The Chicken Soup Occurrence

Here is something I don't care about. But I've been sitting here thinking about it so I'm going to write it down. There I was, minding my own business, slicing up some leeks to go into a big pot of chicken soup, and in my headphones rang the voice of Barry McGovern, who reads the bulk of the audiobook of FINNEGANS WAKE (Marcella Riordan had just finished pitching in with the famous "washerwomen" chapter at the time of the soup making in question), and Barry McGovern said to me, quoting James Joyce in FINNEGANS WAKE, the word "googling," lodged there in an otherwise indecipherable sentence. I double checked it with the physical text once the soup was simmering, and there it was, all right: "googling," right there in FINNEGANS WAKE. Big deal. As we know from previous "blog" adventures, Mark Twain used "googling" in 1884 (as I learned from Roy Blount Jr., or one of his books, though I do know him in person, don't you worry about that!) and Jack Kerouac used "google" in 1959 (after Joyce, of course), and though FINNEGANS WAKE was published in 1939, we know that James Joyce was working on it for 17 years, and still, with all that, he just can't beat Billy DeBeck, who created the comic strip character Barney Google in 1919. (It occurs to me that the oft-touted "invention" of the term "googol" by a nine-year-old in 1920 might not be such a gobsmacking tidbit after all. Maybe he just liked to read the funny papers! Take that, nine-year-old! DAMN! I see that wikipedia has beaten me to this speculation, which is fitting, given my apparent obsession with the prerogitives of chronology. Hoist with my own petard!) Oh! What the hell else? I know nothing about the game of cricket, or, really, about the insect the cricket, except for my possibly false knowledge that the latter makes music with its legs... please, entomology pedants, tell me where I'm wrong! I beg of you! Anyway, I vaguely recall that in the movie HOPE AND GLORY, a grandfather threatens his grandson with some sort of cricket move he calls a "googly." I looked it up just now, and the first googly was thrown, if that's the correct word, by Bernard Bosenquet in 1900 (the last year of the 19th century, I say, which is why the momentous event is not recorded in my famous history of the 20th), so he beats everybody except Mark Twain, assuming that Bosenquet named the googly as well as putting it into practice, and I just don't care enough to find out, which is funny, because I care enough to type all this, just barely.

Jelly

Lee Durkee wrote in some time ago to observe that I truly appear to have stopped "blogging" as I constantly and accurately claim to have done. It is the indisputable case that May was my least "bloggy" month ever in all my months and years of "blogging." Why, I even took a trip to Los Angeles in May, and brought along my special jotting book and jotted down some of my special jottings, but I did not "blog" them out. Lee speculated that maybe owls have been scarce. There was, in fact, a second owl in the Roy Blount Jr. book, and not a metaphorical one, either, but as you know, I am not required to tell you about EVERY owl in every book, just one owl per book. I'm glad we have cleared that up. Occasionally I notice jelly in books as well. Like in this Orson Welles biography Megan and I are reading. It's Simon Callow's multi-volume biography, which we are reading out of order for reasons that need not concern you. Anyway, now we're on Volume Two, and James Agee, in a contemporary review, describes Orson in JANE EYRE as having eyes like "side-orders of jelly."

Failure to Launch

I'm just as sick and tired of telling you every time I read a book with an owl in it as you are of hearing about it. But this is where we are. As you know, Megan Abbott and I have a little two-person show-biz book club, which, at one time, unbeknownst to you, we expanded to include Jim Bouton's BALL FOUR, using the rationalization that the rascally knuckleballer had acted in THE LONG GOODBYE. Well! That opened us up, eventually, to ABOUT THREE BRICKS SHY OF A LOAD, Roy Blount Jr.'s book about the 1973 Pittsburgh Steelers. (They, of course, included Mean Joe Greene, who made a famous Coca-Cola commercial, and Terry Bradshaw, who went on to act in such films as FAILURE TO LAUNCH, but we didn't think of that.) Anyhow, early in the book one of Roy's ancestors is spoken of as being "poor as owl dung."

Tree Fire Man

Just got back from mailing a copy of my cigarette lighter book to Roy Blount Jr., because it's dedicated to him (and co-dedicated to Ted Ballard, the man who showed me his collection of 30,000 lighters). While I was writing the book I tried to think of what Roy would do. I couldn't do it myself, but at least I tried to think of it. As I drove home from mailing the book I was regretting all the times I wrote that someone "noted" or "observed" something... when you have a lot of secondary sources, as I did, somebody is always "noting" or "observing" something in your stupid book. And that made me think of Stephen J. Pyne, a "historian of fire" I quote in the book (why did I put quotation marks around "historian of fire"? Well, it's what I call him in the book. Isn't it? [It isn't. - ed.] Are you supposed to put quotation marks around your own quotations? Yes, that seems certain enough. Who am I talking to?). I think I was so tired of "notes" and "observes" I had him "sniff" something... No, I made him "pout": "'The ancient bonds of fire tending and codes of fire-related behavior disappeared into pants pockets,' pouts fire historian Stephen J. Pyne." And that made me ashamed. And then I was sorry that I didn't make a pun based on the fact that he's named after a tree and he writes about fire. Roy would have found something funny to do with that. But it was too late. I had already mailed the book. And written the book.

Ghosts Are Real

As you know, Dr. Theresa and I can hardly be bothered to walk up the block to hear music. But this weekend we went all the way to New York City to hear music! That's right, our favorite band The Rock*A*Teens, who were playing their VERY LAST SHOW EVER according to Rock*A*Teens mastermind Chris Lopez, whom we saw in the club (Le Poisson Rouge) when we arrived early - though the next day (about which more later) he seemed more cryptic and less certain when we raked him over the coals about it. We can only hope - the world, I mean! - that the Rock*A*Teens will play again. Our trip began the day before, with drinks precisely at "Megan Abbott Time" - this time with the actual Megan Abbott! Hey, you know how I always wear my glasses way up on the top of my head? Sure, it's probably all you think about! You can see an example in the following photo by Dan Conaway.

Well, I tossed back my head with glee or something and my glasses flew away into a spot from which they were seemingly irretrievable. Megan, a daintily constructed person (I once asked for and received her permission to compare her to a doll in a magazine article) slipped herself behind the banquette in our swank hotel lobby to save them. Later that night, at dinner (about which more later), an efficient and stealthy waiter suddenly appeared behind me with my glasses, which I had lost again in the identical manner. "Sir, your glasses," he said. "A theme!" I thought. "This is hot stuff! The title of my 'blog' 'post' can be 'Sir, Your Glasses.'" And so I jotted in my special book of jottings. BUT IT WAS NOT TO BE. "Ha ha," I thought. "My glasses are always flying off my head. What an intriguing character I am." Dr. Theresa and I were dining at Il Buco Alimentari, a place recommended by John T. Edge. When we arrived, the hostess said, "Oh, you requested the kitchen," and the other hostess said quickly, "No, no, no," which made me suspicious. WHO HAD REQUESTED THE KITCHEN? For we were indeed seated, as if we had requested the kitchen, at a marble counter facing just inches away from where they were cooking the food, a terrific spectacle. The exchange between hostesses made me wonder whether John T. had secretly called ahead to ensure that our dinner would be especially memorable. I have suspected as much of him before! Dr. Theresa had some octopus and then later I had some different kind of octopus. Somehow I thought of Camille's, an old spot in Atlanta, though Camille's was sometimes crummy, especially in its later years, whereas Il Buco Alimentari was glorious, but my octopus made me think of the fra diavolo at Camille's if a mighty, shining archangel had prepared it instead of a human who had given up on life. It was some exquisite octopus there at Il Buco Alimentari is what I'm getting at. And Dr. Theresa said that her own pasta course was like "black pepper and pecorino romano got married and had a beautiful offspring." And there was pork with nectarines and so many other things, things just kept coming, things that could make you cry, a snifter of green chartreuse. And now I'm going to leave the heavenly Il Buco Alimentari to indulge in some memories of shaky old Camille's. Dr. Theresa and I went to Camille's on our third date! Between our first and second date she had gotten seriously ill - not because of our first date, ha ha! I mean, like, she was in the hospital. So on the third date I thought it might do her some good to try to walk to Camille's (she was very weak). It did her no good at all! In fact it did her some harm. Which reminds me of the time long before that when I made my poor sister walk a MILE to Camille's in some uncomfortable shoes which I found out later had caused her feet to bleed like some kind of saint. Good times. Let me explain that at the time, my brother and I were both living in Atlanta, in separate places, and my sister, then a teenager, would sometimes come to visit. So on that trip she and I sat around the apartment and played hangman because I didn't have a car and I forced her to march until her feet bled... and then when it was her turn to stay with my brother, he introduced her to her hero David Byrne! David Byrne shook her hand and she swore never to wash it again. So that was a contrast. Nor did my brother force her to walk until her feet bled. OKAY! Back to the present! The next day Dr. Theresa and I were to meet Megan at the Strand bookstore, where I had never been somehow. Dr. Theresa and I were a little early, so first we ducked into a comic book store around the corner. I got a copy of Seo Kim's book CAT PERSON. It's great! Sitting on a bench waiting for Megan a few minutes later I was just laughing out loud like a lunatic. Also, I was reading CAT PERSON by Seo Kim. I was delighted to see Jesse Moynihan's FORMING on the shelf in the comic book store, both volumes. But an employee told me that the recent ADVENTURE TIME comics cowritten by Kent Osborne were sold out! He told me they sell the minute they come in - they can't keep them in the shop! Our town does not have a comic book store, so I was sad about that lost opportunity. (Later the Rock*A*Teens bass player Will Joiner showed me a picture his niece had asked him to show me. She's getting ready to start 7th grade and she was all done up in her ADVENTURE TIME finery. He said she had never been so excited as when he told her he was going to meet someone who works on ADVENTURE TIME... which is the same way I feel about the Rock*A*Teens!) Megan met us at the Strand and we went down to the occult section in the basement. Dr. Theresa immediately found me several of the kind of "true ghost story" books I like, including one with a Table of Contents that promised a chapter about "The Terrible Flying Jelly Bags." I don't know what those are yet, and I won't until the books have been delivered, but I thought "The Terrible Flying Jelly Bags" would make a great title for a "blog" "post," surpassing even "Sir, Your Glasses." BUT IT WAS NOT TO BE. Megan was trying to choose between a book by a debunker and a book by a spiritualist medium and I suggested the latter because it would be "crazier." An eavesdropping young man turned to us and in a quietly intense voice said, "Ghosts are real." As I recall it, I replied in a friendly conversational tone, "I know, I've seen 'em!" Minutes later, however, on the street (and several times throughout the remainder of our stay in New York) Megan claimed that I had said, "Of course! I've seen many!" and as I was saying it (according to Megan's version, which she demonstrated to a number of people over the next few days, as I've noted) I made a sweeping, Shakespearean gesture with my right hand. That's what she said! I don't remember it. In any case, I "out-weirded the weirdo" (as Megan put it, to which Dr. Theresa sincerely added, "I am so proud of you"). It is true that the quiet and intense young man, whose eyes glimmered with danger and insanity, was flummoxed, stunned, defeated and silenced by my solicitous response. Eventually, Megan and Dan and Dr. Theresa and I were at the Rock*A*Teens show, and I literally can't remember the last time I was so happy.

For one thing it brought Dr. Theresa and me in an emotional whirlwind back to our early days (we've been married almost 19 years!) when Hogan sang at our wedding reception and Lopez picked up a guitar for one number. For this gig, though, all these years later, a band called Ricer opened, and it was a good sign when the lead singer and guitarist announced that her favorite band was The Rock*A*Teens. Then Ricer blew us all away with crashing relentless deafening sterilizing murderous vibrations that made us feel young again. Megan described their sound as "early metal" - I think. It was impossible to hear! In a good way. "They're like Frank Sinatra!" I screamed in Megan's ear, and I believe she agreed. She got where I was coming from! Maybe. After Ricer, Megan and I went and found a photo booth at the back of the club.

The Rock*A*Teens came on and Dr. Theresa danced, sometimes with Dan and sometimes with the girl from Ricer, and sometimes both, probably. I chipped in. It was mass hysteria! Dr. Theresa screamed herself hoarse. The aftereffects are apparent to this very day! She reached up for the stage and Chris Lopez reached down and grabbed her hand. She later called it her "Courtney Cox moment" - for you youngsters, that's a Springsteen reference. The next day, the bass player Will Joiner told us that the R*A*Ts had played for TWO SOLID HOURS, 23 songs, an incredible length for a set list. Lopez crowd-surfed for the first time ever. "I didn't do it on purpose," he said, sounding apologetic. "I stumbled and somebody grabbed me." This conversation took place at a joint called "The Campbell Apartment," where Megan took us, a rococo little bar in a hidden corner of Grand Central Station. Here's a picture I found of it on the "internet."

You can see the top of the nicely-upholstered couch where Lopez and Dr. Theresa and I were sitting. But you can't see the stone lion with wings (a gryphon?) that watches over everything. The atmosphere was suitably phantasmagoric but some of the fancy drinks were tastier than others and Lopez and Dr. Theresa may have had the right idea when they switched to bourbon on the rocks.

Dr. Theresa showed off her tattoo and Lopez asked whether I had got one to match and I said teasingly, "I don't desecrate my body," to which Lopez replied "THIS body?" gesturing humorously at my body. Which reminds me. We were lucky enough to see Ward McCarthy and his dear wife Ann on this trip, our old friends, and their daughter Lily (I knew her when she was a newborn infant and now she's about to start college!) and Ward and Ann LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME as they did when I first knew them. And Chris Lopez looks EXACTLY THE SAME. Whereas I am a fat guy with a lot of white in his beard. What happened? Ward said he and the family had been rafting in some rapids recently. That's not the Ward I know! As I exclaimed to all present. "Yes, because all we did was sit in a bar and complain," said Ward. "But when I wasn't doing that, I was rafting," he added lyingly. I had reason to think of my fatness as I reclined in a marble bathtub, taking a bubble bath and reading a Travis McGee novel just as John D. MacDonald never intended. A tub so deep I could float in it. I DID float in it! This was the day after the show and I was singing everything to the tune of "Don't Destroy This Night," my favorite Rock*A*Teens song, like, "Let's get a drink/ We can sit and think/ Tub so deep/ It puts me right to sleep/ I'm in the mood/ To take pictures of my food." Such were a mere few of my hilarious parody lyrics basd on gritty real-life experiences. I'm like the Weird Al of the Rock*A*Teens! But - and may Ace Atkins forgive me for saying so - John D. MacDonald writes a lot of prose that should ONLY be read in a bubble bath. "One goodnight in a sad alto echoed in an empty corridor in my mind... I stood on a dream bridge and saw an open boat drift under the bridge on the black tide, full of a lost tumble of dead maidens..." WHAT! COME ON! Travis McGee likes to explain life to the ladies. He likes to tell women what's what. "Baby, nothing is easy... real people walk around in the foggy, foggy dew." Okay, Travis McGee! That little speech runs about a page. (Ha ha, look who's talking!) By page 142 two women have literally purred at him - PURRED AT HIM, NOT METAPHORICALLY - because he's so awesome at giving them a squeeze if you know what I mean. Maybe one woman specifically purring in gratitude for his manliness every 71 pages isn't too many, I don't know, what do you think, don't tell me, I don't care. But he's trying to avenge the death of a pal and get his mitts on some weird gold statues so I'm still reading it so sue me. After drinks with some Rock*A*Teens at Grand Central Station it was off to Laura Lippman and David Simon's place with Dan and Megan for a really special evening of conversation and cheese. I am talking about a cheese called burrata, which I guess I am the last to know about because everybody was looking at it and saying, "Hm, the burrata, oh, the burrata," like it was a normal thing. But it was so much more than a normal thing! Plus Laura had thoughtfully prepared some Southern specialties to make us Southerners (she has Georgia roots of her own!) feel at home. Because guess who else was there? That's right, Roy Blount Jr.! "She introduced us to her donkey," Roy said when I asked him to tell us about the time he met Flannery O'Connor. "Funerals are a good thing to be funny after," he said later, on another subject. At one point Megan said "Everything important looks simple," and I wrote it down because I go around writing down things Megan says. Like, a day or two before that, she said in defense of Frank Sinatra, "He couldn't control his overwhelming emotions, that's the worst you could say about him," and then she laughed really forcefully ("merrily," we decided) at the audacity of her own pronouncement. Ha ha ha! At Le Poisson Rouge I wrote down something Dan said but I'll tell you the truth, I'm not sure I can read it. It's dark in there! It's dark and drunk in there. I think it says, "The promise isn't better than the thing." And I think it had to do with how fantastically he had vowed to dance with Dr. Theresa - a promise he easily kept! I have a lot more material here... I mean a LOT more... a whole riff on SNOWPIERCER for example (I think I call Tilda Swinton the Peter Sellers of our time) but even I have my limits. OR DO I?

Kerouac Googles

Went on a little business trip and took along my neglected copy of DR. SAX. You will certainly recall (by "clicking" here - do it!) Roy Blount Jr.'s discovery that Mark Twain used the word "googling." Let me now tell you that Jack Kerouac uses the word "google," and like Twain he does it onomatopoetically (I guess): "Jean Fourchette the idiot came stompin by with his firecrackers and google giggled in the late sun afternoon streets..." I know you don't care but I am telling you anyway. On my trip I happened to take the exit to Burke's new town, and I wished I had his phone number, but why? So I could say, "Hi, Burke, I am in your town but I am leaving immediately after I get some gas"? I walked into a McDonald's there and everyone seemed so sad! There was such sadness in the McDonald's that I turned around and walked out. I think I just caught everybody at a bad time!

Music Issue

I can't sell you the annual music issue of THE OXFORD AMERICAN magazine with accompanying CD. It sells itself! The most I can do each year is list JUST A FEW of the musicians and "liner note" writers of "blog" interest, or "blinterest," who pop up. So here we are again. MUSICIANS: Wadada Leo Smith (article written by my neighbor Mr. Lonesome)! Bo Diddley! Syl Johnson! Guitar Slim! Milton Babbitt! All right! You get the picture. Anyway, the biggest treat every year is discovering performers you haven't heard of. WRITERS: My fellow BELIEVER columnist and very special facebook friend Nick Hornby! Benjamin Percy! Ben Greenman! Roy Blount Jr.! William Gay! Sandra Beasley! Rosanne Cash! Kevin Brockmeier! Peter Guralnick! Nicholas Rombes! Natalie Elliott! Jamie Quatro! Sheila Heti! Okay my typing fingers are giving out.

"Blog"trospective 9: Books With Owls In Them

I'm rereading DAY OUT OF DAYS by Sam Shepard because I'm "teaching" it this semester - happy to be reminded there is an owl in it, once again confirming my famous "Owl Theory of Literature." Writes Shepard, "A barn owl looked straight down at me from the rafters with his big white bib." The owl turns out to be "a dummy, planted to scare away mice and varmints," but I say it counts, especially as Shepard includes some general commentary on actual owls: "A Tibetan monk once told me that the owl was a portent of death but I've never felt that way about owls." It seems to me that it is time for "Books With Owls In Them" to become the subject of one of our famed "blog"trospectives, which, when completed, will represent all the learning of humankind. Previous subjects include TOM FRANKLIN, PHIL OPPENHEIM, MOVIES, THE MOON, SANDWICHES, THE UNITED STATES, THE BEACH BOYS, and ARNOLD STANG. And now we invite you to enjoy BOOKS WITH OWLS IN THEM: a by Andy Warhol---ABOUT THREE BRICKS SHY OF A LOAD by Roy Blount Jr.---THE ACCIDENTAL LIFE by Terry McDonell---THE ACCURSED by Joyce Carol Oates---ADVENTURE TIME: THE ART OF OOO by Chris McDonnell---AGAINST NATURE by Joris-Karl Huysmans---AGUA VIVA by Clarice Lispector---ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND by Lewis Carroll---ALPHABET JUICE by Roy Blount Jr.---ALWAYS HAPPY HOUR by Mary Miller---AMERICAN FANTASTIC TALES: 1940s TO NOW---THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY by Robert Burton---AND WHEN SHE WAS GOOD by Laura Lippman---THE ANDY WARHOL DIARIES---APOSTLE by Tom Bissell---ARTHURIAN ROMANCES by Chretien de Troyes---AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS by Flann O'Brien---BAG OF BONES by Stephen King---THE BEHAVIOR GUIDE TO AFRICAN MAMMALS: INCLUDING HOOFED MAMMALS, CARNIVORES, PRIMATES by Richard Despard Estes---BELOVED by Toni Morrison---BEST POEMS by Stevie Smith---BETWEEN THE ACTS by Virginia Woolf---BEYOND EXPLANATION? REMARKABLE ACCOUNTS ABOUT CELEBRITIES WHO HAVE WITNESSED THE SUPERNATURAL! by Jenny Randles---THE BIBLE---BIG SUR by Jack Kerouac---THE BLACK COUNTRY by Alex Grecian---THE BLIND OWL by Sadegh Hedayat---THE BOOK OF LEGENDARY LANDS by Umberto Eco---THE BOOK OF MAGIC, edited by Brian Copenhaver---THE BOOK OF SYMBOLS, edited by Ami Ronnberg and Kathleen Martin---BOY WITH LOADED GUN by Lewis Nordan---THE BOYS by Ron Howard and Clint Howard---THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD by Joe Kubert and others---BRICKTOP by Bricktop, with James Haskins---BRIGHT ORANGE FOR THE SHROUD by John D. MacDonald---A BRIGHT RAY OF DARKNESS by Ethan Hawke---BRIGHTON ROCK by Graham Greene---BUDDHIST MEDITATION, translated by Kurtis R. Schaeffer---CAJUN AND CREOLE FOLKTALES: THE FRENCH ORAL TRADITION OF SOUTH LOUISIANA collected and annotated by Barry Jean Ancelet---THE CANTOS by Ezra Pound---CARIBOU TRAVELER by Harold McCracken---CELEBRITY CHEKHOV by Ben Greenman---CHOCTAW TALES, compiled by Tom Mould and Rae Nell Vaughn---CIGARETTES by Harry Mathews---CITRUS COUNTY by John Brandon---COMING INTO THE COUNTRY by John McPhee---THE COMPLETE POEMS OF WILLIAM BLAKE---THE COMPLETE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON---THE CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS by Attar---COUNT MAGNUS AND OTHER GHOST STORIES by M.R. James---COUNTERFEIT WIFE by Brett Halliday---COUNTRY DARK by Chris Offutt---COUNTRY WISDOM & LORE---A COUPLE OF COMEDIANS by Don Carpenter---THE CRY OF THE OWL by Patricia Highsmith---CUBA LIBRE by Elmore Leonard---THE DAIN CURSE by Dashiell Hammett---DARE ME by Megan Abbott---DAREDEVIL by Stan Lee, Bill Everett and Jack Kirby---DARKER THAN AMBER by John D. MacDonald---THE DAY OF THE OWL by George Scialabba---DAY OUT OF DAYS by Sam Shepard---DEAR WEATHER GHOST by Melissa Ginsburg---DEATH ON THE INSTALLMENT PLAN by Celine---THE DEMON by Jack Kirby---DESPERATELY SEEKING SOMETHING by Susan Seidelman---DEVILWOOD by Tom Franklin---THE DHARMA BUMS by Jack Kerouac---DHARMA-SHASTRA by Manu---DIARIES of Lady Anne Clifford---DIARIES of Franz Kafka---DIARY by Witold Gombrowicz---DIARY OF A MAD PLAYWRIGHT by James Kirkwood---DICTIONARY OF ANCIENT DEITIES by Patricia Turner and Charles Russell Coulter---DICTIONARY OF SYMBOLISM by Hans Biedermann---THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling---DILLA TIME by Dan Charnas---THE DISASTER ARTIST by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell---DOCTOR FAUSTUS by Thomas Mann---DR. SAX by Jack Kerouac---DOCTOR SLEEP by Stephen King---THE DOG OF THE SOUTH by Charles Portis---DOLCE VITA CONFIDENTIAL by Shawn Levy---DON'T LET THE DEVIL RIDE by Ace Atkins---DRACULA by Bram Stoker---DREAM CABINET by Ann Fisher-Wirth---DRESS HER IN INDIGO by John D. MacDonald---DUCKS, NEWBURYPORT by Lucy Ellmann---THE DUD AVOCADO by Elaine Dundy---DUNE by Frank Herbert---DUNGEON MASTER: BOOK ONE by Joe Daly---THE DYING ANIMAL by Philip Roth---THE DYING GRASS by William T. Vollmann---EARLY HAVOC by June Havoc---EL DORADO DRIVE by Megan Abbott---THE ELEMENTALS by Michael McDowell---ELVIS AND GLADYS by Elaine Dundy---THE ENCHANTERS by James Ellroy---THE EPODES by Horace---ESCAPE VELOCITY: A CHARLES PORTIS MISCELLANY---ETHEL MERMAN by Brian Kellow---EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD by Ace Atkins---EVERYTHING IS NOW by J. Hoberman---FABLES FOR OUR TIME by James Thurber---THE FAEIRE QUEENE by Edmund Spenser---FAIRY LAMPS: EVENING'S GLOW OF YESTERYEAR by Amelia E. MacSwiggan---FATALE by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips---FEBRUARY HOUSE by Sherill Tippins---THE FINAL CLUB by Geoffrey Wolff---FINAL CUT by Steven Bach---FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce---THE FIRST FOLIO of William Shakespeare---FLAUBERT'S PARROT by Julian Barnes---FLYING SHOES by Lisa Howorth---FOOL FOR LOVE by Sam Shepard---FOR A LITTLE WHILE by Rick Bass---FORGIVE US OUR DIGRESSIONS by Jim and Henny Backus---FRANK: THE VOICE by James Kaplan---FRIDAYS AT ENRICO'S by Don Carpenter (finished by Jonathan Lethem)---FUNNY MAN by Patrick McGilligan---GARGANTUA AND PANTAGRUEL by Francois Rabelais---GAZETTEER OF BRITISH GHOSTS by Peter Underwood---GHOST STORY by Peter Straub---GHOSTS by Cesar Aira---GIANT: THE MAKING OF A LEGENDARY AMERICAN FILM by Don Graham---GILGAMESH---THE GLASS HARMONICA by Barbara Ninde Byfield---THE GO-BETWEEN by L.P. Hartley---GOLDELINE by Jimmy Cajoleas---GONE WITH THE MIND by Mark Leyner---GRAVESEND by William Boyle---GRAVITY'S RAINBOW by Thomas Pynchon---GREAT DREAM OF HEAVEN by Sam Shepard---THE GREAT GATSBY---THE GREAT HUNT by Robert Jordan---GREEN'S DICTIONARY OF SLANG---GRINGOS by Charles Portis---GUNSIGHTS by Elmore Leonard---HAMLET by William Shakespeare---HARLOT'S GHOST by Norman Mailer---THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson---HENRY VI Part 1 by William Shakespeare---HENRY VI Part 2 by William Shakespeare---HENRY VI Part 3 by William Shakespeare---THE HINDUS: AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY by Wendy Doniger---HISTORY, MYTHS, AND SACRED FORMULAS OF THE CHEROKEES by James Mooney---HOLLYWOOD: THE ORAL HISTORY edited by Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson---HOPE: ENTERTAINER OF THE CENTURY by Richard Zoglin---THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR by Anne Rivers Siddons---THE HOUSE ON THE STRAND by Daphne Du Maurier---HOW TO BUILD A GIRL by Caitlin Moran---HOWARD HUGHES: HIS LIFE AND MADNESS by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele---HUNGER by Knut Hamsun---HUSH HUSH by Laura Lippman---I OWE RUSSIA $1200 by Bob Hope---IF IT BLEEDS by Stephen King---THE ILIAD---ILLUSTRATED ANTHOLOGY OF SORCERY, MAGIC AND ALCHEMY by Emile Grillot de Givry---IN A GLASS DARKLY by Sheridan Le Fanu---IN MY OWN FASHION by Oleg Cassini---IN THE LAND OF TIME by Lord Dunsany---INDIGNATION by Philip Roth---INTO THE WEEDS by Lydia Davis---THE INVISIBLES by Grant Morrison---IVORY SHOALS by John Brandon---J R by William Gaddis---JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte---JOHN AUBREY: MY OWN LIFE by Ruth Scurr---JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS by Thomas Mann---JULIUS CAESAR by William Shakespeare---JUNIOR MISS by Sally Benson---JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL---KALILA WA-DIMNA---KID COLT OUTLAW---KILLSHOT by Elmore Leonard---KING LEAR by William Shakespeare---KING SORROW by Joe Hill---THE KINGDOM OF SPEECH by Tom Wolfe---LABRAVA by Elmore Leonard---LAKOTA AMERICA by Pekka Hämäläinen---THE LEOPARD by Giuseppe di Lampedusa---LETTERS FROM AN ACTOR by William Redfield---LIBRA by Don DeLillo---THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF ALEXANDER WILSON---THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON by James Boswell---LIFE'S WORK by David Milch---LINCOLN IN THE BARDO by George Saunders---LITTLE DORRIT by Charles Dickens---LITTLE SISTER DEATH by William Gay---LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS by William Godwin---LO! by Charles Fort---THE LORE AND LANGUAGE OF SCHOOLCHILDREN by Iona and Peter Opie---LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST by William Shakespeare---LULU IN HOLLYWOOD by Louise Brooks---LUSH LIFE: A BIOGRAPHY OF BILLY STRAYHORN by David Hajdu---MACBETH by William Shakespeare---MADAM by Debby Applegate---MAGIC: A HISTORY by Chris Gosden---THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN by Thomas Mann---MAGPIE MURDERS by Anthony Horowitz---THE MAN WHO COULD CALL DOWN OWLS by Eve Bunting---THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES by Robert Musil---A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMEN by Lucia Berlin---MARBLE HALL MURDERS by Anthony Horowitz---MARK TWAIN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1910-2010 by Michael Kupperman---MASTERS OF ATLANTIS by Charles Portis---MCSWEENEY'S #36---THE MESSENGERS: OWLS, SYNCHRONICITY AND THE UFO ABDUCTEE by Mike Clelland---MESSIAEN by Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone---METAMORPHOSES by Ovid---A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM by William Shakespeare---MILTON CROSS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC---A MIRACLE OF CATFISH by Larry Brown---MISCELLANIES by John Aubrey---MONKEYS by Susan Minot---MOONFLOWER MURDERS by Anthony Horowitz---THE MOST DANGEROUS THING by Laura Lippman---THE MOVIE MUSICAL! by Jeanine Basinger---MURDERLAND by Caroline Fraser---MUSIC OF THE SWAMP by Lewis Nordan---MY ANTONIA by Willa Cather---MY FATHER, THE PORNOGRAPHER by Chris Offutt----MY LUCKY STARS by Shirley MacLaine---MY NAME IS BARBRA by Barbra Streisand---MY SIDE by Ruth Gordon---MY WICKED, WICKED WAYS by Errol Flynn---THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer---THE NAME OF THE GAME IS DEATH by Dan J. Marlowe---NANCY: A COMIC COLLECTION by Olivia Jaimes---NATIVE AMERICAN FOOD PLANTS: AN ETHNOBOTANICAL DICTIONARY by Daniel E. Moerman---NATURAL HISTORY by Pliny the Elder---NAVAHO WITCHCRAFT by Clyde Kluckhohn---THE NEW LAROUSSE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ANIMAL LIFE, consultant editor Maurice Burton---THE NIGHT MANAGER by John le Carré---NIGHT SIDE OF THE RIVER by Jeanette Winterson---NIGHTMARE IN PINK by John D. MacDonald---NIGHTWOOD by Djuna Barnes---NO HEROES by Chris Offutt---NORMAN MAILER: A DOUBLE LIFE by J. Michael Lennon---NORWOOD by Charles Portis---NUTSHELL by Ian McEwan---THE OBSCENE BIRD OF NIGHT by José Donoso*---THE ODYSSEY---OF A FIRE ON THE MOON by Norman Mailer---OMINOUS WHOOSH by John Thorne---ON RARE BIRDS by Anita Albus---ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac---THE ONE INSIDE by Sam Shepard---ORSON WELLES, VOLUME 1: THE ROAD TO XANADU by Simon Callow---OSCAR WILDE by Richard Ellmann---THE OTHER by Thomas Tryon---OUR STRANGERS by Lydia Davis---OUT OF THE WOODS by Chris Offutt---OUTLAWS OF THE MARSH by Shi Nai'an and Luo Guanzhong, translated by Sidney Shapiro---THE OWL by Siegel & Gill (?)---OWLS IN FOLKLORE AND NATURAL HISTORY by Virginia C. Holmgren---A PARISIAN AFFAIR AND OTHER STORIES by Guy de Maupassant---THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ by L. Frank Baum---THE PENGUIN BOOK OF SPIRITUAL VERSE, edited by Kaveh Akbar---THE PEREGRINE by J. A. Baker---THE PERSONAL MEMOIRS OF ULYSSES S. GRANT---THE PICKWICK PAPERS by Charles Dickens---PINOCCHIO by Carlo Collodi---THE POEMS AND PLAYS OF ROBERT BROWNING---THE QUICK by Lauren Owen---RAGE FOR FAME: THE ASCENT OF CLARE BOOTHE LUCE by Sylvia Jukes Morris---RAMAYANA, adapted by William Buck---THE RAT ON FIRE by George V. Higgins---REBELLION by Peter Ackroyd---RED SHEET by James Ellroy---THE REDEEMERS by Ace Atkins---REPROBATES: THE CAVALIERS OF THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR by John Stubbs---RICHARD II by William Shakespeare---RIDES OF THE MIDWAY by Lee Durkee---ROTH UNBOUND by Claudia Roth Pierpont---RUM PUNCH by Elmore Leonard---RUN MAN RUN by Chester Himes---SAINT OF THE NARROWS STREET by William Boyle---'SALEM'S LOT by Stephen King---THE SCARLET RUSE by John D. MacDonald---SELECTED CRONICAS by Clarice Lispector---SELECTED POEMS by Christopher Smart---SELECTED POEMS of Lord Byron---SELECTED PROSE AND DRAMATIC WORK by John Lyly---SHADOW BOX by George Plimpton---SHAKESPEARE by Mark Van Doren---SHAKESPEARE: MAN AND ARTIST by Edgar I. Fripp---SHAKESPEARE'S SISTERS by Ramie Targoff---SHIRLEY JACKSON: A RATHER HAUNTED LIFE by Ruth Franklin---SHOOT THE MOONLIGHT OUT by William Boyle---SHOOTING MIDNIGHT COWBOY by Glenn Frankel---SHY by Mary Rodgers---THE SIDNEY PSALTER, translated by Mary and Philip Sidney---THE SINNERS by Ace Atkins---SIX TRAGEDIES by Seneca---640 OF MY COLLECTIONS by Dr. Harold Wallman---SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW by William Maxwell---SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO LIE by Leslie Brody---THE SONG OF THE LARK by Willa Cather---THE SOT-WEED FACTOR by John Barth---SOUR BLUEBERRIES---SOUTHERN LADY CODE by Helen Ellis---SPACE ODYSSEY by Michael Benson---SPY OF THE FIRST PERSON by Sam Shepard---STANLEY KUBRICK: A BIOGRAPHY by Vincent LoBrutto---STROHEIM by Arthur Lennig---THE SUMMA THEOLOGICA of Thomas Aquinas---THE SUMMER BOOK by Tove Jansson---SWAMP THING by Alan Moore---SWEET BANANAS---SWEETHEARTS by Sharon Rich---TALES DESIGNED TO THRIZZLE, VOL. 1 by Michael Kupperman---TECHNICIANS OF THE SACRED, edited by Jerome Rothenberg---THE TEMPEST by William Shakespeare---THE TEMPTATION OF SAINT ANTONY by Gustave Flaubert---A TERRIBLE LIAR by Hume Cronyn---THAT AWFUL MESS ON THE VIA MERULANA by Carlo Emilio Gadda---THAT IS ALL by John Hodgman---THE THREE MUSKETEERS by Alexandre Dumas---TILL EULENSPIEGEL---TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY by John le Carre---TOM STOPPARD: A LIFE by Hermione Lee---TRAVELS OF WILLIAM BARTRAM---TREASURE ISLAND by Robert Louis Stevenson---TRUE GRIT by Charles Portis---THE TURQUOISE LAMENT by John D. MacDonald---TWELFTH NIGHT by William Shakespeare---THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare---TWO-GUN KID by Larry Lieber and Dick Ayers---ULYSSES by James Joyce---UNCLE SILAS by Sheridan Le Fanu---THE UNFORTUNATE TRAVELLER AND OTHER WORKS by Thomas Nashe---THE UNSPEAKABLE CONFESSIONS OF SALVADOR DALI---VISIONS OF GERARD by Jack Kerouac---A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD by Jennifer Egan---THE VOYAGE OUT by Virginia Woolf---VULGAR ERRORS by Sir Thomas Browne---THE VULGAR TONGUE: GREEN'S HISTORY OF SLANG by Jonathon Green---WALT DISNEY: THE TRIUMPH OF THE AMERICAN IMAGINATION by Neal Gabler---WARHOL by Blake Gopnik---WEIRD WESTERN TALES by Cary Bates and Neal Adams (and others)---THE WHITE PEOPLE AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES by Arthur Machen*---THE WILD BUNCH by W.K. Stratton---WILD MINDS by Reid Mitenbuler---WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: A COMPACT DOCUMENTARY LIFE by S. Schoenbaum---WISE BLOOD by Flannery O'Connor---THE WITCHING HOUR by Bob Haney, Pat Boyette, and others---WITHOUT FEATHERS by Woody Allen.---THE WOMAN WARRIOR by Maxine Hong Kingston---THE WONDERFUL YEAR by Thomas Dekker---WORLD'S FINEST COMICS---THE YEAR OF LEAR by James Shapiro---YEVONDE: LIFE AND COLOUR by Clare Freestone---YOKO by David Sheff---YOU WILL KNOW ME by Megan Abbott---YOUR BODY IS CHANGING. And that is every book with an owl in it.

Sizzling Celebrity Gossip

Welcome once again to "Sizzling Celebrity Gossip," your only spot on the "internet" for sizzling celebrity gossip. Here's the sizzling question on everyone's sizzling lips: WHICH Elizabethan sorcerer is the toast of Oxford, Mississippi? Why, Dr. John Dee, of course! Overheard before the Roy Blount Jr. reading: a guy named Burke telling a certain local professor about "The John Dee Memorial Theater of the Mind," which is located in... wait for it... Alabama! Natch! Where else would "The John Dee Memorial Theater of the Mind" be located? Nowhere, that's where! Unless in the beautiful environs of Oxford, Mississippi, home to the world's biggest John Dee fan club which I am making up right now. Because wait! Later, at the City Grocery Bar, novelist Lee Durkee was observed to have John Dee on the brain. Turns out he is in the midst of revising a scholarly paper about none other than Dr. John Dee. For real! Durkee was heard to make sizzling remarks such as "Faulkner comes from the King James Bible. But Shakespeare comes from the Geneva Bible." Sizzling!

Nifty

Hey, look, they made a nifty new sign for my recommendation shelf at Square Books. I won't lie to you! Sales have been dragging! But the new sign seems to have the ball rolling again. In fact, the Robert Walser and Sam Shepard volumes seen here are GONE! Purchased by lucky readers! Plus I replaced Wacky Packages with a Lynda Barry book to keep things spruced up and attractive for the people. Go over and buy one of the books on my recommendation shelf and help me single-handedly save the printed word as we know it. So far my shelf has sold four books, a publishing industry record. Before his reading today, Roy Blount Jr. saw my shelf. He said, "You've got your own shelf." I think he was impressed! Or filled with pity! Either way, I'll take it!

Literary Matters

Time again for "Literary Matters"! And I am so sorry to tell you this, but there are lots and lots of them. I'm not even going to tell you how many, because you'll certainly stop reading. As well you should! Cursed literary matters! 1) TODAY ONLY! Roy Blount Jr. will be at Off Square Books (5 PM, the usual time) to read from his new book ALPHABETTER JUICE, some of the mighty pleasures of which have already been outlined here. Don't miss a chance to see Roy Blount Jr.! Note to the government: I bought my own copy of ALPHABETTER JUICE, so shut up! I am no publisher's shill! In fact, as far as I can tell, publishers hate me! 2) After Mr. Blount's reading, why not head over to the Kitty Snacks party conveniently located at Southside Gallery? The decent fellows at Kitty Snacks have a brand new issue out, featuring work by John Brandon and many other notables. And the gray cover screams, "Buy me! I'm entirely gray!" But I think that's one of those tricks that only the hippest of the hip can pull off, you know, like that billboard for bail bondsmen I saw once, or a club with no sign on the door. But when you get in, it's lots of wholesome fun! Kitty Snacks! 3) You know who is also reading at Off Square soon (June 9)? That's right, Ace Atkins. He has a brand new novel out called THE RANGER. I'm halfway through it and loving every minute. Yes, government, Ace gave me a free advance reading copy, so what? Though THE RANGER is set in the here and now, Ace wanted it to have the feel of those great Burt Reynolds (or Joe Don Baker, pictured) revenge pics from the 1970s, popularly known as "hixploitation." And boy did he succeed, spectacularly! Now that I have given you the code, you can read the book on dual levels, because I know how much you enjoy doing that, experiencing things on dual levels. You love that! 4) Ace also loaned me an advance copy of THE END OF EVERYTHING by Megan Abbott. I read it and think it might be her best book yet, though it is so hard to pick just one! Were I to blurb it, I would say, "Do you like great writing and being really nervous and creeped out all the time? Even when you sleep? Do you want to be pulled down into a terrible and beautiful and inexorable nightmare, no, dream, no, nightmare, no, dream, no, nightmare? Then this is the book for you!" Also, SHE is coming here to read at the end of July so we have that to look forward to. 5) Megan's book just got a starred review from my sworn enemy Publishers Weekly! So this is the one thing we can agree on, PW and I, like characters making an unholy secret alliance on GAME OF THRONES. PS: My blurb might also say, "Abbott's beloved Freud glimmers darkly from every riveting page!" Ugh, that's awful. Just read the book! I keep blurbing Megan's books in retrospect. 6) Speaking of blurbs that will never happen, Kevin Brockmeier says something really, really nice about me in the new issue of the Oxford American, something too nice for me to repeat here, something that would make a perfect blurb, but as we have seen, no book of mine is ever going to come out ever again, not even the cat book that is alarming, confounding, and distressing publishers' flunkies the world over even as we speak, but I have the blurb ready to go, thanks to the generous and gracious Kevin Brockmeier, and I will always have it, and the book will never come out, no book will ever come out, so maybe they can just carve it on my gravestone, that thing that Kevin Brockmeier said. 7) The real attraction of the new OA (well, I haven't read the whole issue yet, it's usually all good!) is a sparkling new short story by Elizabeth Kaiser, also known as "Elizabeth" of "blog" fame. 8) And another former "student," John Oliver Hodges, has a really good and bold and moving article in there, too! It's a follow-up to his piece in the previous issue, also about his (and Elizabeth's) great mentor Barry Hannah. Speaking of which, the new Kitty Snacks (see #2 above) features several never-before-published full-color photographs that John took of Barry. He is not only a fine writer, John Oliver Hodges, but an accomplished photographer, yes, where do these people get all this talent? It makes me sick. I didn't teach John or Elizabeth a thing. 9) Check out John's novella WAR OF THE CRAZIES, just out from Main Street Rag press! Now that one, I really did blurb. Blurbs! Is there anything less useful? (Note to the government: yes, I read WAR OF THE CRAZIES in manuscript, but I won my actual copy in a raffle, I really did, so that doesn't count!) 10) Yes, John Brandon and I are in the new Kitty Snacks together AND we are in the new Oxford American together, just as we were in the previous issue of McSweeney's together. In fact, we are going to get an enormous shirt with two neckholes and just walk around like that from now on. 11) Are you still reading this? Don't lie to me! 12) McNeil has found what seems to be a series of mysteries featuring members of "the Rat Pack." It is not for me to say whether on the surface they appear to be the worst books ever written. After all, haven't we been told time and time again not to judge a book by its cover? Like, didn't I tell you that earlier in this "post"? I did! But it was so long ago you have probably forgotten. Look again. Still, the titles do not inspire confidence! There is one called EVERYBODY KILLS SOMEBODY SOMETIME - this dubious assertion a "play on words" inspired by the Dean Martin hit "Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime." While I was checking to make sure this is a real mystery series (and it is, but those covers, they just don't LOOK real somehow... in fact they seem vaguely illegal to me) I ran across one not listed on McNeil's "link," one called LUCK BE A LADY, DON'T DIE. What does that EVEN MEAN? I "get" that it is supposed to be a "play on words" based on the song "Luck Be a Lady Tonight" from GUYS AND DOLLS, but it's just barely that, isn't it? And does it MEAN something? Isn't it just a string of words, I mean, isn't it? Well maybe these will turn out to be the greatest books ever written and I'm just a jerk. 13) The new "LaFa Shopper" got shoved into our mailbox yesterday, but once again John Arrechea IS MISSING! We do hear from Faylene Bryant with the breaking story "Vacation Bible School Approaching Fast," plus there's a column called "The Playhouse" in which one Camille Anding lists "Things I'd Like To Find" (dozens and dozens of them!) including "My keychain that remains hidden since last January" and "More movies as charming as 'The Sound of Music.'"

Oh Boy

Speaking of newspapers, in his new book ALPHABETTER JUICE, Roy Blount Jr. has an interesting section on headlines. One of his favorites is "Coconut-Carrying Octopus Found." He calls it "alluring," and he is right. But I saw an AP headline the other day that I found alluring in an opposite way: "Ga. Police: Upset Councilman Spills Food at Diner." It was alluring because it was so boring! By sheer coincidence, as I compose this very "post" I see via his twitter account that Ben Greenman is currently concerned with a "non-story" (AP again!) bearing the headline "Spacewalking Astronaut Gets Something In Eye." Greenman's favorite part seems to be "The spacewalkers noted that the problem with tears in space is that 'they don't fall off of your eye... they kind of stay there.'" But I think MY favorite part is what the astronaut says when he gets something in his eye: "'Oh boy,' Feustel moaned." PS: Blount quotes a scholarly journal as saying that the octopus building a little house out of coconut shells is "the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal." But is that really tool use? Are we to believe then that every bird who makes a nest is "using tools"? I don't think so! I consider it an insult to the mighty crow who with patience and ingenuity fashions a hooked instrument to dig bugs out of a tree. THAT is real tool use, my friends. Let's not throw around "tool use" so casually. PPS: Last night at dinner with Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly I started to talk about crows. "Don't get me started about crows!" I actually exclaimed. And, "Have I mentioned this before?" Everyone replied, "Yes." Said Beth Ann, "And you sent me links about it." So I have become this guy who constantly rambles about crows at social gatherings of every kind, and follows up with helpful e-mails. PPPS: Since I began writing this very long "post," and you really don't want to know how long it takes me, it's too sad, the AP has changed their headline to the disappointingly more specific "Spacewalking Astronaut Gets Stinging Soap In Eye." PPPPS: They also edited out my favorite line, "'Oh boy,' Feustel moaned." That makes me mad! Did NASA contact them and say it reflected badly on the space program? I call it censorship! It really used to be there. It came right after the line (which is still there, for now) "'Sorry, buddy,' Fincke said."

Jr.

Well, I didn't catch the beginning, and I didn't make it to the end, but I feel safe in saying that THE STORY OF WILL ROGERS is the blandest movie ever made, save for the weird spectacle I mentioned in the previous "post": watching Will Rogers, Jr., who plays Will Rogers, woo Jane Wyman as his mother, giving her an awkward smooch in an alleyway, for example, when he hears the news of his own impending birth. Oh, and there's a scene where Woodrow Wilson summons Will Rogers to the White House to demand that he become a writer, which is interesting because that's exactly how I became a writer. Then Will Rogers goes home and drinks a glass of milk and frets about becoming a writer, and Jane Wyman says (I'll paraphrase), "Will Rogers, you do what the president tells you!" Yep, that's the way it works. In his book ALPHABET JUICE, Roy Blount Jr. points out that Walt Whitman and Muhammad Ali (as Cassius Clay) were both juniors; he thinks it no coincidence that one wrote "Song of Myself" and the other declared, "I am the greatest." It's about making "a name for himself," writes Blount, himself a junior, in case you didn't notice. I wonder what he would make of Will Rogers, Jr., or the other juniors we have mentioned on the "blog" who played their fathers in movies: Dick Powell, Jr. (though that was just a cameo), and Jesse James, Jr. And what about Hank Williams, Jr., who dubbed his father's vocals in a biopic and has invoked (to put it politely) his name in so many other ways? Hey, I bet you are wondering why I don't put a comma in the name Roy Blount Jr. What? You're not? I'm going to tell you anyway. Roy Blount Jr. doesn't want a comma, that's why. "One stroke of fuss that I can spare the world," he calls it. If you read the Oxford American essay I wrote about Roy Blount Jr. and Woody Allen, you will see where somebody on the editorial side went behind me and stuck all the commas back in.