Whilst!

I have a lot of books about ghosts and most of them are fantastic! But that last ghost book I tried to read, set in Mississippi, was a big dud. So as you may expect it was with some combination of dread and expectation that I stumbled across a volume entitled PARANORMAL MISSISSIPPI RIVER: AN ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA in Square Books yesterday. I like things that are arranged encyclopedically! And the busy cover illustration featured the devil perched on the roof of a house, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, like, "Hmm." But the bookmark enclosed by the publisher scared me a little. It's an advertisement practically begging for authors, and carries a whiff of self-publishing about it. But as you know I have had some great enjoyment thanks to self-published material, crudely illustrated ("click" here for just one example that leaps to mind). In fact, it was just such an illustration that sealed the deal for me. I present it above. The caption was also magnificent: "No peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich was safe whilst the BIGFOOT-type monster dubbed MOMO stalked southeastern Missouri." As you can perhaps make out, the facing page contained phrases such as "like sulfur and feces, only worse" and "unprotected peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches." Flipping through, I ran across an allusion to THE GODFATHER of all things ("It seems likely Marie Laveau became the classic 'fixer,' in the sense familiar to many who have read Mario Puzo's THE GODFATHER"), a frequent touchstone of the Frank Sinatra bio I just finished, so that seemed like a good omen. One person who works at Square Books, whose identity I shall protect, saw me looking at PARANORMAL MISSISSIPPI RIVER: AN ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA and asked whether I had ever heard of the Bell Witch. Had I! I won't tell you about it because it's too scary. But anyway, this person told me that the daughter from all the Bell Witch trouble had moved into a house "a softball's throw away" from his or her own childhood home, and that, according to legend, a ghost had followed her there. By the time my informant was born, the haunted house was a storage space for "farm implements" where no ghostly occurrences were reported.

Leather Goods

Melissa Ginsburg is reading from her new book of poems DEAR WEATHER GHOST at Off Square Books tomorrow. DON'T MISS IT! Recently, Melissa told me about a book I should read because it has some interesting stuff in it about Emily Brontë, my fave. So I bought it at Square Books, natch. It's a book of "lectures" called MADNESS, RACK, AND HONEY, by Mary Ruefle. Hey remember how I love to say dumb things like "this book is like Sam Shepard's 'blog'" or "that book is like Clarice Lispector's 'blog,'" and it's never true? Well, I want to say that this book is like Mary Ruefle's "blog," and it's still not true. She IS irritated (fascinated?) by commercials the way someone with a "blog" would be. Take the print ad for leather goods featuring Albert Einstein's great-grandson sitting under a tree reading a book called WISDOM (!). Ruefle quotes the ad copy: "Paul Einstein is an accomplished violinist who enjoys reading literature, philosophy, and fine poetry." Fine poetry! Ha! Ruefle has a lot of fun digging into that, in a way that transcends any "blog"... though if she knew, as I do, that Einstein's granddaughter married a bigfoot hunter, I feel in my heart she would bring it up in this essay somehow, just like a "blogger" (me!). I feel absolutely safe in saying that Einstein's granddaughter marrying a bigfoot hunter is Mary Ruefle's kind of thing. What else? I was just over at Ajax, having a chicken po-boy, or as I now call it, "The Osborne," because Kent Osborne ate so very many of them on his recent visit. And there was a guy at the bar who COULD NOT STOP TALKING! It was okay, because most of his talk was entertaining. He talked about varieties of apples and his prowess at tic-tac-toe, to name just two of his many subjects. He yelled, about tic-tac-toe, "If I'm playing defense, YOU WILL NOT WIN! YOU WILL NOT WIN!" (See also.)

"Blog"trospective 10: Gelatin

So I just read three books with Jell-O in them: so what? It would be dumb to make a "blog"trospective called "Books with Jell-O in Them" just because our big, lush "blog"trospective about books with owls in them is so enormously popular and all anyone ever talks about ever all the time. Once I read three books in a row with Pernod in them, and that went nowhere. But by opening up the field a little, there may be enough material here for a true "blog"trospective worthy of ranking alongside the rest of them, which nobody cares about. For example, my WEBSTER'S NEW TWENTIETH CENTURY DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, UNABRIDGED, SECOND EDITION from 1974 lists "jellies made with gelatine" (they add the extra e 'cuz they're fancy!) as the second-greatest definition of "gelatin." So anyway, enjoy this "blog"trospective about gelatin and shut up. agarita bush; fruits of make jelly---attracts bigfoot---bags of arrive---Canadian sitcom inspires forum on---Castuera, Ako; talking about jellyfish with---certainty of the jelly factory, the---color of rubies in the setting sun, the---congealing veins, my---contributes to Dr. Theresa's love of toast---cow's blood as---cruddy bloud---Currence, John, takes a culinary blowtorch to some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches---dandy in aspic, a---drinking wine from Jell-O glasses---elves made of---EnerGel---enough for 10,000 pieces of toast---fails to redeem book---Farmer's Daughter Salty Dog Marmalade---fig preserves---freed from---ham hock and red pepper jelly on toast---Hope, Bob; rewards mistress with the gift of jam---in GIDGET---in Martha Washington cake---in PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT---in two Philip Roth novels---in works of Lucia Berlin---jam on pancakes---jellied ginger ale cubes---jellyfish in the works of Virginia Woolf and Thomas Mann---jelly-like substances in the works of Osamu Dazai and Walt Whitman---Kerouac uses "jello" as a verb---Lord Grimthorpe's last words invoke---Lucky Charms marshmallows contain gelatin made with pork---Martin, Dean; relationship of song stylings to---McNeil receives a free lemon jelly donut---Mickey Mouse stares at his reflection in some Jell-O---Mrs. Abington's better than Mrs. Thrale's---oils up your joints---picking up Jell-O cubes with fingers---plovers' eggs set like large opals in aspic jelly---poisoned---possibly immortal jellyfish---proponent of aspic given a diamond by the Tsar---puts one in mind of a character name from ANIMAL HOUSE---quivering in a spoon---red pepper jelly---robot standing in aspic---salamander eggs resemble---some varieties of might possibly on occasion be classified as "sweetmeats"---SpongeBob gets jelly from jellyfish---tartness of---tearful separation from---terrible flying bags of---used as a metaphor by George Kennedy---water the color of "lime jello"---Welles, Orson; has eyes like side-orders of---woman made of, a.

Fine Art Dude

How often have I tried to express to Dr. Theresa the mesmerizing quality of the people who try to sell you jewelry on television. But she had to come across an example of TV salesmanship on her own to truly understand the value of this unappreciated form of entertainment. She saw this dude selling "fine art." He was a fat guy in a brown suit and whenever he sat down he spread his legs really far apart. (Nothing against fat guys! I am a fat guy myself!) Dr. Theresa called me in and we watched the fat guy sell fine art together. The fine art salesman smacked his gum loudly (Nicorette, convincingly theorized Dr. Theresa) as he sold his fine art, and drank Mountain Dew. His Mountain Dew cans were littered among the fine art he was selling. I have presented here an actual example of the actual work that was up for grabs. He kept up a patter of non sequiturs, but they weren't charming like Tracey's from the Gem Shopping Network. This guy seemed volatile. He kept returning to his problems with someone called Jennifer. He said, for example, that she had the mark of the devil on her scalp! Scalp, he said. Jennifer turned out to be his wife. He said something about "bigfoot pulling a gun." Disappointingly, "Bigfoot" turned out to be the nickname of a guy on the crew. He said, "Don't stab yourself, Chappell." (His name was Chappell and he constantly referred to himself in the third person.) He said, "Don't stab yourself, Chappell, or they'll know you're crazy. I'm not crazy!"

Mark Twain Yeti Time

I am always astonished when someone mentions Professor Irwin Corey, as is well established here. But somehow I was not astonished when Mark Twain was compared to Professor Irwin Corey in Michael Kupperman's new book, which has everything a boy could want, including Mark Twain on the track of the elusive yeti! "Fifteen days out into the mountains we struck gold - or rather scat, Yeti scat (poos)... I fortified myself with brandy and continued bellowing. 'I can stay here all day, stupid cold weather monkey!'... 'I've got your favorite candy here,' I continued, switching tactics." Albert Einstein is a major supporting player in the book (he and Twain open a detective agency, natch) and somehow it behooves me to remind everyone that in real life for really real, Einstein's granddaughter married a renowned bigfoot hunter. That is a fact you can look up on your computer! (Pictured, Mr. Kupperman in character with Chewbacca, which seems close enough.) PS (of interest only to Laura Lippman): Mark Twain goes to a disco with Shields and Yarnell.

Happy Airplane Pills

Dr. Theresa and I went on an airplane. The doctor (not Dr. Theresa) gave me happy airplane pills to make me happy on the airplane. Dr. Theresa showed me a picture in the shopping catalog they give you on the airplane. It was of a sculpture called "Bigfoot the Bashful Yeti." I think you are supposed to attach it to a tree in your yard and passersby will think there is a bigfoot peeking out from behind a tree in your yard. But the bigfoot doesn't look "bashful" as advertised. "He looks sullen," Dr. Theresa observed. We flew to South Carolina. There we were thrilled to spend time with our old friends Dr. "M." and the Farmer. We even caught a glimpse of the mysterious Dr. Baby. Dr. Theresa presented an informative talk on THE SCARLET LETTER at a college. In a different venue, I spouted my strained witticisms at a smattering of stunned bystanders. A good time was had by all. Dr. "M." promises another one of her "TV Korner" "blog" contributions soon... maybe about CHEERS vs. FAMILY TIES or possibly a look at the new series PAN AM. I read some of THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST by Tom Wolfe in the airport. There are no owls in it... yet! But our friend Captain Marvel is all over the place. For example, "Billy Batson said Shazam! and turned into Captain Marvel. Jay Garrick inhaled an experimental gas at the research lab..." For Tom Wolfe, these are drug references. Speaking of airplanes, "Blog" Buddy, friend and neighbor Tom Franklin is in London RIGHT NOW! They just gave him a gold dagger. That's what I said all right, a gold dagger. It is a huge award (with a televised ceremony!) you can read about right here. Good luck getting it through airport security! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Because it's a gold dagger!

Today In Seahorse Reflections

From the "prelude" to that seahorse book I bought: "What is it that make seahorses so special, like miniature dragons of the sea?... What goes on during a day in the life of a seahorse?... I tinker with these questions, the questions that fascinate me and occasionally keep me awake at night..." (!) She stays up at night wondering why seahorses are like tiny dragons! Aw, I kind of love her! In a later chapter titled "Why Seahorses Matter" (!): "An adorable but greedy seahorse wins the heart of SpongeBob SquarePants in a 2002 episode of the Nickelodeon cartoon series." Ladies and gentlemen, I am about to knock your socks off. The top-billed writer of that episode was none other than "Blog" Buddy Kent Osborne! He appears by name in a seahorse book footnote, too! Truly the influence of the "blog" is everywhere, down to the bottom of the ocean, in a nature book about seahorses I bought for some reason. At the beginning of chapter 3, there is a reference to "the elusive Chinese yeti." Why not? This book has everything! (Except, perplexingly, Aquaman, as previously noted.)

History Channel

If you want to contact a bigfoot, go out to the woods and knock twice on a tree and sometimes the bigfoot will respond by knocking twice on another, distant tree, which is something Dr. Theresa learned on the History Channel last night.

Point Your Hand Into an Empty Portion of the Sky

Thought I'd poke around on the "internet" for some information about Mr. Hodson, author of FAIRIES AT WORK AND PLAY. Within TWO "CLICKS" I found myself on the "web" site of the horrible behemoth, which, as you know, I despise, save for the beautifully entertaining customer comments. One such customer comment (on one of Mr. Hodson's books) mentioned - of all things - HOW TO CONTACT SPACE PEOPLE by Ted Owens, a recent and obscure object of "blog" curiosity. You can imagine my surprise! In fact, the prose style of the commenter and his (or her) "screen name" (which was drawn directly from the text of HOW TO CONTACT SPACE PEOPLE), made me wonder if the commenter might BE Ted Owens, the author of HOW TO CONTACT SPACE PEOPLE. So I looked up Mr. Owens on the wikipedia, but he died in 1987, so I guess not. OR IS HE SENDING "INTERNET" COMMENTS FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE? Probably! This anonymous person's review of a bigfoot book contained the following advice: "Go outside at night. Point your hand into an empty portion of sky. Paint with your mind's eye a picture of a Big Sasquatch in that portion of sky. Then wait a day or two." That's VERY similar to some advice handed out in HOW TO CONTACT SPACE PEOPLE. Don't do it!

Skulkin'

Yes, that was me skulking around in the creepy part of the library where nobody goes. I figured since they keep the John Dee biographies up there I ought be able to find all sorts of other weird stuff. I was right! Brother, it's a gold mine! Like, the last time the "blog" discussed Upton Sinclair, we discovered that he was an old fussbudget who didn't want anybody to enjoy a liquor drink. But did you know he believed in telepathy? I guess he needed something exciting to do besides get drunk! So he would sit around trying to make people read his mind. He wrote a whole book about it called MENTAL RADIO. The library's got it! Libraries are fun! Within the first few pages ol' Upton declares "Telepathy is real" and specifies that it can work on you from up to 40 miles away. Pretty specific! That's good specifying. I didn't check out MENTAL RADIO. I just stood there and thumbed through it. A lot of it seems to be these cute little doodles that Upton Sinclair drew. Then he tries to get people to read his mind and draw the same doodles! All right. I DID check out a weird book called JADOO. I am assuming it is weird. The title is weird. What does it mean? I DON'T KNOW YET! But it comes from the secret "crazy section" of the library so I have high hopes. It was written in the 50s and seems to be about the author's "true" adventures in "exotic" locales. Dig these chapter titles! - "City of Snakes" - "Wizard of Cairo" - "Invitation From the Devil" - "Hellship to Bombay" - and so on and so on, culminating with "On the Track of the Abominable Snowman"! Wow! One of the first things he writes is, "Peddling adventure is my business." Yeah! I like a writer with confidence. Another chapter starts "New York, with its murders, muggings, street beatings, and undercurrent of sexual violence, is by far the most dangerous city on earth." He's opinionated! And you know, I thought I recognized his name - it's John A. Keel. Turns out it's because he's the guy who wrote a book about a famous West Virginia creature called "The Mothman." I might... have a copy???? They made it into a movie starring Richard Gere as the guy who battles "The Mothman." This I didn't know: according to wikipedia, Keel also came up with the popular slice of UFO lingo "Men in Black." And speaking of UFOs, the old wikipedia tells me that Keel didn't believe in aliens... that would be crazy! No, he maintained that UFOs were occupied by ghosts and monsters. Okay! That's more like it. Quote: "Keel coined the term 'ultraterrestrials' to describe UFO occupants he believed to be shape-changing, non-human entities." Gee I feel funny. Maybe this book dust is going to my head.

Your Albert Einstein Bigfoot News For Today

I just read an obituary of Albert Einstein's granddaughter. I won't "link" to it because she had a lot of sadness in her life, and I like to keep things nice and frothy for you, even when it comes to obituaries. But I will say that for a time, Albert Einstein's granddaughter was married to a bigfoot hunter.

There are things on the "internet" you shouldn't "click." Innocent things, seemingly! But you know in your heart they are but two or three "clicks" away from a fog-enshrouded part of the "internet" from which NO ONE HAS EVER RETURNED. Oh, we have danced around such things here at the "blog," flirted with them, but always with caution and warning. What leaps to mind? Let's see, just off the top of my head: the people who think President Kennedy is George W. Bush's father, the Emin, the boy from Mars, the women who believe their thoughts are controlled by Bob Hope, the guy who is hunting the Lizard Man, the underground civilizations, the man who wants you to put a green light at your house, Lady Gaga as part of a Masonic plot, the bigfoot convention and so many more. Oh, "internet"! And oh readers! How often I have tempted you down the path to destruction. So imagine my anxiety - and titillation! - when I was reading CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS last night and came across a passing reference to the APOCALYPSIS NOVA, an "'Amadeist' manuscript" from 1502, "which still has its devotees, especially in the wilder corners of the internet." Am I going to look it up? Am I going to "click" on something about it? I am not! I might! I don't know! I won't! Will I? No! Get thee behind me, Google.

Today In Bob and Jerry News: Special Lookalike Edition

I decided to do one of my patented "Google Image Searches" to see if the man called a "Jerry Lewis look-alike" by a reporter in the previous "post" indeed looks like Jerry. He does not. I found a picture of him at this account ("click" here) of a Texas Bigfoot Conference from a few years back. The reporter whose description is quoted above was seemingly trying to be hurtful, or at least reductive, but I find no insult to either man in the designation. Jerry Lewis and this man are both fine looking in their own ways but do not resemble one another at all. My favorite Bigfoot expert on the "link" may be Mr. Coleman, who is known for his theories about what the "blog" will call (with its well known prudishness) the "dating habits" of Bigfoot. As the article says, "Coleman covered cryptozoology in general. He discussed Mothmen, Lizardmen, and the Chupacabras. Coleman also made an interesting prediction: with the 50th anniversary of the release of the film, The Creature of the Black Lagoon, he told the crowd to expect reports of 'gill men' of the type found in the film." Now, speaking of lookalikes of "blog" heroes, I finally saw that new Metal Men series of stories recommended to me so long ago by the "blog" penpal who calls himself "Comic Book Villain." Being an old man, I do not fully understand your modern day comic books, jam packed as each panel is with bewildering visual information, and dense as each plot seems to be with alternate universes and timelines and mythologies of which I am entirely unaware. But that is not the Metal Men's fault! It was nice to see them in action again. Nor was it the fault of the author. It is my own fault for becoming so old. The comic's target audience of youngsters made its Bob Hope reference all the more gratifying. Mercury (the red one, below) shares Bob's famous ski-slope nose, a similarity made explicit in one of the new stories when Doc Magnus is rebuilding his robots and Mercury asks to be given "the piercing blue eyes of Bob Hope." These are the things that make us happy as we become old and weak. (The panel below is not from the new incarnation. It is one from my youth, as you can tell from the uncluttered style and the weirdly innocent creepiness.)

The Magic of Google

After confessing/declaring the "blog's" true interests yesterday (Jerry Lewis, monkeys, and UFOs), I decided to use the magic of "Google" to see how often this noble triptych had been gathered elsewhere on the "internet." My "googling" brought me directly to an apparent newspaper profile ("cute" and condescending) of Don Keating, president of the Eastern Ohio Bigfoot Conference. I immediately grasped how such an article might include monkeys and UFOs, but I had to read carefully to discover the Jerry Lewis reference, which came in a description of one "Marc Dewerth, 31, a Jerry Lewis look-alike who once glimpsed Bigfoot from 75 yards away. 'He was trying to intimidate the **** out of me,' recalls Marc." Now, have you ever noticed how many times the "blog" claims to encounter a significant coincidence? If not, "click" here, or here, or here, or here, for starters. But here's the thing. Last month, completely at random, I happened to include the program for Mr. Keating's Annual Bigfoot Conference in Newcomerstown, Ohio, on the 2008 "Blog" Advent Calendar. Crazy!

The "Blog" Advent Calendar for Dec. 25, 2008

Here it is! "Click" here for last year's full and satisfying explanation of this culmination of your "blog" advent calendar fun. Our story so far: 1) Aboriginal art made, I think, from a hollow log. 2) Home page of the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. 3) A fellow playing "High Hopes" on his organ. 4) A performance of the song "Millionaire" by the Mekons. 5) Unicorns in space. 6) Your handy catalog of folk dance instructions. 7) A guy practicing his Saint Saens. 8) Every cover ever of the comic book HERBIE. 9) More Saint Saens for some reason, this time on theremin. 10) The old TV show LAND OF THE GIANTS - in bubble gum card form, that is! 11) Actual footage of Annie Oakley from the Edison studio. 12) "Cute cat pictures make the world a warm and fuzzy place." 13) "A camel made out of peanut butter" 14) An elaborate handout from the 13th annual Bigfoot conference. 15) A performance by Sinatra of a song by the Beatles. 16) I think this is a physics paper. 17) Squirrel holding pear. 18) A clip from the 1959 film SANTA CLAUS. 19) Elis Regina! 20) Enjoy this nice clip please of Jerry Lewis in CINDERFELLA. 21) The long poem "Julian and Maddalo by P.B. Shelley. 22) Some nice kids in the middle of singing "Sleigh Ride." 23) Robot instrumental. 24) Accordion Rossini. Now, before we commence with your final surprise of this year's calendar, may I please ask you to note that all of the preceding material is completely new to the "blog"? That's because we like to go the extra step for your pleasure. I was tempted to include a couple of things you have certainly forgotten, such as Bob Denver singing "Ho, Daddy!" as originally presented here by McNeil, or these foolproof plans for mastering time travel, first "linked" to via this "post." But I resisted! And as we bid you a fond goodbye from this year's "blog" advent calendar, we leave you with this large and final surprise.

Ivan T. Sanderson and the Unnamed Behemoth

I was "flipping around" the other day and landed on a program about UFOs. Now, I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I am not that interested in UFOs. But they seem to be on television all the time, or maybe I am just noticing them more often now that somehow they have become a "blog" preoccupation, like velvet suits. (I should mention that I just saw the comedian Katt Williams on TV in a bright green velvet jacket, I believe.) I blame McNeil. In any case, this UFO show flashed an image of a UFO book by Ivan T. Sanderson. I was surprised! I recognized the name. You know how I love cheap books. I once picked up a 1937 first edition of Ivan T. Sanderson's ANIMAL TREASURE for fifty cents at a library book sale. It's a pretty straightforward travel/naturalist book for the general reader, though chock-full of the kind of sentences I enjoy: "These were giant millepedes, larger than Frankfurt sausages. They are harmless, timid, and friendly animals, filled mostly with air and completely devoid of any sense." (And on the next page he meets some pangolins!) So I did not associate Ivan T. Sanderson with UFOs. Hence my surprise. But it did stir a memory which turned out to be correct. I thought I had seen Mr. Sanderson's name in a McSweeney's article about the yeti. (One issue of McSweeney's contained a magazine-within-a-magazine called YETI RESEARCHER [the only book ever to be stolen from my home! But that's another "post"], in which Mr. Sanderson is given credit as "the first to propose a classification system" for "cryptic hominids.") Once you make the leap from pangolins and millepedes to yetis, I suppose it is only one more short hop to UFOs. But none of this is what I meant to say. When I did some "Googling" on Mr. Sanderson, I found a review of ANIMAL TREASURE on the "web" site of the obscene behemoth, that corporation I will never name (where I am STILL designated as a "YA writer" despite PW's kind correction). If there is anything I enjoy about the behemoth, it is distilled in the time the person reviewed a pair of socks. I also appreciated the boisterous "customer review" of Sanderson, which I present now for your pleasure, with its flights of enchanting - indeed, rapturous - misspelling and "questionable" grammar intact. I believe they express enthusiasm in a way that a more proper and restrained reflection never could, and in fact I feel a certain kinship with the kid who wrote the review. Sometimes I try to write this way "in character" but it just goes to show you that nothing beats the real thing: "this was a really great book, I read it like 10 times. I read it so many times it fell in about 5 peices even if you dont like animals a lot its very iteresting and witty and tell's about a lot of strange animals. its also funny, Ivan T sanderson is a very funny writer. I totaly recomend this book !!! P.S this book was wrote like 100 years ago and tells about a english dude going to africa to collect rare animal specimens. on his journey he runs into giant bat's, loud lizards,and cool snakes, and to make it better its all a true story !"

A Famous Mountain

Hey, Kent's leaving today to climb to base camp at Mt. Everest. "JUST base camp?" you sneer. Well, what if I told you that "base camp" is 18,000 ft. in the air? I guess you'd feel sorry for sneering then! Goodbye, Kent! Come back soon! Be careful on the mountain! Look out for yetis!