Four Quotations

1. "Poor ruffians, their lives vanished like a dream." - OUTLAWS OF THE MARSH 2. Okay, so when I got back from my travels, my schedule was a little mixed up, so once I was up when I should have been sleeping, watching TCM instead, and they aired an old trailer for the Bobby Van movie SMALL TOWN GIRL. You may recall it as the movie, previously mentioned, but not by name, on the "blog," in which Bobby Van hops around. Anyway, the trailer announcer says, of Bobby Van, "His dancing is as new as a rocket trip to the moon." And I thought, well, that's not true. It wasn't true then. It's not true now. And, in fact, it was never true. 3. I was going to call this "post" "Two Quotations," which is a much better title for reasons I cannot fully explain... not even to myself! For one thing, "two" is a cool word and "four" is a punk-ass word. And not in the good way! But something bugged me last night and I keep thinking about it and even though I know that no one will care about it, I also don't care that no one will care about it. So, my current "nighttime book" is I REMEMBER by the famed Oulipo writer Georges Perec. I should mention that it is, put simply, a list of things that Georges Perec remembered. So I'm lying there reading and I'm thinking, hey, I remember a number of these things. Hey, maybe I should count the number of things I remember that Georges Perec also rememebered. Hey, no, I'm not going to do that, what a waste of time, which has never stopped me before. Hey, but I'm already done with half of the book. To go back and start over seems like a lot of work. I'm not into that! BUT! I said to myself, BUT! When I skimmed over the introduction and the translator's note, didn't they kind of imply that I would remember none of this, and that I'd lie here scratching my head and crying my way through the experience? So I looked at the translator's note (by Philip Terry), which quotes ANOTHER translator calling I REMEMBER Perec's "most untranslatable book... a collection of brief rembrances of things and people that are indecipherable to anyone not French and not of his generation," which isn't true at all... and it must be admitted that a small dab of skepticism is applied by Philip Terry to the quotation. (As for Perec's generation, he was born in 1936, if you care. I don't.) 4. HOWEVER! In the introduction, the co-translator and co-editor David Bellos claims - of a stage adaptation performed in 2003 - that the "majority of the spectators of the show cannot conceivably share any of Perec's memories directly." Well, that's not true, is it? It's the "conceivably" and the "any" to which I principally object. Like... okay. Here's one example. Perec remembers that Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister. It's probably an exaggeration to say that everybody knows that. But everybody knows that. And they remember it the same way Perec remembered it, from hearing it or reading it somewhere. I doubt that Warren Beatty came over to Perec's house and said, "Hey, guess what? Shirley MacLaine is my sister!" So we all remember it just the way Perec did. In fact, both Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty are alive as I type this. It's not like Perec lived on a different planet a million years ago. So maybe Warren Beatty WILL come to your house and tell you who his sister is. It could happen! That's all I'm saying. I guess I should also stipulate that sure, a lot of the time I don't know what the hell Perec is talking about. But I've always enjoyed reading things I don't understand. Other people have told me that they "look things up." I get it. But I don't do it.

A Lot of Time to Think

I have always loved STEP BROTHERS because it is the only movie of the last ten years that I can imagine with Dean and Jerry in the lead roles. But it was not until emailing Phil Oppenheim about the matter this morning that I stopped to realize that Will Ferrell would be the Dean Martin. That surprised me! It surprised me even though Will Ferrell's character's beautiful singing voice is pivotal. Meanwhile, John C. Reilly's character exhibits the "fear of sex" that Jerry so often embodies. And while Dean falling in love with his therapist would have been played straighter (there are always therapists in these movies!) the end results would have been the same. In fact, the romantic relationships in STEP BROTHERS would appear to parallel almost exactly the pairings in ARTISTS AND MODELS... Dorothy Malone (so recently deceased) a figure of authority and Kathryn Hahn clearly our answer to Shirley MacLaine, not that she needs an answer, as she is still with us, and come to think of it, then, Shirley MacLaine is our Shirley MacLaine. Anyway, I have a lot of time to think these days.

Shrugging Off a Dancing Ghost

So in this Shirley MacLaine memoir, Glenn Ford tells her that his house is haunted by the ghost of Rudolph Valentino, who moves furniture around and puts on tango records. Ford's wife Eleanor Powell is freaked out by the ghost but Glenn Ford is like, "Eh, it's fine." I paraphrase. Also - more pertinent to the "blog's" interests - this book has owls in it: some imaginary owls that Shirley MacLaine makes up in her head as she listens to Robert Mitchum tell about escaping from a chain gang. [POSTSCRIPT! Megan, double checking the original anecdote, reminds me that Ford "loved the presence," according to MacLaine. So my so-called paraphrase - and indeed the title of this "post" - is misleading.]

The Golden Rule

As is well documented, I don't "blog" anymore unless I stumble across something I should have put in my cigarette lighter book but didn't know about in time. So! Megan Abbott and I are reading a Hollywood memoir by Shirley MacLaine, and she tells about how Dean Martin "would light a cigarette with his solid gold lighter, blow out the flame, and toss the gold lighter from the window as if it was a used match." So! This naturally reminded me of something I DID put in my cigarette lighter book: the time Hal Needham maliciously tossed his friend's gold cigarette lighter from the window of a speeding car as a joke. If only I had known about Dean's habit. What a study in contrasts Dino and Needham would have made! As MacLaine notes, someone always retrieved Dean's lighter for him, whereas (Shirley MacLaine does not note this part; how could she?) the lighter of Needham's friend was seemingly lost forever. So Needham's act is more "punk rock" (I guess? Jon Langford once told me that being "punk rock" does not necessarily call for unmannerly behavior) while Dean's is ironic (maybe? I have no idea what I'm talking about. Maybe it's a good thing I didn't know about this in time to put it in the book). But I think we can agree that Dean is on firmer ground morally. I'm glad that's settled.

Bakery Heiress

Remember in Feb. 2007 when Dr. Theresa took a hammer and a nail and made me a new notch in my belt? Well I am about to lay on you a story just as captivating! First, let us go back (forward?) to 2008. Our fascinating prologue commences when I was staying in a motel in Los Angeles. I walked up several blocks to see THE APARTMENT on the big screen. And I saw Shirley MacLaine's face in this very scene (above) race through dozens of emotional transmutations in mere seconds. Every emotion, she had! But subtly. It was different on film, and at its intended size and scope, though I had seen THE APARTMENT many, many times before, on a tiny television screen with a tiny televised picture. The difference was like... when I used to see Rothko paintings in a library book and think, bleh! But then in the 1980s my ex (?) girlfriend (?) and I flew to Washington, D.C. together and I don't know where she went... but I met, by some obscure prearrangement, a bakery heiress on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Her roommate, possessing the magical name Cornelia, was a Roosevelt. Like... A ROOSEVELT. We drank concoctions of rum and orange juice on the balcony of a hotel across from the White House. An upstairs light was on over there! As dusk descended! The bedroom, we reckoned. George and Barbara, en déshabillé! After we parted, though, the kind-hearted bakery heiress and I (it was on plain white sliced bread that her cunning people founded their considerable fortune!), I was forced to stay with a different, less hospitable bunch, some [redacted] who - however noble their purposes, and I think them quite noble in intent! - were unpracticed as hosts. They lectured me vitriolically on the subject of cheese for hours at a time, for example, and hung gory, unavoidable posters of vivisection in every cranny, and fed me on naught but that which made my stomach hurt, and always made me pay for the cab. EXCEPT for that one glorious evening when [redacted] a raging fire in a big fireplace though it was June and boiling hot outside, and then [redacted]! [redacted]. The Indigo Girls were climbing the charts for an eager young nation with their hit [redacted], which, coming through the radio, burrowed into my mind as the theme song for that [redacted]. But I mean, I saw some Rothko paintings in person at the National Gallery back then, in the aforementioned 1980s, in Washington, D.C., and their majesty was all-consuming, like Shirley MacLaine's. Even though, prior to the screening (keep up! we've moved forward to 2008 again), I had considered her movie "my favorite," it was like I had never seen it before. So that seems like a shame. It seems, in fact, like I have wasted my life! But the point is that in 2008 I forgot to turn in my motel key when I checked out. Nothing else I just mentioned had anything to do with anything. I just wanted to explain why I still have this motel key.

It's an old fashioned key. A key key. Like, a metal key. A key. The kind of key Norman Bates would give you, or possibly Dennis Weaver from TOUCH OF EVIL. A motel key dangling from a flat blue slab of plastic, Room 109. So! Now we are coming closer to the point. Dr. Theresa and I have this spare house key we like. It just stays by itself. It's not entangled or associated with a bunch of car keys and office keys and random keys that open we don't know what. It's just on a ring all alone. Or used to be. Very light and convenient! Like, to have in our pocket if we want to take a casual stroll. But its key ring just fell apart! Suddenly there was nothing to anchor that favored key, to give it heft, to shield it from loss. So I thought maybe we could put it on this old motel key ring I have. Ha ha! These kinds of stories are my favorites. The motel key was designed diabolically. Bulky and twisted and nigh impossible to pull apart. Probably for some motel owner's good reason. So Dr. Theresa got some pliers out of the kitchen drawer and went to town on that implacable key ring like a champ. Finally she was able to separate the parts of the ring just enough so that we could slide the vital house key into place. Then I took a hammer and banged the whole thing back together like Thor himself descended from the heavens. That key ain't slipping off now! I'd like to see it try. It was real teamwork, though Dr. Theresa had already restored everything more than adequately with her pliers by the time I managed to dig out the hammer, and my hammering, while it made me feel like a great big man, was likely just for show.

Sad Love Drops

You know, I almost didn't "blog" about Bobby Van, because I was like, "Nobody will know what I am talking about." But then I remembered that nobody reads this and I don't care anyway. So! I was watching TCM yesterday and there was Bobby Van doing some dance number where he just hops. He just hops all around town. Hop, hop, hop. I was like, "Boy! Bobby Van is getting on my nerves!" Dr. Theresa came in the room and I remarked to her sourly, "They were probably like, 'Bobby Van is gonna be the new Donald O'Connor!' Well, HE'S NOT!" I believe I was in a rage over the indignity of it all. Why was I getting so worked up about Bobby Van? And then Bobby Van hopped around the corner and there was a dog sleeping on the sidewalk and suddenly the dog jumps up on its hind legs and starts hopping in PERFECT TIME with Bobby Van! And they go hopping down the street together, Bobby Van and the dog. And I was like, "Did you see that? IT WAS AMAZING!" And Dr. Theresa agreed. I was like, "THAT WAS SOME MOVIE MAGIC!" And I felt bad for all my bad thoughts about Bobby Van. But then I realized it wasn't Bobby Van I liked, it was this incredibly well-trained dog who could hop on its hind legs with such seeming effortlessness. And then there was a shot of Bobby Van where he kind of looked like Ray Bolger, and I said to myself, "Oh, they probably thought, 'We got a goldmine here, this kid is the new Ray Bolger.'" And I was bitter again. You know what I just thought of? This wasn't even on my agenda! Once Ward McCarthy and I were shooting something and we needed a dog who could walk on its hind legs. The animal wrangler with whom we were working called them "hind walkers" - ha ha! "Hind walkers" is probably not a very funny phrase to you but it makes me laugh because Ward and I used it so much in the days after our experience with the inept animal wrangler. All this guy did was hold some bacon up so the dogs would go after it! He didn't have any real "hind walkers," or such was our conclusion. We got taken! "My neighbor's dog would do that," Ward remarked, watching the dog trying to get some bacon. Well! As long as I've got you here (I haven't), there are three more things on my mind. 1. Came across this in Chretien de Troyes: "The vavasour called his wife and his daughter, who was very beautiful; they were working in a workshop, but I do not know what work they were doing there." Now that's some refreshing honesty from a writer! Chretien de Troyes is my new role model. 2. Email from McNeil. He described the last shot in CAREER as "a tableau that groped at my heart for sad love drops but there were none because, just because, baby." McNeil is a poet! Here's one last "screen grab" from CAREER. I was a "screen grabbing" maniac!

3. Hey! Remember the other day when I had a possibly false memory of reading in a magazine when I was a youngster that Red Skelton was illiterate? Good times. Well, that memory gave me another memory. I remember some magazine that my mom or one of my grandmothers had when I was about 11 - it was probably Redbook or McCall's or Good Housekeeping - and it had an article in it where a couple of people (I think) drove all over the country eating fast food hamburgers and deciding which one was best. I read it over and over, obsessively! I don't know why. It really appealed to me. Did it make me who I am today? I kind of think it did! It had adventure and hamburgers and took a "bad" thing seriously. I wish I could remember the magazine or the authors or the exact year so I could find it and read it again. I remember how the magazine smelled. What is wrong with me?

Disillusioned Artiste

I watched CAREER and McNeil was right, of course. I loved it! Thick, chewy melodrama. Just my speed. Here we see Anthony Franciosa caring more about his cucumber facial than Shirley MacLaine's serious problems. The day I learned to do "screen grabs" was a blot on the universe. So the night before last I flipped to TCM and they were showing a marathon of Les Blank's documentaries. I watched one about garlic. It made me really hungry! Although the part where they cook some blue-eyed baby pigs depressed me, which is good because I'm sort of on a diet because I need to fit into John T. Edge's plaid tuxedo jacket soon. Why? None of your beeswax, that's why. But I was like: "Bill Boyle is coming over tomorrow. I'll make something with lots of garlic!" And I did. I made puttanesca sauce and I was really nervous because Bill is Italian and what if he scoffed? But Bill didn't scoff. Bill's not a scoffer. I use lemon, which I'm not sure is a traditional ingredient, so I went crazy and kept adding other stuff to drown out the lemon so maybe Bill wouldn't notice the lemon, which maybe defeated the purpose, I don't know, it turned out fine, get off my case, man. The point is Bill came over to watch TOO LATE BLUES, one of the few Cassavetes movies he hadn't seen, and which I recorded off of TCM a while back. It made me think of CAREER. Well, they both had a certain post-beat feel, a "disillusioned artiste" vibe.

There were bits of CAREER that made me think of INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS and BARTON FINK but there's no way the Coen Brothers ever watched CAREER, is there? We know Scorsese watched TOO LATE BLUES. Bill and I could tell! And everybody wore black suits with skinny black ties and argued about paying the diner owner, so maybe Quentin Tarantino watched it too. Who cares? Seriously. You're not alone: I bore myself. I honestly have nothing interesting to say but I took so many screen grabs of CAREER, so here we are. There's Shirley MacLaine saying, "Sam? What a lovely name. I like that name. The first man I ever completely destroyed was named Sam." She drinks a lot in this movie! Just look how she sits at the bar:

McNeil's Movie Korner

Welcome once more dear friends to "McNeil's Movie Korner," your "go-to" place on the "internet" for things you couldn't possibly care less about. McNeil just watched a Dean Martin/ Shirley MacLaine movie called CAREER. Who knows how? I can't find it anywhere. But McNeil has his ways. "In CAREER, Dino plays a director and often wears a cape in Greenwich Village," McNeil says to taunt me. He also found out that Dean's son Dino Jr. was once brought up on federal charges for owning a cannon! Among other things. But that's just a side tidbit.

Cancel My Reservation

Now we're getting into the CANCEL MY RESERVATION era in this Bob Hope biography. And you know what that means: you're not qualified to read my "blog" "posts" about it anymore. I have to email this stuff directly to McNeil. It's too sad and obscure for you to grasp. I guess I'll mention that Bob Hope's son just lost all his money (the son's money, I mean; don't worry about Bob Hope's money!) investing in a movie called WHO FEARS THE DEVIL?, "based on a series of fanciful folktales... about an Appalachian balladeer who is transported back in time." But the weirdest part is that "Arlo Guthrie was originally cast in the lead but he didn't work out and had to be replaced by an unknown." I find it inexpressibly touching to think of Bob Hope's broke son sitting around thinking, "If only Arlo Guthrie were in this movie! Everything would be different." See, I knew you wouldn't understand. Say, did you know that one of the short stories in my supposedly forthcoming collection (2016!) is called "Cancel My Reservation"? No, why would you? And the book originally had an epigraph taken from the closing theme to CANCEL MY RESERVATION, a kind of ersatz Osmond Brothers number. But I replaced it. And for a while I considered using part of a Dwight Garner review for the epigraph: "Peter has left behind a wife, Bea, with whom he runs a small parish in an English village, and their cat, Joshua, about whom we learn way too much... This reader did not mourn Joshua’s freakish death." But then I was afraid that readers might think I was endorsing Mr. Garner's gross pronouncement rather than marveling at its chilling soullessness. (Hey, I had drinks with Dwight Garner at City Grocery Bar and he seems like an okay guy. I even made him a mix tape! Ha ha, what a suck-up.) So then I had to couch that Garner epigraph in some other epigraphs to give it context, like Mark Twain saying something good about cats, and then Garrison Keillor saying something dumb about Mark Twain in the New York Times Book Review, but it got too complicated, it spiraled out of control, it started to get like MOBY-DICK! So never mind. Forget I said anything. Oh, Bob and Shirley made up and liked each other despite their political differences, you'll be glad to know.

Shirley MacLaine Yells at the TV

Well, Bob Hope's hawkish attitude toward Vietnam is spicing up this bio a little. People are getting sick and tired of Bob Hope! Shirley MacLaine yells "Oh, shut up, Bob Hope!" at the TV screen. That's an actual event that is actually recounted in this biography. A critic writes that Bob "seems to be living a cruel fantasy that he's Dean Martin." Ouch! Speaking of Dean Martin, Bob takes some of Dean's dancers - "The Golddiggers" - to the White House to do a little performance. At dinner, one of the Golddiggers unfurls a napkin that says "STOP THE WAR." A kerfuffle ensues.

So Long, You Ancient Pelican

McNeil came to town for the Third Annual McNeil's Movie Korner Film Festival. The Second Annual McNeil's Movie Korner Film Festival took place in 2010. So you can imagine our eagerness to get the latest installment of the festival up and running. We got out a statue of John Wayne that Megan Abbott sent me for my birthday and put him on the TV tray to watch over us. It was pretty late and McNeil was barely off the plane himself when we watched the John Wayne airplane drama THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY. About 30 minutes in, we noted that John Wayne hadn't really done anything. An hour in, John Wayne - still not having done much of anything - announced his intention to take a nap! I forgot to tell you about the scene where a grown man gives a long speech about John Wayne's character, all the while licking an ice cream cone for reasons that remained unclear to us. I mean, I know why someone might enjoy an ice cream cone, but it was a peculiar decision dramatically. McNeil and I argued over whether or not it was the director William Wellman's idea. McNeil said no way, but I said if Wellman didn't like it he would have walked over and knocked the ice cream cone out of the guy's hand. I suppose it was just to give the actor something to do with his hands, some "business," while he delivered his monologue, a variation on the old "acting with your pipe" trick. I joked that next time we saw him he'd be eating a candy apple. That reminded McNeil that he had just seen candy apples for sale at the airport. "Eight dollars!" McNeil reported indignantly. Eight dollars for a candy apple. What a world. John Wayne didn't get to take that nap because the plane he was copiloting got into some trouble and he had to go back and explain things to the passengers. He made a really long speech about airplane emergency procedures - no, not a speech, really. It was like a brochure. "He's not acting, he's talking!" McNeil said. But he said it with admiration. It was true that John Wayne efficiently and clearly outlined what to do when your airplane is probably about to land in the ocean. It wasn't until OVER TWO HOURS INTO THE MOVIE (it was a long movie) that John Wayne finally slapped around Robert Stack. Action! At the end of the movie John Wayne walks away and some guy says, "So long, you ancient pelican." We talked about what that might have meant for a while and then we stopped. Next up: the Dean Martin sex comedy WHO'S BEEN SLEEPING IN MY BED?, in which Carol Burnett does some strongly implied proto-twerking, though she is shot from the waist up like Elvis to shield the audience from lewdness. Going on to THE BIG MOUTH, we realized that an unfortunate theme of our selections was "offensive Asian stereotyping," an element shared by all three movies we had watched so far (though the deadpan genius Jack Soo managed to decimate some of it in WHO'S BEEN SLEEPING IN MY BED?). McNeil's visit was to be a short one! We had to keep cramming movies in! The next one was MILLION DOLLAR LEGS, starring Jack Oakie and W.C. Fields. It had Ben Turpin in it! One subplot was child star Dickie Moore shooting people in the butt with arrows. You know what else it had in it? A guy who put on a goat suit and ran really fast (pictured). As you can see from the frame above, at times this goofy slapstick figure resembled a nightmare apparition from an Ingmar Bergman film. BACHELOR IN PARADISE capped things off. Some easygoing back-and-forth between Bob Hope and Lana Turner in a bar got us thinking about a key difference between Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis: Bob, as producer, tended to pick leading ladies who could really challenge him, like Lana Turner, Eva Marie Saint, Lucille Ball, Virginia Mayo, Katharine Hepburn, and so on. Jerry, as director, seemed to favor inexperienced ingenues that (maybe he was thinking) he could "mold." Obviously, there are exceptions, most notably Stella Stevens doing her best to break that mold in THE NUTTY PROFESSOR and Jerry's longtime friend Janet Leigh in THREE ON A COUCH, though, come to think of it, he does stack the rest of that cast with ingenues. (Going back to before he was a director, he meets his truest equal in Shirley MacLaine in ARTISTS AND MODELS.) But I have to reluctantly agree with the Shawn Levy book when it says that THE BIG MOUTH's Susan Bay "reads her lines as if they were random strings of words." McNeil chalked it up to Bob's unsurpassed "security" as a performer (he's so secure it's almost sociopathic) and Jerry's "insecurity." We furthermore agreed that Bob's security and Jerry's insecurity are the qualities that make them such fascinating artists. Jerry's weirdly amorphous "problem," the nature of which he keeps failing to communicate to the other characters in THE BIG MOUTH, writes Chris Fujiwara, is "posed in the most general - indeed, universal - terms... a formality, a MacGuffin." McNeil says it's sexual. I leave you with this clip from MILLION DOLLAR LEGS, featuring the delightful Lyda Roberti, in which she proclaims, "I'm just a woman made of gelatin/ I have a torso like a tambourine":

I'm Not Your Psychiatrist

"Click" here to read an interview I did with Megan Abbott for LENT. The online magazine, not the period of sacred deprivation! Maybe before you read it you will want to check out the following list I have helpfully compiled of people we mention by name in our interview, in order of appearance. That doesn't even include the people we mention, but NOT by name, such as our parents! Perhaps such a list will encourage you to read the interview. Or maybe you will become discouraged and lethargic! Maybe you will think this list is a good enough substitute for reading the interview. Or maybe your reaction will be one of blankness and disregard. I'm not your psychiatrist! 1. Jerry Lewis (Ha ha, I know! I can't help it. I literally cannot have a conversation without mentioning Jerry Lewis - usually right at the outset, like this.) 2. Beth Ann Fennelly 3. William Faulkner 4. Sigmund Freud (Ha ha! Just as I cannot have a conversation without mentioning Jerry Lewis, Megan is sure to bring up old Sigmund Freud. It just happens! Jerry Lewis is to me as Sigmund Freud is to Megan Abbott.) 5. David Lynch 6. Dashiell Hammett 7. James M. Cain 8. Eleanor Parker (pictured) 9. Arlene Dahl 10. Rhonda Fleming 11. Douglas Sirk 12. Georges Simenon 13. Anton Chekhov 14. Bill Griffith 15. Dorothy B. Hughes 16. Tom Franklin 17. Richard Dreyfuss 18. Rosemary Clooney 19. Nathaniel Hawthorne 20. Flannery O'Connor 21. Mickey Spillane 22. Raymond Chandler 23. John Banville 24. Humprhey Bogart 25. Ross MacDonald 26. Eudora Welty 27. Spencer Tracy 28. Katharine Hepburn 29. Margaret Millar 30. Barry Hannah 31. Harold Bloom 32. Hamlin Garland 33. Ernest Hemingway 34. Sherwood Anderson 35. Dean Martin Okay, I'm tired of making "links" now and nobody "clicks" on them anyway. 36. Marilyn Monroe 37. Stan Laurel 38. Oliver Hardy 39. Bud Abbott 40. Lou Costello 41. David Niven 42. Nick Tosches 43. Betty Hutton 44. Judy Garland 45. Danny Thomas 46. McNeil (I'll mention here, uselessly, that McNeil recently had a short story up at LENT... I told about it on twitter, which many more people read than this "blog.") 47. Preston Sturges 48. Billy Wilder 49. Dr. Theresa 50. Dave Kehr 51. Bob Hope 52. Andrew Sarris 53. Wallace Shawn 54. Fred MacMurray 55. Shirley MacLaine 56. Cameron Crowe 57. Gloria Swanson 58. Nancy Olsen 59. Audrey Wilder 60. Alfred Hitchcock 61. Pat Hitchcock 62. Alma Hitchcock 63. Vincent Minnelli 64. H.P. Lovecraft 65. Raymond Carver 66. Edith Wharton 67. Michael Chabon 68. Louisa May Alcott 69. Philip Roth (Reading PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT recently, I came upon a line that might serve as an epigraph for this interview: "The disproportionate and the melodramatic, this is my daily bread!") 70. Claudia Roth Pierpont 71. Scott Phillips - Be sure to use your newest computer while reading the interview. On my old one from 2004 the italics don't show up. But on Dr. Theresa's spiffy newer model, they do! And Megan and I EMPHASIZE lots of WORDS.

All Garbling

I was starting to think our Halloween Film Festival would never bounce back from the depressing effects that THE VAMPIRE had on us. It makes you want to stop having Halloween Film Festivals! But yesterday during a discussion of scary movies Megan Abbott's dad - that's right, Megan Abbott's dad! - mentioned "the one where the woman turns into a wasp, what's it called?" And I said, "THE WASP WOMAN?" I happened to know the title because it's sitting there on the old dvr. Hey! Speaking of dads, my dad was a consultant on tomorrow's all-new episode of ADVENTURE TIME. The way I remember it, Pen had an idea called "Everybody Fixes a Car." He sent me a picture of a broken engine and I sent it to my dad - who has been taking apart and putting back together all kinds of engines for well over half a century - and the first thing my dad said was, "That's not a car engine. It's a truck engine." Well, now the episode is called "We Fixed a Truck," so already you can see my dad's influence. Let me explain that whatever my dad told me, I later told the people in the writing room, and then the people in the writing room may or may not have transmitted it in whole or in part to Cole Sanchez and Andy Ristaino, who were writing and storyboarding the episode. So don't blame my dad for any technical inaccuracy that may have slipped through: ALL GARBLING BEGAN WITH ME. I'm the worst! Anyway, Dr. Theresa and I took Megan's dad's comment as a sign and watched THE WASP WOMAN yesterday. It was satisfying! You know why? Because you think it will be about a woman who turns into a wasp and kills people... AND IT IS! (See accompanying illustration.) The imaginative and loony direction of Roger Corman helps too. As I am sure you will recall, Corman directed ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS, a highlight of our 2011 Halloween Film Festival. So of course we were invigorated and in the mood for another Corman movie. So we watched NOT OF THIS EARTH, the original one, not the 1988 remake, which I must confess I saw in the movie theatre. You see, my friend Ben and I had this elaborate ritual of going to see two movies every Monday (I think it was Monday, and I think it was Ben) and there were all these complicated rules about picking that I can no longer remember, but which I believe resulted in us going to see NOT OF THIS EARTH (the remake) and the Run DMC star vehicle/action movie TOUGHER THAN LEATHER on the same day, that was some day! But back to yesterday. A doctor walked in and I was like, "That's the guy with the pipe!" Yes, the doctor from NOT OF THIS EARTH was also in THE WASP WOMAN, and in THE WASP WOMAN he "let his pipe do most of the acting," as I believe I once said in an article about Dick Powell in THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL. Another noteworthy pipe-based performance occurs in the Paul Anka voyeurism movie ("click" here for more details, ha ha! I know you won't). But you know the type of performance. A lot of actorly business with "lighting your pipe" every time you walk into a scene. The curiously sympathetic murderous aliens in NOT OF THIS EARTH dress like the Blues Brothers, as Dr. Theresa first observed - sunglasses, hats, and suits. And may I say that they are much more vampiric than the lead character in THE VAMPIRE? I am still holding a grudge about that. Our main alien keeps his refrigerator well stocked with blood, just like (if memory serves) the vampire in THE NIGHT STALKER from last year's festival. Say what you will about modern technology, it is a real life-saver for today's busy vampire on the go. (Here I should mention for the sake of completeness - ha ha! who cares? - that Dr. Theresa and I watched NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS after THE VAMPIRE. NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS was directed by Dan Curtis, who did THE NIGHT STALKER and TRILOGY OF TERROR, so we had high hopes, and we were coming off of THE VAMPIRE, so we were ready to enjoy something for a change, but it was kind of a mess. It did nothing to inspire us to keep the Halloween Film Festival going! It felt like the last gasp. We were enervated by it! The theme song sounded like a swanky cocktail lounge with a tipsy piano player, like something from THE APARTMENT, with Fred MacMurray and Shirley MacLaine sitting in the dark back corner, and then the theme would be taken up by guitar and a wheezing, melancholy harmonica. The movie itself had weak strains of WUTHERING HEIGHTS and REBECCA... its most effective set was a creepy old slimy swimming pool with a gnarled tree branch lying in it; it kept promising something better and snatching it away... I guess the best thing it did was "introduce Kate Jackson.") Corman fave actor Dick Miller gets murdered by the main alien in NOT OF THIS EARTH. Miller's character was a door-to-door salesman who used beatnik lingo ("Crazy!"), which reminded me that Dean Moriarty in ON THE ROAD is a door-to-door salesman at a couple of points, and NOT OF THIS EARTH came out right after ON THE ROAD, and I don't know what I'm talking about. There's an idea in there somewhere.

Greatest Airplane Cookie

Hey I have not "blogged" at you for a few days and you are probably crying about it. All it usually means is that I have gone on a little trip and that's what it means this time too. I went to Los Angeles to do some of my ADVENTURE TIME work. As usual, I thought about you the whole time and jotted down some little jottings in my precious little notebook for your pleasure and entertainment upon my return, and as a way of making amends for all the wrongs I have done you. I would now like to present you with those very jottings. 1) It has been a long time since I flew Delta Airlines and I had almost forgotten the Biscoff - the world's greatest airplane cookie, which is handed out on Delta flights. I love it so much that I wrote a paean to it on the McSweeney's "web" site many years ago. I guess if you dig around very hard you might be able to find my paean to the Biscoff buried somewhere in those archives, but I won't blame you if you decide there are more important things to do with your life. 2) Reading JANE EYRE on the airplane. Or should I say Eyreplane? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Mr. Rochester threatens to send Jane to work for "Mrs. Dionysius O'Gall of Bitternut Lodge." That sounds like a terrible place to work! Turns out Mr. Rochester is just goofing around anyway. 3) At Cartoon Network I met two nice people named Natasha and Patrick who had just bought a little package of caviar from "the caviar vending machine in the mall"! 4) Joey Lauren Adams and I accidentally stumbled upon the best bar in Los Angeles! I am not going to tell you the name because it is going to be our secret! But I brought a book of matches home with me so if you ever come over you can snoop around for clues, I guess. It was a very dark bar and one of the murals on the walls featured a unicorn - nor was this the final unicorn I encountered in Los Angeles, as you will soon discover. But that's for later! Right now I will tell you that when I ordered a Manhattan with rye, the bartender took a little slice of orange peel and alchemically passed a lit match over it and under it before dropping it in the drink as a final touch. And then I will tell you that as we sipped our drinks in the atmospheric dimness, Joey told me about the time she almost went hunting ghosts with Dan Aykroyd and Dan Aykroyd's brother! They really believe in ghosts and invited her along on one of their missions. Joey jumped at the opportunity! But as the brothers started gathering their equipment and giving her a terrifying list of rules NOT TO VIOLATE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, she started freaking out even though she did not believe in ghosts and therefore, to quote the words of Ray Parker, Jr., was under most circumstances not "afraid of no ghost." So anyway Joey missed her one chance to go ghostbusting with an actual ghostbuster from GHOSTBUSTERS. 5) Talked to my mom on the phone. She had taken my aunt to a movie for her birthday. I was surprised. Mom never goes to the movies! I asked what movie they went to see. "RED DAWN," said Mom, by which she meant the recent remake, of course. "It was awful," said Mom. I guess for this to be really funny or interesting you would have to know my mom and aunt, but you know what? I just don't care about your problems. 6) It was in a Burbank hotel room that I confirmed JANE EYRE does have owls in it, just as I always suspected! "I dreamt another dream, sir: that Thornfield Hall was a dreary ruin, the retreat of bats and owls." 7) Speaking of owls, the great M. Emmett Walsh does the voice of The Cosmic Owl, a deity on ADVENTURE TIME. Kent told me that when M. Emmett Walsh came in to record his lines, he handed everybody pictures of himself, along with two-dollar bills! Kent gave me his photo of M. Emmett Walsh, which unfortunately is not quite - though frustratingly close to - wallet-sized. I would love to have a photo of M. Emmett Walsh in my wallet. 8) Speaking of Kent Osborne, his brother Mark - like Kent, a beloved old friend - was in town for one night only and I got to see him! Mark had coincidentally flown in from Paris, where he is living now. Mark is directing a feature film based on THE LITTLE PRINCE, and he was in town to meet with a CERTAIN FAMED ACTOR about being in his movie. No hints! I think it would be okay to hint, but I don't want to take any chances. 9) Party at the home of Pendleton Ward, creator of ADVENTURE TIME. The wallpaper in his kitchen had unicorns and cyclopes on it, and yes, that is the correct spelling of the plural of cyclops. So you would think Pendleton Ward might have unicorns and cyclopes on his kitchen wallpaper but get this! There were already unicorns and cyclopes on the wallpaper WHEN HE MOVED IN. At the bottom of this "post" I will place a photograph taken by Kent Osborne, in which I seem to be gesturing with consternation at the kitchen wallpaper of Pendleton Ward. 10) Saturday morning I went across the street to Starbucks to get coffee and noticed the guy from Tenacious D in line in front of me - not Jack Black, the other guy. Part of me was thinking I could blow his mind by saying, "You were great in CRADLE WILL ROCK." But I said nothing! And that was the best decision of all. Really I was just cracking myself up inside, kind of pretending to believe I could blow his mind by doing that. I could not blow his mind by doing that. 11) When I went to the counter to get my refill, I was staring at the back of a guy in an extremely nice WEIRD SCIENCE jacket, like a crew jacket, with leather and everything. I thought, "I bet he was on the crew of WEIRD SCIENCE!" The barista asked his name so she could tell him when his order was ready and he said, "Todd." So I made a secret vow that when I got home I would look up on imdb what Todds, if any, worked on WEIRD SCIENCE. As I left the Starbucks, I noted that the name "Todd" was fancily stitched on the breast of his WEIRD SCIENCE jacket. Okay, I just looked it up and the only Todd I see is Todd Hoffman, who played one of "The Weenies" in WEIRD SCIENCE but I have not seen WEIRD SCIENCE since it came out and I don't remember what "The Weenies" might be, so I can neither confirm nor deny that I have found the correct Todd. 12) There was a pet store next to the place where I ate breakfast with my brother and my nephews. On the window of the pet store was a poster for a book called HARRIET'S JOURNAL. The cover of the book was a photo of a possum apparently drinking a cup of coffee. I don't know what this book is, but I assume it is the amazing true story of one woman and her unlikely encounter with a possum that changed her life, but I don't know. I went in the pet store and looked around and didn't see the book and left quickly because pet stores bum me out, although the staff of this one seemed particularly attentive and kind to the animals. Photo of the photo of a possum drinking coffee (above) by my brother. 13) I think I met the nicest bank teller in the world, or maybe that's just the way the bank tellers of California are, maybe that's their thing, maybe they're trained for it. I was in the middle of performing a very simple transaction (depositing a check) and he said, "May I offer you a bottle of water?" He is the first - and I am sure, only - bank teller to ever offer me a bottle of water. 14) My brother and nephews and I went to a car wash. It looked like the car wash from the movie CAR WASH. But my brother, who was paying from his spot in the driver's seat and was thus in the perfect position, REFUSED TO ASK! 15) We went to a cool vintage toy shop to which one of my nephews had been wanting to go for a long time. Turned out to be next to The Scarlet Lady Saloon and The Tattle Tale Room. I met a man who was wearing sleigh bells around his neck. He said he had fallen off a roof onto his head at the age of three. He seemed like a nice person who had had some bad luck. 16) I saw Josie from the movie version of JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS doing some holiday shopping (not near The Scarlet Lady Saloon! Somewhere else entirely). I don't think Ace Atkins would mind me telling you that he likes that movie. I have heard him say so in public. We were at dinner once with a large group. And down the table he said, "Jack likes that movie, too. Hey, Jack, didn't you tell me you like that movie, too?" Yet like St. Peter I denied him thrice. 17) It was at this point in my jottings that I realized (and jotted) that if I "posted" everything I had jotted so far, the "post," if "labeled" "correctly," would require more than the maximum amount of "allowed" labels. 18) Dinner with Laraine Newman! She looked like a kid! (And her husband, by his own - accurate! - assessment, looked like Anthony Michael Hall.) But she really looked like a kid. Laraine Newman and I have been pen pals for a while but it was my first time meeting her. When I called Mom to let her know I had made it back to Mississippi okay, I told her about dinner with Laraine Newman and Mom said, "Don't you wish you could go back in time and tell your 12-year-old self that story?" And Mom was right! It is impossible to overstate the impact - the salvation! - of that original season of Saturday Night Live on a 12-year-old boy in rural Alabama. 19) As I sat at the bar waiting for Laraine Newman (!) and drinking a Manhattan, I thought, "Here I am waiting for Laraine Newman! And this time tomorrow I will be grading finals." And then I sighed like Charlie Brown. 20) Speaking of which, I need to thank Dr. Theresa and Bill Boyle for proctoring my finals while I was strutting around Hollywood acting like a big shot. 21) The restaurant, which Laraine had described to me beforehand as a "genuine Rat Pack hangout," had a photo of Frank Sinatra on the men's room door. Over the urinal: a photo of Sinatra and Tony Curtis peeing against a wall. I felt I had to check who was on the door of the women's room. Marilyn Monroe. I love Marilyn, but I was hoping for Shirley MacLaine. 22) The owner of the restaurant came over and told us we were sitting at Dean Martin's old table! He also told us that Dean Martin had driven him to his high school prom. (You can read more about that in an article Laraine Newman wrote. "Click" here. She sent it to me this morning. Laraine's article also contains - spoiler alert! - the unforgettable image of Frank Sinatra shooting bullets into stacks of money.) 23) JANE EYRE: "The crisis was perilous; but not without its charm." 24) "... the moon was setting in the waves, broad and red, like a hot cannon-ball..." That's more JANE EYRE. By the way, a glance at the stats tells me our "blog"trospective on the moon is by far the least popular "blog"trospective. What's the matter with you people? Don't you like the moon? 25) I just realized I skipped an entire page of jottings from much earlier. It starts with another JANE EYRE passage, of course, describing an emotional (not literal) landscape: "A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed the blowing roses; on hay-field and corn-field lay a frozen shroud." 26) First sentence of an L.A. Times article: "Donny and Marie Osmond hit the stage at the Pantages Theater in a cloud of nearly palpable pizazz." I tried to figure out what I found so troubling yet compelling: was it that "nearly palpable" pizazz is no pizazz at all? Was it the idea that pizazz comes in cloud form? 27) Waiting in the lobby for my brother and the boys. The hotel lobby is decorated with actual books, all different books, but in identical, blank white covers. The effect is disorienting for a lover of books. You just have to take them off the shelves and see what they are. I opened one at random to page 329 and read about "a penumbra of unfamiliar shapes obscured in the dim owl-light," whatever that is, and that's how I know THE FINAL CLUB by Geoffrey Wolff is a book with an owl in it. 28) I see on another page that I forgot to tell you about something else! Between The Scarlet Lady Saloon and The Tattle Tale Room (see above) was an aquarium supply store, where my brother and nephews and I saw something called a "glass catfish." It was a real fish, a real transparent fish, and it looked like a fish skeleton swimming around. Goodness, what else important have I neglected to tell you? 29) I read in a magazine at the airport that Dan Aykroyd has webbed toes and I thought, "Did I already know that?" 30) Flying back, I was seated next to the SAME GUY who had been sitting next to me on the way to L.A.! Weird! He flies a lot and says it has never happened to him before. He said he lived in Oxford and I said, "Me too!" He said he teaches at the university and I said, "Me too!" He said he had flown out for business but stayed an extra day so he could visit his brother. ME TOO ON ALL COUNTS! It was starting to feel like the beginning of that Ionesco play, I think it's THE BALD SOPRANO, I might be wrong. Both of us are bad fliers! Both of our wives love Hong Kong action movies! And so on. 31) A dog got on the plane! A German shepherd. He or she (no, he, I heard a guy with him say, "Good boy") just got on the plane and trotted down the aisle like anybody else. Maybe he sat in a seat! I lost track. 32) In the magazine, Albert Brooks talked about Steven Spielberg directing from a young age: "He put his dog in a certain position and made him eat at four o'clock." Why did that simple sentence make me laugh so hard on the airplane? It shares a quality with certain sentences I like by Jerry Lewis. Why do I keep calling it "the magazine"? So irritatingly vague on my part. It's the VANITY FAIR comedy issue and there are tons of good stuff in it. 32) A guy in one of the seats in front of me on the airplane had a particular kind of bald spot that made it look as if the FRONT of someone's head was sticking up just a bit over the headrest, like maybe his head was on backwards. 33) VANITY FAIR: Elaine May used to be a private eye. 34) "Tombstone Blues" came on the iPod and it reminded me of something I haven't thought about in decades: an itinerant evangelist I saw in a church service as a kid. He theorized in great detail that the lyrics to "Tombstone Blues" (of all songs to pick as the centerpiece of your sermon!) formed an elaborate anti-Christian parable. I had never heard of "Tombstone Blues" and in fact it is almost a certainty I had never heard of Bob Dylan. But the lyrics the preacher quoted struck me as awesome and I guess that's when I got interested in Bob Dylan for the first time. Missionary fail!

"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.