The Pendarvis Art of Living

Yesterday I got a promotional email from Square Books, saying that Gin Phillips would be on the Thacker Mountain radio show. And I was like, "Gin Phillips, Gin Phillips. Don't I know her? Did I maybe do some readings with her in Atlanta?" Digging deep into the "blog" archives, which must now substitute for my memory, I realized I was thinking of Hollis Gillespie. Now, Gin Phillips and Hollis Gillespie... are those names really so much alike? No. But I understand why my brain would think so, even if it had not been famously zapped in an unfortunate incident from the recent past. Anyway! Before I thought to check the "blog," I decided to do an "internet" search of my name alongside the name of Gin Phillips, hoping to confirm what turned out to be a false recollection. AND! The good old A.I. robot that pops up unbeckoned whenever I search for something helpfully informed me that I was the author of the books THE PENDARVIS ART OF LIVING, YOUR BODY IS CALLING YOU (see also), and, of course, my renowned novel CIGARETTE BOY. You are perhaps unfamiliar with what I laughingly call my work, so let me explain that none of those books exist. YET!

Mom Right

When I was growing up, there was a local grocery store Mom didn't like. It's still there and she still doesn't like it. But now that I am adult man with sophisticated opinions, I am always like, "Mom, it is just a grocery store like any other. Why do you go so far out of your way for groceries?" And then I continue to lecture my mother on a variety of topics. I'll tell you, though... I have a single vivid memory of this grocery store from childhood. I don't know why it should be vivid. It involves a cigarette. It was the late 1960s or early 1970s. Cigarettes were everywhere. So that's not why the memory is vivid. Three of my four grandparents constantly blew cigarette smoke into my cherubic face. Benignly, I add! But anyway, I saw the back of a guy kneeling in a white uniform at a dairy case... putting in milk bottles... he turned, and I saw his face... he had a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, a cigarette with, probably, the longest ash I had ever seen. Or ever have (when not deployed comically, as in the case of Nathan Thurm or a 20-year-old infomercial for a blender)! It seemed miraculous that the ash hadn't fallen off his cigarette - which was mostly ash! - and into the whipping cream... anyway! Somehow it filled me with uncanny horror. I don't know why we were even in that grocery store, the one Mom didn't like. None of this is the point. Some of it is the point. Now I'm going to reveal the kind of personal detail that has security experts quaking in their boots. Sometimes, Dr. Theresa and I like an apple and an orange at night. We have been off desserts ever since some medical shenanigans. So, yes, sometimes an apple and an orange will hit the spot. For whatever gendered reason, it is Dr. Theresa who peels the apple and orange as part of the elaborate ritual. She likes peeling an apple! What do you want me to do? So... oh! I forgot to say that Dr. Theresa and I frequent the forbidden grocery store when we are visiting my parents. And this time, we happened to bring back some apples. So... afterward, when we would have our apple and orange, and the apple turned out to be insipid, I would say, "Is this one of those ****** apples?" (Here, I named the grocery store Mom doesn't like.) And every time, yes! The flavorless apple came from that grocery store. Finally, I was obliged to call Mom on the phone and say, "Mom, you were right!"

Big Peanut Inside You

Speaking of M&Ms and unpublished novels, one of my unpublished novels contains this paragraph: "I thought up a commercial where a doctor shows an anthropomorphic M&M an x-ray and says, 'You’ve got this big peanut inside you. I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do.' And the M&M bursts into uncontrollable sobs, but he eventually gets a grip. He walks out in the waiting room and there’s his wife sitting with her pocketbook on her lap. She’s an M&M too. She has this beautiful, expectant look on her face. Close-up on the M&M. His eyes are vacant. He’s in total shock. What’s he going to tell her? His life is spinning out of control!" End of quote. Scientists of the future will be able to piece together all my unpublished works from the pathetic shards provided here over the decades. By the way, I am proud to confirm that, yes, March 2026 is the month with the most "blog" "posts" since April of 2016, infamous as the period in which our TV blew up and I stomped my little hoof and swore never to "blog" again. Then we had the pandemic, leading to what I have creatively taken to calling "these times we live in," during which, little by little, I began to "blog" more and more, just to put a little smile on the face of the world. How’s that going?

No One Tells Me Anything

I just saw a commercial indicating, or so I thought, that there are purple M&Ms. I felt very upset because no one tells me anything. Then I looked it up and I guess you can't find a purple M&M in the bag. She is just a fanciful mascot for promotional purposes. I know this will be a "zombie" "link" one day, but on the M&M "web" site you can examine her workout routine and the advice she would give her teenage self. That's right, this M&M was once a teenager. I would have expected their life cycle to last three years at most. Oh, this really takes me back! The Hawaiian Punch FAQ upon which I doted once is just a "zombie" "link" now. Thank God, then, that I had the foresight to quote it: "Punchy has been revamped with contemporary fashion and music to appeal to modern consumers. He still has the punch! ... The long-time spokesman for Hawaiian Punch was given a more contemporary look that appeals to teens." That's my favorite kind of writing, which may clue you in about why most of my novels remain unpublished.

No One Is Talking

Well, it was back in December when my enormously popular yet mysteriously obscure feature ACE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD, on the "web" site Flaming Hydra, came to its gently burbling conclusion. I can't say that I was inundated with cards and letters asking me what might come next. In fact, the query was raised by no one, nor was the finale itself a source of rueful celebration. The subject of the column in question, of course, was my friend and neighbor Ace Atkins, in particular his work on the Pauly Shore film JURY DUTY. And something did come next! That something was, and is, KENT GOES TO CHELMSFORD, the thrilling story of how Kent Osborne got cast in the starmaking Brendan Fraser vehicle SCHOOL TIES, which I believe came out within a year of Pauly Shore's JURY DUTY. We're already on Episode 3 of KENT GOES TO CHELMSFORD! Which I only mention because Kent talks about eating chicken in Episode 3 and, as you know, I have kept a careful tally here on the "blog" of Kent's chicken-eating activities, insofar as they relate to me personally... it would not be within the scope of even our mightiest computer systems to maintain a record of every time Kent eats chicken, which he does with neither remorse nor surcease. He's probably eating a chicken right now! If one were to "click" on the proper "hyperlink" shortly to come, one would find that the chicken in Episode 3 of KENT GOES TO CHELMSFORD is Chicken Française... a spoiler in which I do not mind indulging as I thought you might like to know that Chicken Française is the same thing as Chicken French, to which I was introduced by James Whorton in Brockport, NY, a stone's throw from Chicken French's place of origin, Rochester. If I recall correctly, Jim told me that he had originally (and wrongly) assumed the name "Chicken French" had something to do with French's brand mustard, the French's Mustard company, it may shock and delight you to learn, having historical ties to Rochester! What a world. On that same trip, Jim fed me something called a "garbage plate," an incident fictionalized in a story of which I could not remember the title as I tossed and turned last night, contemplating "blogging" about it upon awakening, which, as you can see, I have done. Anyhow, the story about the garbage plate appeared in the Hingston & Olsen SHORT STORY ADVENT CALENDAR for 2019 and it was titled, as I just confirmed, "The Wild Man of Mississippi." Who cares? Nobody! Which was my original point. For example, I have also heard literally nothing about Frowny 'n' Smiley, my big hit characters who made their debut on Adult Swim around the same time that ACE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD came to its sputtering halt. I was told recently - without asking! - that Frowny 'n' Smiley are "in rotation," but the only true evidence I have for their existence is in the commercial breaks for the BEHIND THE ELEPHANT special that I recorded off the TV one morning some hours before sunrise. I have had no verification of a Frowny 'n' Smiley sighting from any independent source, and the chances are good everything is a delusion. Yes, everything.

I'm Like Ladyhawke

Above, that's Adam Muto's tribute to my beloved characters Frowny 'n' Smiley! But more of that anon. First! I know you are so interested in how I switch from my daytime book to my nighttime book. My process, if you will. How do I stop reading one book during the day and start reading another book at night? Well, it's just like in the movie LADYHAWKE! Except instead of turning into a wolf as Rutger Hauer does with the setting of the sun, I put aside my daytime book and pick up my nighttime book! It's just that simple, folks. And before we go on, I'd like to mention that I repeatedly brought up LADYHAWKE in the Adventure Time writers room, and yet, somehow, we never stole anything from LADYHAWKE to use in the show, no matter how much I begged and cried. All right! But that's not the point. There isn't a point. But I'm sure you remember how sometimes my daytime book will blur into my nighttime book... like the daytime book will mention Gogol and then the nighttime book will mention Gogol, and so on (please "click" for a full catalog)... anyway! Yesterday, as my daytime reading was coming to a close, I read (in THE LOST STEPS by Alejo Carpentier, translated by Adrian Nathan West) "... the grave-faced toucan flaunts his breastplate..." at which point I opened up my nighttime book (a scholarly analysis of the roots of oral epic poetry) to see, of all things, "Rade's sword strikes fire from the captain's breastplate." Now, what does this mean? Nothing. I guess breastplate is an everyday word. Personally, I don't think about breastplates too much. But what is the universe telling me? To buy a breastplate? I don't know why I am reminded of a recent incident... yes I do. Anyway, I was at Square Books and I saw a new volume of previously unpublished Dream Songs by John Berryman. And I was like, well, he's been dead a long time. I asked Richard, who was standing there, whether they were any good or just some garbage someone swept up from John Berryman's floor and Richard said, and I do think this is an exact quotation, "Let's do the test!" And he opened the book at random and stuck his finger in and read the lines he found that way and they were good and so I bought the book. That's how Richard gets you! And this is related too, as I am sure you will agree: tonight, if you watch the special THE ELEPHANT on Adult Swim, you will see, in the commercial breaks on your ordinary television set, some extremely short "Frowny 'n' Smiley" episodes by me. So... when we were in one meeting during the making of THE ELEPHANT, Pen happened to mention that it was the 100th anniversary of the exquisite corpse, an art-making game which inspired the structrue of THE ELEPHANT. So, anyway! Today, in the New York Times, there is an article about the 100th anniversary of surrealism, and it includes the origin story of the exquisite corpse! Isn't that something? Today of all days? And I just thought of another thing: Matthew Broderick appears in both LADYHAWKE and ADVENTURE TIME: FIONNA AND CAKE! Okay, I am going to buy a breastplate.

Everybody Wants to Read the Book

Hey! I'll be interviewing Ace Atkins about his brand new action-packed novel EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD at Off Square Books on Tuesday at the usual time. Why am I telling you this? Is it because I think the "blog" is a great place to advertise? Hell no. It's because way back in June of 2024 I read the first draft of the manuscript, which had the acronym OWLS in it, a fact with which I tantalized you mercilessly. So now I can finally reveal the source! Which is, as I may not have made clear, EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD by Ace Atkins. I just double checked the beautiful hardcover first edition and confirmed that OWLS is still there, much as Francis Scott Key once excitedly remarked about a flag. I bet that's a big relief. Unlike Dr. Theresa's birthday murder book, in which OWL stood for "Olympic-Wallawa Lineament," Ace's OWLS stands for (I don't think this is a spoiler) "Older, Wiser, Livelier Souls." I wondered: was this something Ace made up? I guess not! I found, for example, an OWLS program in Jones County, Iowa, where "events include snowshoeing, cross country skiing, a hike to discover skunk cabbage... [and] several evening hikes to Codfish Hollow Hill Prairie." Sounds great! I'd include a "hyperlink," but I know it would just become a zombie "link" one day, and anyway, the hike to discover skunk cabbage took place in 2022. I'm sorry to get your hopes up!

Cookie Man

If I'm reading the "blog" correctly - and really, who cares? - the last time I enjoyed a TV commercial was 2011 ("click" here for all the details you're craving). TV commercials! As I have mentioned many times, Dr. Theresa and I are the last two people who will watch "broadcast television" from time to time, like we're living in Colonial Williamsburg! The advertisers have a very special set of people in mind. All the commercials are about being afraid you'll fall down in the bathtub... or medicine to take if yet another medicine you take makes your mouth twitch almost imperceptibly, causing your loved ones to scorn and abuse you... or, as McNeil has correctly observed, deodorant you can proudly and openly spray on your butt... or... and here we reach the topic under consideration... life insurance. So, in the commercial I'm thinking about, there's a guy who picks up a cookie. He almost bites it, but then his wife tells him someone died, causing him to take the cookie away from his mouth. Then, every time he almost bites the cookie, she says something else that makes him take the cookie away from his mouth. This happens four or five times. He never puts the cookie in his mouth! I won't say I enjoy the commercial, but I have to admit that I'm riveted every time I watch it. I'm like, "Let the man eat his damn cookie!" I also wonder whose idea it was. Like was the actor all, "I don't think my character would ever eat the cookie"? Or was it in the script? Unless I'm hallucinating, the commercial starts with a closeup on the plate of cookies, which might argue for the latter. You know what this reminds me of? When I was a kid, you could send in a boxtop to vote on whether or not the Trix cereal rabbit finally got to eat some Trix. I seem to recall that I perversely voted to deny the rabbit such enjoyment. My reasoning, as I recall it, was that of course they were going to let the rabbit eat the cereal (which they did). But if I voted no, and then the rabbit was not allowed to eat the cereal, I could believe in the power of a single vote. Sobering thoughts for us to mull over in our times of contemporary life we currently experience in our daily existence as it is lived among us, the living, breathing people of the times we have today.

The Garbage Story

Well, it's Thursday, the day I take the garbage to the end of the driveway to be picked up, as I'm sure Elon Musk and his doe-eyed teen protégé Big Balls know from examining my personal records. It's no secret anymore! Anyhow, I could barely tilt the garbage can back on its wheels to roll it down. It was like Dr. Theresa had thrown away a burlap sack filled with bowling balls without my knowledge! And then, once I got the garbage can rolling, it was all I could do to hold it back. It was so damn heavy that it was pulling me down the steep driveway beyond - and I'm sure this is no exaggeration - the speed of sound! I was like the Chuck Yeager of garbage cans. So, anyway, I'm sure you'll recall when the tree fell on our house. It turns out that the tree also made a hole in the garbage can lid, so that, in addition to garbage, the can was filled with rainwater, the heaviest substance known to science. I wrote about it in my diary, of course. And I was like, "I can't wait to tell Ace about it on our daily walk around the neighborhood!" But then I was like, "That's not enough! The people need to know my story!" I just wish my grandparents could be alive to know that a kid named Big Balls is helping run the government. They'd be so excited! After washing my mouth out with soap. Speaking of which, McNeil wrote to say that he saw a commercial where a guy sprays deodorant down the back of his pants. Once again, I thought of my grandparents and how much they'd be vomiting all the time and punching holes in walls with their bloody fists if only they could see us now. And they weren't even violent or especially emotional people. They had regular emotions! Still, I doubt George Washington himself would find it any harder to grasp our fascinating modern times when it's so exciting to be alive and guessing what's next. Anyway, I really pulled a lot of muscles and hurt myself in various ways today with the garbage can. Pity me!

Divisive Concepts!

Well, Dr. Theresa tells me that the Mississippi legislature, which theoretically represents us and all the other people of Mississippi, has passed a bill banning the teaching of "divisive concepts." ("Click" here for a news article you can read about it.) Now what, you may ask, is a divisive concept? I'll tell you what the Mississippi legislature appears to think, with just a few examples, hardly comprehensive: Do you find it sobering that a Black person couldn't attend the University of Mississippi until 1962? And people got shot and died over it? Divisive! Do you think it was a bit excessive when Oscar Wilde was thrown into prison and sentenced to hard labor for being gay? Divisive! Did you ever say something like "Women should be paid the same as men for doing the same job"? Divisive! Do you like the Billie Holiday song that goes "Them that's got shall get, them that's not shall lose, so the Bible said and it still is news"? Divisive! Do you consider it none of your damn beeswax to sit in judgment over how someone else defines their own identity? Divisive! How about the inscription on the Statue of Liberty? Divisive! And, you know, keep going from there, it's all up to you! Because guess what? Part of the bill says that students can inform on their teachers like little squirmy cheese-eating rats for anything that makes them feel all confused inside like trembling fledglings, if such should be their unfortunate nature. I paraphrase slightly, while mixing animal metaphors, or similes. So, in short, I would say, based on contextual evidence, that the Mississippi legislature is afraid that Mississippi has become too "woke," a word they love to slop around for effect. They think, it seems, that "woke" is the first word that springs to people's minds about Mississippi, and by golly they're going to put a stop to it. Like, people around the world are saying, "I'd love to go to Mississippi, but it's just too 'woke' for me." Anyway, if the Mississippi legislature is reading this, I just want to let them know that no one has ever, ever, ever said that. Now let's move on to another divisive concept: art! I'm going to have a piece in an art show. Divisive? You bet your ass! Because I'm not an artist. OR AM I? Divisive! Sorry, I can't stop thinking about the Mississippi legislature. Maybe it's a mistake to combine these two subjects in a single "post," but I actually think it's okay because nobody reads this "blog." The gallery asked the artists to promote the show, which was all I intended to do in this "post," and then I got the text from Dr. Theresa and my brain exploded. To be precise, the gallery asked us to promote the show on "social media," when you know perfectly well I quit social media a while back and became the acknowledged hero of our crummy times. You may "click" here for details about the art show, which will also feature some nice people who have been mentioned on the "blog" in the past: Andy Ristaino, Lyle Partridge, Pendleton Ward, Pat McHale, and Rebecca Sugar. And many others. Fifty in all, I think, so maybe there are some others who have been mentioned on the "blog" as well, but my old eyes are tired of seeing and my heart is being squashed under the big uncaring butt of the Mississippi legislature. Ha ha, sorry, gallery, how's this for a promo? I love you!

The Eisenstein Effect

Speaking of TV that has commercials in it, I keep meaning to tell you about an ad for cream cheese that was bothering Dr. Theresa, due to the inadvertent suggestion on the part of the cream cheese company, as Dr. Theresa saw it, that the protagonist of their commercial had eaten her (the protagonist's) cat. "They don't understand the Eisenstein effect!" Dr. Theresa shouted on November 1 of this year, a date I can give you with 100% certainty, as I recorded the plaintive outburst in my diary at the time of its occurrence.

Who?

Hey! Do you want to watch MYSTERY CUDDLERS but you couldn't stay up until 3 AM Central Time like I did? I have good news for you. You can see the whole pilot by "clicking" this "link" to the Adult Swim youtube channel. I watched it on TV just the way people did in olden times. I was sitting through a Dawn dishwashing liquid commercial that came on before it and thinking unironically, "This is nourishing my anticipation!" That is the kind of thing I sit around thinking. Then the middle of the show was interrupted by an ad for generic Viagra. Really, nothing could have made me happier. They (some people at the network) asked us just last week, "Uh, where is the commercial break supposed to go?" and Pen and I were like, "Uh-oh! Hmm! Whoops!" Then Pen thought of a funny place where it could go, which made me laugh when it happened at roughly 3:11 AM Central Time, but now that commercial break is lost forever in the history of broadcast television. Before you "click," I should tell you I play an owl on the show, which I only mention because the casual "blog" observer will think I am obsessed with owls. "And now at last," you will be thinking, "he has become one." But is that guy, the one who seems so interested in owls, the "real" me? This is like when I tried to explain my unicorn pin to Hendrik Hertzberg. It really doesn't matter! What I'm saying is that the owl was 100% Pen's idea, and so was me playing the owl, and by "playing the owl," I mean I sat in our bedroom closet saying "Whooooo?" over and over into a microphone I had borrowed from Ace Atkins. In conclusion, MYSTERY CUDDLERS was inspired in very small part by my novel SWEET BANANAS, which I can say without fear of crass self-promotion because that novel existed only in a limited edition of 365 copies with 365 different covers, which are all off the street, and can only be purchased in alleyways, like in GOODFELLAS, when Robert De Niro is telling Lorraine Bracco, "That's right, keep going, yes, that's it, that dark alleyway just to right, go in there," I paraphrase.

Passing Through

As you know (?), I take my blood pressure twice a day. Before doing so, I sit silently for five minutes, for a ten-minute total per day. And as I sit so silently and still, waiting to take my blood pressure with all the suspense of someone slowly scratching off a lottery ticket, or Charlie Bucket peeling off the wrapper of a chocolate bar, I read a book. To qualify as my "blood pressure book," the book must be a sturdy hardcover with a mighty spine that allows the volume to lie open flat on the table. That is the only requirement. All this you know. But I don't think you knew that my current blood pressure book is a biography of Fernando Pessoa, which is about as long as THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY. Anyhow! And forgive me for going over some of my other reading habits but it's so obviously important. Anyhow! I have also been reading old comic books at night, ever since Tom Franklin brought me some old comic books in the hospital. But I have to say I'm getting tired of the old comic books. Something has... changed. Something in the... I want to say... no I don't... national mood??? I didn't say it! Let's not talk about it! Once I finish the current pile, which is swiftly dwindling, that may be it for old comic books, at least for a while. Old comic books can't soothe me anymore. Anyhow! ANYHOW! I was very surprised, as Pessoa's biographer, Richard Zenith, which sounds like a name young Fernando Pessoa would have made up, analyzed a specific sort of Pessoa poem by saying, and here I quote my blood pressure book, "And the scenes and moods are not only juxtaposed, they also interpenetrate, passing through each other the way Superman passes through walls, without him or the walls losing their structural integrity." Talk about juxtaposing and interpenetrating: at last my blood pressure book and my old comic books had met! BUT WHY? The comparison is striking for a number of reasons, several of which I am about to tell you until you can take no more. First! The allusion does not seem particularly Pessoa-friendly, especially since Pessoa died in 1935, well before the creation of Superman. Now! We must of course admit that the biographer has an advantage, in this case, over his subject... that of still being alive (as far as I know). Therefore, he can draw from any range of examples he likes, including those from a future unimaginable even to his very imaginative subject. BUT! Pessoa is conducting seances just a couple of pages later. Isn't a ghost something that passes through walls? Might not a ghost be a more universally recognizable figure for the average reader, if the average reader pictures something that passes through walls without losing its structural integrity or altering the wall? I hope it is not blasphemous to suggest that one also thinks of Jesus, in his appearance to St. Thomas. But I'm not done! The biographer's Superman example is interesting to me because... do people know Superman can do that? I mean, I do. But I have made a serious study of all his oddest powers. A superhero who is more famous for vibrating through a wall is the Flash, if you know about the Flash, but, of course, more people know about Superman than know about the Flash... yet the question remains! Does the reader with a rudimentary knowledge of Superman realize that he can vibrate through a wall? I have no evidence to back up what I'm about to say, but I suspect that the average reader, if asked to imagine Superman going through a wall, would picture the "Man of Steel" busting right through it with his super fists, like the Kool-Aid man or the Schlitz malt liquor bull, not that my latter two examples were known for using their fists. The Schlitz malt liquor bull, being a hooved quadruped, was not even capable of making a fist! While the Kool-Aid man may or may not have been able to make a fist, I doubt whether he had the arm extension necessary for pounding down a wall with it, especially as he, if I recall correctly, grasped in one hand a pitcher of the same sweet liquid with which his living body was filled. Nevertheless, it can be easily proven with video evidence that both the Kool-Aid man and the Schlitz malt liquor bull BODILY knocked down their walls, as, I put forth, most people would credit Superman with doing as well. (I am including the "beer label" on this "post," even though the Schlitz malt liquor ads issued, according to my hazy memories, the specific command "Don't say beer, say bull!" May the Schlitz malt liquor bull forgive me and not crash through my wall. Amen. Not that I am worshipping a golden calf! Not even a hypothetical one made, unlike the all-too-fleshly Schlitz malt liquor bull, of golden malt liquor, however tempted I might be at this moment to drink a calf-sized container of such a brew.)

My Five Skeletons

I'm sure you obsess about it all the time: how, at least once a decade and a half, I open some book of symbols or another and a mysterious card falls into my lap. Well, the last time that happened ("click" previous "hyperlink"), I went to the "website" of the mysterious organization who had placed their mysterious card in my mysterious book of mysterious symbols and interacted mysteriously with it. Are you still with me? Okay! Hang on! Remember yesterday? Remember how I "blogged" about a singing skeleton who is also a plastic toy filled up with air like a balloon? So, I "posted" that, and then I checked my electronic or "e" mail, and I had received, at exactly the same time, a promotional communication from the mysterious organization! And its subject line was "Archetype in Focus: Skeleton." WHAT! Then I calmed down and thought about it. Of course, the mysterious organization associated skeletons with October, just as I had. It was no warning from beyond! However! Let me draw your attention to the fact that my previous four "posts" - five, including this one - bear the label "skeleton." (And here I have to parenthetically state that if you exist, which you do not, and you access the "blog" by means of your phone rather than your home computing system, you don't get all the enticing extras, like skeleton labels.) I know what you're going to say now, but cool your jets, David Hume! Sure, maybe I've got skeletons on the brain! Or do I? For as a little investigation will prove, I use the label "skeleton" pretty dang loosely. Why, it could refer to the spine of a book, or to Chili's famed baby back ribs, dripping in their succulent juices. CASE CLOSED. Oh, wait! I wanted to quote this from that Colm Tóibín novel about Henry James: "a huge, obscure shape in the night, an angry, broken, pecking bird of prey, squatting in the corner, ready to take him, all black spirit, yet palpable, visibly there, hissing, come for him alone." But I don't think I can fairly pretend that this hissing bird of prey was an owl. The person suffering the unfortunate vision, which is certainly in tune with our Halloween season, is Henry James's father, whom "blog" readers may fondly recall as the man who wouldn't let tiny Henry James read a sexy book about hot corn. Wow! That made me think of something else: the book HOT CORN, with its depiction of hapless "hot corn girls" - with whose travails tiny Henry James was never allowed to familiarize himself - inspired me whilst happily I toiled on Julia Pott's show SUMMER CAMP ISLAND. I include above, at the risk of exploding the "blog," a title card from the show, manifesting that inspiration. I'm not sure who drew it. I'll ask Julia, and credit the artist in the near future! PS Julia already responded! She had plenty of time, because I finished watching von Stroheim's GREED, ha ha, before finishing this "post." I say "ha ha" yet my statement is true. The artist is Yoriyuki Ikegami.

Bogie Bits Back, Baby!

I'm hearing that many of you across the globe are joining hands to sing "I want my Bogie Bits, Bogie Bits, Bogie Bits" to the tune of the immortal Chili's jingle for their succulent baby back ribs. Well, as Lady Rainicorn's mother says in ADVENTURE TIME, "Prayer works" (Season 8, Episode 4). McNeil is still reading that 700-page biography of Humphrey Bogart and he vows to sweep up some more bits and dump them in our grateful laps. Why, he even gave me at least three Bronson Bits recently, but I just couldn't find a fluent way to translate them into "blog"ese. Okay, the way I remember it, McNeil approved of two of the cozy hovels where Bronson lived in two Bronson movies he watched, but he felt the filmmakers spent insufficient energy on highlighting whatever kind of carpet Bronson had. Why am I dawdling while you're waiting for the bits? Here, I'll just cut-and-paste McNeil's entire email: "This Bogart bio gets really bogged down for a long time - over 100 pages - with the HUAC stuff. It puts me to sleep. I may have to skip it and move on to the important stuff...like booze and sex." End of email. Speaking of being obsessed (or not, in McNeil's case) with communists!

Some Dare Call Them Icons

I do! I dare. I dare call them icons! Personal icons of our misspent youth (middle age?) back in Atlanta. Who are they? Chuck Steffen and Bill Taft. They'll both be in town... that is, in Oxford, Mississippi, on Thursday evening! That's the day after tomorrow. Stop by the Powerhouse if you think I am lying. I know you don't exist. And as an outlet whose readers do not exist, this is a bad place to advertise. But the Thacker Mountain radio show will be broadcasting live from the Powerhouse on Thursday. The Powerhouse! Where I once took a disastrous (for me) "Community Shim Sham Dance Class." Where a reception honoring Chuck Steffen and his photo exhibit, which is currently on display in that aforementioned institution, will commence at 5:30 PM this Thursday. Then, at 6, the radio show! Where Bill Taft will perform with his latest, greatest musical project, W8ing4UFOs. The title of this "post" is loosely based on that of a book by a wacko conspiracy theorist, a very popular title in the 1960s. It is an allusion possibly so obscure that even I do not get it, though I have made it before. I'm not going to tell you the actual title of the book, because even if you don't exist, I don't want you to start hanging around the "blog" with your wacko conspiracy theories or explaining to me how you think this guy from the 1960s was right after all, or whatever your deal is.

This Is Something

Heard from Ward McCarthy yesterday. He said that our friend and coworker Brian Welch, alongside whom we toiled in the promo department at TBS in the 1990s, is playing Don Pardo in that new movie that is coming out about Saturday Night Live. So how about that? That's cool! Good for you, Brian! Sorry I haven't talked to you since 1999.

Two Knights and a Non-Knight

I am pretty far into THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA and there have been no owls, even though there are owls on the cover. But there are plenty of other things! Like, these two knights are talking and this one knight is like, "Alas, we all must die. Only the hour of our death is not certain." And the other knight is like, "Wait, who has told you all these pleasant novelties? It must be a mortal with an extraordinarily witty turn of conversation. Is he often invited out to supper?" And when I read that, I thought, "Hey! 'Is he often invited out to supper?' must be the 'He must be fun at parties' of the 18th century!" And then I thought, is that something people even say: "He must be fun at parties"? I think I've said it. I think, for example, when I went to see Dr. Theresa get an award - before she was a doctor! - and the speaker at the ceremony, for some reason, was a guy whose whole life was spent studying the sense of smell in lobsters... on that occasion, I do believe that as he went on for some time about the sense of smell in lobsters, I turned to our friend Chuck, who was seated next to me, and said, "He must be fun at parties." So I did a "google search" for the phrase "must be fun at parties" and turned up 145,000 matches, so I guess it is something that people say. More and more often, since my little medical hiccup, I wonder whether I know certain things or only think I know certain things. On the other hand, maybe I was never sure. As I type this long series of thoughts, I am in unbearable suspense about whether the "internet" will stop working, as it often does now, thanks to the good folks at AT&T, ties with whom I am assiduously working to sever forever as we speak. (As further evidence of my mental state, I just looked up "assiduous" to see if it means what I think it means, and it does, almost.) Oh! So a few pages later in THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA, someone (not a knight) is playing a cithara, which took me straight back to the "blog's" big cither/citer/cithern/cittern/kithara/zither craze of 2010. (Citterns were poised to make a comeback in 2011, but it didn't take. Though I will say that as I continue to examine the "blog" for zombie "links," I am astonished to find that the "Frequently Asked Questions about the Renaissance Cittern" webpage not only survives, it was updated - ! - as recently as April 2023. I guess they found out something new about renaissance citterns.) Now, did I immediately assume that the cithara I read about in THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA was identical with a kithara? Good God, no! I learned my lesson back when I stupidly assumed that a cither and a cithern were the same thing ("click" on "link" after "link" for the incredible details). I'm so glad we had this talk. Postscript: Yes, as predicted above, the godawful AT&T "internet" ceased to work at a vital juncture in the composition of this delightsome bagatelle. (Continuing a theme: I second-guessed myself about the existence of "delightsome" as a word and did not find it in the dictionary that came with this laptop. When the "internet" began to work again, however briefly, I checked out the OED online, which cites numerous uses of the word - well, maybe "numerous" is going a bit too far - beginning in the 15th century and ending only a few years ago, in what seems to be an advertising brochure: "our Sheraton Lagos Hotel teams have come up with a line-up of delightsome and inspiring culinary options." Ugh! Now I see why my computer doesn't want me to use "delightsome.")

Famous Tootsie Pop

Given recent events, I have different books going at the same time now, and given those same recent events, one of the categories is "books I read in a doctor's waiting room." It's not the same as either book in the other two categories, if you are making a chart. There can never be an overlap. Each of the three (so far) books needs to be of a different size, and to have different qualities. The one I read while taking my blood pressure, for example, requires a sturdy spine, like me, so it can lie flat on a table, like me. I don't lie flat on a table. But we all lie flat on a table one day. That's not the point. What was I talking about? Oh yeah. So I was sitting there reading this one novel in the waiting room when, by a big coincidence, the narrator mentioned the problem for which I was about to see the doctor! Not only that, he cited a probable cause for the problem. And this cause was something in the proximity of which I had recently loitered! Now, this is the kind of coincidence that McNeil and I talk about all the time, all giddy from delight. So when I saw the doctor, I said, "Hey, could this thing be caused by this other thing?" And he said "No." So that was a bust. And the coincidence wasn't so great after all. So why are we here? I don't know. It does give me the liberty to mention that Megan and I have been discussing the devil a pretty good bit lately, and then she asked me a question about the Tarot (an entirely separate discussion, although there is, of course, a card with the devil on it. But that's not what we were talking about for a change). Anyhow, I looked up what Jesse Moynihan has to say about another card, the one under discussion, and I was like, "Huh! Okay!" Then I opened JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS to the passage I had been reading... and the devil, in that passage, talks about the VERY SAME IDEAS I had just been reading in Jesse's pamphlet! I'm not saying Jesse is the devil. Far from it! So that was another coincidence. This great tale of life as it is lived in our lively times isn't over yet. Because I had TWO doctor appointments today! I had enough time in between them to stop by Square Books. I was happy to see that Richard Howorth was not just trying to protect my fragile feelings when he said that my books aren't 100% out of print... just 99.999999%! I added that part. They had a big old fresh stack of MOVIE STARS, my troubling masterpiece of short fiction. Lauren Graham raves: "Funny, poetic, vivid, unique. Jack Pendarvis has crafted a collection of gems." I'm not lying! It's on the cover! Go see for yourself. Pick up a few copies for the family. While supplies last! I signed the whole batch, and wrote secret messages in a couple of them. It's like Willy Wonka all over again! Ran into Tom Franklin, who was walking down from the second floor of the bookstore with a young woman to whom he introduced me as "Via Bleidner, Kim Kardashian just bought her book for Netflix." Oh! On the way out of the store, I saw a big poster for the novel I said I couldn't tell you about yet. But I can now, because there's a big poster right there at the front door of Square Books. It's DON'T LET THE DEVIL RIDE (the devil again!), the latest from Ace Atkins! The owl I have been sitting on since January 22, 2023, is... I can now reveal... the owl in the famous Tootsie Pop commercial. Well, I haven't seen the published book yet, just the manuscript, but Ace says he "thinks" the owl is still in there. And I guess you think the story is over. WRONG! Because as I waited for the second doctor, once again reading my "waiting room book" in a different waiting room... well, first I should tell you that I saw a raccoon using a walkway last night. A walkway that a person would use. Like, a narrow sidewalk of sorts. So, anyway, I'm reading this novel again and the narrator is astonished to see "a raccoon using a sidewalk." All right, that's the end.

Am I Ready to Be Rich?

Funny email from Ward McCarthy, who alerts me that Warner Brothers Discovery (for whom I ironically [?] work now) is rebooting DINNER AND A MOVIE, a slab of packaging originating in the 1990s. I scoured the "internet" for the purposes of this report, to see if there was any evidence that I was one of the co-creators of that work. "Click" here if you would like to see the single puny scrap of corroboration available anywhere on the world wide "web." I wrote Ward back to ask if he was ready to be rich, a hilarious response on many levels, because once we were greeted at Rob Schneider's door by his faithful yes-man, who asked us, before even introducing himself, "Are you ready to be rich?" We were ready to be rich. Alas, the riches were not forthcoming. I hesitate to say more about the circumstances, which involved a different project completely, except that as we sat around with the yes-man, he would say things like, "Okay! Get this! What if our characters had a GIANT bottle of sun tan lotion? Like as big as a house??????!!!???!!?" But that's another story. The other way my remark was so hilarious is due to the fact that DINNER AND A MOVIE was a virtually anonymous work-for-hire, which we did because the other stuff we were doing was so boring, and the prospect of receiving future monies from such an endeavor is hilarious indeed, resulting in sidesplitting chortles from two old chums such as us, you may be sure.