Single Digits

By now you must be aware of how sullen my sister and I are when it comes to the Oscars. More accurately, at this stage of our lives, we just don't care. I say "at this stage" even though she is fourteen years younger than me. I guess she just got jaded at a much quicker rate! That is really none of my business. Anyway, for whatever reason, we have become like zombies or ghosts, helplessly replaying the actions we once undertook with (though it is impossible to recall it) enthusiasm (?). By which I mean that we still try to beat each other at guessing the Oscar winners. An empty endeavor! This year, we both achieved, if you can call it that, single digits as far as correct guesses went. But I am honor-bound to report that my sister's single digit was higher than mine. And I'll tell you why. She kept guessing FRANKENSTEIN. Every time she guessed it I would laugh and mock her with harsh sarcasm... no! I would never do that to my sister. It was mild sarcasm at most. A delicate hint of sarcasm! Almost soothing! I would be like, "Snort, snort, that's not going to win anything!" All in all, a disheartening experience. Life, I mean.

The Music Critics

Last night as we were watching the John Wayne movie McQ, Dr. Theresa noted that the theme to McQ reminded her an awful lot of the theme to THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123. She conjectured that Elmer Bernstein "got lazy." I replied that while I agreed with Dr. Theresa's observation about the similarity of the themes, Elmer Bernstein didn't seem like the lazy type to me, and I wasn't even sure which movie came first. So I looked it up, and they both came out the same year! So I suppose there was just something in the air, something that went, "Ba-dum-dum-dum, Ba-dum-dum-dum," and composers Elmer Bernstein and David Shire heard it independently with their magical musical ears. (Dr. Theresa also noted, brilliantly, I thought, when watching McQ stride across a lobby, "They should have had John Wayne play Frankenstein." But that's a different subject!) Here's the thing! WHILE we were watching McQ, I received an email from McNeil, who said that sometimes the music of Hank Williams made him think that ol' Hank "went to too many luaus." I don't know about that, although a lot of his songs that aren't depressing are about fun parties. McNeil's remark rests, however, in my belief, or assumption, mostly on instrumentation. "It's not a criticism," insisted McNeil.

I Didn't Know

Yesterday, Dr. Theresa and I were watching the movie I, FRANKENSTEIN for reasons your frail human mind could never understand, and neither could ours. The following may contain at least one spoiler for the movie I, FRANKENSTEIN, which came out 10 years ago, though it feels like it came out 200 years ago, in a different universe. Anyway! At one point, a skeptical modern-day scientist gets hold of Dr. Frankenstein's notebook, and opens it, and says with delight, "Oh! He used electric eels!" Because before that, she didn't believe Dr. Frankenstein would have access to electricity. Now that she has read about the electric eels, she believes in Dr. Frankenstein, like he's Santa Claus! Well, that caused me to ask Dr. Theresa aloud, "What's the deal with electric eels anyway?" Before she could answer, I screamed in excitement, "Oh, yeah! I have a whole book about electric eels!" (See also.) I was referring, of course, to ELECTRIC EEL CALLING, lavishly illustrated by its author. Off I scampered to the bookshelf, which happened to be in the very room where we were watching I, FRANKENSTEIN, to retrieve my copy of ELECTRIC EEL CALLING. It was published in 1941, and I acquired it circa 2009, and I finally had a reason to open it. One thing I read was the author's contention that the people of South America were "the first humans in all the world to find [electricity] in a palpable form, and although the Egyptians are credited with the earliest observation of electric fish (the electric catfish of the Nile)"... wait! Let's just stop the sentence right there. I interrupted I, FRANKENSTEIN to yell towards Dr. Theresa all manner of questions about the electric catfish, such as, did she know about it? She lived in Egypt for a number of years. I, myself, had reached the age of 60 (I started this "blog" as a wee, apple-cheeked lad of only 43... my God! What a nightmare), and had just discovered, for the first time, in this old book, the existence of the electric catfish of the Nile, which I assume everyone else reading this (there is no one reading this) knew about already. I'm always late to the party. However, due to my strict policy of "blogging" about things that remind me of other things I have "blogged" about before, I thought I should publicly acknowledge these electric catfish, as the catfish of ancient Egypt have previously appeared in this space, though I was shamefully ignorant at the time of their electrical talents. In conclusion, if you do not "click" on the "links," you are really missing the point of the "blog," which is nothing less than a vast, oddly constructed historical novel meant to be read Julio Cortazar style! That's what I'm telling myself these days.

Sandwich and Alexander

As you know, I have given up "blogging" entirely. However, something has occurred which requires immediate comment. You no doubt recall with a bittersweet admixture of reverence and nostalgia the time I noticed the importance of sandwiches to Bergman's SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE. Having recently rewatched the same director's FANNY AND ALEXANDER, I was stunned to discover that it features even more sandwiches than SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE. The exciting prospect of studying the entire Bergman oeuvre from the perspective of sandwiches presents itself. In FANNY AND ALEXANDER, an unusually lenient wife orders up "two cheese sandwiches" for herself and her happy, adulterous husband. Soon, the eponymous children are offered "a molasses sandwich," which the subtitles have in the singular. I will have to learn Swedish for a more complete examination. Moments later, for example, the children are asked to put down the "sandwiches," plural. One may imagine that half of a molasses sandwich is enough for any child. Perhaps the single molasses sandwich was divided in two, becoming, for all practical purposes, two sandwiches. While "half a sandwich" is a traditional unit of sandwich measurement, it is not difficult to picture two halves of the same sandwich, being consumed by two separate people, as "sandwiches." A mystery! I am put in mind of the J.J. Special, a favorite order from Manuel's Tavern in Atlanta. It was a patty melt of sorts, divided into four sections, each held together by a fancy toothpick. At some point, the J.J. Special was changed, and it came to the table cut in half, appallingly like any ordinary sandwich. It took a long time to get used to the new configuration. I should also mention that the J.J. Special might have been the name of the entire order (which came with onion rings AND fries), and not merely the name of the sandwich (see Dr. Frankenstein and his monster). We may further examine two sandwiches of unspecified ingredients in FANNY AND ALEXANDER. The cruel and austere bishop asks for "a sandwich and a glass of milk," while the happy adulterer is promised "a beer and a sandwich" to be served in bed by his indulgent wife. Can it be that a sandwich is the one food that pairs well with either milk or beer? I have put no thought into the question. But surely we may draw many conclusions from the beverage choices of these two very different characters. In conclusion, sandwiches for the happy adulterous Swedish man form somewhat of a framing device in FANNY AND ALEXANDER, as they appear near the beginning and near the end of the film. One might say, then, that the film itself is a sandwich.

A Tale of Two Cheeseburgers

Well, my friend Kate came to town and somebody told her about Handy Andy, which she wanted to try in the interest of local authenticity. Naturally, I suggested my favorite, the double cheeseburger. To Kate's sorrow, she discovered that the delivery service offered only a limited menu, not including the double cheeseburger, from Handy Andy. I am happy to tell you that Kate ordered two everyday, regular, single-patty cheeseburgers from Handy Andy and constructed her own double cheeseburger, Frankenstein-style! I have never been prouder to know someone.

Monster Face

Our Halloween film festival continued with MACABRE... uh... Dr. Theresa and I are both big William Castle fans and advocates, but MACABRE was sort of like THE ROOM of horror movies...? Maybe that comparison holds up...? I'd have to watch them both again back to back, which I'm not. So it was on to THE HAUNTED STRANGLER, all Boris Karloff and insane asylums. The monster face in that one reminded Dr. Theresa of her own scary Helena Bonham Carter impression (from Kenneth Branagh's FRANKENSTEIN) which she has stopped doing over the years thanks to my constant begging. Naturally, we wanted to see another Boris Karloff insane asylum movie after that, so we watched BEDLAM (pictured). It was a philosophical, theological horror movie! And maybe not a horror movie. Maybe it was a philosophy movie. But it had just enough Halloween stuff in it.

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.

TEN MOST AMAZING MOMENTS OF THE YEAR!

10. I heard a LIFE AFFIRMING story on NPR about a kid who POOPED ON A FRANKENSTEIN! 9. I watched the INCREDIBLE movie ESCAPE PLAN! 8. I had an AWESOME gun pointed in my face! 7. Hips were thrust lasciviously at me by an ASTONISHINGLY ENORMOUS inflatable Batman! 6. I read part of a book where Sterling Hayden gets WILDLY ENRAGED when someone describes the hull of his boat incorrectly! 5. I LEANED CASUALLY on the Wienermobile! 4. I read on wikipedia about owls spitting out mouse bones in CRAZY COOL pellet form! 3. I watched a guy PAINSTAKINGLY retype THE SOUND AND THE FURY! 2. I saw part of the movie starring Joey from FRIENDS and a guy in a chimp suit! 1. I read about a SEXY GHOST!

That Dang Vampire

Megan Abbott emailed this morning. She's thinking of rereading H.P. Lovecraft for the holidays (!) and wanted to know my favorite stories of his. By coincidence (OR WAS IT?) there was a Lovecraft allusion on last night's ADVENTURE TIME, when a little creature on a pilgrimage, hoping to see a god, saw Finn eating spaghetti instead. The poor little thing cried out, "I thought you'd be beautiful!" and started weeping and melted. And by coincidence (OR WAS IT?) yesterday's ADVENTURE TIME meeting was about a creepy episode idea from Seo Kim (who also storyboarded last night's episode along with Somvilay Xayaphone). It was also based on a night terror (OR WAS IT?) that a friend of Kent's had. And by coincidence (OR WAS IT?) I ran out of things to read on airplanes and at an LAX souvenir shop where by coincidence (OR WAS IT?) a large glowing poster of pal Mary Miller's novel THE LAST DAYS OF CALIFORNIA decorated the register I bought the new, Lovecraftian Stephen King novel. (Also in that souvenir shop: a lifesized cardboard cutout of Martin Short, for which I fantasized about buying a seat next to me on the airplane.) Also (OR WAS IT?) I have been tweeting little fragments of the ghost book I just finished reading to Megan and Jimmy, like so:

@kingfergus @meganeabbott "After she broke up with him, she returned his dead wife's clothes, twisted into 'doll-like shapes'"
— Jack Pendarvis (@JackPendarvis) November 21, 2014

And Bill Boyle, inspired by this, emailed Jimmy and Megan and me some scary "links" to recordings of poltergeist activity (little kids talking in SHINING voices, yaaaah! Dr. Theresa hates it when I say in a raspy voice, "Jack's not here, Mrs. Pendarvis" - as much as I hate and fear her creepy impression of Helena Bonham Carter in FRANKENSTEIN! - so I guess Bill Boyle has taught me a valuable lesson in empathy) and a medium named Leslie Flint channeling the Brontë sisters. I shan't include the "links" lest they drive you mad with fear (see Lovecraft). Hey did I ever tell you that one of my little sister's first words as a baby was "poltergeist"? True story! Plus I'm reading that dang vampire novel now, what is wrong with me. OR WAS IT

Kingdom of the Grackles

I keep hinting around about some project like it's some big secret, but it's not a secret and it's not a secret project, it's just a project, I guess it's a project. Hey! Remember when I went to an auction of Bob Hope's personal effects and then I wrote an essay about Bob Hope's ice buckets, and ice buckets in general, for THE ATLANTIC, and this was before the "Ice Bucket Challenge" became popular (remember the "Ice Bucket Challenge"?) so now my article is totally obsolete? Well, that essay series is related to a series of books that Bloomsbury is putting out and they asked me if I could think of an object I wanted to write about - another object - and I scratched my head and said "Cigarette lighters?" And looking back, I think I only said that because I had a lot of leftover notes about Bob Hope's cigarette lighters. But anyway, now I am writing a book about cigarette lighters and that is my so-called "secret project." So I flew to Oklahoma City to view a large private collection of cigarette lighters. (The lighters are actually in nearby Guthrie.) But I'm not going to tell you about that or it would spoil the book! Ha ha, you're not going to read that book, are you? TELL ME THE TRUTH! But here, let me look at my famous little notebook of famous jottings I always famously jot when I travel and see how many jottings are useless for the book and thus safe for me to share. Well! As always the question was what to read on the airplane. I looked around the shelves here at home and I just wasn't feeling anything. So I went to Square Books and leafed through Martin Short's autobiography again. I would never buy Martin Short's autobiography! I don't know why! Sorry, Martin Short! I like Martin Short. And I'd sit in a bookstore and read his autobiography for free - no better than a thief! - but I just can't make myself buy it. On the cover of his autobiography his head forms the "O" in "SHORT." But! His mouth is wide open, so maybe his mouth is the "O" in "SHORT." Or maybe his head is the solid part of the "O" and his mouth is the emptiness in the middle of the "O." I read some stuff about how he met Danny Thomas and Danny Thomas always carried a pistol in a holster on his hip! And then I put Martin Short's autobiography back in its proper place and went upstairs and started looking for a small paperback suitable for airplane reading. As I described some of my likings to the booksellers Kate and Kaitlyn, Kate exclaimed, "Do you like vampires?" Now, there is no way that Kate could have known I am currently working on a Marceline story for ADVENTURE TIME - a meeting about which story was to take place later that very afternoon! - so vampires and all their peculiar habits had been particularly on my mind.

(That's not a spoiler, is it? You know Marceline the Vampire Queen is a character on the show, right? Besides, Adam Muto himself recently tweeted these drawings of Marceline from the thing we've been working on - sketches by Hanna K.) So Kate and Kaitlyn tried to get me to buy a book called THE QUICK by Lauren Owen. "I'm a hundred pages in and there are no vampires yet," said Kaitlyn. I replied that that was fine. I reminded Kaitlyn of a book I had recommended to her, THE LITTLE STRANGER by Sarah Waters, and how you had to wait a long time for the ghost, and Kaitlyn said, "There ARE NO GHOSTS in THE LITTLE STRANGER!" (This is an argument I've had before with other people.) So Kaitlyn and I argued about that in a friendly fashion while Kate thrust the vampire book into my hand. A big clunky hardback! Too big and heavy to carry through airports with my fragile arms. But I opened it up to page one just to be nice and the first sentence is this: "There were owls in the nursery when James was a boy." AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS! So I said, "Sold!" And I left Square Books fully convinced that I would grit my teeth and lug this monster of a novel (523 pages, that's not so terrible) onto all the airplanes. BUT! I stopped by Ace Atkins's office and he had a nice, light paperback copy of LABRAVA by Elmore Leonard on his desk because he had been wanting me to read it. Ah, that's more like it. Sorry, Kaitlyn and Kate! But you almost had me. The vampires will be here for me when I get back. Ace urged me to stay at the Skirvin in Oklahoma City (he was there a lot when he was researching his Machine Gun Kelly book). Ace said the Skirvin was famous for being haunted and he sent me a New York Times article (!) about how professional basketball players who stay at the Skirvin get most especially haunted (!!). But I had already made reservations somewhere else. Ace also told me about a good steak place, but I had already - on Wright Thompson's recommendation - made reservations at Junior's, which Wright described in a tweet as an "old school 80s oil money cocaine rich dark red leather whiskey and T-bone joint."

And yes, that was a recommendation! So I guess my unintended message to Ace was "Screw your thoughtful suggestions!" Though I did bring that book he loaned me. I looked up the Oklahoma City weather on the "internet" and asked Dr. Theresa if she thought I should bring my overcoat. I wanted her to say no! We had an overcoat debate. Then it was time for my ADVENTURE TIME meeting. Kent popped up on my computer screen and started agreeing with Dr. Theresa! They were ganging up on me. But I didn't want to drag my bulky overcoat through the airport. Finally, Pen joined the meeting. "How many degrees should it be before I wear an overcoat?" I asked him. "Overcoats are fun, so I say any degrees," Pen replied. I explained that I prefer to travel light. One carry-on messenger bag, one book, and the clothes on my back! That's it! Pen suggested turning the overcoat into a hobo bindle and putting all my stuff in it. I said, "Yes, that's what they like to see at airports." When Pen found out I would ALSO be wearing my blue smoking jacket (under the OVERcoat) he had second thoughts and came around to my side! "I've seen Pen walking around with no jacket when it's FREEZING!" Kent objected, hinting that Pen was no judge of when to wear an overcoat. Now let's get to the jottings you've been craving. I'm skipping some good stuff because I'm tired. Too bad for you. 1. Went to Junior's on my first night in town, just as Wright had suggested. The cab driver, Cecil, took me past a strange building. I couldn't get a really good look - it was a pale, imposing lump in the dark - but I was intrigued enough to ask him what it was. Cecil said it was the "Gold Dome," a vestige of the glory days of Route 66. Cecil also mentioned the "Milk Bottle Building," but I didn't see that and don't know what it is.

I was reminded of the only other time I've been through Oklahoma City. It must have been 1988 or so. I got fired from my job and my friend Tony and I decided to drive across the country, often sticking to the old Route 66. When we drove through Oklahoma City it was literally covered in a white fog, the whole city. We didn't see a single thing. I later turned that incident into a short story for the fine Oklahoma literary magazine THIS LAND. We pulled up at Junior's. It appeared to be an office building! I walked into a sterile corridor with many doors and wasn't even sure I had the right place: it looked like the door to a dentist office waiting room. But as soon as I opened it up I was in Narnia! I literally walked into a different world. (I may as well mention here that Junior's was the second Oklahoma City restaurant I had walked into with "NO WEAPONS" etched in frosted glass at the entrance.) 2. That publicity picture earlier in this "post" can't do Junior's justice. I felt like I was in VERTIGO, TWIN PEAKS, THE SHINING and a Megan Abbott novel,

all in the best way, and I ate a princely meal that James Garner would have eaten in THE WHEELER DEALERS. 3. My table! They put me at a weird table, which felt like the best table in the house to me. It was a two-top nudged right up against a plate glass window, and on the other side of that window, inches from my left, was the blackness, flecked with gold and red, of a dark bar, with people wearing bolo ties and fur stoles and laughing and SMOKING! It was like a membrane through which I could see another time, and because it was soundproofed it really had the effect of a dream, a thin membrane providing a tempting glimpse of a whole other existence I could almost reach out and touch. 4. After dinner I had to go through that looking glass. It smelled like smoke! I never wanted to leave. 5. I spilled rye all over Ace's copy of LABRAVA. 6. I met three nice women who were out for a night on the town together. One was a realtor, one was an aspiring poet and one was drinking expensive cabernet and studying from an enormous textbook entitled HUMAN ANATOMY at the end of the bar! 7. The next day I went out to Guthrie to visit my contact with the lighter collection. I hired a driver named David to take me. He was born in Ethiopia. He said he works at the Skirvin a lot and Ace will be pleased to hear that he brought up the ghosts. Many of David's passengers have told him about being haunted at the Skirvin. David thinks it's a bunch of baloney. He doesn't believe in ghosts. He is a believer in science and evidence. He had a lot of very interesting psychological theories to explain why and how people fool themselves into thinking they see ghosts at the Skirvin. David's a big reader so we talked about books a lot and he told me interesting stories of his mother and father back in Ethiopia. 8. I can't tell you anything about the lighters because I'm saving it for my book. But I just stared at one of my notes ("Frankenstein nose" is all it said) for several minutes in total panic, thinking, "Oh my God! My notes are useless! I can't write this book!" But then I realized it was "Frankenstein noise." One of the lighters made a noise like the machines that brought Frankenstein's monster to life in the old movie. That's what that note meant. And that's all you're getting out of me! 9. My friends Sarah Marine and her husband Bayard Godsave live in a small town an hour away from Oklahoma City and they were nice enough to come all that way to meet me for dinner. As I stood outside the hotel waiting for them I saw a large group of young women approaching from a nearby park. Their leader was wearing a tiara and a satiny black sash! But they turned the corner before they got to me and I could not read the sash. It was not a parade of any kind, just an informal gathering or stroll with a tiara and sash. 10. Like Dr. Theresa and myself, Sarah Marine and Bayard are early diners. So early, in fact, that the restaurant wasn't open when we got there. We had some minutes to wait. Sarah Marine suddenly realized that we were very close to the memorial for the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing. So we walked over there and it was a very moving and deeply solemn place to be. I heard a solitary bird make a an eerie and prehistoric but, I thought, weirdly beautiful sound. 11. Sarah Marine pointed out the bird in its tree and told me it was a grackle. 12. Boy, let me tell you, Sarah Marine is down on grackles. "They don't fly, they run," she said disdainfully. "But that one is in a tree," I said. Sarah Marine said, "I'm talking about the REAL grackles, the parking lot grackles." She said no two grackles look alike, they're all ragged and mangy in different ways, missing different feathers, slovenly, and she seemed to resent the grackle in the tree as a poser, I guess, a pretentious grackle that thought he was too damn good to represent his squalid kind. And yet I detected no affection for the punk grackles she apparently considered more authentic. She talked about a grackle standing on a corner gnawing on a chicken bone. She saw this same grackle eating discarded chicken wings in an ugly way in the same spot on two separate occasions!

Bayard kind of tried to take up for the grackles a little bit, but had to admit that they stand around chewing on cigarette butts. Bayard and Sarah Marine quoted an ornithologist who hates grackles. An ornithologist! (More on this later.) I could not help but recall the poor cormorant, and that book I have about how everybody hates cormorants. 13. Bayard, on grackles: "Our friend says they look like gasoline." Sarah Marine: "They're shimmery." Bayard: "They're the color of gasoline in a puddle." I must say all of this sounded kind of exotic and tantalizing to me, but Sarah Marine would have none of my sympathetic grackle talk. Sarah Marine: "They sound like something broken." Bayard: "A broken toy." Sarah Marine: "A broken toy of nightmares." I remarked that I kind of liked the way that one grackle sounded. "You haven't heard them when they start grinding," said Sarah Marine. 14. It's a cliché, but the walk back to the restaurant in the gathering darkness took on a Hitchcockian feeling as grackles gathered all around us - I guess I should call them a "flock" but they seemed more like a swarm or a horde - numberless grackles! - and they did make an uncanny racket, and it may have been terrible, but it struck me as unearthly, and for that reason kind of thrilling. INTERESTING SIDE NOTE! Just before I hit the button to publish this "post" I received an email from Sarah Marine: "I'd been thinking that as we stood at the edge of the glimmering reflecting pool at the Oklahoma City Federal Building Memorial, I may have been unfair to the grackle in my musings. Then, I pulled Fifty Common Birds of Oklahoma by the ornithologist George Miksch Sutton off the bookshelf & again feel mostly disgust and pity for the Common Grackle. I've attached a section from the entry on the Common Grackle. Sorry, not sorry, grackles!"

15. At dinner, Sarah Marine told me there's a statue of James Garner in Norman, Oklahoma, and the waitress said, "It's all covered in flowers now," referring to Mr. Garner's fairly recent passing. 16. The restaurant music (before it shifted to "Tears For Fears" mode a bit later in the evening) consisted of popular tunes with a "surf guitar" twist. The theme from GOLDFINGER was one. I mentioned that it was Dr. Theresa's go-to karaoke number. Bayard asked whether I had ever seen the FRASIER episode when Frasier and Niles sing "Goldfinger." I had to say no! Bayard said that the old piano player in the episode can only play "Goldfinger." With Martin's encouragement, Frasier and Niles sing along - reluctantly at first, but with growing enthusiasm. That sounded like a good one! I was sorry not to recall it. I mentioned an episode of FRASIER that had recently disturbed and troubled me and Sarah Marine said, "I have a problem with an entire era of FRASIER." We discussed it. "Why did they give Daphne bangs?" is one thing that Sarah Marine asked plaintively. 17. Sarah Marine said their hometown consisted of "a grain elevator and an intersection." Bayard added, "We have a liquor store that sells Samurai swords." 18. The bottled water in my hotel room had a Bible verse printed next to the expiration date! Not the whole verse, just a citation: "John 5:15." I made a note to myself to look it up in my Geneva Bible when I got home and see what it's all about. "The man departed, and told the Jewes that it was Jesus, which had made him whole." Hmm. Gee. That's what it said on my bottled water! 19. David drove me to the airport the next day and proved himself once again a delightfully wide-ranging conversationalist. He had much of interest to say on the subjects of Christopher Hitchens, Agatha Christie, Karl Marx, Field Marshal Rommel, asceticism, tribalism, and democracy. He was proud that Ethiopia (which he called "the second oldest Christian country in the world," and gave me some history on that) had never been colonized. He told about having to kill goats and oxen as a young man and how his people hardly ever eat a female animal - they eat the rooster, for example, instead of the chicken. "Meat is for rich people," he said. He described being a poor child and - as a kind of entertainment - watching strangers eat meat. "That was our window shopping," he said. 20. I forgot to tell you about the earthquakes! I wasn't in one. But when I was looking at the lighter collection, the collector showed me where several of his lighters had fallen and some had been damaged, and he said, "That's what happens with the earthquakes. We had five earthquakes last week." I think that's what he said. It was something like that. I haven't transcribed the recordings yet. But he is 82, and I thought maybe it was just a strange hyperbolic thing that an 82-year-old man might say. On the drive back to the city, I asked David whether Oklahoma City has a lot of earthquakes and he said, "We had 4,000 earthquakes last year." WHAT! I haven't looked up anything to corroborate that, but Megan sent me an article from THE ATLANTIC detailing a large number of earthquakes in Oklahoma. I didn't see a number so mind-boggling as 4,000 (I haven't looked into it very carefully) but the article did mention a single recent weekend in which Oklahoma had SEVEN EARTHQUAKES! Seven earthquakes in one weekend, I said! David says that the oil men try to tell everybody it's just nature at work, but David knows it's the fracking. 21. Announcement at the Oklahoma airport: "Will the passenger who left the big bag of money at the eastern checkpoint please come get it." 22. "He told Cundo, watching him pick at his cole slaw, he ate like a ******** owl." - LABRAVA

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"!

Exultant Radio Quotation

Yesterday we were driving to Chris and Melissa's for some trad collard greens and black-eyed peas and the radio was tuned to the NPR show ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, which promised an upcoming news story about "how a two-year-old overcame his fear of Frankenstein," which didn't sound like much of a story to me, sounded like a Halloween story at best, certainly not a New Year's Day story, but who am I to judge, and there followed an anticipatory soundbite from the story, an exultant woman (the mother?) quoting the child like so: "He said, 'I pooped on the Frankenstein!'" - something I never expected to hear, least of all on NPR, but you can't be mad at me for telling you, because it was on NPR. ALL THINGS CONSIDERED is a good title for that show, yes, they have really considered everything now, I wish they would stop, I'm sorry, lady, I don't care very much about your two-year-old pooping on a Frankenstein, though your connections in the radio business are seemingly extraordinary. Hey! I actually found a transcript of the entire radio story (scroll to the bottom of this "link" - ha ha, who am I kidding? I know you won't!). Anyway, because it's NPR they have a "peer reviewed psychologist" commenting on the whole thing and he says, "My main thought is your nephew is a brilliant story editor. What a nice turn of narrative." Ugh.

More Ironic Songs About Millionaires

Our Halloween Film Festival continued with something called SCREAM OF FEAR. Incidentally, a few minutes ago we caught a little of HIGH SOCIETY, which is not a Halloween movie. We saw Frank Sinatra and Celeste Holm singing an ironic song about how hard it is to be a millionaire (pictured), and I am prepared to say the "ironic millionaire song" is a thriving staple of the musical genre, based on that one other old movie I saw a couple of months ago where they were singing an ironic song about how hard it is to be a millionaire. One or two channels up, they were showing that awful Kenneth Branagh movie of Frankenstein, but we skipped that. Dr. Theresa, out of kindness to me, no longer does her deeply disturbing imitation of Helena Bonham Carter in the awful Kenneth Branagh Frankenstein movie. She threatened to do it tonight for old times' sake, but took pity and desisted when she saw me trembling like a kitten.

An Uncomfortable Crisis

I was going around saying this line from VILLETTE out loud last night, "This was an uncomfortable crisis," trying to figure out how I would read it if they asked me to do the audio book, because when they do an audio book of VILLETTE I will probably be the first person they ask. I was saying stuff like "THIS was an uncomfortable crisis" and "This WAS an uncomfortable crisis" and many other variations. The trick is to keep that cool head so essential to a Charlotte Brontë narrator (young Lucy Snowe is dropped off alone in the dead of night among pushy thugs at the wharf - in fact she compares herself to "a dripping roast" [!] and says "This was an uncomfortable crisis"), the cool head being so admirable and pleasantly astringent and yet also what keeps JANE EYRE, for example, from being as insane as I like, as insane as WUTHERING HEIGHTS, you know. I will say that VILLETTE starts off with an uncanny doll-like kid who displays the self-possession of an adult and you almost suspect you've picked up a horror novel. I am reading VILLETTE for myself and feel bad because I'm going to have to put it aside and start rereading ON THE ROAD for my class that starts soon. Nothing against Mr. Kerouac! In fact, I just read BIG SUR and VANITY OF DULUOZ "for myself," though they ended up coming in handy as prep. VANITY is a prequel to ON THE ROAD and BIG SUR shows the downside to ON THE ROAD's success, focusing a great deal on Kerouac's oozing hatred of beatniks, especially the ones who scared his poor old mother so much that she piled furniture in front of the door so they couldn't get in. Though his obsessions are Dracula and The Shadow, Kerouac is more like Dr. Frankenstein, come to think of it!

I Hate Dignity

You know I'm reading THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ and I haven't yet found the terrifying amorality I was promised in the title character, although she is a tad anarchic, as evidenced by this illustration and her accompanying slogan (see also; I'd call her "punk rock" if the text didn't define ragtime as a "jerky jumble of sounds" - I'm kind of surprised that Baum missed the opportunity to have her love ragtime since she's made of rags; instead she calls it "extremely bad"). Her hair, I suppose, I find somewhat terrifying in each illustration, particularly here, the way the sparse strings dance and wave about, and the two visible teeth are unsettling, and the dreaded button eyes, natch, but I have to say so far I get where she's coming from, man. Like Frankenstein's monster - like all of us! - the Patchwork Girl didn't ask to be born.

Three Villainous Fops

As I am sure you are dying to know, our annual Halloween film festival concluded with the Hammer production FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN. Dr. Frankenstein has some success with preserving the human soul, so he sends out his assistant Hans to get some champagne. Everything is going great for Dr. Frankenstein and his friends until three villainous fops (pictured) show up! One villainous fop resembles Pee Wee Herman and another makes you think of Graham Chapman from Monty Python.

Meat and Potatoes

Barry B. chimes in on those silent old Super 8 movies we silent old men used to project on our walls when we were silent old children. Part III of our continuing series! Here's what Barry had to say: "One of my favorites was entitled 'Good Old Corn.' It had several segments put together from old Keystone movies. One segment had this guy diving off a pier into the ocean and where he dives is only a couple feet deep. He’s upside down – his head underwater - with his legs kicking forever then the tide pulls out a little and we see him standing on his head then he falls over. There was another segment with a young woman walking an ultra rickety old man (like her grandfather) when a young man comes along and – I believe smarts off to the old man – when suddenly the little old man does this Popeye like transformation (more mental than physical) and starts chasing the young man around and beating him up. There was a big Keystone Kop chase at the end. I think the one I had with Ben Turpin and the pie fight was called Keystone Hotel. One time I got a super 8 from K Mart called The Spider and on the cover there was a spider with a skull head. When I watched the movie it was just a giant spider (with NO skeleton head). I also had a seven minute version of Roger Corman’s The Undead with Allison Hayes, Billy Barty and Dick Miller. The box had a scary cover (like the poster on IMDB). I also had a several minute version of The French Connection that started out with the guy getting shot in the face then it went to the car chase, then the weird ending shot and that was about it. I also had a several minute version of Psycho which had the shower scene – then Perkins running down from the motel (with the subtitle - 'God... Mother... Blood... Blood') then Balsam creeping up the stairs and getting offed, then Miles creeping around and finding 'mom' then Loomis grabbing Perkins, then Perkins sitting there staring at the camera. Just the meat and potatoes. I still have a little film box for Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman – and an Andy Panda cartoon. But I used to rent super 8s from the library – Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, old Douglas Fairbanks, Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin. That stuff was awesome. All that Blackhawk stuff. That was an awesome company. Like Ward, I’d show them forwards, backwards and sideways."

Celebrity Mind Reader

"Imagine the gallons of Johnnie Walker Red that must've fueled that 'extravaganza' from conception to next-day newspaper reviews," writes Kelly Hogan, speaking of the clip from NIGHT OF 100 STARS I so thoughtfully provided. She says it charred her retinas. Yet she watched all the way to the end - "all the way to Michael Caine's sour face," as she put it. Hogan's comments made me think a number of things. Number one, that I am going to dedicate the rest of my life to studying NIGHT OF 100 STARS. Number two, that it GETS A STANDING OVATION AT THE END. How is that possible? Number three, that it was probably all for charity or something, so I am a jerk for thinking mean thoughts. Number four, yes, Michael Caine IS making a sour face at the end, which makes me want to rank all the participants according to how much above it they thought they were. Obviously, none of them REALLY thought they were above it. And Michael Caine would do anything, as he has openly admitted. Robert Urich (pictured) sure seems to think it is beneath him, though! I am not a celebrity mind reader! But it seems that way to me. On the other end of the scale, Bob Fosse is a pro, trying to inject some style into his brief appearance. I thought Matt Dillon looked like a good sport, but Hogan compares him to Frankenstein. I can't tell whether Burgess Meredith is really into it or if there's something wrong with him. Hogan agrees: "That Rockette is lifting him right off the floor!" She concludes, "And when the credits rolled, I swear I misread them as 'emotional consideration provided by...'"

A Short Hop From Frankenstein

It was a short hop from FRANKENSTEIN to THE MONSTERS OF TEMPLETON by Lauren Groff, the new selection in our super exclusive underground book club of private specialness. Maybe we'll ONLY read books with monsters in them. I don't know why I'm telling you this because no matter how much you beg you CAN'T BE IN OUR BOOK CLUB!

Scent of a Langford

Jon Langford was in the air last night! First my neighbor (the mandolinist David Lonesome, who was providing the entertainment prior to my reading) mentioned him. I did not think of the next fact until this morning, when I "linked" to it in the previous "post," but Langford also did the artwork on the t-shirt I was wearing last night. More coincidences abound! I happened to have an extra copy of McSweeney's #34 (for details on that publication, "click" on the very first "link" in this "post"), so I decided to give it away in a contest last night. The trivia question was, "What was the name of the family cat in the novel PET SEMATARY by Stephen King?" (I should mention: the organizers of the event said I could read from whatever I wanted, so I read a lengthy passage from PET SEMATARY by Stephen King.) Someone shouted out the correct answer, which is "Church." The winner was none other than the Man Who Says "Palimpsest"! Is there anything he doesn't know? The Langford connection is that Langford's self-portrait appears in that issue. Later, the Man Who Says "Palimpsest" brought up Langford's band the Mekons. I cannot recall if this happened before or after that mention, but a friend of the "blog" who wishes to remain nameless revealed a tattoo of a rodeo rider based on Langford's design for the Sin Records label. So, much Langford. So much Langford. Langford was all around us. Here is another coincidence, unrelated. When, in the previous "post," I was searching for a "link" demonstrating some of my shim sham moves, I happened to find a clip of old-time Hollywood dance sensation Eleanor Powell, who is Dr. "M.'s" lookalike. Remarkable, because the "post" concerned itself a good deal with the subject of lookalikes. Speaking of which, my implications about Jack Black were needlessly critical. I have been looking at some pictures of him and he strikes me as a nice looking man, clearly much better looking than me. When I called him "a step up from Michael Moore," (among people like whom I have been told I look) I should have said "several thousand steps up from Michael Moore." I suppose I should also mention that students in not one but two of my classes have remarked upon my supposed similarity, in both appearance and mannerisms, to the comedian Patton Oswalt. If only a computer expert could meld together the visages of Patton Oswalt, Michael Moore, Jack Black, and Guillermo del Toro (and Max von Sydow????). Then I might find out what I truly look like. For some reason, I am reminded of a passage from the book I am reading for my special book club you can't be in: "A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me; its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy daemon to whom I had given life." PS: I found the above Mekons album cover whilst searching for Langford's Sin Records logo. Given the "blog's" love of monkeys, I could not resist adding it to my exploding computer.