Mann Crush

Finished BUDDENBROOKS. Didn't find an owl in it, crushing my previously stated hope - which really seemed possible! - that Thomas Mann would have owls in all his books. He was on a roll there! Oh well. Life just serves up one bitter disappointment after another. I did, however, stumble upon an owl in one of my secondary texts, the ratty, tattered paperback I found stuffed in a hole in the park. As you may recall, it's one of those books where Victoria is the queen and yet there are computers everywhere. You know. That kind of book. And two of the characters go to see a panto... you remember what a panto is! Remember when I used to help out with an annual Christmas panto in Chicago? What? You don't? Then why don't you just go to hell. So they go to a didactic panto featuring communist acrobats, you heard me. That kind of book. The name of the panto is "Mazulem the Night Owl." I think I spelled that right. I don't care, though.

The Arts

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

Throwing Pennies at Jerry

Remember when I quit social media? It was in all the papers. So, for example, now, when I turn on TCM just as CITIZEN KANE is beginning, and notice for the first time in my life that two little monkeys appear within the first minute of that film, I can't just "tweet" at Laura Lippman about it, as part of a pointless gag that goes back at least as far as 2008. No, I have to sit down and compose a thoughtful email about the two little monkeys in CITIZEN KANE. Such is my lot in life, due to my own choices! Similarly, I have just had word from Brian Z., a person I formerly knew only from those electronic and ethereal environs - and, in fact, whom I still know only from electronic and ethereal environs, assuming that's what email is. Brian Z. emails to say that he recently saw "a very rare old Technicolor print" of THE NUTTY PROFESSOR in Chicago. Before the screening, someone involved with the Film Society stood up and read a vintage magazine report of Jerry's activities during the original promotional tour for the film. In one incident thus recounted, and paraphrased here by Brian Z., "Jerry is out in public and some kids throw pennies at him. He stops what he's doing to investigate the source of the pennies and gives the boys a dressing-down after taking the time to locate them." An attentive "blog" reader cannot help but be reminded, I am sure, of the time Frank Sinatra was pelted with raw eggs. What a world! Brian Z. was concerned that I had, perhaps, lost interest in Jerry Lewis, not having "blogged" about him since April of 2023. Let me assure one and all that nothing could be further from the truth! I thank Brian Z. for a timely reminder not to take Jerry for granted. As the Bible says (I Thessalonians 5:22), "Abstain from all appearance of evil." Related (?): Brian Z. makes note of "a couple of laughter-signaling guys in my row who were braying a little too forcefully to be credible." The same "blog" reader who thought of Frank Sinatra being pelted by eggs may now be reminded of what once happened to me during a Samuel Beckett play. As I remarked in my email reply to Brian Z., it is one more way in which Samuel Beckett and Jerry Lewis are just alike. (See also, Kierkegaard's thoughts on farce.) Supplementary reading: "Click" here for details of another museum-grade Jerry screening.

Hot News From Providence

I'm sure you remember my friend Judge. She used to tell me how surprisingly big softballs are in Chicago! Maybe she moved to Rhode Island! I'm basing that on the title of her email. You know, back when I used to "blog," she would send me snapshots that captured the very vibrancy of life itself. And she's back at it! Just take a look. Here is an image, intriguing even in ordinary circumstances, that can be read in a number ways in our strange modern times, about which I offer no further comment at this juncture.

The World Was Young

My friend and former ADVENTURE TIME coworker Emily Quinn made this portrait of Marceline. I tweeted it, but couldn't think of the proper name for the technique employed. Maria Bustillos helpfully tweeted back at me: "it is called pyrography, remember you could buy those kits of it when the world was young." And just minutes later my friend Judge of Chicago independently confirmed via tweet: pyrography. Somehow Maria's tweet reminded me of something you could order off the back of comic books when I was a boy: a shrunken head kit. A curious child was encouraged to make grotesque heads out of apples! At first I didn't even tweet to Maria that Vincent Price was on the box, though that's the way I remembered it, because it could't possibly have been that perfect. BUT IT WAS. Maria Bustillos, by the way, wrote a good, long article about ADVENTURE TIME, which I'm sure I've "linked" to you before, but just in case, here it is. You'll hate yourself if you don't "click."

And now, unless I'm crazy, I am recalling that there was (is) a song called something like "Ah, the Apple Trees! (When the World Was Young)" which brings everything together, but that can't possibly be a real title, can it? Pretty melodramatic! But then of course you remember what Bellini - dead at 34! - said: "Carve into your head in adamantine letters: OPERA MUST MAKE PEOPLE WEEP, FEEL HORRIFIED, DIE THROUGH SINGING." Speaking of which! Yesterday was Record Store Day and we played some records. We played a record Jimmy gave us a long time ago, back when he lived in town. It's called NIGHTINGALES AND CANARIES, and to oversimplify, it has some songs sung by immigrant women in New York in the 40s and 50s and songs recorded by women in Istanbul in the 30s. The first couple of numbers are sung by Virginia Magidou, which is, as the liner notes say, probably a pseudonym used because of the "disreputable, underworld style of some of her songs." One song she sings goes

(and the liner notes apologize because it's actually in "Greek slang that can't be precisely translated"): "I was born a tough chick, I'll die a tough chick... I like the tough life, and if I'm lucky I'll be rich./ In this lying world, I'll live even tougher... I would like to have a man who feels, a tough guy, or gangster./ To be the love of crazy guys who are a little troublesome... This false world, I just want to party in it."

You Can't Beat Burrata

I went to Atlanta! But I forgot my precious jotting book. So I jotted nothing. I'll try to remember what happened anyway. See, I noticed that Kelly Hogan was playing there, in a band called the Decembrists. And I knew that my sister and brother-in-law love that band (as an old, out-of-touch person, I know the name but had never heard their music somehow - except I think they once used a Decembrists song on MAD MEN! That's something an old person can really get behind), so I thought it would be fun to go to Atlanta and see Hogan onstage with the Decembrists and maybe my sister and brother-in-law could go backstage after the show, and so could I, and that's what we did. Oh yeah, and Abby was there! Abby took this picture of Hogan and her friend Nora singing. Abby knows the Decembrists' road manager (I think) so she went backstage too. Yeah, Abby used to live in Chicago and go to the Hideout back when Hogan was tending bar there, and they never even knew it... it's a small world I tell ya! So guess who I saw backstage. That's right, Andy Hopkins, the greatest "blogger" ever on the subject of canned food, who hasn't updated his blog since 2011. So I upbraided him for depriving the world of pleasure, but I thanked him for all the pleasure he has given us already. HASN'T HE DONE ENOUGH? And I met this one guy who said (I thought), "I'm in a band with Kelly," and I said, "Oh! Which one?" And he said, "Uh, the one that just played." Ha ha ha! See how old I am? I had already forgotten him from mere moments earlier. He was very nice about it. We gave Hogan a ride to Manuel's. My sister went home (they live across the street) but my brother-in-law stayed out, and I would say a majority of the Decembrists came over and everybody had a good time at Manuel's. Kelly and I particularly wanted to go because neither of us lives in Atlanta anymore and as you know they are probably going to ruin Manuel's soon. Then everybody went to the Clermont Lounge, another old stomping ground. (I must say that my brother-in-law went home instead! He did not set foot in that disreputable spot.) The Clermont was packed to the gills! Is that an expression? You couldn't even move around in there. I said to Hogan, "I don't remember it being like this." And she said, "I blame Anthony Bourdain." It is true that Mr. Bourdain did a televised segment on the Clermont, although I have never seen it. BUT HERE IS A TRIVIA FACT! Remember when I was on the Anthony Bourdain television program? There is some "B-roll" footage on the show of Anthony Bourdain and Bill Griffith and me standing around in the front hall of William Faulkner's house. And you can't hear us talking, but what we are talking about is the Clermont Lounge! It was what gave rise to Bill's memorable aphorism, "Dirty places are getting harder and harder to find." Speaking of which! I had lunch with Shana the day after the show, and she said that at the same time Manuel's is going to be shut down for nefarious "improvements" the Clermont will be shut down for the same reason! So for some period of time Atlanta will be without the Clermont Lounge and Manuel's. WHAT WILL HAPPEN? I assume the city will sink into an abyss. Oh, Atlanta! How you love to shoot yourself in the foot. One new thing was hot dogs for sale in the Clermont Lounge parking lot. A PREVIOUSLY UNTHINKABLE OCCURRENCE. Abby had one and so did I. Mustard and sauerkraut! The following evening, Bill Taft wanted to meet up for a drink at La Tavola for old times' sake. I went back and checked the wall of photographs of "regulars," which had been neatened and straightened and purged of dead weight. Dr. Theresa and I were among the casualties! Our picture is gone from the wall. Sic transit gloria mundi! All the old faces are gone. I didn't see anybody I knew at La Tavola. Except Bill! He wanted an appetizer and I saw burrata on the menu. I told him the story of the time everyone knew what burrata was except me. Bill ordered it, and I am happy to say that he was just as thrilled with the burrata as I was when I first had it. You can't beat burrata! Bill said that he had once entertained fantasies of making La Tavola his "family spot." His intention was to be "the cool dad who drinks grappa." But then he brought his family there and his three-year-old son threw up. So that didn't work out! Anyway, his son is about ready to go off to college now. I AM JUST TELLING YOU HOW LIFE WORKS.

The Only Explanation Was Offered By Our Dentist

Yesterday I picked up some good research items from that used book stall I like so much. It's in that strip mall across from Big Bad Breakfast, way in the back of the antique store. Check it out! One thing I found might be the most interesting self-published book I've come across since THE SCRAPBOOK OF A DETECTIVE. This one is by a livestock inspector named Dr. Harold Wallman, and it's a lavishly produced overview of his many collections of things. It's called 640 OF MY COLLECTIONS. They're put into alphabetical order and numbered. For example, collection #5 is "Alligators." The paragraph about his alligator collection begins, "The most intriguing alligator is controlled by two buttons." No set-up or anything, he just gets right to it. I don't think I'm getting across how unusual this book is. I'll keep trying. Collection #141 is "Cinema Photographs." He found most of these "in a Chicago alley. There were way more than I could take in a car, but I kept some... I had some fun with them by putting captions on them as to what I thought each character was saying. In one for 'Bed Time for Bonzo,' Ronald Reagen [sic] is standing there and he says, 'Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle.' The lady holding the chimp says, 'You mean father, Ha Ha Ha.'" Dr. Wallman also has a collection of newspaper articles and cartoons containing the name Arnold. The description is somewhat muddled, but they seem to be a tribute to his friend Arnold Cohn, and he put together a scrapbook that is partly (I think) about the real Arnold Cohn and partly about other people who happen to be named Arnold that he pretends are Arnold Cohn (?), including, writes Dr. Wallman, and note the quotation marks, "a picture of 'him' on a motorcycle, as a wrestler, and with a great body. It ends with his car accidents, death, services and auction. Many entries are completely anachronistic." Collection #155 is "Coffins." The descriptive paragraph begins, "One of my skeletons came in a rosewood coffin." So right away you know that he has a collection of skeletons, and indeed there it is, collection #507: "Skeletons - Human." Here we learn that his RV caught fire in 1986, and the only skeleton he owned at the time was destroyed: "I soon tried to replace it at dealers in Texas and Chicago, IL. I was told that human skeletons were no longer available." He finally got one but "it is light brown in color. The only explanation was offered by our dentist who said it got that way from being kept in the dark." And yes, I read between the lines that he was driving around in an RV with a human skeleton, and you'll have to trust me that it's only one of the disturbing things I've read between the lines - and in the lines - in this book. In a closing thought, Dr. Wallman regrets all the collections he couldn't include. "Too late to be more than mentioned are dolls, scout parapernalia [sic], bird feeders and houses, feathers, crutches, lead sinkers, enema cans, and cloth patches." Speaking of dolls, I believe he claims to have a pornographic Charlie Chaplin doll...? Details are vague, though the doll is mentioned in collection #432, "Pornography." Hmm, it seems that the thermos mentioned there is definitely pornographic (don't ask) and maybe the Chaplin doll is something he picked up in the same lot. "There is also a 'dirty' pocket watch and wrist watch," concludes Dr. Wallman. Such is the fascination of this book that only now do I find time to mention that Dr. Wallman's 392nd collection consists of owls, of course.

Softballs in Chicago Are Huge

My friend Judge writes in to report that softballs in Chicago are huge! Sixteen inches around. "It's like catching a globe," she says. On the plus side: "You don't need a glove & it makes good players bad & bad players bad - equalizer." But mostly I think she hates it!

Real Sandwich Talk

Kent Osborne took a little trip to Chicago. "I ate meat," he said of his visit. "DID YOU HAVE ANY CHICKEN?" I shrieked hysterically, because Kent never gets tired of me reminding him in a humorous fashion that he loves to eat chicken. "One day I had fried chicken for lunch and chicken wings for dinner," Kent replied. He loves chicken! We talked about a hot dog Kent ate, then he sent me a picture of it, seen here. I tried to tell Kent about delicious sandwiches that Dr. Theresa and Kelly Hogan and I had in Chicago in October of 2002, wondering if he had enjoyed a similar one during his visit, but I did a poor job of describing them because Kent said, "Muffuletta?" And I said, "No..." Wrong sandwich region! Coming from the Gulf Coast, I am quite well acquainted with said muffuletta! So I knew that wasn't it. Well, I sent a message to Hogan, asking her the name of the memorable sandwich (she was the one who guided us to it), the juiciness and flavor of which have stayed with me for over a decade now, but I haven't heard back yet so I did a little "internet research" and the type of sandwich I am thinking of is called an "Italian beef." You should get one! "Click" here for a wikipedia article about it. (See also. For further reading: "The Osborne Sandwich.") I want to recommend the novel MILDRED PIERCE to Kent if he hasn't read it: it is the novel guaranteed to make you hungriest for chicken! On the other hand, it could drive him into a dangerous frenzy. Because he loves chicken so much. Loves it! Chicken. He loves it. Kent loves chicken.

Deciduous

"Do you exist?" Ace Atkins asked McNeil to his face the other night, settling a question - we hope! - that has persistently plagued the "blog." McNeil affirmed that he does indeed exist. Barry B., who was also in town for my birthday, reported that, back in Atlanta, Phil recently remarked again upon his disbelief in McNeil - RECENTLY! - which seems incredible, given that Phil once sent McNeil something in the mail. Did he think he was mailing something to a ghost? Oh, how we stubbornly ignore the evidence in front of our eyes. While he was in town McNeil inspected the cashew tree he mailed me for my birthday, speaking of mail. I have to say, it's looking kind of sickly. I think often of the song "Grandfather's Clock," which is about some old dude who dies when his clock stops ticking (or his clock stops ticking when he dies) and I worry about keeping the birthday cashew tree alive on similar principles of sympathetic magic. But I draw some consolation from SIBLEY'S GUIDE TO TREES, which I've been coveting at Square Books, and which my sister and brother-in-law kindly got me for my birthday (yes, they were also in town! As you will see, everyone was in town. It was really nice! And though I kept saying NO PRESENTS, people gave me stuff, perhaps most startlingly Bill Griffith, who strode across Snackbar with a machete [for me]. "Like ADVENTURE TIME, get it?" he said). For example, I read about deciduous trees in the introduction, and took some comfort from looking at the sickly tree and thinking, "Oh! It's deciduous, that's all. Yes, that's what a deciduous tree must look like." Sometimes we can deceive ourselves with our fancy book-learning, maybe! As far as I can tell, this kind of straight-up cashew tree doesn't generally grow in the United States, though trees in "the cashew family" (including various pistachios) do. "Many species in the family exude a blackish resin from broken twigs and develop blackish spots on the leaves." Check! "Many species in the cashew family... have toxic oils in their leaves and stems." Gosh! Poison ivy and poison oak are related to the cashew. Gee! Yesterday I was thankfully able to point out to McNeil a few new, tender shoots on the cashew tree, nestled among the blackening and withering leaves. But we're not here to talk about trees! I'm sure the main thing you'd like to know is whether we had another "McNeil's Movie Korner Film Festival" while McNeil was here. We did not. And yet a peculiar mini-film-festival did occur. Dr. Theresa and Leslie (who was also in town: see?) were idly flipping around the movie channels for something to watch when they came across THREE FUGITIVES, that Martin Short/Nick Nolte team-up that everyone was probably waiting for once upon a time. Some quality of the film - Dr. Theresa and Leslie referred to it as "flatness" - they found compelling and numbing. I came in after they had already succumbed to the flatfooted vibe it exerted. McNeil came in to find all three of us staring dumbly at THREE FUGITIVES. Martin Short is an an unwilling bank robber who needs money for his moppet of a daughter who has LOST THE ABILITY TO SPEAK. "Charlie Chaplin has a lot to answer for," I said at one point. (I think it was a long shot of the Little Girl Who Couldn't Talk alone at the very end of a park bench, her hands folded in her lap, and Martin Short was really pushing the wet-eyed, gulping sad clown thing, to use Bruce Handy's definition of the term, which is looser than mine.) Late in the film Dr. Theresa and Leslie came out of the coma-like trances into which THREE FUGITIVES had lulled them for a segment in which Martin Short is forced to pretend to be a pregnant woman, Nick Nolte "her" concerned husband and the little girl is transformed into the "couple's" little boy. The academic portions of their brains kicked into overdrive at the sight of the gruff loner Nolte learning to be a "true man" by performing the role of the "man." Perhaps he, without changing his physical appearance, was in the most elaborate "drag" of all! The next day (or was it the day after?) in the post-celebration haze, a groggy Dr. Theresa and Leslie felt they "needed" another movie exhibiting the same "flatness" as THREE FUGITIVES, and charged me with finding one that was just beginning on one of the movie channels, which is how we came by chance to FEDS, a buddy comedy starring Rebecca De Mornay and Mary Gross (pictured) as would-be FBI agents. Once again I was moved to say, "Charlie Chaplin has a lot to answer for," but I can't remember why. Besides, the real phantoms hanging over both THREE FUGITIVES and FEDS were Martin and Lewis, of course. Martin Short (who often impersonates Lewis) and Mary Gross are the child-like ids (Mary Gross in a gun shop sticks a pistol in the front of her pants and does a strange, wiggling Jerry-like dance) while De Mornay and Nolte are the loners, the smooth operators, who learn to allow themselves to become dependent on their "weaker" counterparts. (And, as McNeil pointed out during the cross-dressing sequence of THREE FUGITIVES, Jerry often took the "female" role, appearing, for example, in remakes of THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR and NOTHING SACRED in the parts originally played by Ginger Rogers and Carole Lombard.) Ha ha ha, I know nobody is reading this! McNeil (who came over in time to catch almost all of FEDS) wondered whether there was a sequel, a FEDS 2, and though it seemed obvious that no one had scrambled for a follow-up buddy comedy from Mary Gross and Rebecca De Mornay, McNeil checked his iPhone, just to make sure. And of course there was no FEDS 2. Yet a sequence that played over the final credits seemed to promise just that. The ridiculous optimism we need in order to continue living! Leslie argued with force and clarity that both THREE FUGITIVES and FEDS were about the fact that we become the roles we perform. Then some great monster in the scheduling department saw to it that CONTINENTAL DIVIDE came on right after FEDS. What a double feature! As no one felt capable of movement, we sat through CONTINENTAL DIVIDE - marking the second time I have seen it in four months, a preposterous circumstance I never would have believed had some Cassandra informed me of it in advance. Yet Leslie, who had never seen it, championed CONTINENTAL DIVIDE for a long spell, repeating "I don't see why this movie is 'bad,'" at a number of points. Well into the second act she spoke of its charms convincingly, citing, for instance, the cinematography that made everything in Chicago look like "old Polaroids," and exclaiming when Blair Brown busted up the shotguns of some eagle poachers against a rock that it was just the kind of thing she (Leslie) always fantasized about doing. But soon, beaten down by the movie's numerous willful missteps, she gave up, finally concluding that CONTINENTAL DIVIDE seemed like a movie that was stitched together entirely of scenes that had been edited out of some other movie. McNeil pointed out that it aspired to the condition of the "screwball comedy," yet lacked that genre's essential ingredient: unnatural speed. The director, he thought, could have improved the movie a lot simply by getting everyone to talk faster. Thwarted by a misguided allegiance to so-called "realism"! Hey, I don't want you to think we only watched movies. Leslie also went through an old community cookbook reading recipe titles and we'd make up songs about them - or, more accurately, imagine who might have recorded a song with such a name, like "Impossible Cheeseburger Pie" (Bob Dylan) and "Baptist Pound Cake" (Leonard Cohen; "Baptist Pound Cake" being a sexy, taboo metaphor - some woman takes pity on Leonard Cohen and feeds him "Baptist Pound Cake" in "the alley behind the church.") In summation: 1) Sometimes we can deceive ourselves with our fancy book-learning. 2) We stubbornly ignore the evidence in front of us. 3) We become the roles we perform. 4) Ridiculous optimism is required for the merest survival. These seem like terrible birthday lessons! So why was everything so much fun?

Eye Miseries

Reading another old comic book, this one from 1968. You can see the actual cover above. It's Captain Marvel, yes, but not the REAL Captain Marvel for whom I have oft professed my love. This is a cheap, fake, knock-off Captain Marvel put out by Marvel Comics, although he really was a captain (in the Kree army) and his given name was Marv-Ell (I think), and his publisher was Marvel, so when you really think about it... What? What's that? You're not reading this anymore? Neither am I! But anyway, there is a two-page spread crammed with tiny rectangular advertisements in this here Captain Marvel comic book. One grabs my attention with its big bold headline: "Eye Miseries?" it ominously inquires. On the opposite page I am promised "YOU CAN HAVE A HE-MAN VOICE" - all I have to do is send my name, address and age to the "PERFECT VOICE INSTITUTE" of Chicago, Illinois. Below the eye miseries ad is one that says "IDEAS? WE PAY YOU. SEND US YOUR IDEA ON ANY SUBJECT, THE WILDER THE BETTER..... IT COULD MAKE YOU RICH."

Misty Soubrette Reappraisal

Hey speaking of Nixon wasn't I just speaking of Nixon? I happened to grab up Norman Mailer's nonfiction book MIAMI AND THE SIEGE OF CHICAGO and I just got to the part where Mailer spies Nixon's daughters: "Tricia, gentle, bemused, a misty look to her face... Julie... healthy, genial, a perfect soubrette for a family comedy on television... a man who could produce daughters like that could not be all bad. The remote possibility of some reappraisal of Richard Nixon was now forced to enter the works." Loyal "blog" readers will of course immediately recall their loyal "blog" reading from early 2007 and the controversial words of one James Whorton, Jr.

Hot News From Chicago

At last! Our friend Judge is back with another installment of the exclusive "blog" series "Hot News From Chicago." Judge stalks the streets of Chicago, looking for hot news - in photographic form! She calls this beauty "Scary Gyros." But not all the hot news is from Chicago all the time. For example, don't forget I am going to "DJ" at The End of All Music today, right here in Oxford, Mississippi. My "set" starts at "two o'clock." Speaking of "hot," today's high is supposed to be 104, so come watch my records melt as part of the spectacle. The friendly folks at The End of All Music are having a big record sale today, too. But take your purchases straight home! Don't leave them in the car while you run in the grocery store for a couple of things. It's hot! To read more about me being hot, "click" here for the time I got hot in Arizona. Hot!

Classic Hogan

The Chicago Tribune has an article about "Blog" Buddy Kelly Hogan AND a review of her new record (pictured), which they call a "classic... works as both a career summing up and a fascinating introduction to one of the most accomplished, underappreciated vocalists of the last two decades." Yep! I was in John Brandon's car playing it for him on the old iPod and he kept yelling, "This is gonna be big! This is gonna be big!" I think that's what he was yelling. I had had a bunch of gin because I was on the way to the airport, so who knows? He had to yell because I kept turning it all the way up. Anyway I feel like we were having a swell time.

Back in the Saddle Again

Got my copy of the new McSweeney's (issue #40) in the mail yesterday. In fact it arrived mysteriously on the front porch in the middle of the night! I have a little piece in there which is secretly an excerpt from Chapter 10 of my cat book. You're the only one who knows! Speaking of which, I am currently reading an advance copy of Ace Atkins's latest novel, THE LOST ONES. Just ran across this sentence: "There was a little corral down next to the Scrambler, where they set monkeys on the backs of dogs and let them race." In case you forgot, my cat book also contains an allusion to monkeys riding around on the backs of dogs! So I have that going for me. (This illustration cribbed from Brian Z. [he found it in a Chicago train station] represents just one of the many reasons my fake cat book will never be published: the kind of irony-free experience that renders fiction such as mine pale and obsolete. Coincidentally, it is - as you can see - written by "MARY DANIELS author of MORRIS," a cat with whom Ace has some personal experience.)

Too Bad For Writers

How ironical, I guess, that all the MFA students have traipsed off to Chicago for the Big Annual Meeting of Drunken Writers (BAMDW) while Jon Langford is flying HERE to their hometown of Oxford, Mississippi, FROM Chicago, to sing and play for them and caper about so merrily but they will never know. The rest of you! Come see Jon play tonight on the Thacker Mountain Radio program and tomorrow night at Two Stick and why not stop by the Southside Gallery to look at Jon's art and then maybe later Jon will simonize your car.

Frasier, Briefly

Welcome once again to "Frasier, Briefly." At last! It's the "Frasier, Briefly" segment all you "Frasier, Briefly" fans have been waiting for. Noted pop singer and Frasier expert Kelly Hogan weighs in on BOSS, the new show where Frasier is the mayor of Chicago. WARNING: Contains several spoilers and distasteful subject matter! Let's turn it over to Hogan: "I find it to be like a weird 'balsamic reduction' as in a richer more intense version of Frasier's darker tendencies... putting severed ears (from a fancy gift box!!!) in the disposal instead of flushing them down the toilet or tossing them in the alley or feeding them to a passing dog. then when the disposal jams he calls the plumber instead of solving his own problem! totally Frasier. then the whole thing with his pee-soaked sheets and not knowing how to work the fancy washing machine -- of course! because DAPHNE usually does all the laundry! the whole proud Luddite 'ha ha it's like the 80's in here' thing about having all the VHS tapes in his office -- such a Frasier way: proud to be ye olde timey 'i love opera and sherry and squash!' the game not the vegetable. p.s. I don't think we've seen his chest yet."

Frasier, Briefly

Welcome once again to "Frasier, Briefly," where we report all the latest exciting news about Frasier and his numerous antics. It seems that Frasier has a new TV show where he's the mayor of Chicago! This is the best possible news for "Blog" Buddy Kelly Hogan because it involves two of her favorite things: Frasier and Chicago. Hogan hasn't seen it yet, but happily reports that her friend Mia is an extra. It's on premium cable! So Frasier screams and cusses and suddenly twists a guy's ear until the unfortunate fellow kneels on the floor squealing in pain! Oh, Frasier. Directed by Gus van Sant! Oh, and Frasier has a secret brain disease.

Many Kinds of Salads

Hey, are you sick of hearing about these crazy books I keep checking out of the library? What? You are? I have an idea: shut up! Here's a humorous observation: you know how books usually have blurbs or descriptions on the back of them? The last four paperback books I checked out have NOTHING on the back of them. NOTHING! No printed matter whatsoever. Take for example FLYING SAUCERS AND SPACE MEN: A SCIENTIFIC AND METAPHYSICAL DISSERTATION IN INTERPLANETARY TRAVELING by Dr. John H. Manas. Nothing on the back! This one is barely more than a pamphlet, and reminds me of something a character in Charles Portis's hilarious novel MASTERS OF ATLANTIS might read. The dedication page says, "This book is dedicated to DAEDALUS, the great Cretan artificer, the builder of the Labyrinth for king Minos." Wow! And if there are no blurbs on the back of the book, there are a few on the last two pages. "Unsolicited Comments from Readers," they are called. Examples: "I read the book carefully and liked it very much." - "I thoroughly admire you for your industry." - somewhat more of a rave: "You are producing the works!" - and from the Chicago Public Library, "The book was received and has been reviewed by our Book Selection Department." I must say that it seems as though Dr. Manas and I share some interests. He reports buying a "mimeographed booklet" by a Missouri farmer. I understand the impulse! Dr. Manas writes, "In the introduction it is claimed that in his story 'every bit is True.' However, when such statements are made that the three men from Venus with a huge dog named 'Bo,' weighing 385 pounds! on the 5th of March, 1955, at Midnight, landed in their 'Space Ship'... and for one hour had a friendly conversation with the farmer in English, comparing the furniture of the house with that of theirs in the 'Flying Saucer', and so on... It is also stated that the twelve laws of God on Venus were given to him by these 'Space Men'. These laws are similar to those of Moses!" As we can see, Dr. Manas and I share an affection for exclamation points as well. Dr. Manas is a little skeptical about the Missouri farmer's report of eating dinner on both Mars and Venus, as the trip between the two planets was only twenty minutes long. So there's a hole in this guy's story! Dr. Manas adds, "The meals consisted of meat, milk, eggs, fish, many kinds of salads and of many cooked vegetables, among which was corn!" Once again, the exclamation point is Dr. Manas's. I could tell you more, such as the fact that one of the crewmen on the Venusian spaceship is named "Bucky," but maybe you're right, maybe I need some fresh air.

Hot News From Paris

"Blog" Buddy Judge, curator of our regular "blog" feature "Hot News From Chicago," has an art show coming up in Paris! April 8-13. That's right, Paris, France. Just like in that song "April in Paris." You've heard of Paris, haven't you? The one in France? Then get over there and attend Judge's show. When you land be sure and tell 'em "Bloggy" the "Blog" Mascot sent you and you'll probably get a discount on a baguette.