The Arts

For our own personal and individual reasons, neither Dr. Theresa nor I eats sandwiches anymore. And I do believe that is correct subject/verb agreement if you think about it for two seconds. So anyway, we were watching a "limited series" (those are terrible!) via "streaming" and it was a mystery thriller suspense drama of action! At one point the guy stops in a diner and orders up three sandwiches to go. And they look amazing, and I believe I will categorize them as "cheesesteaks," though I don't pretend to be an expert. But the scene does take place in Philadelphia. Even so, Dr. Theresa and I were taken by a simultaneous Proustian pang for some Italian beef combo sandwiches we enjoyed in Chicago in 2002. So then the guy gets in his car and starts having action-packed adventures filled with mystery and suspense, not to mention thrills, but we just don't care. All we can think of, and we say it out loud, is that "He's driving around with those sandwiches in his car!" In our distracted state we can't be sure, but it seems like it takes him several hours to get home with those sandwiches, and we're just thinking about how they've been sitting in the car all day. In other arts news, THE OBSCENE BIRD OF NIGHT started to seem too grotesque and disturbing to read in bed at night in the hopes of a peaceful slumber, so I switched over to DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather... and it - unlike THE OBSCENE BIRD OF NIGHT - gave me nightmares! And death isn't even close to coming for this guy yet! Although... never mind. No spoilers! In a final arts thought, was it really a "Proustian pang" (above)? Didn't Proust actually get to bite into his memory cookie? If I may be allowed to stray off topic, the holidays are upon us, and I should mention a funny Christmas wish I received from McNeil, who asked, "Are you doing anything for Christmas? Besides take your blood pressure and hope Santa brings you one more day - JUST ONE MORE, SANTA!" An artful construction by McNeil, in fact, who goes on to recall imperfectly my alleged love, when we knew each other as children, of the snack cakes known as Sno Balls. To be fair, McNeil couched his assertion in the always reliable "if I remember correctly" context. He was, however, thinking of, or misremembering, Strawberry Zingers, a product I ate 5 days of the week for some matter of years without the knowledge of my parents, and it truly is a wonder I'm alive today. I don't know if they still make them. Anyway, my metabolism must have bordered on the miraculous at the time. I was like Matter Eater Lad from DC comics! McNeil, it must be said, was on the right track, as both items in question (Sno Balls and Strawberry Zingers) were sprinkled with poisonously dyed coconut. [The coconut slivers on the Strawberry Zingers may have been unpigmented, actually, but they were surrounded by a spongy cake-like substance soaked in a deep, alarming, and, indeed, unnatural shade of crimson. - ed.] If I, like McNeil, "recall correctly," Strawberry Zingers came three to a pack, which, to my way of thinking at the time, meant that I should eat all three at once. And I was a skinny kid! If I am doing the math correctly, and it is a very simple equation, I was ingesting 15 Strawberry Zingers a week. This brings us back to Proust, doesn't it? But that's not the point. The point is that McNeil says he's spending Christmas in "a neighborhood that boasts a three-legged alligator."

What No Owls

So Clare Boothe (not yet Luce) visits Bernard Baruch's South Carolina mansion, near which "deer, fox, feral pigs, egrets, bald eagles, wild turkeys, and bull alligators populated the surrounding woods and swamps." And when I read that, I was like, what, no owls? Come on! I know there were some owls in there! But owls did not make the cut. Just a few pages later, though, Baruch is "prominent in owlish spectacles."

The Tinder of Our Wishes

Hey remember when my book about cigarette lighters came out? Me neither! But for a while there I would see something and think, "Oh, I should have put that in my cigarette lighter book. If only I had known!" But after a while you stop thinking that because you'd go mad. Mad, I say! But I just read AGNES GREY. To my surprise there were no owls in it, because those Brontë sisters are usually reliable purveyors of literary owls. The closest we get are some rooks who fly away as the sun sets: "For a moment, such birds as soared above the rest might still receive the lustre on their wings, which imparted to their sable plumage the hue and brilliance of deep red gold; at last, that too departed. Twilight came stealing on..." And I was like, "Oh, boy! Here come the owls." But there were no owls. Here's what Anne Brontë DID have: something I would have stuck somewhere in my cigarette lighter book, had I read it in time... "the flint and steel of circumstances are continually striking out sparks, which vanish immediately, unless they chance to fall upon the tinder of our wishes." I also enjoyed (this is unrelated) her elaborate conceit on the subject of a lonely glowworm. Anne Brontë is in great sympathy with nature. The same cannot be said for Arnold Schwarzenegger, I fear. We watched most of ERASER last night. You know, Dr. Theresa and I saw it in the theater when it came out, and I associate it with the very earliest years of our marriage. I did not recall the part in which Arnold is being pursued through a zoo by some bad guys, so he shoots out the glass on a tank full of alligators, and the alligators immediately begin eating the bad guys. "Don't they feed these alligators?" I wondered. Actually, what I wondered was "Don't they feed these crocodiles?" But I decided later that they were supposed to be alligators, for reasons that will soon become clear. So after the alligators eat the bad guys, one of them gets after Arnold, so he shoots it in the head. Hey, these alligators just helped him out! And isn't he responsible for them now? Doesn't he realize their terrible irony? But no, he just says, "You're luggage." That's what he says after he shoots the alligator. I found it unnecessary! First of all, the alligator is already dead. Second of all, even if the alligator was alive, it wouldn't be able to understand what you were saying. Third of all, why are you gloating? Even if forced into a situation in which she was required to kill an alligator (there is some arguable precedent in AGNES GREY), Anne Brontë never would have gloated about it! Fourth of all, why are you staying and making wisecracks to a dead alligator when there are more bad guys coming? In any case, his remark was in extremely bad taste. I decided they were meant to be alligators because I believe shoes and belts and boots and suitcases are traditionally made from alligator hide, not crocodile hide. I don't know the difference. I must sadly conclude by noting that Arnold Schwarzenegger appears in my cigarette lighter book more than once, poor Anne Brontë (as noted) not at all.

Fun Facts From Real Life

Tonight Dr. Theresa and I ate some oysters harvested from a place called "Alligator Harbor," which sounded gross to me. I don't even know why. Not the place itself! I'm sure the place itself is nice. It sounds nice! The surrounding area. I'm sure it's pleasant. I can almost picture it, postcard style. Alligator Harbor! I guess what I didn't like was the thought of some oysters that have been lying around in alligator poop...? Is that the image that came unbidden to my mind? Dear Lord, it is all my own fault, forgive me. We have often, and without a care in the world, eaten oysters harvested from a place called "Murder Point." This "post" used to be a lot tighter. Alligator Harbor/Murder Point/Ha ha ha. I came back in and "fixed" it. I felt that I needed to distinguish the almost certainly lovely locale of Alligator Harbor from the slimy oysters I imagined, for no good reason, coming out of the filthy waters (the waters, by the way, are surely not filthy!) surrounding Alligator Harbor (which were, in fact, the actual oysters from Alligator Harbor, I mean, fine and delicious). Maybe I'll just come back to this "post" and make it a little longer every day and that's all I'll do until somebody stops me.

Alligator Luncheon

Just talked to Mom on the phone. She's getting ready to go to a "luncheon" at a place that has alligators...? And while you eat you can "watch them [the alligators] go down a slide"...? Mom says she doesn't think she'll have much of an appetite, especially if the staff is feeding the alligators. She doesn't want to watch alligators eating while she's trying to eat! More on this breaking story as it develops.

Beauteous Swamp Girl

Oh yeah! I meant to tell you about when I flipped to TCM yesterday and saw part of a movie I didn't even know existed, called A LION IS IN THE STREETS. It was one of those grittily realistic looks at rough-and-tumble Southern politics, by which I mean it was just a big ALL THE KING'S MEN rip-off. But it starred Jimmy Cagney as a Southern politician! Huh! And he takes his wife to meet some swamp folk he knows and a beauteous swamp girl tries to feed his wife to an alligator, as you can see above. And the wife is like, "Ah, don't worry about it, it was totally my fault." (I paraphrase.) You know, grittily realistic!

The Only Explanation Was Offered By Our Dentist

Yesterday I picked up some good research items from that used book stall I like so much. It's in that strip mall across from Big Bad Breakfast, way in the back of the antique store. Check it out! One thing I found might be the most interesting self-published book I've come across since THE SCRAPBOOK OF A DETECTIVE. This one is by a livestock inspector named Dr. Harold Wallman, and it's a lavishly produced overview of his many collections of things. It's called 640 OF MY COLLECTIONS. They're put into alphabetical order and numbered. For example, collection #5 is "Alligators." The paragraph about his alligator collection begins, "The most intriguing alligator is controlled by two buttons." No set-up or anything, he just gets right to it. I don't think I'm getting across how unusual this book is. I'll keep trying. Collection #141 is "Cinema Photographs." He found most of these "in a Chicago alley. There were way more than I could take in a car, but I kept some... I had some fun with them by putting captions on them as to what I thought each character was saying. In one for 'Bed Time for Bonzo,' Ronald Reagen [sic] is standing there and he says, 'Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle.' The lady holding the chimp says, 'You mean father, Ha Ha Ha.'" Dr. Wallman also has a collection of newspaper articles and cartoons containing the name Arnold. The description is somewhat muddled, but they seem to be a tribute to his friend Arnold Cohn, and he put together a scrapbook that is partly (I think) about the real Arnold Cohn and partly about other people who happen to be named Arnold that he pretends are Arnold Cohn (?), including, writes Dr. Wallman, and note the quotation marks, "a picture of 'him' on a motorcycle, as a wrestler, and with a great body. It ends with his car accidents, death, services and auction. Many entries are completely anachronistic." Collection #155 is "Coffins." The descriptive paragraph begins, "One of my skeletons came in a rosewood coffin." So right away you know that he has a collection of skeletons, and indeed there it is, collection #507: "Skeletons - Human." Here we learn that his RV caught fire in 1986, and the only skeleton he owned at the time was destroyed: "I soon tried to replace it at dealers in Texas and Chicago, IL. I was told that human skeletons were no longer available." He finally got one but "it is light brown in color. The only explanation was offered by our dentist who said it got that way from being kept in the dark." And yes, I read between the lines that he was driving around in an RV with a human skeleton, and you'll have to trust me that it's only one of the disturbing things I've read between the lines - and in the lines - in this book. In a closing thought, Dr. Wallman regrets all the collections he couldn't include. "Too late to be more than mentioned are dolls, scout parapernalia [sic], bird feeders and houses, feathers, crutches, lead sinkers, enema cans, and cloth patches." Speaking of dolls, I believe he claims to have a pornographic Charlie Chaplin doll...? Details are vague, though the doll is mentioned in collection #432, "Pornography." Hmm, it seems that the thermos mentioned there is definitely pornographic (don't ask) and maybe the Chaplin doll is something he picked up in the same lot. "There is also a 'dirty' pocket watch and wrist watch," concludes Dr. Wallman. Such is the fascination of this book that only now do I find time to mention that Dr. Wallman's 392nd collection consists of owls, of course.

The Wrong Mistakes

Finished that Bob Hope bio (which had an owl in it, like every book: Bob Hope described as a "night owl") and now I've moved on to a Thelonious Monk bio written by Robin D.G. Kelley, which I picked up in hardcover at Square Books back in 2009, and it's just been patiently sitting there on the shelf ever since. It starts out with something pretty surprising: the subject of the biography coming to the author in a dream! This was 30 years before the writing of the book, when the author was an aspiring pianist: "he came to me in a dream. Decked out in divine alligator shoes, a dark green silk suit, yellow tie, bamboo sunglasses, and a cold straw hat, he snuck up behind me as I sat hunched over my stepfather's Steinway upright, looked over my shoulder, and simply mumbled, 'You're making the wrong mistakes.'" I also read this about Monk: "One of his favorite pranks was to stare intensely at a spot on the ceiling or in the sky... Invariably, several people would look up with him." That reminds me of the gag Saint Thomas More used to pull!

Best Stuffing

It is almost as if L. Frank Baum heard my objections to his narrow view of ragtime FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE. He has a character say, "I've just composed a tune called 'The Speckled Alligator.' It's in patch-time, which is much superior to rag-time." He plays it on a harmonica and Baum editorializes: "It wasn't a very bad tune, nor a very good one." I like it when the Glass Cat disdainfully draws a distinction between herself and "the meat cats." If you are in college and starting a band, may I respectfully suggest that you name yourselves "The Meat Cats"? The Scarecrow falls hard for the Patchwork Girl and says she has "the best stuffing there is going," which struck me as a pretty hardboiled turn of phrase, so is it any wonder that Laura Lippman got me to read THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ? She also recommended THE OTHER, the other [THE OTHER, the other, ha! - ed.] thing I'm reading now, so really Laura Lippman is dictating all my reading, rather like Ozma, who appears to be the benevolent dictator of Oz if I am understanding the situation correctly and yes, I have some serious reservations about the political system of Oz.

The Tall Tree

Last night there was either a small chaperoned gathering for a church youth group that spontaneously exploded into a dance party or a cruelly enforced dance party that devolved into a grueling fiction workshop. Details are hazy. According to Dr. Theresa, my knee hurts because I "tried to do some kind of limbo move." We analyzed my seminal text: "He saw a tall tree and thought, That's a tall tree." It was either a keening lament for the state of modern fiction or a celebration of the written word, no one could tell. Story "The Tall Tree" reprinted by permission of the Yalobusha Review. Dessert of bittersweet chocolate, bacon and marshmallows provided by Sarah, who told us that alligators eat marshmallows, is that what she said? I am retaining an image of someone standing at the end of a pier, tossing marshmallows into the hellish maw of a grateful, smiling alligator. Sarah's uncle once appeared on a Fox News program because of his sighting of the Honey Island Swamp Monster, so she should know. (See also.) Dance-fuel pork shoulder provided by Stan's, the finest purveyor of pork in all the land. Here is a "yelp" review explaining some of the greatness that is Stan's. Remember Stan's for all your pork needs! And Kool & the Gang's "Open Sesame" for your dancing requirements, the genie's repeated command for "everybody" to "get down" lending itself to the "enforced dance party" theory. Shazam! (PS How can "Open Sesame" get 36 "dislikes" on youtube? As one youtube commenter notes with admirably plainspoken bewilderment: "36 people don't want to get down with the genie.")

Henry Gibson In Heaven

(This picture makes me think of Henry Gibson in Heaven.)

Down Swings the Sword

I wish you could see the comic book ad McNeil sent. But you can't, for all the reasons previously stated (which also explain why this "post" will be illustrated with a random picture of I don't know what). Anyway, part of the ad goes like this: "CONDEMNED TO CHAINS FOREVER! He tried to skip ship, but skip he will no longer. A hard hearted scene with alligator and all. But alligator beware! A finger's touch and... Zap/Action! Down swings the sword upon the alligator's head!" And it shows a skeleton clobbering an alligator with a sword.

Brazil With An S

Greetings from Brasil, where they spell it with an S. Our guide is Tom Franklin, who currently resides in Brasil, for a little segment we like to call "Brazil With An S." Take it away, Tom! Tom reports: "Today visiting a Brasilian farm I walked out along a cobblestone road and looked up. There wasn't one, weren't two, not three, four, five, six but like fifty giant spiders, all bigger than the biggest spider in Mississippi by quite a stretch. These things were like brooches with legs, some with leaves caught in their webs, some of which (the webs) were yellow with pollen. Beyond that were monkeys and on the ground were some rather large lizards, about the size of those rubber alligators we used to get as kids... Farm animals we saw were horses, cows, ducks, chickens, roosters and guinea hens. The latter are kept around because they catch scorpions, I was told." Then Tom ate in an unbelievably large kitchen. Like, bigger than a whole restaurant! See you next time! PS: The illustration has nothing to do with this "post." I was searching for an image of a scorpion and for some reason that only the "internet" knows it popped up and it's much nicer than a scorpion, isn't it?

It's His Cloud

"It actually looks like an alligator Pez dispenser," says McNeil of his cloud. This confirms my suspicion that the "bonnet" seen by Sepsey is in reality a separate cloud not under discussion. The true top of the cloud is what I saw as an anvil and McNeil as an alligator head. Sepsey found in it, as you may recall, the comforting/threatening arms of Laura Ingalls Wilder. But we hereby resolve to take McNeil at his word. It's his cloud! He ought to know. We consider the matter settled.

Smirking Hipster In Velvet

I lied! No TCM today. Dust-up with the monopolizing local "cable" "provider." Why do "cable" "providers" hate me? I love the "cable" they "provide" so much! So, no "internet" either, probably for a week, as I search for a friendlier and more obliging corporation. In the meantime, I have popped over to Ron Shapiro's juice bar (Main Squeeze, it's called) to take advantage of their free "wi-fi." That's Ron Shapiro's Main Squeeze, on University, behind Pizza Hut, for all your juice needs. And don't forget the free "wi-fi"! On to the business at hand. I couldn't wait a week and "blog" this from home! Last night, Theresa and I saw another velvet suit. I used to prefer the "blog's" ongoing velvet suit count to the much more strenuous and time consuming cigarette holder count. Cigarette holders would deluge me without warning, whereas velvet suits were rare, and while nominally working to promote the "blog's" studied air of obsession, afforded us welcome relief from typing. No more! Now we see velvet suits everywhere. They are as common and require as much energy to record and annotate as cigarette holders. The big coincidence is that this is our second velvet suit in a row to have associations with Dracula. Last night Theresa and I watched DRACULA A.D. 1972, which was notable for two reasons: first, the evil, smirking hipster who brought Dracula back to life wore NUMEROUS velvet suits! (The actor, Christopher Neame, reminded me of Bill Hader from the current cast of SNL. I'll try to find a couple of pictures so you can judge for yourself. The other great thing about Neame, and his character, is that he actually used one of McNeil's favorite phrases, promising his hipster friends that they were going to see something "way... way out." That thing? Him bringing Dracula back to life.) Second, DRACULA A.D. 1972 featured the exact kind of band McNeil loves to see in the movies. This one was called either "Stoneground" or "the Stoneground." (They had their own special opening credit - "And introducing 'Stoneground'" - but in the movie they were called "the Stoneground" by one character, and performed their hit "Alligator Man.")

Anonymous Department Store Imbroglio

It seems that our recent investigation of modern corporate practices has inspired a grateful nation. We have received a report from the father of an anonymous friend of the "blog." Twenty-five years ago, when this man was first employed at a certain department store, he was required to chant, with his fellow salesmen, every morning: "Alligator, alligator, sis-boom-bah! We are salesmen, rah rah rah!" He describes this practice as a demeaning and demoralizing spirit-breaker designed by "the man" to "get him down." Twenty-five years later he finds himself working again for the same department store. These days, grown men and women are required to attend "morning meetings" where they crawl around on the floor in thrown-together "scavenger hunts." The "winner" receives a dollar, or a candy bar. Such are the times we live in! Perilous! This has been one in a series of reports on these strange modern times we find ourselves living in today. The words of Jerry Lewis leap to mind.