Catfish of Ancient Egypt

Here's everything I didn't "blog" about this month. 1. "You should eat a lot of jelly: it oils up your joints." - Mom. 2. For reasons that need not concern you, Ace Atkins and I were discussing the availability of catfish in the Middle East. So when I started reading a book about ancient Egypt (THE RISE AND FALL OF ANCIENT EGYPT by Toby Wilkinson) I was delighted to find many allusions to catfish: "an ivory cylinder shows the king as a vicious Nile catfish, beating rows of prisoners with a long stick." At first I thought that was funny, even though it is not funny to beat people with a stick... I guess it was the vicious catfish that made me laugh, though the more I thought about it, the more convincingly Lovecraftian the image revealed itself to be - and besides, my grandfather taught me long ago to beware the dangerous "whiskers" of the catfish. 3. By coincidence I watched Kurosawa's RAN (based on KING LEAR) and a TV adaptation of THE DRESSER (about a production of KING LEAR) on the same day. So I went to my facsimile of Holinshed's Chronicles for the source, and was distressed to recall I have only volumes 3 and 6. See? This is the kind of crap you're missing out on now that I'm not "blogging" anymore. 4. Nor could I find my copy of KING LEAR, which made me feel like King Lear, ha ha ha, see what you're missing. (Later, by further coincidence, Lear would pop up all over this Orson Welles bio that Megan and I are reading together, though not - I think - as an official selection of the Doomed Book Club.) 5. ADVENTURE TIME meeting! We talked about Fonzie wearing glasses and Jan from THE BRADY BUNCH wearing glasses and that made Kent think of Piggy from LORD OF THE FLIES, and I said that using Piggy's glasses to start a fire was in my cigarette lighter book and Adam asked whether that counted. That got us onto the subject of "burning lenses" and Adam mentioned an "ancient death ray." I think he said, "Is that like the ancient death ray?" I said I remembered Francis Bacon advocating for the use of burning lenses as military weapons (it's in my book!) but Adam said he was talking about "Archimedes and the Siege of Syracuse." Adam knows everything! (See also.) Taking a quick glance at the "internet" I do see an unsubstantiated rumor that Archimedes built a giant mirror with which to set fire to the enemy's sails. On the same day the aforementioned discussion occurred, I read in a tweet by Chris Offutt, "I have a short story that includes a woman using a lighter to heat up a Pop Tart one bite at a time." Both of these tidbits (Archimedes, Pop Tarts) would have easily passed muster for my cigarette lighter book, had I only known about them in time. And you know, as long as we're here, the fascinating

movie WOMAN ON THE RUN has an important lighter in it... I think I can tell you this without spoiling anything (probably not): it neatly marks the beginning of each of the movie's three acts (possibly). 6. A ribald jest from McNeil about Jerry Lewis. A series of them, really. Or one long ribald jest that is carried out and elaborated upon over a number of emails. McNeil's final (?) message on the subject concludes, "Ahhhh. I'm making myself laugh in a parking lot, which makes this all the more wrong." 7. I don't remember much liking the movie HEARTBURN when it came out, but I saw a documentary about Nora Ephron not too long ago and thought if I ever came across HEARTBURN again I'd give it a try - what, 40 years later? Dear God! And I did. And Yakov Smirnoff is in it! Now, it's not Mike Nichols's fault that this one book I read stacked him up as the pinnacle of hip culture against the supposed rancid decadence of Bob Hope, but just remember: Mike Nichols put Yakov Smirnoff in a movie and Bob never did (though I wouldn't be surprised if he were on a Bob Hope TV special, to be fair [He was. - ed.]).

8. Jerry Lewis allusion in TREES LOUNGE. 9. Stopped by Square Books. Katelyn failed to sell me a book she likes, but utterly convinced me to give APOCALYPTO a chance. 10. Watched PINOCCHIO. a. Jiminy Cricket has human feet and toenails, human teeth! Disturbing. b. That fish wants to kiss everyone and everything. c. Jiminy Cricket is consistently sexually aroused by human representations (dolls) of his size. d. Even as a kid I didn't understand why being a wooden boy wasn't good enough. What's all this crap about being a "real boy"? 11. King Lear (see above) vows "to be a comrade with the wolf and owl" (just like Dracula! - though he doesn't say that, of course) and you know what that means!

The Lion's Den

I cannot say for certain that my 90th birthday tribute to Jerry Lewis was what prompted Megan Abbott to go see CRACKING UP at the Museum of Modern Art yesterday afternoon, but I like to think I had a little something to do with it. I'm going to lay out the sequence of events through our correspondence, kind of like Bram Stoker piecing together all those documents for DRACULA. I noticed an email from Megan in my inbox at around twenty minutes before three o'clock, Central Time, asking whether she should go see CRACKING UP at 4 PM. New York City, of course, abides by Eastern Time. If you will do your math, you will see that time was of the essence! My response was measured: "YES! My God, I hope you're not getting this too late. You only have 20 minutes to get there, hurry, hurry!" I also rushed over to twitter, in case Megan was not checking her email, and tweeted like so:

@meganeabbott Got your email. The answer to your Q is YES! But I'm looking at the clock and fear I'm too late. God help you! God help us all

— Jack Pendarvis (@JackPendarvis) March 8, 2016

I soon received a heartening "I'm here" via email. Trying to prepare her, as I thought was only my duty, I quoted P.B. Shelley on things "semi-real" and Megan responded that she was having a beer to open her "doors of perception." (Can it be a coincidence that the movie was scheduled to start at what is known affectionately in Oxford, Mississippi, as "Megan Abbott Time?") A photo of her ticket stub appeared on twitter. I immediately emailed that photo to McNeil, who responded "Wow!!! WOW!!!" - sentiments I subsequently conveyed to Megan. Thus spurred on, she responded, "I couldn't even finish my beer; I was too excited!" It was at this juncture that communications were severed for some hours, as I had a doctor's appointment. When I returned, I picked up THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY, which has been lying there untouched for some time, and discovered that my bookmark lay, by another coincidence, at the beginning of a chapter in which Robert Burton explains why doctors are the worst (though his thoughts do not apply to my friendly and helpful doctor): "according to that witty Epigram of Maximilianus Urentius, what's the difference? How (he asks) does the Surgeon differ from the Physician? One kills by hand, the other by drugs; and both differ from the hangman only in that they do slowly what he does quickly." Then I was like, why am I reading this? Surely Megan is out of CRACKING UP by now. And so it proved. I had an email from McNeil, asking "What's up with the $0.00?" I could see it was tearing him up inside!

I explained some of Megan's benefits as a paying member of MoMA, which seemed to calm him down. In the meantime, I had also received two emails from Megan, one seemingly sent just before the movie started and one after it had concluded. BEFORE: "You should see all the other lunatics here!" AFTER: "Watching it was akin to sinking into psychosexual quicksand!" Now! I must tell you that as I first read that response, and again as I cut-and-pasted it just now, I could not help but notice that were TWO extra, unnecessary spaces between "sinking into" and "psychosexual quicksand." Implying what? I'm no Freud! But one may imagine that had Megan written this on a postcard with a pencil, we might have a fascinating palimpsest to analyze. I left Megan a phone message to ask whether there had been any learned introduction or if they had just shown the film ("like BOOM!" is the way I believe I put it). Then I got to thinking about her "BEFORE" response, the one about the lunatics in the theater, and I was seized with an awful vision of Megan as the only woman in a Jerry Lewis audience, surrounded by, I don't know, creeps in Jerry Lewis outfits, each more eager than the last to pledge his troth! So I left a message about that. "I sent you into the lion's den!" I may have yelled into the receiver. This morning I had more emails from McNeil and Megan. One implied that my phone messages had arrived during a "book event" that Megan was attending with Laura Lippman. I can only hope they discussed Jerry a little over wine and cheese! If so, you may look forward to a postscript. "He had me at the slippery office!" Megan wrote later. McNeil's email also mentioned it: "Damn! I would have loved to have seen that on the big screen. That psychiatrist's office..." and of course he went on to mention the green carpet that he is convinced Jerry has reused fetishistically in his films for decades: "that green carpet in the motel room...ooh la la" being his exact words. Megan went on: "I have to say, I've never heard a MoMA audience (more male, yes, but not heavily so) laugh more at any movie and I was loud among them. I can't recall seeing many movies that made me quite so vividly uncomfortable either! In his movies, there's just no ground under our feet, is there?"

Derangement Level: Renfield

I just haven't been keeping you properly informed about the annual Halloween film festival that Dr. Theresa and I continue to enjoy. We watched the Spanish language version of DRACULA, famously shot at night on the same sets where the Bela Lugosi version was being shot during the day. I liked the woman who played Eva, the "Mina Harker" character. She made me think of Naomi Watts in MULHOLLAND DR., in that she started out seeming like a real square ingenue (like, is she PLAYING a bad actor or IS she a bad actor?) and then it's all a ruse because she shows you she really knows how to go crazy when the time comes. Then we watched OVER THE GARDEN WALL by Pat McHale and INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3 and TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER. Not much to recommend TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER, except this startling thing (pictured) that Nastassja Kinski sees when she looks in a mirror. It made me think of a sea monkey! And Denholm Elliott gave a supporting performance that reached Renfield levels of derangement. Next: CRIMSON PEAK, which helped ghost movies maintain a still-respectable 50% in the Halloween tally. I'm not counting TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER as a ghost movie, though there was a ghost in it. Devil movies have crept up to 20% of our Halloween movie consumption this year, a disturbing trend we'll continue to keep our eye on. The first words of CRIMSON PEAK are the same as the title of one of my old "blog" "posts" - "click" here for the thrilling revelation.

Pythagoras Was Not a Vampire

I was reading LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS... did I tell you about it? I found it because of a footnote by the 1927 editors of THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY. Anyway, LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS is by William Godwin, the father of Frankenstein creator Mary Shelley. In the section on Pythagoras, Godwin writes that he "hid himself during the day at least from the great body of his pupils, and was only seen by them at night." So then I thought, I bet there are lots of crackpot theories about Pythagoras being a vampire on the "internet"! But when I googled the phrase "was pythagoras a vampire" here's what I got:

Godwin says Pythagoras "taught temperance in all its branches." And didn't Dracula famously say, "I never drink... wine"? Pythagoras was a vegetarian, but ISN'T THAT JUST WHAT A VAMPIRE WOULD SAY to explain why you never saw him joining in at meals? "What, however, seems to be agreed by all his biographers" (writes Godwin) "is that he professed to have already in different ages appeared in the likeness of man." Aha! Pythagoras claimed to be talking about reincarnation, but I think we can all guess the truth. "He tamed a Daunian bear by whispering in its ear... By the same means he induced an ox not to eat beans, which was a diet specially prohibited by Pythagoras." OH YEAH? Well, I just happened to learn on the "internet" that beans can be used to trick vampires ("click" here for details - you might need them!).

Then I read about Epimenides and Empedocles, both supposedly students of Pythagoras, but Godwin says that's impossible because one was born too soon and one was born too late... but I think Godwin is forgetting the possibility that PYTHAGORAS WAS A VAMPIRE. When Epimenides was young "he was sent by his father in search of a stray sheep, when, being overcome by the heat of the weather, he retired into a cave, and slept fifty-seven years." Some nap! Empedocles said, "I well remember the time before I was Empedocles, that I once was a boy, then a girl, a plant, a glittering fish, a bird that cut the air." Has nothing to do with vampires, but sounds like something Finn has said on ADVENTURE TIME. One thing I like about old Empedocles is that he wanted to disappear dramatically from mankind without a trace, so he threw himself into an active volcano: "in the result of this perverse ambition he was baffled, the volcano having thrown up one of his brazen sandals." When you loosen up the search terms a little bit (removing the quotation marks, for example), you get this ("click" here) - not sure what it is, exactly... some notes for Pythagoras fan fiction in which he's a vampire? And check out footnote #13 to this scholarly article ("click" here) titled "Explaining Pythagorean Abstinence From Beans." Ha ha, like you are going to "click" on that. Or anything! To quote the footnote in part, "Lawson also reports that in Rhodes an ostrakon marked with a pentacle, sacred emblem of the Pythagoreans, is placed on the lips of a corpse to prevent its becoming a vrykolakas." That means vampire! Wait, maybe Pythagoras was a vampire hunter. Or maybe he was one of those vampire hunters who is also a vampire.

"Blog"trospective 16: The Twentieth Century

Hey, remember the twentieth century? Man, that was some century. I decided to do a "blog"trospective about it. We're going to see what the history of the twentieth century would look like based on the "blog." And we'll do it by regurgitating every time I have mentioned a particular year in the twentieth century. Why am I doing this? I am avoiding a lot of work I have to do, mainly transcribing the second hour of an interview about cigarette lighters. (Note: I know you won't read this "post"! Why would you? HOW could you? I got so bored by the mid-1930s that I stopped putting it together and started transcribing that interview again.) But enough about me! I give to you the "blog's" twentieth century. 1902: Hot dogs referred to as coneys. 1903: Bob Hope born. At the movies: THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY. 1908: The founding of the Lauer glove company. 1909: A biography of John Dee published. The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. Boiled owls referred to as tough. 1911: Notable publications: THE SATURDAY EVENING POST. THE FAIRY-FAITH IN CELTIC COUNTRIES. 1913: A year during which part of THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN probably takes place. The word "pandiculation" is in the dictionary. A barber threatens his customer. 1914: Kafka writes in his diary about ostrich feather hats. 1915: Notable deaths: Scriabin and Gabriel von Max. In the American vernacular: "skeeky." 1916: At the movies: THE SMALL MAGNETIC HAND. Magazine of note: THE ELECTRICAL EXPERIMENTER. Other notable publications: LIMEHOUSE NIGHTS. 1917: Some mummies purchased. 1918: Oliver Onions changes his name. 1919: James Reese Europe cuts some tracks. First public appearance of Barney Google. 1920: Some kid says "googol." 1922: The jail on Pitcairn Island closes. A man starts hiccuping. 1923: Q-Tips invented. Oral Sumner Coad detects a similarity between Henry VI Part 2 and Macbeth. Vita Sackville-West publishes a long preface to the diaries of Lady Anne Clifford. 1924: Musical events: "Sneeze," Gershwin's "operatic parody." 1925: Publications: FAIRIES AT WORK. LAW OF SUCCESS. At the movies: THE MERRY WIDOW.

1926: A saucy photograph torn apart and taped together. 1927: THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY supposedly first appears with the Latin completely translated in an All-English text. 1928: Notable publication: E.C. Segar's Popeye comics. 1929: Notable publication: MAGIC AND MYSTERY IN TIBET. 1931: Gary Cooper poses with a chimpanzee. A woman gets so scared by a movie she never goes back to the movies. Notable publications: THE SCANDAL AND CREDULITIES OF JOHN AUBREY. LO! by Charles Fort. Joan Crawford drinks champagne by the railroad tracks. A reviewer thinks Herbert Hoover's baby fat is cute. 1932: At the movies: BLESSED EVENT. On TV (!): THE TELEVISION GHOST. 1933: A brand spanking new translation of Aristotle. At the movies: GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933, COCKTAIL HOUR. 1934: Nedra Harrison begins her studies at Emerson College in Boston. 1935: Death of Fernando Pessoa. 1936: Nedra Harrison concludes her studies at Emerson College in Boston. Birth of Georges Perec. Notable publications: Mickey Mouse comics. NIGHTWOOD. MY TEN YEARS IN A QUANDARY AND HOW THEY GREW by Robert Benchley. At the movies: the full-color Popeye short "Sinbad the Sailor." 1937: Notable publication: ANIMAL TREASURE by Ivan T. Sanderson. At the movies: a short starring Mickey Mouse's dog Pluto. 1938: Walt Disney admits to an interviewer that he once stomped an owl to death. At the movies: BROADWAY MELODY OF 1938. ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES. THE SHINING HOUR. 1939: Notable publication: FINNEGANS WAKE. Nedra Harrison portrays Lady Godiva. Beginning of the consumption of 15 million hot dogs and 15 million hamburgers.

1940: Ending of the consumption of 15 million hot dogs and 15 million hamburgers. Flann O'Brien completes the manuscript of THE THIRD POLICEMAN. 1941: Notable publications: ELECTRIC EEL CALLING. THEY GOT ME COVERED by Bob Hope. 1942: Kerouac attends a Frank Sinatra concert. At the movies: NIGHT MONSTER. 1944: Last person convicted under the Witchcraft Act of 1753. Notable publications: NAVAHO WITCHCRAFT. A TIME magazine article about the ventriloquist dummy Effie Klinker. 1945: filming on THE BIG SLEEP having been completed, Humphrey Bogart receives several massages. Movies did not often having closing credits. At the movies: SPELLBOUND. Notable publications: Archie comics. 1946: E.M. Bottomley purchases a 1923 edition of Lady Anne Clifford's diaries. Other notable publications: Archie comics. POLICE COMICS. A "Red Badge" mystery. THE CHURKENDOOSE. 1947: Rhubarb popularly declared to be a fruit. In the world of commerce and entertainment: the Chiquita Banana jingle. Ray Bolger sings of the Churkendoose. 1948: Notable publication: CULINARY ARTS INSTITUTE ENCYCLOPEDIC COOKBOOK. At the movies: RAW DEAL. 1949: At the movies: A Batman serial. Notable publication: a single-volume abridgment of Aubrey's BRIEF LIVES.

1951: Automobiles in production: The Bentley. On the radio: BOLD VENTURE! 1952: On television: THE HERMAN HICKMAN SHOW. UFOs spotted over New Mexico. 1953: a 4/5 quart bottle of Town and Racquet bourbon goes for $3.09 during the Gimbels 3-day liquor sale. Eleanor Roosevelt moves to 62nd Street. At the movies: THE CLOWN. Notable publication: MILTON CROSS'S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC. 1954: Filming of MOBY-DICK in Youghal, Ireland. 1955: Aliens speak with a Missouri farmer. Notable publications: HAVE TUX, WILL TRAVEL by Bob Hope. THE JOKER IS WILD by Joe E. Lewis. THE COMPLETE BOOK OF CHEESE. 1956: First entry in Charlton Heston's published journals. At the movies: BUNDLE OF JOY. U.F.O. Useful publication: The Daily Racing Form. 1957: Pilot ordered to shoot down a UFO. Automobiles in production: Ford Fairlane 500. 1958: At the movies: THE RETURN OF DRACULA. RALLY 'ROUND THE FLAG, BOYS! Eleanor Roosevelt moves away. 1959: A snotty article about Kerouac in LIFE magazine, the same Kerouac who uses the word "google" that year. Chimp stolen from the St. Louis Zoo. Jim enjoys eating coneys and fried chicken. Gombrowicz writes in his diary. At the movies: THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON. LI'L ABNER. THE GHOST STORY OF YOTSUYA. SANTA CLAUS. Notable publications: THE LORE AND LANGUAGE OF SCHOOLCHILDREN, EARLY HAVOC. 1960: At the movies: WAKE ME WHEN IT'S OVER. 1961: JFK's fallout shelter constructed on Peanut Island. At the movies: THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM. 1962: Birth of a man who owns monkeys and dogs. Death of Faulkner. Integration of the University of Mississippi. Destruction of a haunted church. 1963: Bicycle safety video. Jerry Lewis talk show. Max Goodman begins his career at WKRG. Lee Harvey Oswald gives a lecture on communism in Mobile, Alabama. Frank Sinatra Jr. kidnapped. At the movies: THE HAUNTING. 1964: Margaret Best tucked into bed by a ghost. Notable Publications: THE FAR SIDE OF THE DOLLAR. FACTS ABOUT THE PRESIDENTS FROM WASHINGTON TO JOHNSON. 1965: Newspapers erroneously report that James Brown wants to turn himself into a woman. Superman practices super-ventriloquism. Notable publication: MYSTERY IN SPACE. On television: JEOPARDY! At the movies: POP GEAR. 1966: Death of Ed Wynn. Charles Portis writes for THE SATURDAY EVENING POST. McNeil's grandfather checks out a book from the library. The Doom Patrol teams up with The Flash. Notable music: Porter Wagoner's "The Cold Hard Facts of Life." Notable publication: DARKER THAN AMBER. FLY MAN. At the movies: WAY... WAY OUT. DJANGO. WHERE THE SPIES ARE. On television: OPRY ALMANAC. 1967: THE THIRD POLICEMAN finally published (see 1940). Other notable publications: LETTERS TO THE AIR FORCE ON UFOS. TALES TO ASTONISH. At the movies: WOMAN TIMES SEVEN. CASINO ROYALE. WHO'S MINDING THE MINT? 1968: Elvis Presley's famous comeback special. Also on TV: DARK SHADOWS. Elizabeth's mother goes to the prom. Art Garfunkel begins keeping a list of every book he reads. The normally goofy Metal Men start going dark. Notable publication: Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics version). 1969: Bob Hope an occasional Nixon surrogate. Art Garfunkel reads WUTHERING HEIGHTS. The moon landing. cancellation of THE BIG VALLEY. Mickey Mouse used as a verb. At the movies, all H's: HAMLET. THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF HORROR. HOOK, LINE AND SINKER. 1970: Jack Palance sings. Tipsy diners in restaurants. The Hulk battles campus protestors. Coincidentally, Bob Hope organizes "Honor America Day," which he plugs when Jerry Lewis hosts THE TONIGHT SHOW.

1971: And yet the youth will have their say with Hair Bear Bunch lunch boxes. Butter and sugar sandwiches. Wadada Leo Smith. At the movies: COLD TURKEY. UNIVERSAL SOLDIER. 1972: A ghost at West Point. Messiaen hears an owl at Bryce Canyon. On television: GARGOYLES. THE NIGHT STALKER. At the movies: DRACULA A.D. 1972. THE BISCUIT EATER. X, Y & ZEE. Notable publication: 2010: LIVING IN THE FUTURE. 1973: Professor Irwin Corey visits the Acropolis. Bob Hope visits the University of Mississippi. Roy Blount Jr. visits Pittsburgh. I begin the longstanding, but not eternal, habit of watching the Academy Award ceremony. A letter from Giggleswick. Snow. At the movies: CANNIBAL GIRLS. BREEZY. THE THREE MUSKETEERS. 1974: Autobiographies of Colonel Sanders and Jeb Magruder. Other notable publications include a facsimile of Edward Kelley's seances with John Dee and WEBSTER'S NEW TWENTIETH CENTURY DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, UNABRIDGED, SECOND EDITION. Nixon's sound check. Bruce Springsteen bootlegs. Another letter from Giggleswick. At the movies: THE LORDS OF FLATBUSH. 1975: A TV movie about syphilis. Superman comic books. Gary Giddins badmouths Sammy Davis Jr. American Top 40. "Third Rate Romance." 1976: Robert Shaw co-hosts the Oscars. A teenager goes to somebody's apartment and eats a hot dog. Final entry in the published journals of Charlton Heston. Attacked by wolves, Dr. Doom plunges to certain death. I stop reading comic books. At the movies: CAR WASH. HARRY AND WALTER GO TO NEW YORK. GABLE AND LOMBARD. On television: The Paul Lynde Halloween Special.

1977: On television: The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. At the movies: FUN WITH DICK AND JANE. SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT. ROLLERCOASTER. HOUSE. Death of Chaplin. Notable publication: THE SMITHSONIAN COLLECTION OF NEWSPAPER COMICS. 1978: An uninvited owl joins in a Shakespearean production. At the movies: LONG WEEKEND. Notable publications: THE SATURDAY EVENING POST. 1979: Adrienne Barbeau weds John Carpenter. Lincoln Center tribute to Bob Hope. Bob Hope visits China. At the movies: PROPHECY. Was considered "the present" at one time. 1980: Edith Head designs a jogging suit. Norman Mailer is married twice in four days. Elvis Costello makes a TV commercial. A sitcom based on SEMI-TOUGH. 1981: Paul Schrader pouts about THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR. Michael Palin keeps a diary. At the movies: CONTINENTAL DIVIDE. Webster's Collegiate Dictionary gives the primary definition of gopher as "a land dwelling tortoise." 1982: A conspiracy theorist is arrested for soliciting a prostitute. Death of Djuna Barnes. Charlie Callas's final TONIGHT SHOW appearance. McNeil checks out a book from the library. At the movies: SWAMP THING. AUTHOR! AUTHOR! 1983: UFOs in the woods off Whangtown road. In addition to being overcharged for a remaindered volume of Albert Einstein's thoughts, McNeil records at least two Bob Hope double features and WHO'S GOT THE ACTION? Also on television: COCAINE: ONE MAN'S SEDUCTION. STARFLIGHT: THE PLANE THAT COULDN'T LAND. Phil Donahue does a show on sadomasochism. TBS airs BOEING, BOEING. CRACKING UP appears on Jonathan Rosenbaum's annual list of best films. Richard Nixon asks Robert Altman for a VHS of NASHVILLE. 1984: At the movies: DUNE. 1985: At the movies: RED SONJA and THE NAKED FACE. In music: "Sisters are Doing It for Themselves." The future creator of VERONICA MARS has a mullet. Max Goodman ends his career at WKRG. 1986: A Cutlass Supreme is named after Julie London. Dr. Harold Wallman's RV catches fire, destroying a human skeleton he owns. 1987: Death of Ted Owens, author of HOW TO CONTACT SPACE PEOPLE. TV is looked down upon. At the movies: MALONE. 1988: I get fired. An aged Jim Backus still broods over a slight by his parents. Nedra Harrison retires. In the comic books: Jack O'Lantern and Owl Woman.

1989: A year of bitterness and irony. I am skinny. An owl gets a hologram face. Zydeco Elvis wins the Battle of the Bands. The Spectre is ripped. On television: "Bob Hope's Christmas in Hawaii." At the movies: PHYSICAL EVIDENCE. 1990: A man stops hiccuping after 68 years. A priest gets a 10% discount. A band I am in travels to Jackson, Mississippi. At the movies: THE ROOKIE. 1992: I visit Milwaukee and the stage collapses. In the news: Johnny Carson trivia. 1993: I am employed. I accidentally drop my copy of a John Cheever novel into an airport toilet. At the movies: ANOTHER STAKEOUT, STRIKING DISTANCE and THE NIGHT WE NEVER MET. In music: "Blue and Far" (live). Notable publication: Leonard Maltin's Film and Video Guide. 1994: The Olsen Twins make a music video about being detectives. A Foster Brooks robot at the MGM Grand. Ward McCarthy and I attend an Elvis impersonator convention. At the movies: LITTLE WOMEN, THE FLINSTONES, and MIXED NUTS. 1995: Death of Grady Sutton. Home movies of the Foster Brooks robot. At the movies: FUNNY BONES. Notable publication: THE OXFORD COMPANION TO PHILOSOPHY. 1996: I buy a used book. An executive quits his job and blasts "Everybody Hurts" out of giant speakers. 1997: We sing a sea chantey. Notable publication: UNDERWORLD by Don DeLillo. 1998: I do not meet Phyllis Diller. Mark McGwire breaks a record. Dr. Theresa points at a hot dog. Kent Osborne visits Atlanta. A guy dreams there is gold buried in his field... and there is! 1999: People start making lists. Buffy Summers graduates from high school. Some guy sends his Bob Hope action figure on a trip around the world. At the movies: SHE'S ALL THAT. I read HANNIBAL on an airplane. I terrify Marvin Hamlisch in an elevator. Last time I talked to the guy who plays Don Pardo in the 2024 movie about Saturday Night Live. I meet either Francis Ford Coppola or a guy with a similar beard.

All-Star Entertainment Wrap-Up

Welcome once again to "All-Star Entertainment Wrap-Up," the only place on the "internet" where you can always grab the latest and greatest all-star news of entertainment celebrities on the go! ITEM! I promise never to talk about Jerry Lewis again. BUT WAIT! Guess who was JUST strolling down the Hollywood Walk of Fame and sent me this photograph?

That's right, NIGHT OF THE LOUP GAROU star Ace Atkins. Jerry's star has some dirt on it! Who's responsible for shining up these stars? Get on it! It's a national disgrace. You know I still have Jerry on the brain because I gave a lecture about him and though that was a while ago he's still bouncing around in there. McNeil left behind a dvd of CRACKING UP on his last visit. "I have two copies. I think this is the bad one," he said. AND HE WAS RIGHT! It started getting glitchy then it froze up completely only an hour in. So I put in WHICH WAY TO THE FRONT? and watched some of that and took four pages of notes on the two movies, NONE OF WHICH I AM GOING TO SHARE WITH YOU. I sent a couple of my observations in a private email to McNeil. BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO SEEM LIKE A CRAZY PERSON WHO ONLY THINKS ABOUT JERRY LEWIS ALL THE TIME. NEWS FLASH! I had to stop following Larry King on twitter. Somebody - I believe it was my reliable informant Jessica - told me that NPR had done a story on Larry King's tweets. After that, his tweeting was reinvigorated. Instead of the sporadic jewel, a deluge. Stuff about why he doesn't like snow and how he's never ridden a tractor and please don't serve him catfish. Why so negative, Larry King? He does like cashew chicken, that's one thing he likes. Anyhow, the tweets just kept coming and coming and seemed "self-aware" in a way that ruined their "outsider art" vibe. Reader, I blocked him! "'Outsider art' vibe?" PERHAPS I WAS THE FOOL ALL ALONG. Or could it be that NPR HAS CREATED A MONSTER? As usual, we can say a big thanks for ruining everything to the folks at NPR, always so hard-working and well-intentioned, just like Dr. Frankenstein. HE WAS ONLY TRYING TO HELP. Speaking of Halloween, you will be relieved to hear we found our copy of SON OF DRACULA. Anyway, to compare Larry King's tweets to "outsider art" is insulting to "outsider art." "Outsider art" IS "self-aware" and to suggest otherwise is also insulting. The term "outsider art" is probably insulting. WHAT IF WE CALL IT ART? Okay! WHAT ELSE? Ace told Dr. Theresa and me that we were BOTH wrong about one of his lines in NIGHT OF THE LOUP GAROU. His character actually says, "It is time to rock and roll... like the Mickey Mouse." No wonder we misunderstood! Mickey Mouse neither rocks NOR rolls. You heard it here first at "All-Star Entertainment Wrap-Up." Until next time, keep "reaching" for the "stars"!

The Quiet Wisdom of Billy Ray Cyrus

Is Billy Ray Cyrus the moral center of the David Lynch movie MULHOLLAND DR.? Ha ha ha, of course not, what are you, stupid or something? But I don't know. So we were going to watch SON OF DRACULA. During last year's Halloween film festival we watched DRACULA'S DAUGHTER with Megan Abbott, so it seemed like the right thing to do. But we couldn't find our Dracula box set anywhere! Can it be that we left it at Megan's temporary apartment from when she temporarily lived here? I GUESS WE'LL NEVER KNOW. As we were trying to think of a substitute, my eye fell on MULHOLLAND DR. and, perhaps influenced by Megan Abbott's and Bill Boyle's recent twittering of tweets on the subject, I asked Dr. Theresa whether it might be ruled an appropriate Halloween movie. After some balking, she acquiesced. So Billy Ray Cyrus is discovered in bed with Justin Theroux's wife and he (Billy Ray Cyrus) says three things (I may be paraphrasing): "Just forget you ever saw it; it's better that way." Gnomic! "He's probably upset, Lorraine." Compassionate! "That ain't no way to treat your wife, no matter what she's done." Chivalric! Then he ruins my theory by popping up in another scene and running his mouth again. That's the problem with theories. But hey! That Bill Boyle. The other day there was some kind of special ice cream truck in town and everybody in town was lined up to get the special ice cream. I was fuming at the sight of a (let me stereotype for a moment) "cool grandma" "aging Vermont hippie" type whose t-shirt LITERALLY HAD THE WORDS "LEADERSHIP" AND "EMPOWERMENT" ON IT just blithely breaking in line ahead of me. And then this fully grown man, fully possessed of all his adult faculties, but HOLDING A BALLOON, blundered out of somewhere yelling, "Mama! Mama!" and he was yelling at her. And then he ordered her to call him on his telephone when she was up near the front of the line and he would come back and join her for a cool delicious ice cream treat! And he just strolled away with his balloon to do whatever the hell he wanted to do besides stand in line. About this time Bill Boyle showed up holding his wonderful little son. And we chatted for a minute and by various winks and nods I was trying to make it clear that Bill and his boy could break in line if they wanted to. I was being the worst kind of hypocrite! But Bill said to his son, "Come on, let's go to the back." And there they went to the back of the line! Bill is teaching that boy right. So anyway I got him some ice cream as a surprise. The son, I mean, though Bill may have taken a couple of bites. Now! Watching MULHOLLAND DR. this time I noticed another way that David Lynch and Jerry Lewis are alike. MULHOLLAND DR. has the most inauthentic "Hollywood audition scene" of any movie outside THE ERRAND BOY and THE PATSY: just some lip-syncing (Jerry's first act!) presented in a ridiculously stylized way in which (using another favorite Jerry ploy) the camera pulls back to reveal that "reality" is a movie set. And I realized that both Mr. Lewis and Mr. Lynch represent a complete rejection, or anarchic subversion, or faux-naïf evisceration of business realities that they perfectly know and loathe.

To Rescue His Lover

I've told you about a million times how you can push that little "info" button on your remote control and see a "capsule description" of whatever show is on. And oft how I have wondered and pondered about the men and women who write those capsule descriptions and all the joy they bring to my life with their brief summaries of television programming. Last night I saw a capsule description of a movie that went like this: "A man races across Europe to rescue his lover from evil Dracula." Ha ha ha! Why did that make me laugh so much?

"Blog"trospective 14: Graveyards

If there's one thing everybody loves it's a graveyard! So let's make a list of "links" to all our graveyard-related "posts" (and don't forget to "enjoy" our 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 12. Kent Eating Chicken 13. When Megan Lived Here)... GRAVEYARDS! APOSTLE by Tom Bissell features visits to the graves of all twelve apostles---artsy project includes grave desecration---bad idea for McNeil's tombstone, a---barbecue next to a graveyard---bats at Faulkner's grave---being funny after a funeral---"The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's Church"---Bissell, Tom; plays Marvel Ultimate Alliance while he should be searching for the apostles' graves---Bissell, Tom; searches for the graves of all 12 apostles---block of wood psychologically represents a coffin---"blogs" are like tombs---Bohemond's gravestone---Britton, Connie; sighted when we were staying at a motel with a graveyard attached to it---character in DRACULA wakes unclad in a churchyard at night---churchyard haunter---churchyard with gravestones in THE COMPANY OF WOLVES---circus performers' graveyard---coffin inspectors---coffinmaker who yells about his craft, a---confounded from beyond the grave---corpse preserved in a bog; Freud allegedly likened to---cowherd lies in open graves---Dee, Dr. John; grave of used as touchstone in children's game---discussion of appropriate things to carve on gravestones---doll cemetery---dream of---eating dirt from the graveyard---engraving of Dr. Dee and Edward Kelly hanging out with a spirit in a churchyard---Evans, Linda; slaps a man with a leather strap at her father's grave---exhumation of Tycho Brahe---fairybabes hang around in---famed ventriloquist confronts his mother's ghost at her grave---few loose rails thrown over Meriwether Lewis's grave, a---flea climbs into the grave of the flea who loved him---frogs as quiet as grave-rocks---funeral bell---ghosts break up their graves---Gigot peeks through some graveyard shrubbery at his own funeral---grave gone to without its occupant being aware of the entire catalog of celebrity memoirs I have read---graves of the Scribner family---graveside service for Thomas Paine poorly attended---graveyard right there in the parking lot of a Ramada Inn---guy dug up from his grave and mocked on a throne---hair growing out of cracked-open tombs---Hayden, Sterling; attends the funeral of Marshal Tito---I am reminded of something Bill Taft said to me in a graveyard---Johnson, Robert; disputed gravesites of---Lee, Sir Henry; has an effigy of Mistress Vavasour placed on his grave---listening to "Brick House" by the Commodores on the way to Meriwether Lewis's grave---man buried under the flagstones of a kitchen---man who collects coffins, a---mansion where the arrangements for Jayne Mansfield's funeral were made, the---Mature, Victor; consults the caretaker of a cemetery---McNeil ponders a career as a graverobber---men run howling about graves---monkey ghost described outside of tomb---monks rob a grave!---mortuary makeup man---Murray, Bill; attends the funeral of Elvis Presley---my brother attends Michael Jackson's memorial service (there's no graveyard here but you can "click" back on several interesting "posts" about the day, so why not?)---Naked-Rumped Tomb Bat---night-crows on tombs---old tombs break open, releasing hordes of wandering dead---ominous crow cawing in a graveyard's barren tree---"Pale Pity" asked to consecrate Meriwether Lewis's final resting place---parrot screams curse words at Andrew Jackson's funeral---passing the resting place of Meriwether Lewis without stopping---pasta recipes inscribed on tomb---PET SEMATARY---pigs get skinny after drinking from a trough made from a coffin---pinball machines as coffins---"Policeman at Cemetery"---purported King Arthur and Guinevere dug up from their graves and wrapped in silk---resting place of the Biblical Jacob---Roman vampire burial site---Saunders, George; writes book set in a graveyard---shirtless man reads at grave---shrugging disrespectfully at graveside---Shubuta cemetery---STRIKING DISTANCE (film) concludes at cemetery---supposed gravestone of Till Eulenspiegel---toad dressed as Elvis suggested as candidate for formal burial in a grave---tomb of Talbot, the terror of the French---tombs of the prophets, the---"Tombstone Blues"---trip to Poe's grave postponed in favor of GILMORE GIRLS finale---UFO lands behind a cemetery---Van, Bobby; grave of---where all biographies end---witches dance on Berlioz's grave---Yorick skull (from gravedigger's scene in HAMLET)---York, Joe; makes a complex and satisfying visual pun using a gravestone---youthful graveyard encounters of Megan Abbott and Barry Hannah---Zola heroine lives next door to a drunken undertaker.

Remember to Have the Marble Scratched

Something Natasha Allegri just tweeted ("SILKY CHICKENS" read the entirety of her tweet) made me think of some phrases from ABSALOM, ABSALOM!: "a cloud of chickens" and many pages later "a cloudy swirl of chickens." I had an actual vision of William Faulkner standing in his yard watching somebody (Estelle? Would she feed the chickens?) feeding the chickens, and thinking, "Wow! Those chickens are like a cloud. That is like a cloud of chickens." Old Faulkner! He is Shakespeare one minute and Beckett the next. "... all of a sudden it's all over and all you have left is a block of stone with scratches on it provided there was someone to remember to have the marble scratched and set up or had time to, and it rains on it and the sun shines on it and after a while they dont even remember the name and what the scratches were trying to tell, and it doesn't matter." Just twenty or so pages later here he is on the same subject (mortality) describing a man's whole life in a succinct deadpan that anticipates Beckett's later innovations: "Yes. One day he was not. Then he was. Then he was not." You know, I almost thought this book had an owl in it, like every other book, but it was "huge fowl," my eyes tricked me, "the trees along the road not rising soaring as trees should but squatting like huge fowl." I have high hopes for an owl, though: there has already been a metaphorical bat ("He was the light-blinded bat-like image of his own torment" - ouch!) and as we have seen in DRACULA and as we have seen in JANE EYRE, bats and owls are cheeks by jowls - ha ha! that's a little rhyme I just made up - in your fancier literature. In conclusion, I am glad Faulkner did not have to bring ABSALOM, ABSALOM! to a fiction-writing workshop nor attend much college at all. "Hey, so this guy's dad is talking to him on the porch for like 25 pages? And then out of nowhere the dad goes into the voice of this other dude he never met? And like gives a whole long complicated monologue from the point of view of GOD in this other guy's voice he never even met?" And Faulkner would have been like, "Yeah?" That part made me think of Barry Hannah's story "Nicodemus Bluff" when the narrator's father "when he played chess, became the personality of a woman, a lady of the court born in the eighteenth century... The woman would 'invest' Dad and he would win at chess with her character, not his own man's person at all... The chess game, as it went on, changed him more and more into a woman, a crafty woman."