Bill Blackbeard!

I was sorry to read that the great, pioneering - and visionary, I would say! - comic strip archivist and expert Bill Blackbeard passed away. Here is an excerpt from his obituary in THE COMICS REPORTER: "In 1977, with Martin Williams, Blackbeard co-authored The Smithsonian Collection Of Newspaper Comics. In doing so, Blackbeard changed the direction of comics and the direction of many lives of those that choose to read them. It is one of the ten most influential and important publications in comics history." I'll say! That book (along with Reader's Digest's STRANGE STORIES, AMAZING FACTS, of course) was one of the most formative of my young (at the time) life. Throw in the mid-70s LP box set THE SMITHSONIAN COLLECTION OF CLASSIC JAZZ (my first encounter with jazz - a sweeping experience "selected and annotated by" the VERY SAME Martin Williams [it must be, right?], who wrote a big, amazing booklet of educational liner notes) and you have the portrait of a young nerd, now an old nerd. Thanks for everything, Martin Williams and Bill Blackbeard! (Pictured, a panel (found at COMICS REPORTER) from Crockett Johnson's BARNABY AND MR. O'MALLEY, one of the many great pieces of American art I first learned about from Mr. Blackbeard's collection.) Now I need to look up Martin Williams, who it turns out is responsible for 2/3 of my personality.

Padre Pio!

Today I was talking to my smart ex-student Anya about Padre Pio. Have you heard of him? HE COULD BE IN TWO PLACES AT ONCE! I knew people said that about him, but I didn't know THEY COULD SMELL HIM WHEN HE WASN'T THERE! It was an aroma "described by some as roses and by others as tobacco" according to some "link" I found on the "internet." Like everything else important, I first read about Padre Pio in that venerable Reader's Digest publication STRANGE STORIES, AMAZING FACTS.

Oblique Frozen Mammoth Recollection

Theresa and I were watching a movie called SO LONG AT THE FAIR, the plot of which reminded me of something I had read in that touchstone of my tender youth, the Reader's Digest publication STRANGE STORIES, AMAZING FACTS. But never mind about SO LONG AT THE FAIR. While I was looking for the particular article, I stumbled across a section entitled "Ten-Thousand-Year-Old-Steaks," which is about some woolly mammoths found frozen in Siberia, and how delicious they are! Yes, says Reader's Digest, "In spite of the thousands of years that have passed, the meat is still good enough to eat - according to those who have tried." But those few passing words are all you hear about the people who supposedly ate millennia-old woolly mammoth meat! Not another hint about it in the article, nor anything at all about steaks, save for the title. Why am I telling you this? Well, no good reason. But remember my novel that I first turned in to my publisher over a year and half ago and it was coming out in August and got reviewed and everything, and maybe someone will bring it out someday when they're feeling better, but I don't know because nobody will tell me? Remember that? Well, I believe I refer obliquely to these frozen mammoth steaks in that novel. You'll never know because 1) it's oblique and 2) you'll never read the novel because it only exists in a mysterious land somewhere far away with coconut moonbeams and butterscotch lakes and ever so many pixies as far as the eye can see. But I thought it was funny that those frozen mammoth steaks must have been stuck in my head since childhood, and I had no idea where that image came from when I put it - or something like it - in the semi-nonexistent novel. How about that! Thanks for everything, Reader's Digest! The idea probably wouldn't have stuck in my head for so long had it been more concrete than "those who have tried," and I guess there's a lesson in there somewhere for somebody. Oh, here's the section from my book. Who cares? Maybe I should just publish it here on the "blog" one random paragraph at a time: "He thought he remembered a newspaper story about a Viking ship that had been frozen in the ice. Scientists found steaks on board, steaks from Viking times, and Burns believed that the scientists had cooked and eaten one of the steaks just for fun, although that didn’t sound like scientists, who were usually a******s."

Flap a Day

The book flap I skimmed for today is from the READER'S DIGEST ILLUSTRATED DICTIONARY OF BIBLE LIFE & TIMES, and gosh is it a dilly! It starts off - STARTS OFF, mind you! - like this: "What are 'screamers' and 'twitterers'?" So naturally right off the bat that makes you wonder if Twitter was predicted in the Bible. In other words, the first sentence on the flap is a question that tricks you into opening the book (just like I did because of the last flap). In this case, then, I didn't even SKIM the flap, really! I just read the first sentence and it was too much to handle. Oh, flaps! Sometimes I think you do your job too well. And yes, I say "tricks," because there is no entry for "twitterer" in the READER'S DIGEST ILLUSTRATED DICTIONARY OF BIBLE LIFE & TIMES (the last thing under "T" is "turban")! Nor does "twitterer" appear in the index OR the glossary. According to the READER'S DIGEST ILLUSTRATED DICTIONARY OF BIBLE LIFE & TIMES, "Turbans were formed by winding strips of cloth around the head." Duh! Thanks for nothing, READER'S DIGEST ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF BIBLE LIFE & TIMES. And as for screamers, if I am recalling the science fiction movie SCREAMERS correctly, they are these sentient little round machines on another planet and they pop up out of the dirt and cut you.

Reader's Digest Was Right About Unicorns

However, by using the index ("unicorn body parts") in the Lavers, I was able to confirm the curative powers of unicorn liver in the fight against leprosy, as first postulated here by READER'S DIGEST. The recipe comes from Hildegard of Bingen, who also says, "If you make a girdle from the hide of a unicorn and gird yourself with it, no plague however severe and no fever will harm you." It's called preventative medicine, McNeil! Get with the program.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Unicorns

I guess you've noticed there wasn't a Friday the 13th unicorn yesterday or a Valentine's Day unicorn either and you're probably pretty upset about the whole thing. You're probably like, "Is this the end of the Holiday Unicorn Series?" The answer is yes. We have glutted ourselves on unicorns, have we not? And we all know the Bastille Day Unicorn was the best one and it was only the second in the series. We should have quit while we were ahead! But the title of this "post" is a "takeoff" on a Raymond Carver title that really ends with "Love," so that's your Valentine's Day reward, I suppose. And if you put a comma in it, "Friday, the 13th Unicorn" would be an okay protagonist for a children's book, I guess. You could almost sing a song about him to the tune of Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer. What fun that would be! Or write a Raymond Carver-style story featuring unicorns instead of those guys who usually end up in Raymond Carver stories. A romantic and creative activity for you and that special someone on Valentine's Day! In the meantime, I'm going to look for some other kind of legendary monster with which to illustrate this "post." And yes, I consider unicorns to be monsters. (Look! I found Spring-Heeled Jack! He is a fine and sometimes overlooked legendary monster. I first read about him in a Reader's Digest publication called STRANGE STORIES, AMAZING FACTS - a formative tome for Mr. Ward as well. How many are the times we have pleasantly discussed it. I still have my copy. As I take it out and read it now, I see that a Victorian lass named Jane Alsop described Spring-Heeled Jack to the police in the following manner: "He was wearing a kind of helmet, and a tight-fitting white costume like an oilskin. His face was hideous, his eyes were like balls of fire. His hands had great claws, and he vomited blue and white flames." I suddenly realize that I had Spring-Heeled Jack in mind in my very first book when I had a narrator describe the superhero Johnny America. [Evidence: he jumps high and there is blue flame involved, though regrettably he does not "vomit" it, which would have been awesome.] Thanks, Reader's Digest! I also notice in STRANGE STORIES, AMAZING FACTS that "a paste of egg yolk and unicorn liver was said to heal leprosy." Good to know! And our goodbye to the subject.)