As you know, I stopped "blogging" many years ago. For a while there, I would read a book with an owl in it and add it to my list, and that was the final vestige of my "blogging." But then I started getting inspired by phrases all the time. For example, I read the following in THE LUMINOUS NOVEL by Mario Levrero: "It's worthwhile reaching boredom, the rock bottom of boredom, because that's where the right impulses begin." I would like to take this opportunity to add that the narrator - who is indistinguishable from the author - reads a bunch of Little Lulu comic books at one point. You remember back when I was "blogging"! I couldn't shut up about Little Lulu, could I?
Megan Abbott and I are reading Claudia Roth Pierpont's book about Philip Roth at the same time, not as part of the Doomed Book Club - as part of nothing, I guess, though in Adrienne Barbeau's autobiography, which we DID read for the Doomed Book Club, Barbeau describes dating Philip Roth for quite a while until she discovered that he was just a guy pretending to be Philip Roth. (As Pierpont's book reminded me, part of the plot of Roth's novel OPERATION SHYLOCK concerns a guy pretending to be Philip Roth, though this particular imposter doesn't date Adrienne Barbeau.) But none of this is what I wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you that Roth describes one of his writing techniques this way: "I'm in the broiler, watch me broil." So that reminded me of the grisly death of St. Lawrence! That's all I wanted to tell you. But I just read this: "I don't write about my convictions... I write about the comic and tragic consequences of having convictions." I tried to write about that once (my detective novel about a guy who tries to stop having opinions but is thwarted at the end by an undeniably excellent Little Lulu comic book) and look where it got me. Hey! Did I tell you my publisher just now got around to declaring bankruptcy? I close with a "link" comparing Little Lulu to AS I LAY DYING.
Scott Phillips is the latest person to cast doubt upon the existence of McNeil! I don't know, but I think it is because all the other members of our book club are on facebook, but McNeil is not. This is what counts as existence in our troubled times! They all laughed at Fred Flinstone for believing in the Great Gazoo, too. I showed Mr. Phillips the pictures of McNeil's bruised arm and McNeil just before he learned that he had swine flu. And I forgot the time McNeil came down here to read one of his stories at a Kitty Snacks party and met several real-life people such as the girl who eats dry oatmeal (who also used to doubt McNeil's existence) and the smart student with whom I oft discuss Little Lulu and eefing. (The "student" is now an ex-student, and of course "girl" is condescending, but I hope you will agree that "the girl who eats dry oatmeal" has more of a ring to it than "the young woman who eats dry oatmeal." But maybe I should change it. Yes, I should.)
Going back to random illustrations now, which is fitting, because I was just thinking about the terror of words coming loose from their objects, or the actuality of objects overpowering words, or something like that, you know, the regular things I think about, issues explored by William Faulkner and Little Lulu, as previously examined on the "blog," and you know that new Sam Shepard book I am loving so much and gradually quoting in its entirety right here on the "blog"? There's a passage in which a character recalls an incident from his childhood in which he suffered "confusion about naming a thing. My mother became very alarmed about it and marched me over to the icebox. She threw the door open and began hauling out things like a cube of margarine, for instance, holding it up close to my face and demanding that I pronounce the name of it... I called it 'majesty.'" Makes me think of Beckett, too. Like that part in KRAPP'S LAST TAPE when he's suddenly unsure about "viduity," which, when you think about it, is understandable, I mean, when does "viduity" ever come in normal conversation? So never mind, but there's other stuff like that in Beckett, too, trust me. Hey, and wasn't there an old commercial in which a guy would eat margarine and a crown would appear on his head because the margarine was so good that it made him feel like a potentate of limitless power? Maybe that's where the majesty comes in. You're welcome, Sam Shepard! Speaking of naming things, why do I perversely continue to call it "that new Sam Shepard book" and never give you its name? It's called DAY OUT OF DAYS.
Leave it to Michael, one of the editors of Kitty Snacks, to bring everything together, and by "everything" I mean Sam Shepard and Ruth Buzzi. This kind young man (who says he is rereading AS I LAY DYING because of our recent "posts" about Little Lulu; the "blog" has a positive impact on human life!) sends along a clip (below). Sam Shepard was in this band at one time, says Michael, though I do not see him here. However, I like to squint my eyes and pretend. Or I don't know, maybe that IS him keeping time and horsing around with Buzzi. The passage of life confuses me. No, wait, it's Sam for sure! Sam and Ruth. Check out that distinctive profile at 1:12. But this is a "blog" and it doesn't matter if I'm right. As Michael warns, be prepared for Buzzi's saucy innuendoes. If you do not enjoy saucy innuendoes, this may not be the clip for you!
This partial panel (lifted from the same source) does a better job than the last one of illustrating the Faulkner/Little Lulu confluence much remarked on by scholars of our day and I think there's some Beckett or somebody in there too:
One of my smart students was talking about how Addie in AS I LAY DYING "kills her husband by repeating his name." Here's Faulkner: "He did not know that he was dead, then. Sometimes I would lie by him in the dark, hearing the land that was now of my blood and flesh, and I would think: Anse. Why Anse. Why are you Anse. I would think about his name until after a while I could see the word as a shape, a vessel, and I would watch him liquefy and flow into it like cold molasses flowing out of the darkness into the vessel, until the jar stood full and motionless: a significant shape profoundly without life like an empty door frame; and then I would find I had forgotten the name of the jar." Well, that reminded me of a Little Lulu story by John Stanley. It's collected in THE TOON TREASURY OF CLASSIC CHILDREN'S COMICS, edited by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly, if you want to read it. Little Lulu's pesky neighbor Alvin notes that "'Foot' is a funny word!" His observation instigates a panel in which Little Lulu says, "Foot... Foot... Foot, foot, foot, foot, foot, foot, foot, foot, foot, foot, foot, foot... If you say it over and over again, it doesn't mean foot anymore." Alvin replies, "'Foot' is a funny word for a foot." In the next panel, Little Lulu says, "Foot! Foot! Foot! Foot, foot, foot, foot, foot, foot, foot!" Alvin says, "Foot! Foot! Foot! Foot, foot, foot, foot, foot, foot, foot!" And that's just on page 2 of a relentlessly escalating five-page story. Hey, look, I found someone else "blogging" about the same Little Lulu story! And the wonderful panels he reproduced will now cause me to break my "random picture rule" - designed to save my computer from blowing up - for the eighth time in a row.
There was so much I wanted to say about our various "blog" advent calendar pages for this year, but I could say nothing, because to comment on the "blog" advent calendar is to ruin the surprise of it, and the surprise is the whole point. But now that it's all out in the open, I will try to think back on some of the fascinating elaborations I wished to make, identifying each calendar page by its assigned number like so: 6. I love that woman's name, Violet Tweedale. If you were making up a fictional character who had written a book called GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN, her name would be Violet Tweedale. 8. I went through several versions of "Mr. Sandman" before settling on this one. I will "post" the runner-up below. One thing I've noticed about youtube: if you are an amateur singer having fun, watch out! Other amateur singers, or self-appointed experts on amateur singing, love to make derogatory ("constructive") comments about you on the youtube. The innocent young ladies below were chided, "You sing this WAY TOO FAST! You take the charm out of the song." But they got off really easy compared to Sunday school children's choirs singing Christmas carols. One reason I didn't include any children's choirs this year is that you would not believe the amount of trash talk that goes on about out-of-tune children's choirs on youtube. There is hardly anything I enjoy more than a good, sincere out-of-tune Christmas carol, heartily sung, but no one on the youtube agrees with me, and their bitter commentary prevented me from "linking" to many a heartfelt outburst of slightly damaged melody, lest you think I shared the corroded outlook of youtube's jaded sentinels of pitch. 9. My favorite part of the Hawaiian Punch FAQ is "Punchy has been revamped with contemporary fashion and music to appeal to modern consumers. He still has the punch! ... The long-time spokesman for Hawaiian Punch was given a more contemporary look that appeals to teens." 11. Oh brother! What can I say? This one came from a real treasure trove. This guy's "photostream" of old wrappers is the best thing on the "internet." It was hard to choose just one for the advent calendar. Here was a runner-up: The Idaho Spud candy bar. Another close contender was the seasonally appropriate and somehow creepy Santa Pop wrapper pictured above. I also found Phil's beef jerky thanks to this same amazing archive of food packaging. Why not spend hours enjoying it? I did! 12. I've always wanted to draw your attention to the great LITTLE LULU comic books of John Stanley. But somehow I restrained myself because they appear - spoiler alert! - in the climactic scene of my "forthcoming" (?) detective novel SHUT UP, UGLY (don't most detective novels end with Little Lulu references? I think that's standard), and I didn't want to dilute the thrills you would get finding that out for yourself when you read the book. But I turned that manuscript in over a year and a half ago (I have already had to change a Heath Ledger reference to a Joaquin Phoenix reference to a Zac Efron reference), and the book was supposed to come out last August, and was even reviewed a couple of times, but my publisher has been having problems that no one will explain to me, so who knows if and when the book will ever appear? Not me! So I finally gave up and mentioned LITTLE LULU precipitously, because otherwise you might never hear of John Stanley and learn to appreciate him in the proper way. You're welcome!
Hey, look what I found. Yesterday was payday and you know what that means: a trip to Square Books. I picked up Vol. 2 of Ivan Brunetti's cartoon anthology from Yale University Press. That's where I ran across the work of R. Sikoryak, who was represented by a series of panels in which Superman is the protagonist of THE STRANGER by Camus. So much did I enjoy these pictures that I decided to look for more of Sikoryak's work on the "internet," which as you know contains everything. I was surprised and happy to find that Sikoryak has done illustrations of two of the subjects of Theresa's sprawling dissertation: Patricia Hearst and Hester Prynne. As you can see, Hearst is presented in the style of the Archie comics. And here's THE SCARLET LETTER in LITTLE LULU style. Find your own favorites at the "web" site of R. Sikoryak.
