Everything Is a Screen

"The appearance of a very small owl?" I don't even feel like telling you why that is phrased as a question in a Lydia Davis book I'm reading. It would be easy to tell you, probably, but it seems like it would require loads of typing. I have this Lydia Davis book sitting by my laptop in my home office, where I used to keep a book because the awful AT&T "internet" stopped working at the drop of a hat, but even though I have better "internet" service now, I still keep a book there, maybe for when I get tired of staring at the screen. Then I can stare at a page, which is really just another kind of screen, isn't it? I should shut my eyes. But isn't that a screen? Isn't everything a screen when you think about it? Who said that? Plato? By now it should be clear I don't know what I'm talking about. Oh! Also, this owl in the Lydia Davis book is an owl she read about in ANOTHER book, so now I have to put THAT book on my big long list of books with owls in them, too. That happens from time to time: from time to time the owl in a book will be an owl from a different book than the book the owl is in. I said what I said.

Sitting in a Big Owl

Well, I ordered and received a book called THE SURVIVAL OF THE PAGAN GODS, of course. See, Kitty Mrosovsky often mentioned this guy Jean Seznec in her "Notes to the Translation" of THE TEMPTATION OF SAINT ANTONY. I don't think it's the same book of his she was talking about, though. Or maybe it is. All I know is that the cover seemed to show a king and a queen sitting in a big owl. Like Pee Wee and Simone in their dinosaur! A big owl head, I should say, not like the big owl at that boy's camp for troubled billionaires. "Hmm!" I thought. "I wonder if this book has an owl in it!" Because I wasn't sure that thing was an owl. You got this queen and king in their owl head, and over here there's some devils poking a guy in the neck with a pitchfork, and down here I thought I saw a three-headed lion (with dragon scales?), but once I checked the fine print on the back cover and saw that the illustraion represented Pluto and Prosperina, it all came together, and I was like, I guess that three-headed thing is Cerberus. On either side of old Cerberus, you got a lady in a hennin playing a musical instrument. This one doesn't look too happy about it. This other one doesn't seem to mind. I believe she's gone and got herself a many-stringed instrument capable of all modes, such as Plato (not Pluto) so despised - I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's a viola da gamba. Not to be confused with what we know as an everyday viola, PLEASE! Get real. But none of this rigorous analysis tells me if that's an owl they're sitting around in, or if there's an owl anywhere in the book. I thought I could cheat and check the index for Minerva. She always has an owl hanging around! What a nut! But I don't know, there are so many entries for Minerva, and I'm so tired.

Nightttown

Much in the manner that James Joyce wanted scholars to pore over his works for entire lifetimes, I am going to spend the weeks and months to come trying to figure out this joke book that Ace Atkins gave me. It is reputedly by Milton Berle, though I suspect he had some help, if you want to call it help. I'm not sure some of these things are jokes! I know it is a joke book because right at the top there it says "Milton Berle's Joke Book." But - and this is a matter for further study, I'll have to get back to you - it seems to aspire to a narrative structure, which seems uncalled for. One section is just Milton Berle imagining what other people famous at the time might say in apparently nonexistent movies that he seems to be creating in his febrile head. (Parenthetically, I will digress: more accurately, upon further scrutiny, the section purports to be made up of movie scripts that a talking elephant named Klinemine Klinemine is reading at the library. You can see why I'm going to need to spend some time with the text.) I will quote one example in full. "BETTY HUTTON (after a quarrel): Leave this house. I never want to see you again. Go this instant. BING CROSBY: I have one last request to make before I go. BETTY (sweetly, oh, very sweetly): Well, what is it? BING (brutally): Before I leave forever, would you mind getting off my lap?" Now if that isn't straight out of the Circe section of ULYSSES, what is? Maybe it's the "sweetly, oh, very sweetly" that sounds Joycean. And the "Klinemine Klinemine" of course: pure multilingual punning and mystical doubling in the tradition of FINNEGANS WAKE. Well! But is it a joke? The Bing Crosby thing, I mean? I don't see how. Why Betty Hutton's sudden change of mood, for example? Are we to take it that her instigating rage was disingenuous? Why? And wouldn't the "joke," such as it is, work better on the radio, assuming it could work at all? In what way could it be convincingly filmed? I feel strongly that Milton Berle isn't providing enough context. In the pure terms of the joke as a platonic object, what's the setup? Are we supposed to believe that Milton Berle is that experimental, or that the elephant with whom he has made friends for the purposes of the plot is that experimental, or, to be as accurate as possible, that the elephant who is friends with Milton Berle goes to the library and seeks out movie scripts that seem to have been cut up and pasted back together by William S. Burroughs, so devoid of traditional structure as to verge on the abstract? On the next page there's a joke about zoo sex, I guess it's all right. I know I'm not "blogging" anymore but I need somewhere to thoroughly analyze this book, which I would truly believe was produced in a lab by a crude form of artificial intelligence if it weren't so old. (PS I didn't realize it was Bloomsday until after I first "posted" this! Dear me, how precocious I am. It's a real freaking shame I don't "blog" anymore.)

He's Got to Learn

Hey I went back to Funky's and ordered a pizza to go again. I chose the chicken Alfredo pizza. The bartender went back into the kitchen and told the skinny guy who was standing there my order and then, as I could see, he had a lot of questions and she was pointing at the menu where the ingredients for the chicken Alfredo pizza were listed and he was scratching his head and I was like, "uh-oh." So I was sitting there at the bar reading EVE'S HOLLYWOOD and it really made me think of Elizabeth Kaiser. And then I thought about Padgett Powell for two reasons simultaneously: he and Elizabeth lived together mysteriously yet platonically in France at some point; the last time Padgett Powell was in town I hear he ate at Funky's. Ha ha! Why is that funny? Mainly because they call it Funky's, I guess. And if you don't know who Padgett Powell is, he is one of our great living authors of experimental literature (I guess you'd call it) and he ate pizza at Funky's! Where Katy Perry drinks with collegiate rowdies. I asked Elizabeth whether I could mention that she lived mysteriously but platonically with Padgett Powell and she said yes and she also said "I remember he had glued a picture of a grizzly bear to the refrigerator." But that's Elizabeth for you! Like the time she landed in Montana (?) and just wandered into a random bar and happened to make friends with James Crumley. While I was thinking about all these things, I noticed that the skinny lad in the kitchen was on the phone. The music was loud - an "ironic" "indie rock" cover (I guess) of "The Roof Is On Fire" - but I could tell that he was asking somebody how to make a chicken Alfredo pizza. I asked the bartender whether that's what the kid was doing and she said, "Yes. He's new." I said, "That's okay, I can order something else. I'm not married to Alfredo." And she said, "He's got to learn." I thought that was a good answer! The end of the story is the kid made us a perfectly acceptable pizza.

A Sinister Role For Flavius Mithridates

Hey you know how in every single place you look on the "internet" it says that Pico della Mirandola wrote something called ORATION ON THE DIGNITY OF MAN that everybody is so jazzed up about? Well, according to this guy who translated this book of Pico's 900 theses that I have here, that title "first appeared ten years after Pico's death in a corrupt German reprint of his collected works." And this here guy is pretty upset about how everybody loves that fake title so much! But do you think the "internet" cares? Here's another funny part: "In the section of the text devoted to the Platonists, we find eight theses attributed to 'Adeland the Arab,' who Pico claimed was Plotinus's fellow student in Egypt under Ammonius Saccas... Both external and internal evidence, however, clearly show that Adeland the Arab was Adelard of Bath, the twelfth-century Englishman!" (You know I appreciate a learned scholar who is not afraid of exclamation points.) But the best part is right after that: "Here again there are reasons to suspect a sinister role for Flavius Mithridates, whose reputation in the Renaissance as something of a con man was apparently well deserved. Pico's involvement with this colorful figure - who liked to style himself as Pico's would-be but scorned lover - constitutes one of the strangest personal stories of the period, although it is one that is far from being completely understood." I know, I know! Now you are thinking of John Dee and Edward Kelley, right? And the time the angel told them to swap wives? Or maybe you are thinking of Paracelsus, and how he would "vanish under cover of night" when the heat was on, running around all drunk with his big sword and being a genius. Those were the days! There are not enough drunken, sword-brandishing geniuses anymore! We don't even have any young Rip Torns around to hit our Norman Mailers in the heads with hammers, or any Norman Mailers to bite other partygoers on the neck. John Dee had plenty of Pico and Paracelsus in his library, you better believe it, until that mob trashed his house that time, I can't remember why, I guess they were mad about something.

Intent

Yesterday I "cleaned" my "office" and found a scrap of paper on which I had scribbled, like a modern-day Plato, "Intent is meaningless." - M. Abbott *** appended was an indecipherable note about Joan of Arc's ankle bone (see also), I don't know what that was about.

More Owls For Lee

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

John Dee Fan Club Report

"Was awesome. Especially when they dragged him screaming down to hell." So ran Lee Durkee's review of DOCTOR FAUSTUS at the Globe Theatre, a performance of which he attended yesterday. That was the condensed version, as presented in a facebook comment. Later, Lee followed up with a nice, long email, portions of which will be presented below. Dr. Faustus is thought by some scholars (one scholar?) to be Christopher Marlowe's negative portrait of Dr. John Dee, while Prospero represents Shakespeare putting a nicer gloss on him. Also Neoplatonism is involved, says Lee, but let's keep this rolling along. We don't have all day! All right! And now let's turn it over to Lee Durkee, reporting from England: "a blockbuster version of Faustus all stops pulled Hollywood style. It was great, though it wasn’t Elizabethan in any way; there were more actors on stage in the opening scene than existed in an entire old school troupe, but the play, essentially a series of slapstick vignettes inserted kinda jarringly into the stream of a dark narrative that’s not nearly as interesting... worked because it was prop-filled and bawdy [WARNING: one example of bawdiness follows below - ed.]... I was leaning against the runway tongue of the stage and half the time had to crane my head directly up to see the actors, and what I’ll always remember is that O in the sky above them. Shakespeare’s O, his Globe, which even in a theme park void of ghosts (the remains of the real Globe were discovered a quarter mile away while the new one was being constructed) was haunting, that view upward with clouds passing overhead an Elizabethan archetype... Props galore included giant dinosaur-boned birds, representing dragons, on which Mephistopheles and Faustus scoured the globe looking for trouble. Giant masks of Helen, of demons, behind which costume changes were made. Books opened into flames. A wench ran on stage with a Roman candle spurting fire from her crotch. [I warned you! - ed.] The three trap doors were in constant use, props and people appearing and vanishing, especially during the highlight of the play, the parade of the seven deadly sins. John Dee would have been proud of them... My legs held me up okay in the pit, though we all sat down during intermission... Fun to watch the people in the boxes the same way the nobility used to get ogled by the runts. There were a couple of moments when things went wrong and the actors had to improvise and bite back giggles, and in many ways these are always my favorite moments, the spell gets bubbleburst and replaced by a moment of intimacy between the actors and crowd filled with grins and shrugs. A floating castle helium balloon that was supposed to rise up out of the Globe and reproduce one of Faust’s spells instead floundered in a downdraft, was captured by an audience member, who then let it go a moment later; it drifted back onto the stage just as some regent was complimenting Faustus on his magical castle-in-the-sky illusion. The balloon seemed playful almost and finally Meph grabbed it and stalked off stage with it while Faustus laughed and the crowd laughed... Another great moment was when some king of evilness hit a tennis ball into the crowd, and the crowd member tossed it back, and the king broke out in laughter, as did the audience... afterwards I decided to follow the crowd across the walking bridge over the Thames, just like in the old days, and of couse I got lost and then ended up an hour later, still looking for the tube, finding The Shakespeare’s Head instead and popping in for a pint."

Quickfire Currence

We were happy to see John Currence on TOP CHEF MASTERS tonight, once again viewed at City Grocery Bar. John WON the "quickfire challenge" with his chicken meatball and a mighty cheer arose. AND he cooked one of the top three best dishes for the final challenge. So a great night for John! Christina Hendricks (pictured) from MAD MEN loved his oysters Rockefeller, calling them "warm and comforting" (I think! It was loud in City Grocery Bar). Another chef on the show, Suvir Saran, cooked at Snackbar once as the guest chef, and Dr. Theresa and I enjoyed his peanut-themed feast at that time. That was thanks to the Southern Foodways Symposium, the best symposium ever, even better than Plato's symposium. What else? Yeah, the dishes the chefs cooked for the main challenge were supposed to be rarities from the 1960s (in keeping with the MAD MEN theme) but ALMOST ALL OF THEM (deviled eggs, ambrosia, bread pudding, etc.) are things we eat in Mississippi EVERY DAY, which is pretty hilarious. (The others were all things that Caroline and Dr. Theresa and I used to eat at crazy time-machine French restaurants in odd corners of Atlanta.)

Panelists Galore

Take a look, why don't you? It's my whole panel! Note how we walked around town Socratically, having Socratic dialogues like Socrates. There's Michael Kupperman in the hat, next to Joe Matt, and up the road a piece, Joyce Farmer and myself, all captured for posterity by Kent Osborne, most popularly known as "the Plato of the Oxford Conference for the Book."

Hypatia Is Popping Up All Over

It was terrible, what happened to Hypatia. That's why I didn't mention it! You know I am reluctant to put gloomy and disturbing things on the "blog" because I want you to be happy. But I read about Hypatia the other day in CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS by Diarmaid MacCulloch. You know, she was (as MacCulloch puts it) "the Neoplatonist philosopher... so well respected for her learning that she had overcome the normal prejudices of men to win pre-eminence in the Alexandrian schools." Well, I hate to tell you what a bunch of Christians egged on by monks did to her, and so does MacCulloch, calling it "perhaps the most repulsive case" of the mob violence going on at the time. As I say, I wouldn't even mention it, except that today in the New York Times I see that there is a brand new biopic about Hypatia. And that made me start thinking about where else I had seen her name recently. And I recalled (and have confirmed): it was in a "gawker" review of the final episode of LOST, employed in what I assume to be an extremely highbrow variety of sarcasm as a name for the nameless Allison Janney character who briefly appeared on the show (though please let me assure you that the Allison Janney character, who did something truly horrific right before a Wendy's commercial, has nothing to do with the actual Hypatia). So that is a whole lot of Hypatia going on, don't you think? In related news, the raves keep pouring in. Two of them! My friend from Hubcap City writes, "Wow! Keep those posts on [the MacCulloch book] coming... I read Bunuel’s autobiography My Last Sigh and closed the book feeling richly reworded. Yeah, reworded. His appreciation for odd syntax struck me as a metaphor for his visual vocabulary. MacCulloch’s phrase describing the true end of humanity’s endless quest for satisfaction reads like a title for an as yet unmade Bunuel film: The Embarrassing Non Sequitur of Death." My friend will be happy to know that I also heard from our mutual BFF Kelly Hogan, who submits the blurb-worthy praise, "Thanks for reading CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS by Diarmaid MacCulloch... so we don't have toooooooOOOOOoooooo!!!" And now let me explain her reference, which is hilarious to me but will be as distant and mysterious to you youngsters out there as Hypatia herself. See, there used to be this commercial where these anthropomorphic "Scrubbing Bubbles" would clean out your bathtub. The leader of the Scrubbing Bubbles had a saying, which was, "We work hard so you don't have toooooooOOOOOoooooo!!!" The manner of his final cry is explained by the fact that he is last seen in the commercial swirling down your bathtub drain, to certain extinction. Hogan has helpfully provided the photo of a man dressed up like a bunch of Scrubbing Bubbles for Halloween (I guess). The plastic hands bother me for some reason. Aren't those plastic hands? Also pictured, Rachel Weisz as Hypatia in the new film AGORA.

Charlie Daniels Theory

Our in-depth investigation into the kithara continues apace. My friend from Hubcap City writes in: "Your search for the meaning of cither reached the right conclusion. Cither is the word in my translation of The Republic. I’m reading the Bloom translation. Apparently, Plato’s aversion to certain kinds of instruments is old news and goes back to a musical duel between Apollo and Marsyas (start humming 'Devil Went Down to Georgia' here). Marsyas was a satyr and played flute, the most reprehensible of all instruments in The Republic. Apollo played the cither. I don’t know the specifics about the smackdown, other than that the Muses deemed Apollo the winner. How did Apollo celebrate his victory? He skinned Marsyas alive (a far worse fate than the invitation to 'come on back if you ever want to try again' that the Devil received in the Daniels song). Although Plato would have loathed Daniels' instruments—both the guitar and fiddle are many stringed and capable of playing all modes—he would have applauded more than a few of the self-described Redneck Fiddlin’ Man’s lyrics. The chorus to 'This Ain’t a Rag, It’s a Flag,' is packed with the militaristic bravado Plato sought to teach the future leaders of his ideal nation: 'This ain't no rag, it's a flag
/ Old Glory red, white and blue
/ The stars and the stripes when it comes to a fight
/ We can do what we have to do
/ Our people stand proud
/ The American crowd/ is faithful, loyal and tough
/ We're good as the best and better than the rest
/ And you're gonna find out soon enough.' So, there you have it, the ideal citizen of Plato’s Republic is a cither playing Charlie Daniels!" So says our friend from Hubcap City.

Look At This Guy Jamming Out on a Kithara

Of course it's all moot because Plato was talking about a kithara, and none of these other items we've been discussing. Kithara! That's where we get the word for guitar! I think wikipedia said that. So I believe it. My friend from Hubcap City's "cither" is closer in pronunciation to kithara than my "cithern." But according to the cittern FAQ, "Renaissance musicians may have seen the instrument as a rebirth or renovation of the ancient Greek kithara, which can be seen from... the 'scrolls' found near the neck of the cittern resembling vestiges of the 'wings' on the kithara." This looks like a job for THE OXFORD CLASSICAL DICTIONARY. But I'm so tired.

Lute vs. Zither

From what I can tell, then, a cittern or cithern is more like a lute while a citer or cither is more like a zither - two very different things! Observe the cithers laid flat upon the table. Obversely is the cithern held aloft. Therefore it would make no sense for Plato to hate lutes yet love citherns and I was wrong in oh so many ways to "correct" things.

Hey, Goat Boy!

"Keep up the blogging about Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years," raves our friend from Hubcap City. In fact, our work has inspired his own scholarly pursuits: "Your quote from the book about Plato’s picture of government sent me to my copy of The Republic," he reports. "Book III is full of hilarious warnings about music scales. Lydian modes were only suitable for women. The Ionian mode was slack and encouraged drunkenness. Dorian and Phryigian modes were acceptable as they represented men who 'were courageous in warlike deeds and every violent work.' Based on Plato’s definitions, all the music I love must be in the Ionian key. I’m a total failure in the warlike deeds and violent work department. Plato not only despised some scales, he distrusted anyone who made flutes, harps or lutes. Only three instruments were deemed appropriate for his ideal state: the lyre, the cithern and 'a sort of pipe for the herdsmen.' Hey, goat boy! here’s a sort of pipe for you to toot. Now get back to work sitting on a rock surrounded by your herd!" We thank our friend from Hubcap City for a most admirable summary.

A Saucy Quip

Now I am reading CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS by Diarmaid MacCulloch. I'm already on page 34! Less than 1,000 pages to go. At this early stage, we find a saucy quip about Diogenes, far too spicy to be repeated on the "blog." And MacCulloch refers to Kierkegaard as Socrates' "most mischievous disciple" - nicely put! Also, "No one sane has sought to replicate Plato's picture of government in the real world - although some insane societies have warmed to his recommendation that the activities of musicians should be curbed and all poets expelled." An interesting fact: "And so the name of metaphysics, the study of the nature of reality, was born in an accident." Plus a fascinating pronouncement in the introduction: "The writing and telling of history is bedevilled by two human neuroses: horror at the desperate shapelessness and seeming lack of pattern in events, and regrets for a golden lost age, a moment of happiness when all was well. Put these together and you have an urge to create elaborate patterns to make sense of things and to create a situation where the golden age is just waiting to spring to life again." That's just in the first 34 pages! Just think: despite the flash-forward to Kierkegaard, we haven't even made it to Jesus yet! And so many tidbits already. If my math holds up, CHRISTIANITY should be good for at least 203.2 awesome tidbits for me to "blog" about. Oh, wait. "Is Shakespeare's Hamlet 'true'? It never happened, but it seems to me to be much more 'true', full of meaning and significance for human beings, than the reality of the breakfast I ate this morning, which was certainly 'true' in a banal sense." And, "There is no surer basis for fanaticism than bad history, which is invariably history oversimplified." So I think I'm going to get 239.05 tidbits out of this. PS: The government wants you to know that I did not receive this book free from a publisher. I bought it with my own money. It's already paying for itself!

Curse of the Titillating Gimmick

One trouble with skimming book flaps (as I am doing every day for a whole year as a titillating gimmick) is that occasionally you will be tempted to read part of a book. This is a real danger! And it can cut into time better spent gathering book flaps to skim. But I must say that my most recent book flap certainly got me curious about what Jackie Gleason might have to say about Plato. So I violated every principle I hold dear and opened a book. All I had to do was look in the index of TV GUIDE: THE FIRST 25 YEARS under "Plato," and guess what? There was only one entry. Page 108. Says Gleason of Plato, "He completely forgot human desires in building his system. It was the stupidest thing he could do." Gleason also calls Plato "one of the stupidest men in the world." I didn't see that coming! Thanks for nothing, books.

Flap a Day

The flap for TV GUIDE: THE FIRST 25 YEARS promises an interview with Jackie Gleason in which he discusses "sin, music, Plato" and "pity"! When I first decided to skim a book flap every day, I had no idea what a huge responsibility I was taking on and how it would rip asunder all the most important relationships in my life. Read more about my struggles in my forthcoming nonfiction bestseller, FLAPPING IN THE BREEZE: MY UNFORGETTABLE YEAR AMONG THE BOOK FLAPS. I hope this random picture will take your mind off my troubles.