ad copy: "Paul Einstein is an accomplished violinist who enjoys reading literature, philosophy, and fine poetry." Fine poetry! Ha! Ruefle has a lot of fun digging into that, in a way that transcends any "blog"... though if she knew, as I do, that Einstein's granddaughter married a bigfoot hunter, I feel in my heart she would bring it up in this essay somehow, just like a "blogger" (me!). I feel absolutely safe in saying that Einstein's granddaughter marrying a bigfoot hunter is Mary Ruefle's kind of thing. What else? I was just over at Ajax, having a chicken po-boy, or as I now call it, "The Osborne," because Kent Osborne ate so very many of them on his recent visit. And there was a guy at the bar who COULD NOT STOP TALKING! It was okay, because most of his talk was entertaining. He talked about varieties of apples and his prowess at tic-tac-toe, to name just two of his many subjects. He yelled, about tic-tac-toe, "If I'm playing defense, YOU WILL NOT WIN! YOU WILL NOT WIN!" (See also.)

Thanks

First I want to thank Lee Durkee, a real trouper. He spoke to my noon class yesterday and then he had to stick around with me for three hours before speaking to my four o'clock class. Above and beyond! We occupied ourselves in various ways. We had Arnold Palmers at Ajax, for example, and sipped them very, very, very slowly as the minutes ticked by. The young woman with all the parking tickets was working and refused to let us pay! So thanks to her too. I also took Lee to the mysterious part of the library and revealed unto him its glories. I guess my favorite thing he said was to my four o'clock class, when he suddenly - and truthfully! - declared, "GREEN ACRES was magic realism." I didn't have the heart to tell him that, like Craig Ferguson, not one of those kids has any idea what GREEN ACRES is. Tragically! (On the other hand, the New York Times doesn't understand GREEN ACRES any better than my students do, as I have most forcefully demonstrated here.) I am pretty sure I mumbled something about magic realism to the students at some point earlier this semester, at least. This morning Lee sent me a video of John Dee's magic mirror. "Click" here to see it. And look, I must thank Sarah, who made this doll (pictured above) for me. I have lost all contact with Sarah since leaving facebook, so if anyone who knows Sarah sees this, tell her I said thanks! It was handed to me by a third party, the doll was, just the other day, gratis, out of nowhere, without warning. The way I remember it, I was at a reading by Melissa Ginsburg and Ann Fisher-Wirth at the Powerhouse, some months ago, and Sarah was there and asked me what my spirit animal was and I said probably orangutan and here you see the happy result. I have something else Sarah made, a candy-striped pole festooned with plush red squids, for which I paid cold cash money after spying it displayed as part of her undergraduate senior Honors thesis project. And you know, I like to brandish it. I was at a Christmas party last year where all the kids (and none of the adults) were wearing devil hats, so I wheedled my way into a spare devil hat, only, in the most Freudian way possible, the horns on my devil hat refused to stand up, which should have taught me a lesson about hubris or something, but sometimes I like to put on the drooping devil hat and brandish the squid stick (as I call it, no, in my mind I capitalize it, The Squid Stick) and feel like some kind of wizard, I guess (see John Dee, above). Photo below by Blair Hobbs.

Cold Light of Morning

In the cold light of morning I feel sort of bad about all the tweets I tweeted about Clint Eastwood's performance last night, cracking dirty jokes as he did to an imaginary President Obama represented by an empty chair. But it really was unexpected, and so striking and fascinating as it occurred, and I don't think it's going too far to compare it to something Andy Kaufman would have done back before we were all in on the joke, a tough era and sensation to recall. The only tweet I still like is one I tweeted after Mitt Romney, during his acceptance speech, said, "God bless Neil Armstrong" and I tweeted, "God bless Neil Armstrong... he's sitting right here in this chair." Get it? Because Neil Armstrong is dead. Yeah. Nor do I wish to imply that "Hot Stuff the Little Devil" was the only literary subject discussed by Megan Abbott and myself during our recent summit. We also talked about Richie Rich. I described Richie Rich's father as "epicene." Megan recalled how she used to draw pictures of faucets encrusted with diamonds, inspired by the palatial bathrooms of Richie Rich and the similarly opulent digs in the Shirley Temple movies she enjoyed as a child. Egged on and abetted by Dr. Theresa, she applied some of the Freudian technique she loves so much to uncover exactly when and how my youthful appreciation of the excessive lifestyle of Richie Rich turned to loathing and horror. It took up much of our lunch at Ajax. In the end there were certain things I could not say aloud, so I wrote them on a piece of paper, which Dr. Theresa and Megan Abbott passed back and forth for analysis.

What's In Today's New York Times?

Hi! Let's find out what's in today's New York Times. There is an interesting article in which Marilyn Monroe is considered as a singer. Speaking of singers, "Blog" Buddy Kelly Hogan is in today's New York Times. There's a feature named "Mixtape," I guess, in the "New York Times Magazine" section, where I guess some dude tells you what he would put on a mix tape, and this dude says Kelly Hogan, man, Kelly Hogan all the way. The song he picks is one we have "linked" to on the "blog" before. Plus he mentions Flat Duo Jets, who are also awesome. The singer and guitarist from that band, Dexter Romweber, played here in Oxford the other night with his sister Sara, who is a drummer. They were great! I never go out of the house, but for that I did. Check out the Dex Romweber Duo! I always like to tell you when there is a Jerry Lewis reference in the New York Times. Today's was a mere passing mention in a story about the invention of the wah-wah pedal. Oh! And I almost forgot Amy Lavere, who was playing bass but not singing at the Ajax Diner that time Joe Matt and Kent were in town. A lot of good dancing that night. Ms. Lavere is in the paper today too. Music ties everything together! And so I bid you farewell from the New York Times. I leave you now with the Dex Romweber Duo:

Rocks in His Pockets

Graduate class was all right today! My friend from Hubcap City came to town JUST to perform his live score to UN CHIEN ANDALOU for the students. That's a long trip! We put black plastic on the windows to block out the light. There was still a little light. At the end of the movie, as my friend's last chord echoed, a cloud passed over the sun and the room became even darker. It was magical! Then it was off to City Grocery Bar, where he told the class about the circumstances surrounding the making of the movie. Bunuel attended the premiere with rocks in his pockets to throw at the audience in case their outrage was overwhelming. But the audience loved it! And you have to imagine that Bunuel felt pretty disappointed sitting there with rocks in his pockets and no one to throw them at. John T. Edge happened to walk in. John T. was a huge fan of my friend's old band with Kelly Hogan, so a jolly meeting occurred. I believe some talk was bandied about on the subject of getting my friend back here for the Southern Foodways Symposium, and all he has to do is write an opera. This is hearsay! Don't take it from me. But I hope my eavesdropping was not entirely delusional. Later, when we were walking around the square, some hidden person shouted my friend's name from a portico! Turned out to be another fan from another life, surprised to spot him. Dr. Theresa was so glad to have our friend in town (he was in our wedding, you know) that she let me have a chicken-fried steak at Ajax, and she had one herself. Yes indeed. Chicken-fried steaks for everybody, I say! Everything was all right.

Book Conference Ahoy

Ate grillades and grits last night in a big fancy house with movie stars, poets, comics artists, animators, Pulitzer prizewinners, painters, Paul from City Lights, Shakespeareans, scientists, book people of all varieties, then off for music at Ajax with much of the same bunch, and everybody was a great dancer, sure, but Dr. Theresa danced them all off the floor. Then Joe Matt walked Dr. Theresa and me home! And it was like living a page of a Joe Matt comic book! Book conference ahoy! This is what happens at a book conference, people. Isn't it about time you attended a book conference? You know you want to! Don't forget to come to my panel on Saturday with Joe Matt! Michael Kupperman! and underground comics pioneer Joyce Farmer (pictured, just nominated for a Reuben, the highest award in all of cartooning)!

Let's Get Annotated!

Every year, as you well know, the "blog" advent calendar brings fun and enlightenment to young and old alike. The fuel it runs on is surprise, so it would ruin the "blog" advent calendar to explain anything about it until it is complete in its glory and has been enjoyed by one and all in the spirit of anticipation, wonder, and universal good cheer. But sometimes there are one or two items that might be enhanced with footnotes after the fact, and such is the case once again this year. Here are this year's "blog" advent calendar annotations, helpfully numbered according to their original placement on this year's "blog" advent calendar: 10. So Mary Worth was stalked in her eponymous comic strip and they made a coffee mug representing her encounter with her stalker. Okay! I found this one the night before I "posted" it, and here is the weird thing: when I found it, the mug cost $13.99. But THE VERY NEXT MORNING, when I "posted" it, the price had mysteriously gone up to $14.99! AND THAT'S NOT ALL! After I "posted" it, when I visited other "web" sites with advertising sidebars, OFTEN the Mary Worth stalker mug would be featured, probably thanks to "cookies" or some other innocent sounding, horrible "internet" thing I don't understand. Mary Worth's stalker was stalking me around the "internet"! In one case, the mug was advertised for the price of $19.99! I have no idea what this means, except that computers are spying on us, but we knew that. 11. This man has lots of ideas, including one I thought was mine! In my novel AWESOME, the title character - a giant who invents things - wants to construct a highway with grooves like LP grooves in it, and to have cars fitted with special tires that would play the music embedded in the highway, the way a phonograph needle plays a record. I thought I made it up! But I was shocked and sort of depressed to discover that this guy had already thought of it. He writes: "Carve computer-generated ripples in the surface of a main highway, and when vehicles pass over the surface, mysterious voices whisper, and distant music plays... Little sub-threshold voices which say 'Buy popcorn.'" His version requires no special tires. BUT GET THIS! He suffered a letdown too, because he in turn discovered that ROADS LIKE THIS ALREADY EXIST IN REAL LIFE! So I guess we are both suckers for thinking we are so great and everything. 21. You don't know who Charley Weaver is. Why should you? He was a folksy character created by the actor Clifford Arquette (grandfather to Patricia and Rosanna Arquette). Arquette (in character as Charley Weaver) was on HOLLYWOOD SQUARES with Paul Lynde. I want to say he sat on the bottom row, at the end, but I can't swear to it. The little automated Charley Weaver toy is great. In addition to making and drinking its little cocktail, and its nose turning red through special lighting effects, Mr. Ward says that smoke originally came out of its ears. Puzzling, though: the Charley Weaver persona did not involve Foster Brooks-like drunkenness as far as I can recall... certainly Charley Weaver would have never imbibed anything requiring the use of a cocktail shaker - more like a Mason jar. So the toy is weird in that regard. Let me also say that there is one of these behind the counter at the Ajax Diner, inert, and often have I stared at it and wondered about its function - a coin bank? - as I drank sweet tea and ate pot roast and butter beans at the bar. Now I know! 22. I didn't realize until my brother-in-law David sent me the video that the Lambton worm was such a big deal. I knew the song from the Ken Russell movie LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM, but if I thought about it at all, I stupidly and incuriously figured it was a fake folk song they made up to suit the needs of the plot. But man, there are so many versions on youtube! One guy sings it with his shirt off and possibly his pants off for all I know. The brother-in-law visited for Christmas. He walked into Square Books on Christmas Eve and by fate walked straight to a book about dragons containing a chapter on the Lambton worm. Have you ever noticed that whenever you start thinking about the Lambton worm he turns up everywhere? So I guess the Lambton worm is very popular and I never knew it. (I started this "post" last night but then I got too tired to explain who Charley Weaver was. It seemed soul crushing. Life is hard!) Pictured, Charley Weaver and LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM. See if you can figure out which is which!