Don't Flip Out

Hey, remember when I was reading, oh, let's call it a semi-experimental fragmentary "literary novel" and at the same time I was reading, oh, let's call it a pulse-pounding thriller, and they both mentioned Gogol and everybody got so excited? Well, I finished those two books and started on two more mismatched volumes... this time, a book of academic lectures by John Ashbery and a mystical sci-fi adventure by Philip K. Dick. And hold onto your hats, because THEY both mentioned John Dowland, noted composer of the English Renaissance. Are you flipping out? I need you to get a grip on yourself! Anyway, I have moved on to KING SORROW, a book by Joe Hill about a scary dragon. Now, look. I would have been happier had I not known about the dragon, and I was just reading along for 100 pages like, where is this going, and all of a sudden there is a dragon. That would have been a surprise! But I don't think telling you about the dragon is a spoiler because the big scary dragon is on the cover of the book. All right! So one character in the book offers to go to a place called the Nite Owl and pick up some beer, which I mention for the usual reasons. On the previous page, however, Mr. Hill has informed us that the characters shop exclusively at 7-Eleven. Now we are getting into the kind of stuff that makes me the foremost literary critic of our times. First of all, I never really thought about how to spell 7-Eleven before. Left to my own devices, I would put it like this: 7-11. That's wrong! I thought about it because the novel brings up 7-Eleven enough to make one ponder the spelling. That being said, why does the character offer to go to the Nite Owl instead of the 7-Eleven? Well, the character in question is rather quippy, and maybe he thinks "Nite Owl" has a better ring to it for the quip he is making at the time. I have to say, he's right! Or maybe Joe Hill decided he had mentioned 7-Eleven enough on the previous page. We'll never know! Also, is "Nite Owl" the actual name of a chain of late-night pharmacies or something? That's something else we'll never know, because I'm so lazy.

Making Some Headway

As you know, we're very, very concerned here at the "blog" with famed crime writer John D. MacDonald's attraction/aversion to hungry women who are storybook giants. I'm sorry! His PROTAGONISTS' attraction/aversion. Ace Atkins memorably described one such character as a "sexy woman who can lift a car." Well, McNeil has finished reading THE BRASS CUPCAKE and reports that MacDonald's hero, and these are McNeil's words now, "makes it with a 'rippling muscles' woman who drinks a whole stein of beer in one gulp, then wipes the foam off her nose with her knuckles." McNeil concludes his summary with an appreciative exclamation that is unprintable here in our family newspaper. Speaking of which, these Shakespeare HENRY VI plays are really violent! These guys stick some people's heads on poles and then they are like (I paraphrase, but only slightly), "We should make them kiss!" So they get these heads on poles close together and make it look like they're smooching. That's in Part 2, I think. In Part 3, Richard (who will grow up to be Richard III!) says (paraphrasing again), "Did I put up a fight? Why don't you ask THIS guy?" And he pulls a decapitated head from behind his back (I guess) and everybody has a good laugh. His dad is so proud of him! Dad pretends to ask the head a question, and for a second you think they're going to do a puppet show with it, like something out of a FAR SIDE cartoon. Anyway, the head budget on these shows must have been enormous.

Sure Do Know My Stuff

I really know my stuff. What's my "stuff," you may ask? First of all, go to hell. All right! Well, remember how I said this Megan Abbott novel has a night bird in it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's an owl? And then I went on to suggest that an owl might be forthcoming? Remember all that? Do you? Okay! So, here's a quotation for you: "'I bet it was an owl,' Becky said." BOOM! So, to answer your impertinent question, my "stuff," as you call it, is knowing when an owl will be in a book. It's all I've got, okay? To quote beloved ADVENTURE TIME character Root Beer Guy, "It's all I've got!" And then, as you might recall, his wife, Cherry Cream Soda, dressed as a French maid for marital reasons, ran weeping from the room. We weren't messing around on that show!

Perfect

Allow me to quote THE POSSESSED by Witold Gombrowicz, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, one of the books I am reading right now: "He drank a shot of vodka. It did him good. He had another. Then a large glass of lager, a herring sandwich and two more shots of vodka. Perfect." Yes! That does sound perfect. And I don't even care for vodka or lager. I miss sandwiches, though. They have me on this special diet and I haven't had a sandwich in many months. Anyway, I had feelings of envy toward the fictional character who was drinking vodka and lager and eating a sandwich. I put myself in his place through the workings of my innocent childlike imagination, and the whole experience seemed pleasing indeed, though the character is in a state of turmoil as he begins his enviable meal. Look, I would be allowed the herring, and even the vodka, but not the lager or the bread. Hmm, this reminds me of when my mom kept saying she wanted to have a slice of pizza and a beer for her 50th birthday, though she had never had even a sip of beer in her life... she just thought it looked so good on TV! In the end, she did not succumb to that temptation, nor has she to this very day.

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.)

McNeil's Shimmering Li'l Bogie Bits

The new month I promised you is already upon us, and that means it's time for an exciting new installment of "McNeil's Li'l Bogie Bits," this one cut-and-pasted directly from an email that McNeil sent me! "Bogie moves out of the house he shares with Mayo and checks into room 207 of the Beverly Hills Hotel - a small room just off the lobby. He orders ice, a glass, a bottle of beer, and hands the bellhop (Ken Leffers) a nickel tip." End of bogie bit. But! I do have a couple of questions, and when McNeil answers them, I'll let you know. 1. What year was this? And how much, then, would a nickel be in today's money? I guess that counts as a two-part question. And here is my second question. 2. How long was Humphrey Bogart married to Mayo Methot? Because we can't be very far into the bogie bits, can we? To put it another way, how far along is McNeil in the 700-page biography of Humphrey Bogart from which he gleans his precious, shimmering bits?

Having a Small Get-Together

I was reading in one of these old comic books about all of his superhero friends throwing a bachelor party for the Atom. And here's the thing! All his superhero friends are regular-sized, and here's the Atom at his bachelor party, and he's about a damn inch tall, pardon my language, and he's sitting in a teeny tiny little chair that can zoom around for convenience. But here's the thing you need to know about the Atom... yes, you NEED to know. Get over yourself! Anyhow, although the Atom uses his shrinking powers for the good of humanity, he doesn't HAVE to be a damn inch tall all the time, pardon my language. He can be any damn - pardon my language - size he pleases, up to and including the size of his regular human self. So why is he sitting there like a clown during his entire bachelor party being one inch tall while all his human-sized friends hang out drinking beer and eating cake? That's my question.

Nestled Together

I'm rusty at the old jotting game. As you know, it used to be that when I went on a trip, I jotted everything for you in one of my dear old jotting books. Everybody was simply crazy about that! But then I stopped "blogging," and the last time I went to Los Angeles, why, I hardly even mentioned it. But since then, I quit social media, and as a result, I no longer have anything to do aside from the ocassional jot. Bearing that in mind, I shall now attempt to make you one of those lists that I used to make that everyone adored so much. 1. I asked a question at the front desk of the hotel and the desk clerk said he knew my voice! He said, "Are you Root Beer Guy?" I screamed back in his face, "YES!" That has never happened to me before (being recognized as Root Beer Guy, I mean; I have screamed enthusiastically into many faces), and, I dare say, never will again. (Full disclosure: on a later date, I overheard him telling a coworker "Did you know that guy is the King of Root Beer?" So maybe he didn't have the solid grasp on my character that I thought.) 2. I don't usually use conditioner on my hair. In fact, I would almost go so far as to say I never do. BUT! I figured, what the hell, this hotel conditioner is free. I'm going to put it on my hair! What's the worst than can happen? I also cleaned out my wallet. 3. Rode around with Richard, the chillest Uber driver in the world. If you're ever in California and need a ride, ask for Richard! 4. Remember the drugstore where I famously bought my expensive brush? And, let me double check, did I buy an expensive comb there? Once again, I scream, "YES!" Anyway, that drugstore is gone now! It's just not there. How could they have gone out of business? They must have been raking in a fortune on brushes and combs alone! All kidding aside, I miss you, fancy drugstore. Go with God! 5. I had steak Sinatra two nights in a row, once at Dan Tana's and once at The Smoke House. (I think I have erroneously called it "The Smokehouse" a few times in the past, but their official signage separates the smoke from the house.) I may have formerly insisted that Dan Tana's steak Sinatra is superior to the steak Sinatra at The Smoke House. On this ocassion, however, I must advance the opposite claim! The old Smoke House waiter stood and mixed the spaghetti in with the steak and peppers right at the table, but not with showy theatricality, no, just in the background, in a workmanlike fashion, getting the job done without undue fuss, which, of course, did not add to or subtract from the toothsome nature of the dish in question... OR DID IT? The result, in any case, was delectable. 5. I had stars in my eyes whilst consuming my steak Sinatra that night, for across the table from me sat Jesse Moynihan and his brother! Now, I have never met Jesse's brother before, and, as I have often boasted (most recently a few seconds ago), I quit social media. The only thing I miss about social media is "Pickle Minute," a thing that Jesse and his brother and some of their friends do on Instagram. I'm a big "Pickle Minute" fan! And there, at The Smoke House, I felt I was in a live episode of "Pickle Minute," as Jesse's brother took a photo of me pointing at a fried pickle. For, yes, having spotted fried pickles on the menu, how could two of the hosts of "Pickle Minute" resist placing that order? They could not. 6. Also at dinner, a guy named Joe I met at a party in 2012 and haven't seen or talked to since, but I remembered him, because you meet so few people you can talk about Anthony Braxton with! 7. Had a meeting scheduled at the Bob's Big Boy restaurant where David Lynch used to go every day. It turned out that Bob's Big Boy was too crowded to host the meeting, to my deep chagrin, as I thought it a wonderful coincidence that Lynchian muse Laura Dern was at Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi, whence I had come, at the very same time! 8. After the meeting, I walked around the neighborhood with a person who had been in the meeting with me. We wandered about, talking about the meeting, and what it meant, and sharing our regrets about the salad place across the street from Bob's Big Boy, where we had ended up. Finally, in our circular perambulations, we saw Bob's Big Boy looming before us. "Should we?" said the person. To which I again screamed, "YES!" By now, its lunchtime rush concluded, Bob's Big Boy was quite accommodating. The person ordered a slice of strawberry pie, because the Bob's Big Boy menu stated that the strawberries were "nestled together." When the pie came out, this person observed joyfully, "They ARE nestled together!" The person went on to declare the strawberry pie at Bob's Big Boy "maybe my favorite piece of pie." 9. I brought some Henry James to read on the airplane. I always found him tough going in the past. Anyway, this time, his characters were making lots of wisecracks and I was getting into it. 10. Well, I have left out many of the nice people I saw on the trip, and interesting events, but my jotting is not what it used to be. Special mention must be made of Hanna K Nystrom, who was flying in from Sweden just as I was about to fly back to Mississippi. She thoughtfully made time for breakfast in the brief Sweden-Mississippi overlap we enjoyed. We talked about how cold and gray it was. (Los Angeles was chilly and gray for the whole of my stay, once again lending some weight to the Lorenz Hart lyric.) Hanna said it was colder than Sweden!

Sandwich and Alexander

As you know, I have given up "blogging" entirely. However, something has occurred which requires immediate comment. You no doubt recall with a bittersweet admixture of reverence and nostalgia the time I noticed the importance of sandwiches to Bergman's SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE. Having recently rewatched the same director's FANNY AND ALEXANDER, I was stunned to discover that it features even more sandwiches than SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE. The exciting prospect of studying the entire Bergman oeuvre from the perspective of sandwiches presents itself. In FANNY AND ALEXANDER, an unusually lenient wife orders up "two cheese sandwiches" for herself and her happy, adulterous husband. Soon, the eponymous children are offered "a molasses sandwich," which the subtitles have in the singular. I will have to learn Swedish for a more complete examination. Moments later, for example, the children are asked to put down the "sandwiches," plural. One may imagine that half of a molasses sandwich is enough for any child. Perhaps the single molasses sandwich was divided in two, becoming, for all practical purposes, two sandwiches. While "half a sandwich" is a traditional unit of sandwich measurement, it is not difficult to picture two halves of the same sandwich, being consumed by two separate people, as "sandwiches." A mystery! I am put in mind of the J.J. Special, a favorite order from Manuel's Tavern in Atlanta. It was a patty melt of sorts, divided into four sections, each held together by a fancy toothpick. At some point, the J.J. Special was changed, and it came to the table cut in half, appallingly like any ordinary sandwich. It took a long time to get used to the new configuration. I should also mention that the J.J. Special might have been the name of the entire order (which came with onion rings AND fries), and not merely the name of the sandwich (see Dr. Frankenstein and his monster). We may further examine two sandwiches of unspecified ingredients in FANNY AND ALEXANDER. The cruel and austere bishop asks for "a sandwich and a glass of milk," while the happy adulterer is promised "a beer and a sandwich" to be served in bed by his indulgent wife. Can it be that a sandwich is the one food that pairs well with either milk or beer? I have put no thought into the question. But surely we may draw many conclusions from the beverage choices of these two very different characters. In conclusion, sandwiches for the happy adulterous Swedish man form somewhat of a framing device in FANNY AND ALEXANDER, as they appear near the beginning and near the end of the film. One might say, then, that the film itself is a sandwich.

Chicken in the Air

I was watching TO CATCH A THIEF, and there were Cary Grant and Grace Kelly eating chicken and drinking beer. Naturally, I was like, I must email Kent right away! Kent loves eating chicken and drinking beer! I entitled the resulting email "Chicken and Beer," which reminded me that Kent had eaten in the Atlanta airport once, having stumbled upon his ideal restaurant there, a restaurant delightfully named "Chicken and Beer." I did not report on the matter at the time because I had given up "blogging" forever. Kent emailed back that he had recently fried chicken for himself for the first time, with pleasant results. Now, for the record, I must say that Grace Kelly appears to be eating a sandwich, not chicken. Maybe it is a chicken sandwich! We can only hope. I can't recall if the type of sandwich was specified. Cary Grant really appears to go to town on his chicken, but when he is done, and tosses the remains into the picnic basket, I can't say that it looks as if he has really had much chicken at all. In fact, I was appalled at the amount of chicken he appeared to be wasting! Then he starts smooching it up with Grace Kelly, and kind of leans her backwards over the open picnic basket, and I could only imagine that her hair was getting on the chicken. Perhaps I was focusing on the wrong thing. In conclusion, I happened to be emailing my friend Megan about TO CATCH A THIEF and, in response, she brought up, independently, of all scenes, not knowing of my recent correspondence on the matter, the chicken scene! Chicken is in the air. And in the hair!

Literary Matters

It's time once again for "Literary Matters"! No one enjoys those. They're not enjoyable. 1. I covered this one on twitter yesterday, but it's sticking in my mind. I read in the New York Times about Jimmy Buffett "grinning and splashing Tabasco on a modified Cobb salad." The editorial machinery of the New York Times saw fit - for the sake of accuracy, one supposes - to make sure the reader did not receive the false impression that Jimmy Buffett was eating a completely traditional Cobb salad. BUT! They did not care to let that same reader know in what way the Cobb salad had been modified. That's really all I have to say about that, except that I can't stop thinking about it. 2. EVERYBODY has been telling me to read BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL. Why, Randy Yates stopped me on the corner outside his own restaurant just to ask whether I had read it. And he was only one of many to make that query. And I needed something to read after MEASURE FOR MEASURE. (Ha ha, don't worry, I haven't given up on THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY; I just read this in it: "Cupid and Death met both in an Inn, and being merrily disposed, they did exchange some arrows from either quiver; ever since young men die, and oftentimes old men dote"... but I need a new "carry-around" book.) BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL is done up at least partway in that poetic style that Chandler made permissible for crime stories (instead of bubbles in the bathwater there are "little zeroes of suds"), and I'm more than fine with that! Okay! But then I had to stop on page 12 when he referred to the "trashy tune and words" of a Hank Williams song. The idea of someone sitting around proclaiming something "trashy" has never set well with me. And I know I should not confuse the author with the narrator! But here's a guy working in a genre that has been (unfairly) called "trashy" and he is going to have his narrator refer to the towering melodic and lyric achievements of Hank Williams as "trashy"? He should be on Hank's side! The irony (?) is compounded by the fact that this is a slick nyrb paperback, which has "rehabilitated," I guess, his "pulpy" novel. 3. Have you ever noticed in those books how your tough-guy narrator always wants to tell you when he takes a hot shower and eats some steak and eggs? It's a tendency I noticed in Spillane a lot. Maybe it's realism! I always thought it would be interesting to write a detective novel where there's no crime to solve and the detective just tells you about all the eggs he eats and hot showers he takes. The narrator of BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL "had no more idea of falling in love with her than I had of making a meal of the big yellow cake of soap in the Victorian bathroom," curiously combining both tendencies. 4. So I put down BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL. I'm gonna come back to it! I just have to shake off that unnecessary sideswipe at Hank Williams, though it's really got its claws in me. But in the meantime I thought I'd see what some of these here Shakespeare experts had to say about MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Out of three scholarly tomes I opened, two fell open EXACTLY and AT ONCE to the part about MEASURE FOR MEASURE, as if guided by the ghostly hand of Shakespeare himself! 5. Okay, I told you I'd read some more of this novel. Just three pages later the narrator is complaining that descriptions of women's legs in books are "trash." I don't know whether he's obsessed with trash or I am. But he's used the term twice in three pages. And now he's washing down seconds of potato salad with ice cold beer. Don't get mad at me, kind recommenders! I'm going to give this guy more of a chance than he gave Hank Williams. 6. I WAS WRONG! It's more like Cain than Chandler, but that's not what I mean. See, he's using the Hank Williams song ("If You've Got the Money, Honey") in a much more complex way than I expected... as a kind of shifting leitmotif. "Before it had sounded frank and functional. Before it had sounded gay and uncomplicated. Now the tune had a nasty taste to it." So, see, he was going somewhere with that, and I'm the sap. 7. I'm "not 'blogging' anymore, but I thought a late addendum to an old "post" would be okay. I'll probably come back to brag when I finish THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY too. But in the meantime, from BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL, "She split some canned wieners and fried them with the eggs." See? I told you this kind of narrator always tells you when he eats eggs. 8. "... his hand busy as a tarantula in a fly cage." Gross! And I don't even know what a fly cage is. I assume it is a cage full of flies. And then you put a tarantula in it. But with its obvious debt to Chandler's "tarantula on a slice of angel food," the pendulum of influence swings back. I said I'm not "blogging" anymore but I keep sneakily adding to this list. Pitiful.

Scenes From a Sandwich

Watched Bergman's SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE. It's mostly about how much they enjoy sandwiches. Like, another couple comes over for dinner and after dinner the woman throws a drink in the man's face. Then they leave and Liv Ullmann and her husband decide they want some "beer and sandwiches." In a later scene the husband is eating a sandwich and it makes Liv Ullmann hungry and she wants a sandwich too! And I was like, "There should be a drinking game for every time Liv Ullman and her husband eat sandwiches!" But right after that sandwich - during that sandwich! - things take a grim turn and I suspected there would be no more sandwiches. Much later, after one dramatic moment, the husband says to Liv Ullmann, "Let's go get a beer and a..." and I was like "A sandwich? A sandwich?" but the husband said "mixed grill." And I was like, "What IS a mixed grill, even?" It's not a sandwich. I was very disappointed. Finally they go back to their little country getaway where they ate sandwiches years before, and on the way Liv Ullmann even talks about how she "stocked up on food," and I was like, "Oh boy! I just know they are going to have a sandwich for old times' sake." But there were no more sandwiches. :(

The Lion's Den

I cannot say for certain that my 90th birthday tribute to Jerry Lewis was what prompted Megan Abbott to go see CRACKING UP at the Museum of Modern Art yesterday afternoon, but I like to think I had a little something to do with it. I'm going to lay out the sequence of events through our correspondence, kind of like Bram Stoker piecing together all those documents for DRACULA. I noticed an email from Megan in my inbox at around twenty minutes before three o'clock, Central Time, asking whether she should go see CRACKING UP at 4 PM. New York City, of course, abides by Eastern Time. If you will do your math, you will see that time was of the essence! My response was measured: "YES! My God, I hope you're not getting this too late. You only have 20 minutes to get there, hurry, hurry!" I also rushed over to twitter, in case Megan was not checking her email, and tweeted like so:

@meganeabbott Got your email. The answer to your Q is YES! But I'm looking at the clock and fear I'm too late. God help you! God help us all

— Jack Pendarvis (@JackPendarvis) March 8, 2016

I soon received a heartening "I'm here" via email. Trying to prepare her, as I thought was only my duty, I quoted P.B. Shelley on things "semi-real" and Megan responded that she was having a beer to open her "doors of perception." (Can it be a coincidence that the movie was scheduled to start at what is known affectionately in Oxford, Mississippi, as "Megan Abbott Time?") A photo of her ticket stub appeared on twitter. I immediately emailed that photo to McNeil, who responded "Wow!!! WOW!!!" - sentiments I subsequently conveyed to Megan. Thus spurred on, she responded, "I couldn't even finish my beer; I was too excited!" It was at this juncture that communications were severed for some hours, as I had a doctor's appointment. When I returned, I picked up THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY, which has been lying there untouched for some time, and discovered that my bookmark lay, by another coincidence, at the beginning of a chapter in which Robert Burton explains why doctors are the worst (though his thoughts do not apply to my friendly and helpful doctor): "according to that witty Epigram of Maximilianus Urentius, what's the difference? How (he asks) does the Surgeon differ from the Physician? One kills by hand, the other by drugs; and both differ from the hangman only in that they do slowly what he does quickly." Then I was like, why am I reading this? Surely Megan is out of CRACKING UP by now. And so it proved. I had an email from McNeil, asking "What's up with the $0.00?" I could see it was tearing him up inside!

I explained some of Megan's benefits as a paying member of MoMA, which seemed to calm him down. In the meantime, I had also received two emails from Megan, one seemingly sent just before the movie started and one after it had concluded. BEFORE: "You should see all the other lunatics here!" AFTER: "Watching it was akin to sinking into psychosexual quicksand!" Now! I must tell you that as I first read that response, and again as I cut-and-pasted it just now, I could not help but notice that were TWO extra, unnecessary spaces between "sinking into" and "psychosexual quicksand." Implying what? I'm no Freud! But one may imagine that had Megan written this on a postcard with a pencil, we might have a fascinating palimpsest to analyze. I left Megan a phone message to ask whether there had been any learned introduction or if they had just shown the film ("like BOOM!" is the way I believe I put it). Then I got to thinking about her "BEFORE" response, the one about the lunatics in the theater, and I was seized with an awful vision of Megan as the only woman in a Jerry Lewis audience, surrounded by, I don't know, creeps in Jerry Lewis outfits, each more eager than the last to pledge his troth! So I left a message about that. "I sent you into the lion's den!" I may have yelled into the receiver. This morning I had more emails from McNeil and Megan. One implied that my phone messages had arrived during a "book event" that Megan was attending with Laura Lippman. I can only hope they discussed Jerry a little over wine and cheese! If so, you may look forward to a postscript. "He had me at the slippery office!" Megan wrote later. McNeil's email also mentioned it: "Damn! I would have loved to have seen that on the big screen. That psychiatrist's office..." and of course he went on to mention the green carpet that he is convinced Jerry has reused fetishistically in his films for decades: "that green carpet in the motel room...ooh la la" being his exact words. Megan went on: "I have to say, I've never heard a MoMA audience (more male, yes, but not heavily so) laugh more at any movie and I was loud among them. I can't recall seeing many movies that made me quite so vividly uncomfortable either! In his movies, there's just no ground under our feet, is there?"

We Break In Bob Hope's Coasters

Last night Dr. Theresa cooked chicken in Kent's honor. I showed Kent some of Bob Hope's coasters that I bought at an auction. In an impulsive and correct gesture, Kent used one of Bob Hope's coasters for his beer. Soon we were all using Bob Hope's coasters! We had never used them before, although Dr. Theresa has used one of Bob Hope's ashtrays and, as I am sure you will recall, one of Bob Hope's cocktail forks to check the consistency of her figgy pudding last Christmas.

Don't worry, Bob Hope! We are putting your stuff to good use. When Kent opened a couple of beers he humorously placed the bottle caps on Burt Reynolds's eyes, as seen here. Later, Kent and I walked up to the City Grocery Bar, where we happily ran into Lee Durkee and talked politics on the balcony.

Santa's Face

I'm cooking a goose for Christmas. Believe it or not we don't really have any goose-cooking supplies around here. So I went out today. First I stopped by The End of All Music to see Bill Boyle, whom you can usually find behind the counter on a Sunday. I saw that the new arrivals bin was stocked with interesting things and Bill said that many of them were the abandoned records of a mutual friend (should I reveal his name? It's probably nobody's beeswax!) who's moving out of town. Speaking of none of your beeswax, I had an email from my old pal Abby Greenbaum, full of juicy music biz gossip about big-name country stars. But I can't tell you any of it! I can only give you some of the last part of the email: "The next day I hung out at Santa's Pub and, in honor of Christmas, did tarot readings for my roadie friends. Have you ever been to Santa's Pub? It is a triple wide trailer in South Nashville that is also a bar. Beers cost $2, and Santa's face is painted on the outside." But back to the goose! I was grousing to Bill that I really shouldn't buy any LPs because I had to spend my money on goose supplies, and Bill insisted on buying my stack of records for me. (Pictured above, one of them.) How often do you walk into a place and the guy working there buys your stuff for you? Talk about Christmas cheer! Speaking of which, I couldn't find any cooking twine at the grocery store so this guy who works there walked back behind the mysterious doors of the meat department and came back with a length of cooking twine for me. "Just stick that in your pocket," he said. Dang! I forgot to tell you that after I saw Bill I stopped for a bite to eat at Big Bad Breakfast, where, to my alarm, the Food Network had set up and was shooting something. I sat at the counter, not too far from an intensely glowing young couple they were interviewing. ("Random customers, I don't think they're from here," my server told me.) The Food Network had forced these clean-cut sweethearts to order a Pylon apiece. Now, these trim and fresh-faced matinee idols looked as if they'd barely be able to finish half a Pylon between them. Have I told you about the Pylon? It's named for the Faulkner novel, natch. It's a waffle with lots of stuff on top. Slaw and chopped-up hot dogs and chili and oyster crackers and hot peppers and I can't remember what all. Mustard, for instance. The Pylon cures your hangover. Now, this rosy-cheeked ingenue and her all-American beau have never had a hangover in their tender lives, I avow. But they cautiously approached their Pylons in the spirit of good sportsmanship. The funny part was that the interviewer would ask them things like, "Why do you think this place is named 'Big Bad Breakfast'?" "I don't know," was their reasonable answer. (It is named for Larry Brown's book BIG BAD LOVE, but how are they supposed to know that?) "What do you think is the origin of the Pylon?" asked the interviewer. "I don't know," the young woman said.

The Very Heights of Celebrity

I say all of the following as a short man to whom shortness is no "shortcoming." Ha ha, what delightful wordplay. Nor, as a small fat man, do I wish to "belittle" anyone for their stature. Merciful heavens, I'm on fire today! But I couldn't believe it in the ADVENTURE TIME meeting the other day when Ashly Burch said she met Harrison Ford and he was just a little taller than her! She stood up and Kent stood up and she explained to Kent, using his body as a prop, exactly what spot Harrison Ford would come up to on him. I was attending the meeting via video, and could not see their heads nor much else of what was going on. It was a comical sight of torsos magically disengaged, as you may joyfully entertain yourself by imagining. I did get the gist. Harrison Ford, as already stated, is barely taller than Ashly Burch, and Ashly Burch is not a tall woman. I would put Ashly at about Megan Abbott size... and as you certainly recall, I once asked for and received permission to refer to Megan as "doll-like" in a scrupulously fact-checked magazine article. Or I think I said "a living doll." And - I must have told you this before! - Megan says that Norman Mailer was, when she encountered him, about her (Megan's) size. But I guess everybody knows old Norman was a pugnacious little thing. I do like to consider Ashly and Megan, these two remarkable women of my happy acquaintance - short of stature but great in spirit! two of my favorites if you must know - towering, as they by all rights should, over those churning testosterone factories Harrison Ford and Norman Mailer. Once Kent Osborne and Ward McCarthy and I were at Rob Schneider's house - don't ask! - and he was quite the expert on the heights of other celebrities. "Aaron Neville, not a tall man," he would distractedly mutter, for example, as we sipped cautiously at his teeny pony-sized beers. I was reminded quite forcefully of the Napoleon scene from TIME BANDITS as Mr. Schneider's litany - almanac! - of short entertainers began to unfurl itself just a little at a time, taking on a surprising and almost poetic life of its own. I believe he knew Aaron Neville's exact height. And Aaron Neville looks so muscly in pictures! Maybe it's a form of compensation, if Rob Schneider's powers of observation are to be trusted... and why shouldn't they be? I don't think it is any secret that Mr. Schneider is not known as a town-stomping giant himself. Hence his interest in the subject, perhaps. Ward McCarthy and I saw Martin Sheen scurrying out of a Johnny Rocket's hamburger restaurant in Santa Monica once, clutching a bag of hamburgers in his tiny, rat-like hands. I am not sure his hands were tiny! And I am quite sure they were BY NO MEANS rat-like; I just said that to startle you! Pleasantly, I trust. Over the years, my impressionistic gauzy memory has preserved Mr. Sheen as if in amber: a stumpy figure he appears in my strange and inaccurate dreams, with an enormous head. Movie stars all have enormous heads, I have been informed by dubious sources, and spindly little bodies scarcely capable of holding them up. But Harrison Ford is what made me recollect all this. Who knew he was the size of a doll? We do have one personal photo of Harrison Ford with his back turned. Let's "click" here and study it for clues. He's kind of hunched over, which doesn't help. And come to think of it, "Blog" Buddy Chris Offutt has been to Harrison Ford's house! We'll grill him later. But he may not be the kind to take the measure of a man and shout it to the prurient readership of height-obsessed jackals to whom I so willingly cater.

I Regret to Inform You

... that though they should be rightfully included, I will not have room for the following labels on my next "post":

Their Urine Is Subtile and Fiery

When I couldn't sleep last night I got out of bed and said to myself, "I'm not gonna watch TV this time! I'm gonna read a book like a big boy!" So I sat on the couch and AUTOMATICALLY TURNED ON THE TV BY FORCE OF HABIT. But I stuck to my guns and turned it off again immediately, laughing at my foolish foolishness. BUT HERE IS WHAT HAPPENED. In the time it took to perform that action, TCM sprang to life. I could see from the satellite-company banner at the top of the screen that the movie was called THAT HAGEN GIRL. And the only image I saw from the movie, the only sound I heard, was a scowling old matron in close-up saying, "Have you seen that Hagen girl?" So that was an odd coincidence. That's all I've seen of THAT HAGEN GIRL. In fact, I choose to believe that that is the entirety of THAT HAGEN GIRL. It's like I made a little movie with my mind. Then I picked up THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY from the side table and read, "they are bold and impudent, and of a more harebrain disposition... they sleep little, their urine is subtile and fiery." It was already getting a little personal. And then the next page had some demonic possession so I was like, "Yikes!" I put down the book and turned on the TV. SPEAKING OF MIND GAMES: Don't forget to come to Square Books later today to see me mercilessly grill Ace Atkins about his brand new book THE REDEEMERS. There's a poster and everything (below). I noticed that Ace cc'd Greg Evigan about this event on twitter, ha ha! I think Mr. Evigan will find himself confused and even insulted, as the poster depicts Burt Reynolds in the incongruous company of Clyde from EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE, whereas Mr. Evigan was arguably the poor man's Burt Reynolds (actually the poor man's Jerry Reed) and his chimp friend "The Bear" was the poor man's Clyde. It occurs to me that I should put a photo from The End of All Music record store at the top of this "post," featuring Megan Abbott, Bill Boyle and myself, with Ace holding a bottle of whiskey in silver paper from Megan and a Jerry Reed LP from Bill. I gave him nothing. We'll probably drink that bottle of whiskey while we talk tonight. No we won't! We're PROFESSIONALS. We'll drink it beforehand. Ha ha, not really, am I blowing your mind again with my mind games? It's Four Roses, despite what the poster says.

Fact Checkering

Oh! This is probably very important. I was hesitant, as you may recall, to describe the tablecloths at The Crawdad Hole as "checkered." But I have just received compelling photographic evidence confirming my memory of the setting. In addition, Bill Boyle has confirmed that he did indeed express his willingness to lick his grandmother's armpit in the manner indicated, though I had run out of room on the cocktail napkin and was unable to accurately record in print that part of his quotation. I therefore stand by my original account.

Melted Fezzes

Well! Megan and Dan came to town and we went out and had a ball. Bill Boyle appeared on the scene and we drove out to Water Valley to a place called the Crawdad Hole. Somehow Megan knew about it. Dr. Theresa and I had never heard of it. As Dan pointed out, a restaurant has to have a well-placed sense of confidence to put "Hole" in its name. It was great! Great enough for "hole." I'm kind of sorry to tell you about it, because they only serve food until they run out of whatever is fresh that day, and I don't want you to eat it before I get there next time. We had so much stuff spread over the checkered oilcloth (was it checkered? It should have been!) - crab legs and sausages and corn on the cob and Mississippi tamales - that's a famous thing, if you didn't know! - and oysters, both sweetly raw and succulently grilled, all superb, and all washed down with a pitcher of ice-cold beer that went perfectly with the food. No crawfish because they were out. Megan said they told her it wasn't crawfish season. But we didn't even miss the crawfish. Then we were supposed to meet Ace at a "secret bar" but we went to the "secret bar" and it wasn't a "secret bar," it was the shabby back room you have to walk through to use the toilet at a local pizza restaurant of small repute. So we were like, "THIS IS ACE'S SECRET BAR?" But the story hasn't ended. MORE LATER. Because we had made a basic mistake about the "secret bar" and it wasn't Ace's fault! Now I'm going to start looking at whatever I jotted down last night on scraps of paper in my wallet and on bar napkins. As I recall, some of it might be bawdy and shocking! You know I don't like to "go there." Blame the liquor and high spirits of rekindled camaraderie. The first note I see just says, "Remember the Night." I'm like, hmm, this isn't as scintillating as I recalled. Was I just telling myself to remember the night? Then it occurred to me. It's the name of a Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck movie that Megan thinks Dr. Theresa and I would like. A nice sentiment, but a disappointment in the realm of fevered inspirations scrawled on tattered scraps from bars. Muttering, we left the (temporary) debacle of "secret bar" and went up to City Grocery. There we encountered Randy Yates, owner of Ajax, who was talking about his former fez collection. That seemed bar-napkin worthy. I wrote down what happened to Randy's fez collection: "I lived in such a [crappy] house all my fezzes melted." That didn't seem like a sentence I had heard before. Oh yes, I have noted here on the back of a postal receipt that Bill Boyle claimed, "If you were stranded on a desert island, all you'd need was Guinness and breast milk." I told you you'd be scandalized! Ace came to CG and took us back to the secret bar. We had lost Megan and Dan by now, but Angela had appeared, a delightful and special treat! And the bar really was different all of a sudden. It was darker and there was a fancy man to make Bill Boyle take off his baseball cap! When we sat down, the server asked if we'd like a complimentary shot, and unless I am crazy, the shots were being offered in empty shotgun shell casings. You know, the way they do in a secret bar. Bill was the only one who drank one and - still miffed about his forcefully doffed baseball cap - said, "That was terrible!" But he said it in a gruffly charming way that made even the server laugh. And when they brought out ice water, they offered to put drops of rosewater in it. Which we accepted! Now, rosewater was popular in Cairo, Egypt, when Dr. Theresa was growing up there, but I believe in the U.S. I have witnessed only her little brother Hesham (he's a full grown man, not a "little brother"!) spiking anything with it. Bill had gotten himself into a rare mood I enjoy seeing him in on those spare occasions when it happens - a touch of lovable surliness that comes over him with just the right amount of fluid help. Surliness isn't the right word. Sweet irascibility? Acting the wiseacre? I don't know any good words. Anyway, he didn't seem to care much for the rosewater. He said - and I was afraid this didn't even show up on the napkin! It was so dark and the server gave me a pen that wrote in PALE ORANGE INK, and I couldn't tell whether words were falling upon the napkin at all - "They're serving us old lady sweat and we're drinking it like we got nothing better to do." Then he said, "It's like you're licking your grandmother's armpit." And then I THINK he said (I didn't write it down) "Don't get me wrong, I'd lick my grandmother's armpit, she's a great lady!" But I may have made that part up. I'm afraid I haven't done justice to the secret bar, which was very pleasant and conducive to much convivial talk and served excellent grilled cheese sandwiches.