The Toastmaster Who Wasn't There

Now, how was Ace to know of my disenchantment, or whatever it is, with the idea of the Oscars? So he casually mentioned that he thought Conan O'Brien did a good job. "Well, we'll see about that!" I thought with churlish... I don't have a good noun to finish that sentence. The adjective churlish stopped my brain! So I scurried around on the "internet" like a little rat and watched a couple of minutes of Conan O'Brien doing his monologue. In my foul mood, I couldn't concentrate on his razor-sharp wit or whatever everybody thinks it is. All I noticed was how he amateurishly clapped his hands together every 10 seconds. He didn't know he was doing it! Such was my interpretation. His body was out of his control! And so on. Such was the content of my bitter thoughts. So I used email, the old person's medium, to craft a sentence only a 200-year-old man could appreciate: "All I’m saying is you wouldn’t see Bob Hope clapping his hands together every 10 seconds like the toastmaster at the Kiwanis Club." Ace responded that the Kiwanis make excellent pancake breakfasts and have programs to help children in need. So I really felt like a jerk after that. After some thought, I realized what a few of my problems were, and I encapsulated them thusly: "Once I was in a play and someone videotaped it, and when I watched the videotape I was horrified to see that I was involuntarily and unconsciously clapping my hands together every 10 seconds for no discernible reason. Conan's only real crime was reminding me of my own many failures! Also, I picked the Kiwanis Club at random, assuming they were a generic men's fraternal organization such as Fred Flintstone used to belong to. I didn't know anything about them! I should have turned the merciless spotlight on myself, not on the innocent members of the Kiwanis Club! I don't even know if they have toastmasters!" It was like when the guy in MULHOLLAND DR. (above) said "There is no band." That is, there was no toastmaster. Or to paraphrase Stanley Kubrick, I have always been the toastmaster. It's like in ANGEL HEART when... never mind. I don't want to spoil ANGEL HEART for you. I know you've been meaning to get around to it. Similar to the plot of that one Dan Duryea movie of which I can't recall the title. Wait! BLACK ANGEL. Why do they all have angel in the title? Let's forget it. Please join us tomorrow, when we start over with a clean slate, beginning with McNeil's revelation of some startling theological insights. I'm unemployed. PS The toastmaster I'm imagining wouldn't clap his hands together every 10 seconds anyway. He'd be gripping the podium in white-knuckled terror.

I Gave Up

I thought I should tell you I stopped reading that giant hardcover "omnibus" of comics I mentioned yesterday. Why? Why did I give it up, I mean, not why did I think I should tell you. I don't have an answer for that one. Maybe because I'm unemployed and don't have anything else to do? As to the former question, however, it's not because I had shamed myself by mentioning it. It's because this "omnibus" is no damn good! The comics are too goofy. Yes, yes, I know I have often boasted perversely of loving the uncool, goofy comic book characters (not to be confused with the Disney character Goofy) the best... your Captain Marvel (the version often called "Shazam" by dimwits, for reasons I could get into here if I felt like it), your Metal Men, your Plastic Man, and so forth. But this glossy pile of junk I was reading was goofy in the wrong way. The goofiness it poured forth seemed born of bitterness and irony. The bitterness and irony of persons who have placed themselves high above goofiness. That's 1989 for you! There's a reason I originally stopped reading comic books when the price went up to 30 cents. Well, the reason was it became too expensive. Thirty cents is a lot of money! But the point is that the goofiness I like, the goofiness of your Plastic Man, your Metal Men, your Captain Marvel, is sincere and joyful... an embracing mechanism, not a distancing one. Anyway, I'd put this volume in the big overflowing garbage box of books they have for urchins to pick through in the park, but it's too damn big.

Bitter Thoughts

Well, the Million Dollar Book Club has been debating whether to read about J Dilla or Schubert next. In the midst of discussions, it occurred to me that both subjects died very young, and at about the same age. So I emailed Megan sardonically, if that is the right word, "We know how to have fun!" The more of these books we read (125 so far), the clearer it becomes that all biographies end the same way, if you know what I mean.

Grievously Bedaubed

I don't come around here much anymore, because I'm so very, very tired of telling you every time I read a book with an owl in it. No more of that! What else is there to talk about? Nothing, that's what. Well, McNeil lobbed a couple of softballs at me, and I could have "blogged" about them... like, let's see... he found, on this very site, a zombie "link" which, before its zombification, had been about Jack Palance. I neglected to check it out, on account of being so tired and weary and filled with bitterness and ennui and so on. Then he said that by going down a rabbit hole, not his phrase, or more like a Palance hole, also not his phrase, he found a clip of Jack Palance reading from a novel he had written (!)... all right, does the inclusion of that parenthetical exclamation point mean that the spirit of "blogging" is beginning to surge afresh in my congealing veins? I doubt it! But to quote McNeil, "I stopped when he's about to read an excerpt from his novel. I just can't bring myself to listen. I don't know why. It's probably fantastic. Maybe that's what I'm afraid of? Who knows? You watch and let me know." Lacking the energy, I did not follow up on McNeil's request. In a separate communiqué, he mentioned a TV show called DIRTY SALLY, which, to his surprise (I think), I remembered quite well. I remembered how much it bothered me as a child, or whatever I was. "Dirty Sally" was no figurative nickname! This character was a spiteful old woman quite literally covered in dirt. This is what we thought was a normal TV show in whatever year that was! She was "grievously bedaubed," as John Bunyan put it in THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, though he wasn't talking about Dirty Sally. Let me give you more of the quotation: "Here therefore they wallowed for a time, being grievously bedaubed with the dirt." Now, I say that John Bunyan wasn't talking about Dirty Sally, but "Dirty Sally" sounds like one of his characters, doesn't it? He's all about Mr. Clumsy and Johnny Sewermouth and such. Those examples come from my own fertile imagination. Ha ha, we're having a lot of fun talking about THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, aren't we? Yet I'm still filled with a curious mixture of numbness and rage. I didn't even let you know when Megan Abbott was coming to town! Usually, I am like, hey, everybody, there is an event! Pretending that putting such an announcement on the "blog" serves any real purpose. As you can see from the tragically rain-spattered chalkboard above, the gods themselves wept as Megan and I brought our public conversation to a conclusion. As Megan is the other member of the Million Dollar Book Club, we did get to discuss our latest selection in person for a change. It's called WILD MINDS and it's about the early history of animation. And thus I learned of a Warner Brothers character doomed to failure, yes, "a bespectacled owl named Oliver." DAMN IT!

Suffolk's Head

Just because I keep a big long list... look... I've told you this a million times! But just because I keep a big long list of books with owls in them doesn't mean I have to tell you EVERY time an owl appears in a single book. I am obliged to mention only one owl incident per volume. But! I could not help but notice in HENRY VI, PART 2, or 2 HENRY VI, as Oral Sumner Coad calls it, that screech owls make a second appearance. Not regular non-screeching owls, but screech owls... twice! As if one set of screech owls wasn't enough. Allow me to paraphrase or summarize Shakespeare. I'll make it hip for the kids of today! So Queen Margaret is like, okay, Suffolk, if you're so dang mad why don't you start cursing everybody? And Suffolk is like oh yeah? Wait until you see how great I am at cursing people! Then he wishes that the sweetest thing anybody ever gets to eat is bitter gall and, I don't know, that lizards will bite their asses? The book is downstairs by the bed. Hence the paraphrasing. And he hopes the only music they hear will come from snakes and screech owls. That kind of stuff. Finally, Queen Margaret is like, okay, we get it, put a sock in it! But she loves him. I hope you don't mind some spoilers. Anyway, it doesn't go well for him because one of the subsequent stage directions is (and I think this may be a quotation, not a paraphrase, or darn close to it) "Enter Queen Margaret, carrying Suffolk's head." Speaking of books with owls in them, McNeil wrote with the unhelpful suggestion that I begin a second list... one of books I've read WITHOUT owls in them. See, he was reading THE BRASS CUPCAKE by John D. MacDonald, and he checked the list, curious to know whether he might expect an owl, but found himself at a loss. Was it not on there because it didn't have an owl in it? Or did it have an owl in it but I just haven't read it? Or... did it not have an... you get it. My mind is wandering. Most importantly, McNeil reports that THE BRASS CUPCAKE confirms our observation that John D. MacDonald is afraid of women, especially their mouths. Wait! I mean his PROTAGONISTS are afraid of women and their mouths. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that all his protagonists are deathly afraid of women's mouths, just a crazy coincidence, having nothing to do with the unspeakable fears of John D. MacDonald himself. Anyway, and this is gross, so brace yourself, according to McNeil, the protagonist of THE BRASS CUPCAKE kisses a woman and her mouth is "like a soft open wound." Okay!

Mann Crush

Finished BUDDENBROOKS. Didn't find an owl in it, crushing my previously stated hope - which really seemed possible! - that Thomas Mann would have owls in all his books. He was on a roll there! Oh well. Life just serves up one bitter disappointment after another. I did, however, stumble upon an owl in one of my secondary texts, the ratty, tattered paperback I found stuffed in a hole in the park. As you may recall, it's one of those books where Victoria is the queen and yet there are computers everywhere. You know. That kind of book. And two of the characters go to see a panto... you remember what a panto is! Remember when I used to help out with an annual Christmas panto in Chicago? What? You don't? Then why don't you just go to hell. So they go to a didactic panto featuring communist acrobats, you heard me. That kind of book. The name of the panto is "Mazulem the Night Owl." I think I spelled that right. I don't care, though.

Pelicans Are Not Owls

Undoubtedly you recall with a complex admixture of emotions the uncanny raccoon coincidence I personally shared with the narrator of a book I was reading in the waiting room of a doctor. Well, hold onto your hat(s)! We happened to be driving across the bridge to Dauphin Island the other day, a bridge I had not crossed in at least 45 years - though, when we reached a certain part of it, I recalled a recurring nightmare the bridge had given me in my youth... and that night, after we had crossed the bridge in the "present day," I had the terrible dream again! For the first time in many decades. But that is not what I meant to tell you. Don't trouble yourself about my tortured mind! What I meant to say is that as we crossed the bridge I took note of several pelicans, marveling at how weird they were, and remarking upon said weirdness to my beloved helpmeet, and then! Then, when we got where we were going, I opened up the book I had last cracked in the doctor's office and immediately came to this sentence: "Li looked at pelicans on the pier and remembered how weird they were, with their handbag-like beaks." Now I should name the book, because I have quoted a sentence. It's LEAVE SOCIETY by Tao Lin. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking two things. One of them is "Does Jack Pendarvis, chiefly known for his interest in the owls of literature, realize that pelicans are not owls?" Well, now I do! Thanks! The other question you have is whether or not I considered that taking my book clearly designated for medical emergencies, and deciding willy-nilly that it could serve double duty as the book I take along when I am visiting my parents, might bring down an avalanche of bad luck to crush my body and soul. Once again, now I have. Too late! In a possibly related matter, Dad told us that Dauphin Island was originally called Massacre Island by the French explorers who landed there, because they found a big pile of mysterious bones. My brother confirmed as much on his phone. He didn't trust our father, I guess! Dr. Theresa and I described a weird animal we had seen doing an eerie, serpentine lope across the road in Coden, Alabama, and Dad told us we had seen a mink. Following my brother's bad example, I looked up a mink on my phone and confirmed its minkiness. Later, at a separate gathering, after we had told our mink story afresh, my brother-in-law and I had a discussion about the plural of mink, and HE looked up the answer on HIS phone! What a weekend. I said I had never seen a mink before and Dr. Theresa boasted that she had seen plenty of mink (an acceptable plural) being cruelly mistreated in the film GORKY PARK. (Note that Dr. Theresa, with her tender heart, ceased her viewing at that juncture.) I said it didn't count, that I meant seeing mink in person. Everybody ran out of the room as we got in a big screaming match about it, ha ha, not really! I just wanted to make sure you were still riveted by the tale, because a very important part is coming up. A few days after the mink, Dr. Theresa and I saw a pig run across the road just about 2 miles away from my parents' house! Now, this was an adorable little brown farm pig, not a hairy, scary wild pig with giant-ass teeth for goring and chomping. Reading back over the "post," I changed "giant" to "giant-ass" for extra emphasis. To anyone I have offended with my cavalier use of dirty language, I apologize. A bittersweet coda indeed: I looked it up on the "internet" in the course of "researching" this "post," and am now debating whether or not to tell Dr. Theresa that the animal in GORKY PARK is a sable.

How I Read Now

I take my membership in the 2-person book club very seriously, as will be confirmed when I tell you that I moved JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS into a secondary position so that I could more faithfully engage with the biography of Polly Adler. Look her up! I don't have time for your lazy ways. Having finished that Marilynne Robinson book, I now read JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS for 10 minutes a day, 5 minutes at a time, while I wait to take my blood pressure. I make it through an average of four pages a day, a pace to which the book makes itself strangely amenable. I first noticed while reading THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN that Thomas Mann is very interested in time - its reality and its narrative uses and representation. That's a great oversimplication. To keep going in the same simplistic direction, the only direction I know, Mann is interested in how an hour can pass like molasses, while a decade can disappear in a blink. It is for that reason, I assume, that my readings of his mammoth text, though brief and greatly separated, feel as if they are taking place in a single unending and languorous haze. It may further interest you to know that I believe I was pronouncing "Thomas Mann" correctly for most of my life, and then, recently, I started thinking I was doing it wrong, so I started pronouncing it a new way, but now, whenever I say it out loud, someone says, "Who?" and I say "Thomas Mann" and they say "Oh..." Then they look at me like that one emoji with a straight line for a mouth. (See also, the time a smart-alecky undergrad corrected my pronunciation of "whilst" in front of the whole class, even though I was saying it right and he turned out to be nothing but an ill-informed little and, as I recall it, wealthy jerk with enviable golden locks. On the other hand, what is this bitterness? I am sure he turned out to be a very nice young man and he did demonstrate considerable ability in the classroom. His single flaw, now that I really contemplate it, was his unwarranted confidence about how to pronounce "whilst." There are worse crimes! God bless you, the handsome and polished pebble in my shoe! See also, then, the time I mispronounced the name of Ashton Kutcher, and was justifiably laughed out of the classroom and made to hang my head in dirty shame.) Oh! But what I came here to say is that though (as I have reiterated countlessly) I am under no obligation to tell you about more than one owl in a book, and I have already told you about two owls in JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS, old Potiphar was just sitting in his special room where he sits as the sun goes down, and behind his head as he sits in a silent, noble fashion, there is artwork representing owls, falcons, and ducks, I believe in that order, but the book is all the way downstairs, under my blood pressure machine, so I guess we'll never know.

Twisted Dharma Stories

Stopped by Square Books yesterday and picked up a Penguin paperback called BUDDHIST MEDITATION: CLASSIC TEACHINGS FROM TIBET. If it's any of your business! This collection starts with a few old poems, and the second poem in the whole book introduces an image that readers of the "blog" are sure to go into a tizzy over, for reasons of which I need not remind my initiates: "Old Owl sits on the rock and hoots." Next comes a question to which I could only answer yes: "Do you sit upon your rock,/Spouting twisted dharma stories to others?" Speaking of which, I had lots of thoughts about those WORLD'S FINEST COMICS starring Batman and Superman that Tom Franklin brought me in the hospital. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to express them anywhere, except in texts to Tom, but the combination of being sickly and quitting social media is a potent one! Plus, discovering the owl in yet another book opened the door to a legitimate "blog" "post" and now my fingers may type as much as they like and no one can stop them! These comic books are from back when I used to read comic books, and Batman isn't cool and edgy, as I suppose he is now. Like, Superman will say (I paraphrase), "All right, Batman, I'm going to go to outer space and do some important stuff. All you have to do is watch this one guy, and he's literally asleep, can you handle it?" And Batman goes, "Sure thing, Superman!" (Again, I paraphrase.) And in the VERY NEXT PANEL, someone is bashing Batman in the back of the head with a big stick. Down he goes, out for the count! He had one job, as the hilarious meme from years gone by would have it. I have always pictured Batman as being very alert. On the anecdotal evidence of the two issues of WORLD'S FINEST that Tom brought me, I can also say that Batman and Superman are surprisingly testy with one another, bickering and petty, like some old couples. Often, they keep their bitter feelings deep down inside, and express them only in thought bubbles. Here I will cease paraphrasing and give you a couple of direct quotations. "WHERE IN BLAZES IS SUPERMAN? WE WERE SUPPOSED TO MEET HERE BY THIS OLD SUGAR MILL BY NOON!" Batman sulks with a petulant look on his face. From a separate story: "BLAST! IT'S ALL BATMAN'S FAULT... IT WAS HIS TIP I ACTED ON. SOME DETECTIVE!" Superman silently rages. "AND WHERE IS HE?" he adds, exposing the odd Beckett-adjacent sub-theme of these comics, which is that Batman and Superman wait around for each other a lot, demi-gods paralyzed to helplessness by a perceived dependency that perhaps does not exist. In the same story, Superman is so over Batman's crap that he demolishes an office desk with his fist in frustration, although it is not adequately explained why Superman is sitting behind an office desk like a chump. In conclusion, Dr. Theresa reports that there is a rabbit in the backyard RIGHT NOW. And it's Easter!

New Pinnacles of Disengagement

I am sure I do not have to remind you how I cared deeply about the Oscars from approximately age 10 to age 50, followed by a steep decline lasting a decade or so. In fact, a couple of years ago, I stopped watching the show altogether, as your research into my personal habits has no doubt affirmed already. Moreover, I did not even know that this year's Oscars were happening until 8:30 PM Central Time on the night before the ceremony. Nevertheless, my sister and I (she has precociously developed a similar disinclination to engage with awards season) cannot get out of the habit of trying to beat one another soundly when it comes to guessing the winners. It gives me no pleasure to say that I trounced her for the first time in many years, my victory leaving an ashy, bitter taste of irony in my mouth, given that neither of us cares anymore. About anything!

Like What

You recall how I used to get inspired all the time by inspirational phrases. Inspire is part of their name! Well, inspir. What was I saying? Megan and I are reading the Philip Glass memoir, and he says, "As long as you know what you're doing, nothing much of interest is going to happen." Another thing I've had a chance to read lately is this Henry James book. "'Henrietta is not delicate!' she exclaimed with a certain bitterness." I just want every sentence in a book to be like that. Like what? I don't know. You can't get inside my head. (See also.)

Why, God? A Great Misfortune

A guy on twitter was rightly boasting, in a bittersweet way, that he had finished THE PICKWICK PAPERS, and as proof of a sort, he photographed the last page, and it was in this way that I learned, through no fault of my own, that the last paragraph of THE PICKWICK PAPERS has an owl in it. Now I have to put it on my list of books with owls in them, which I mysteriously maintain, and I didn't even have the pleasure of reading it, though I do have a copy of it around here somewhere.

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.

Door Trouble!

Well, you know I don't "blog" anymore, but I usually tell you if I go to Los Angeles and all the wonderful things that happen there in the magical city of broken dreams. I went to Los Angeles recently, but much of the "material I gathered" is going straight into a secret project I'm working on with McNeil for actual publication. And the rest, well, I thought about using the "interesting details" in a novel, but then I thought, oh, that sounds hard, writing a novel, maybe I won't do that. 1. Scallops at an Elvis-themed hotel. Does that sound like a good idea? Ordering scallops at an Elvis-themed hotel? As you know, I often stay in Memphis the night before a flight, for easy access to the airport. And sometimes I stay in an Elvis-themed hotel. And this time I ordered scallops, which, even as I was doing it, seemed like the last thing a person should order at an Elvis-themed hotel. Well! I'm still here. The scallops had an aggressively candied flavor. 2. At the Elvis-themed hotel, my hotel door wouldn't shut all the way! Well, I put on that latch thing they have at the top of many hotel doors and hoped for the best. 3. I lost my favorite pen somewhere in Los Angeles. Almost immediately! Why bring your favorite pen on a trip? On the other hand, why settle for a less-loved pen? Don't you want to feel happy? A grown man ought to be able to keep track of a pen. Should a person of a certain age, however, have outgrown notions like "favorite pen"? 4. By a weird coincidence, I was in town on a national holiday, just as it occurred in 2015 (please do yourself a favor and "click" here for corroboration), so the office was closed on Monday, and I found myself in the EXACT same bistro in which Kent and I had a green chartreuse before going to see 50 SHADES OF GREY together at the movie theater next door, so I had a green chartreuse in Kent's honor, though Kent lives in Vermont now, and I was all alone, it was a desperate sight, let me tell you, drinking a green chartreuse all alone and thinking of Kent. 5. "My twin will hug me... sometimes." - Hilary Florido. 6. Dan Tana's, just the place for dinner with my brother! I got there a little early, so I sat at the bar waiting. I listened to a guy who seemed to be on a first date telling a woman that he was directly descended from William Bradford. He was telling her all about what kind of wine to order after her martini. A Malbec will be velvety and heavy, but without the tannins of a cabernet, he yammered. Whereas a "pinot" will be "fluffy." See? This could have all gone in a novel. Anyway, it wasn't a first date, because he suddenly asked, "What's your name?" She said her name was Lurleen, a name I know because it was the name of the wife of the awful governor of Alabama, George Wallace, who briefly became governor herself, and I was born in Alabama, so we know the name Lurleen. But this guy was enraptured. "WHAT A BEAUTIFUL NAME!" he rhapsodized. Ha ha! If this were a novel I couldn't use the word "rhapsodized." I'd be kicked out of the novelist club. Then he said something that surprised me: "My wife's name is Melody." I didn't see that coming! But he was still trying to pick up Lurleen, I'm pretty sure. "WHAT ARE YOUR PASSIONS?" he oozed. Ha ha, I hate my verbs today. I hate them so much that I sort of love them! She said she liked to paint and what do you know, this guy's brother is a famous artist! "I could do you a lot of favors in the art world," said the putative descendent of William Bradford. "And do you know why? Because my brother loves me! HE LOVES ME!" How the rest of the story went, I just don't know, because my own brother showed up, speaking of brothers, and we were escorted to our table. 7. As my brother and I were eating I glanced up and thought I saw Thomas Middleditch, star of TV's SILICON VALLEY, sitting at the bar. I asked my brother, "Hey! Is that that guy?" My brother said I had to be less obvious so he could find a reason to stare inconspicuously. So I looked in the opposite direction, which frustrated my brother! "No, you have to look in sort of the SAME direction!" he said. So I looked at the TV over the bar, where there was a car race going on, which seemed like something a person would look at, and my brother was able to stare properly at the person whom he indeed confirmed to be Thomas Middleditch. 8. But then, later, out on the sidewalk, after dinner, we seemed to be walking behind that same guy, and I humorously remarked that he would think we were stalking him. "That's not the same guy!" my brother said. I insisted it was the same guy who had been sitting at the bar. "He's wearing the same suit!" I said. "Yes, he's wearing a black JACKET!" my brother replied dismissively. Trouble in the family! So I thought the guy had never been Thomas Middleditch, and my brother thought the guy sitting at the bar had been Thomas Middleditch and this was a different guy we were looking at now. I suppose we'll never know, unless Thomas Middleditch gets in touch. I will just say that the guy at the bar, whom we both took to be Thomas Middleditch at the time, was really making a meal out of his knuckle. He was gnawing ravenously on the knuckle of his right forefinger like there was no tomorrow! 9. Reading a book in translation and the translator uses "trooper" when he means "trouper." How can I trust him now? 10. Back at the hotel in Burbank, I returned to find my hotel room door cracked partly open! If you will glance up at #2, above, you will see that a theme for the trip had formed! I gently and suspiciously pushed the door the rest of the way open, like a person in a movie would do. Nothing was amiss. 11. Cole Sanchez taught me the word "subluxation," meaning a hyperextension of the joint, and I asked him what a hyperextension of the joint was and he said it was when he, Cole, made someone's elbow or knee go in the direction it doesn't want to go. Ouch! It's all part of of what I believe he called "Brazilian jiujitsu," which he practices. He also told me about choking people until they pass out. Don't get me wrong, it is another move in the same sport! "They can submit," he explained, meaning that the person can tap out before they become unconscious. I asked whether there were people who refuse to submit and Cole said that yes, some people are so annoyed that you got past their defenses they would rather just let you choke them unconscious than undergo the humiliation of submitting. 12. I went to see Dianne Wiest performing her magnificent and inexhaustible heart out in Samuel Beckett's great play HAPPY DAYS. I made up a funny blurb for it: "It's a different kind of 'Cheers' for THIS Sam and Dianne!" I eavesdropped on the people sitting in front of me. They have stopped eating octopus because they met a really smart octopus. The guy had a long gray ponytail and was wearing a bracelet that said "RESIST!" Anyway, it's funny because Julia Pott had just been talking at dinner the night before about not ordering the octopus for similar reasons, though to my knowledge she has never met an octopus in person. I'm skipping over most of the dinner with Julia because it's going undiluted into my project with McNeil, alluded to in the introductory paragraph above. 13. During the Beckett play, a certain segment of the audience would go HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! whenever Dianne Wiest, as the character Winnie, said something like, "One forgets one's classics." HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! "One forgets one's classics." HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! They were laughing like it was the farting scene in BLAZING SADDLES. Naturally it made me think of what Kierkegaard said about farce, which makes me no better than them. 14. There was a guy in the hotel bar two nights in a row who also laughed HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA, but I don't know what about. His laugh suggested he was either an opera singer or Paul Bunyan. Booming, highly articulated and distinct HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAs. He really pronounced each HA. "Boy, that guy really enjoys life," I said out loud to myself, bitterly, alone at the hotel bar.

Three Movies

I was sitting here listening to some Stockhausen piano music I just don't understand, and I thought, "Maybe the MILTON CROSS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC will yield up some of its easily digestible and strangely bitter information." But I should have known better! Stockhausen has no place therein. But that made me think of this "blog," now defunct, which was, when it thrived in its way, a medium through which I often explored the twisted psychology of the MILTON CROSS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC. And that made me think of how I once wrote a book about cigarette lighters, and how after I had turned in the final manuscript I continued to learn fascinating tidbits about cigarette lighters, which I collected in an appendix here on the "blog," until the very idea of learning fascinating tidbits began to fill me with dread. Furthermore I was forced to admit, within the course of the rumination thusly recounted, that I saw two movies recently, and a small part of a third movie, all containing cigarette lighter material that I would have dropped into very precise spots in the book, if only I had encountered them in time. I no longer care about that, or anything else, but the fact that I encountered them in such a short span of time, boom, boom, boom, one right after another, left me no choice... well, of course it left me a choice, but here we are. Bill Boyle and I have been watching, independently, a number of later period Clint Eastwood movies, and discussing, through email and other digital means of communication, the ones we have seen in common. It was for this reason that I watched FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, though Bill did not, nor did Dr. Theresa, the latter having already watched it some years ago as part of her research for the doctoral dissertation whence her title springs, and I guess she got out of it everything she wanted to get. Anyhow! A young man aboard a warship lights a lighter in a way I found historically questionable. Allow me to quote Paul Fussell, yes, the same Paul Fussell quotation that I quote in my cigarette lighter book, which is called CIGARETTE LIGHTER, in which he observes that in the paranoia of imminent battle someone "igniting a cigarette on deck is likely to be suspected of disloyalty rather than stupidity." You can't go around lighting your lighter on deck! It could be a traitorous signal, or a giveaway. Then I was skipping from one channel to another and I saw part of LAND OF THE LOST, the film adaptation of that work. Now! Lest you accuse me of finding it puerile, know from previous evidence that I am capable of enjoying literally any movie ever made, and I would not deny having watched the whole thing, had that ever been the case. But I saw just a snippet. One character was using his cigarette lighter to impress the technologically impaired dwellers, covered in hair, of a mysterious dimension, yes, the aforementioned LAND OF THE LOST. Ah! It was a comical "spin" on that old trope. A trope that I bring up in the book without much in the way of concrete examples to support it. Shame! A shame that might have been alleviated somewhat by the inclusion of the example in question... an example that seemed to imply, as I did, that the gesture was well known and ripe for allusion. So! Then Dr. Theresa and I were watching THE SHANGHAI GESTURE (pictured), in which Walter Huston (not pictured) is some old millionaire. At a board meeting he produces a cigarette. A dozen hale men leap up, ready to light it for him! In film, it is a ritual more associated with sex and beauty, and I included in my book plenty of examples of phalanxes of men falling over themselves to light a woman's cigarette. But now I saw, yes! It is also about power... an insight that came, like so many, too late to do any good.

Neither Do I

Remember my nonfiction book about cigarette lighters? Neither do I. Unfortunately, I keep being reminded of it. I just rewatched Tati's MON ONCLE. When the wind keeps blowing out Tati's matches he tosses each useless match out the window of his brother-in-law's car. Then his brother-in-law hands him the car's electric cigarette lighter. Tati uses it to light his pipe and then nonchalantly tosses it out the window. See, I know just where this should have gone in my cigarette lighter book. But it came out in January 2016, so I guess I'm screwed. It would have been interesting to contrast Tati's innocent tossing of the cigarette lighter with the bitter way (recounted in the book) John Belushi and Hal Needham toss cigarette lighters out of car windows. No it wouldn't have been.

Encounter

I don't "blog" anymore. You may think I do but I assure you that I do not. Sometimes you need an update, though, don't you? I know how you worry! So the other evening I was at Ace Atkins's office and I thought I'd see if he had a copy of THE GREEN RIPPER. He said he probably had several. THE GREEN RIPPER is a novel by John D. MacDonald. You will recall that I gave up on John D. MacDonald. I don't get the appeal of John D. MacDonald. If you "click" here you can read some of the reasons why. But I know you won't. What is wrong with you? You beg me to "blog" but you can't take the time to "click" on the "links." Well! It is really none of my business. But John Hodgman was saying all these nice things about John D. MacDonald in the New York Times some weeks ago, and in particular THE GREEN RIPPER, and although this did not change my feelings about John D. MacDonald I was made sufficiently curious for the actions related above to be the result. Anyhow, Ace contacted me yesterday to say he had located THE GREEN RIPPER and I could come by to fetch it. So I did. Now I took Ace's copy of THE GREEN RIPPER with me across the street from his office to Square Books. As I made a purchase there, I remarked to the cashier that this was Ace's copy of THE GREEN RIPPER and not part of my haul. We got into a little discussion (Bill C. wondered whether it might be a first edition of THE GREEN RIPPER) and it was at this time that I opened the book and discovered it to be, if not a first edition, at least an edition signed by the author. I couldn't imagine that Ace wanted me to drag this copy around town with me! You may recall, though I doubt you will "click" on it to refresh your memory, the time I spilled rye all over Ace's copy of LA BRAVA. So I went back over to Ace's office and returned the signed copy of THE GREEN RIPPER. He was surprised! He had no idea it had been signed, but he looked at the signature and confirmed it - thanks to his expertise - as John D. MacDonald's very own. Ace quickly produced yet another copy of THE GREEN RIPPER to replace the one I had brought back. Copies of THE GREEN RIPPER are just scattered around Ace's office like so many throw pillows in a film by Nancy Meyers. Okay! Now it was time for me to go back to Square Books and meet my pal McKay McFadden, whom I had not seen in the flesh in some years. Before McKay arrived I had time to note that Travis McGee (hero of the John D. MacDonald novels) refers to fat people as "fatties" on the second page of THE GREEN RIPPER, not raising my hopes. (A few pages later, though I did not make it this far at the time, McGee's girlfriend boards his famous houseboat and announces, "Today I jogged with four sets of fatties." There are shady goings-on at her place of employment, which makes me think she will be dead shortly. As Ace once revealed the key to the Travis McGee novels: "The woman always dies." [Further along: "Last week I had a batch of fatties down by the barns" - ed.]) I also read (in another book entirely) about the time U. S. Grant wanted to give his coach driver a Christmas present, so he hurried back down the steps and fell and experienced the debilitating leg injury that was just the start of all the troubles and misfortunes shortly to snowball on him, culminating in his death. Then McKay appeared on the stairs! We greeted one another warmly and McKay said, "I'm sorry I'm late. I just had an encounter with a pig in the woods." I can quote her accurately because I immediately leapt up to borrow a napkin and a pen from the Square Books coffee counter, as seen here:

She went on to describe the "encounter," which was much more horrific, grisly, tragic, and bloody than anything I would call an "encounter," and I shan't disturb you with it on this festive occasion. Conversation moved on to pleasanter subjects and we found before we knew it that we had spent some number of hours catching up, a sufficient number of hours for me to happily inform McKay that it was just about time for John T. Edge's yearly ritualistic dispersal of sausage balls at the City Grocery Bar on the occasion of his birthday. McKay and I, having arrived perhaps five minutes before the party officially began, were, I believe, the first to retrieve sausage balls from the traditional brown paper bag, pellucid as it was with delicious grease. (It occurs to me that I have used the phrase "pellucid with grease" in my "professional" writing at some point - perhaps on more than one occasion; I know it has assaulted my brain repeatedly, in any case - and I apologize for the lazy repetition. I must think it's quite the literary turn of phrase! How I sicken myself.) "I miss my Oxford life," said McKay. I replied with some observation about the many charms of San Francisco, where McKay now finds herself most days. "Oh, it's DAZZLING," she replied, employing a theatrical hand gesture to indicate bedazzlement. And yet her tone belied her adjective! I have never heard the word "dazzling" to drip with such venom, nor seen it accompanied by such bitterly flashing eyes! Not long thereafter, Dr. Theresa arrived, arrayed in silver.

We were able to boast to Tom Franklin (another recent arrival) that we had taken his picture off the TV screen. You see, he was once an extra in DEADWOOD, a show that Dr. Theresa and I are currently watching for the very first time. We proudly described the scene in which Dr. Theresa spotted Tom with her eagle eye and the pains we took to catch his fleeting image, and it was his sad duty to inform us that - although he indeed appears as an extra on the show - the person we thought was him was not him. Later at home we realized that the extra we thought was Tom had long hair and a graying beard, both of which Tom has at the present moment, but neither of which he would have had during the physical production of DEADWOOD. This is not Tom Franklin.

Here's Your Monocle

I recorded a TCM showing of THREE RING CIRCUS and watched some of it last night. I am pleased to tell you about the villain of the piece (pictured), Puffo the Wonder Clown. First of all I am pleased to tell you that his name is Puffo the Wonder Clown. He is addressed often. "You're drunk, Puffo." And, when he is fired from the circus, "Draw your money, Puffo." I cannot explain the pleasure such sentences gave me. "Puffo, he's stealing your thunder!" says another clown, referring to Jerry Lewis. So later Puffo goes out there and kicks Jerry Lewis in the behind and jumps up and down on him. The circus audience turns on Puffo! And I must say I was surprised because it seemed like regular clown business to me. I'm not sure what clued in the audience that Puffo really meant it. Clowns are always brutalizing one another for our amusement, and we thank them for it. But one little girl jumps up and yells, "Stop it! You're killing him!" I may be paraphrasing. After Puffo nearly murders Jerry in the ring (I guess - as I say, it was difficult to distinguish from everyday clown violence), Jerry says in his saintly mewl, "Here's your monocle. I'm not mad, Puffo." You see, Puffo had dropped his monocle in the sawdust to get Jerry to bend over. You know how it is. Oh, Puffo. I am not sure I can rightly call Puffo a sad clown, though he is certainly a bitter clown. Jerry - who tinkered a lot with the script of this famously troubled production - seems interested in rage-filled clowns. Think of the snarling clown who hates America in his film THE FAMILY JEWELS. Think of him, I said! And of course drunken clowns are a national treasure by any standard. Puffo is a mean drunk, as opposed to the garden-variety sniveling of a typical drunken clown like Twitchy, who meets his sad end at the hands of a psychopath in the Mickey Spillane circus thriller RING OF FEAR, but I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. Will you mind very much if we stop talking about clowns for a second? In a subplot, Dean Martin falls under the spell of Zsa Zsa Gabor as the haughty queen of the circus. And I had never really thought about it, but that's a common story element, isn't it? The beauteous, dominant circus woman? I think of Steve Martin in THE JERK (its title an homage to Lewis's THE PATSY?), in the thrall of the sexy motorcycle daredevil who pushes him around. In conclusion, I cannot justify Puffo's honorific. At no point in the film are we given any indication that he is, in fact, a "wonder clown" of any kind.

We'll Meet Again

Well I just went to Los Angeles on my final ADVENTURE TIME trip. And though my jottings in my precious book of jottings in which I jot whenever I go on a trip have decreased as my "blog" dwindles into the oblivion it so richly deserves, I feel one last round of thorough jotting transcription is in order on such a melancholy occasion. So let's see what I jotted. The plane landed! I made it to Cartoon Network in Burbank just in time for a meeting. I leapt out of the cab, tripped over my own suitcase and landed brutally upon my knees. "This trip is starting out well!" I probably mused sardonically with my famed sardonicism. I had to use the Cartoon Network first aid kit, which was top notch. Now! I always like to buy a big bottle of seltzer at the grocery store across the street to have in my hotel room, as future biographers will be interested to note. So, once safely in my room, or so I thought, I opened my seltzer bottle to have my ceremonial first sip and seltzer went everywhere! It went on important stuff that shouldn't get seltzer on it. I was beginning to think the trip was cursed, and I was already bummed out because of its elegiac nature. Also, Adam Muto had STIRRED HIS COFFEE WITH A KNIFE during lunch that day! I had a roommate from Wisconsin a long time ago, and once when I stirred with a knife he said, "Stir with a knife, stir up strife!" I had never heard such a thing. But I immediately added it to my catalog of superstitions. So I was inclined to blame Adam for the ill-augured nature of the trip, though Kent reminded me that I fell down and scraped my knees BEFORE Adam stirred his coffee with a knife. I'm not sure that matters! The next morning I woke up with a piece of grit or something in my eye. My eye was swollen and red and the lid was drooping down and the corner of that eye emitted a constant stream of ugly tears. "Well, I can't go anywhere. I guess I will sit in the hotel room and clean out my wallet." Such was the content of my thoughts. "I guess this is how I am spending my last ADVENTURE TIME trip." I threw away a big pile of scrap paper from my wallet, keeping just three things: 1. My ticket stub from when Kent and I went to see 50 SHADES OF GREY. 2. Something funny I wrote down that Bill Boyle said when he was drunk. 3. My visitor's pass from when Julia and I secretly skulked around the GILMORE GIRLS set while they were shooting. Then came a knock at the door. It was Steve Wolfhard bringing me eyedrops! What a pal. Steve's thoughtful gesture allowed me to leave for a meeting I had in Beverly Hills with some degree of confidence. My eye was still bothering me a little when I sat down to a fancy lunch in fancy Beverly Hills. (This was not a lunch meeting; the meeting came later. I was alone.) I ordered a bitters and soda and when I squeezed a lime wedge into it, the lime juice squirted into my "good" eye, for I was wearing my glasses atop my head as I am prone to do. The curse had not yet lifted, I felt, despite Steve's kind gesture. (Oh yes, that reminds me, Steve and I were staying at the same hotel, the one where the guy who plays Squidward always hangs out in the lobby. One evening I came down to the lobby to find Steve sitting right next to Squidward on a banquette, entirely unawares! So I wrote Steve this important note in my ever-present jotting book.)

For my Beverly Hills lunch I had a salad of poached shrimp. There were some hearts of palm in there and some special, hairy radishes. The couple at the end of the bar ordered the same. What a piece of work these two were! First the salad didn't have the kind of hearts of palm they like. Then there weren't enough. They decided they wanted a whole bowl of hearts of palm so they could distribute them throughout the salad in their own inimitable way. But not that kind. They wanted them chopped into a different shape. Then the dressing was too sweet and there wasn't enough of it. And so on. They sent their plates back like six times. Beverly Hills! Well, I liked my salad so much I decided I was going to come back to this place for dinner after my meeting. There would be a whole different dinner menu upstairs! And so I did. That night, the guy seated at the table next to me, very close, asked if he were disturbing me by using a little light to look at the menu. I said not at all! I told him that I had used my candle for the same purpose and had burned my hand, in keeping with my cursed journey. Then I said, "Pardon me, are you an actor?" And he said yes. And I said - and I said it in exactly this peculiar and formal way - "Are you, in fact, Timothy Dalton?" And he said yes. So in a minute I got up and went to the spacious and lavishly appointed Beverly Hills men's room and called Ace Atkins (rudely forgetting the time difference) and told him I was sitting next to a James Bond, because I knew he'd want to know at once. Ace is a James Bond expert! Oh! I forgot to tell you. Flashback to an hour earlier! While I was waiting downstairs for the restaurant upstairs to open for dinner, I sat at the bar where I had enjoyed my luncheon of poached shrimp and watched a 70-year-old French woman (she herself mentioned her age) being - I am almost certain - flattered and cozened by a down-at-the-heels gigolo! Beverly Hills USA! Well, I felt heartened after my encounter with Timothy Dalton. I felt that he had lifted the curse! And so he had.

Why, the very next night I met Lyle Partridge and Steve and Pen and Sam Alden and Ryan Pequin (of THE REGULAR SHOW) at the Club Tee Gee, a dive with glitter on the ceiling, where I played a bunch of Kelly Hogan songs on the jukebox and Ryan took this picture of Lyle and me!

Lyle drew a lot of great pictures on Post-It notes so now I have those in my wallet with that other stuff I mentioned earlier. At one point I told the story of the time I got lost in the North Georgia woods and

Lyle drew this depiction, the accuracy of which you will appreciate if you go back and read the story. Sam was describing what he called the "hubristic death" of one of his eccentric ancestors and I ask idly if he also happened to be related to John Alden. And he is! He is the direct descendent of John and Priscilla Alden, one of the greatest love stories in American history! Boy was my mom excited when I called her from the airport the next day and told her. "Speak for yourself, John," Mom said, quoting Priscilla, and then demanded a picture of Sam so she could look at him. Okay! "It's no big deal, they had thirteen children," Sam said, implying that half the people in the room were probably the descendants of John and Priscilla Alden, I guess. We all loaded up and went to a party that Kent was throwing for all your favorite ADVENTURE TIME writers and artists, past and present. I sat on the floor next to Ako Castuera and we sang a bunch of songs associated with David Lynch movies.

We sang "Blue Velvet" and "I Told Every Little Star" and "In Dreams." We sang these songs at the top of our lungs half-recumbent on the floor on some sort of shaggy pillow in the middle of the room while people were trying to do other stuff and get on with their lives. On Kent's balcony, we sang "We'll Meet Again" not once but twice at widely separated key moments. Not a David Lynch song but a sentimental choice for the occasion. You know what? I'm leaving a lot of stuff out. A LOT! I feel rushed and weird in my gut because I have my last ADVENTURE TIME meeting in a couple of hours. And I'm not "blogging" anymore, anyway, as you can see. No, but really, I have twice as many pages of jottings that I didn't even get to. But everything has to end, even ADVENTURE TIME, even jottings, even parties. The day after the party Pen brought Kent a bag of fried chicken to cure his headache and I rode along. You know how Kent loves his chicken, ha ha ha! What a life. It had been raining and the sign on Kent's gate was smeared and wistful.

Pen and I had been eating at a shawarma place and noticed a tray of unexpected fried chicken glowing in a golden, almost holy light in the kitchen. It seemed like a sign! A sign for Kent. You don't believe me about this glowing chicken but I'll show you if Pen will send the photo he was compelled to take by the majesty of this glowing chicken of which I speak. [And he just did! - ed.]

"Blog"trospective 18: The Anatomy of Melancholy

As promised, though I have "stopped 'blogging,'" I have returned to you just long enough to boast about finishing all 977 pages of THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY. That includes the first appendix, "The Conclusion of the Author to the Reader" (reworked by Burton for his introduction and left out of most subsequent editions), but not the second appendix, in which Burton's birthdate is deduced through astrological data. It only took me something like a year. I won't rehash my many excuses, no, I won't say how big and bulky the 1927 edition is and how I couldn't carry it on airplanes. I won't point out the good, long run I had of reading it before I was interrupted. But - before we get to the main body of this, the final "blog"trospective, I will tell you what I learned from THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY since the last time I saw you. 1. Compared to Blind Alfred Reed, Robert Burton is kind of progressive. He (Burton) gives us (as is his wont) several pages of quotations from ancient scholars enumerating what is supposedly wrong with women. But then he has to admit, "And that which I have said (to speak truth) no more concerns them than men, though women be more frequently named in this Tract; (to apologize once for all) I am neither partial against them, or therefore bitter... If any man take exception at my words, let him alter the name, read him for her, and 'tis all one in effect." 2. "Eating the egg of a night-owl causeth abstemiousness, according to Iarcha the Indian gymnosophist." Burton is speaking of sexual or romantic abstemiousness, though the idea that an owl's egg can cure alcoholism somehow made it to the United States, as reported previously on the "blog." Another of the "absurd remedies" for love mentioned by Burton is the wearing of "Characteristical Images," such as "the seal of a woman with disheveled hair." 3. "Gentle youths" are advised to "Let not the Doves outpass your murmurings... or oyster kissings," which would seem to imply that oysters are good kissers, as good at kissing as doves are at murmuring. I did very little research into the matter. We all know that oysters are supposed to be an aphrodisiac, so why shouldn't they be good kissers? I also recall that prostitutes were called "oysters" and "monkeys" in Burton's time, and though I doubt that's what is meant here, it does make me realize I took at least one of Burton's allusions to monkeys too literally. 4. After one victory, Caesar's soldiers sang a song that went, "Citizens, look to your wives, we bring you a bald adulterer." Gee, what a nice song. I learned of it in Burton's section on the sexual prowess of bald men (pictured). 5. Speaking of which, I learned the word "cornute," which, had I thought about it for a second, I would have known meant to put the horns on, or cuckold, but I didn't think at all, no, I just looked it up in my old dictionary. 6. Lots more owls in these final pages. At least half a dozen. In the passage urging young women not to marry old men, Burton tells how Sophocles, "a very old man, as cold as January, a bed-fellow of bones... doted yet upon Archippe a young Courtesan" and quotes an old poem: "Night-crows on tombs, owl sits on carcass dead,/ So lies a wench with Sophocles in bed." Ha ha, take that, Sophocles! 7. "As a dam of water stopped in one place breaks out into another, so doth superstition." This seems to anticipate Freud! Does it? I don't know. I think of Dr. Theresa's favorite phrase, "the return of the repressed." 8. He calls the goddess Venus "as common as a barber's chair." Was that a familiar insult at the time? Anyway, it's kind of snappy, if rude. 9. Burton says that people can be obsessive on one subject but otherwise fully functional: "they are like comets, round in all places but only where they blaze." A nice phrase! 10. Well, Burton has thought a lot about religious tolerance and I can't say he's for it. He does think burning people at the stake might be a little extreme, sometimes: "We have frequently such Prophets and dreamers amongst us, whom we persecute with fire... I think the most compendious cure for some of them at least, had been in Bedlam. But enough of this." 12. Yet at the same time he doesn't care for hellfire preachers, "nothing but gall and horror, and a mad noise, they make all their auditors desperate, many are wounded by this means, and they commonly that are most devout and precise." 13. "A Tuscan Sooth-sayer, as Paterculus tells the story, perceiving himself and Fulvius Flaccus his dear friend, now both carried to prison by Opimius, and in despair of pardon, seeing the young man weep, said, do as I do; and with that knockt out his brains against the door-cheek, as he was entering into Prison, and so desperately died." Well, that's a terrible story, sorry! But I can't help liking the phrase "knockt out his brains against the door-cheek." It's vivid! 14. Here's Burton's version of that Bible verse I like: "I am like a Pelican in the wilderness, an Owl because of thine indignation." Ha ha! No, I don't know why that's funny. 15. "... the more they search and read Scriptures, or divine Treatises, the more they puzzle themselves, as a bird in a net, the more they are intangled and precipitated into this preposterous gulf." I know how they feel! 16. I learned the word "Mormoluches," which seems to mean "hobgoblins." And now take my arm as we stroll through THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY as summarized previously on this "blog": against vainglory---aliens (two green children who fell from Heaven)---alkermes---Aquinas beats a talking brass man to pieces with a hammer (1927 footnote)---architectural talent of bees, the---Artemidorus the Grammarian loses his wits by the unexpected sight of a crocodile---bats and owls hover in melancholy darkness over a shady bower---Burton critical of, yet defiant about, his own work---company of young men and maids cursed to sing for a year without stopping---compares the profession of a physician unfavorably to that of a hangman---contains numerous owls---cucubuth---cultivating a taste for exquisite sauces is an impediment to happiness---Cupid and Death exchange arrows---delusion of live frogs in belly---dizzards---emperor who was bad at kissing, the---February a peak time for werewolves---fairies walk about in little coats---fairybabes of tombs and graves---fiery urine---glucupicron---invention of the ball---led (by a 1927 footnote to Burton) to Godwin's LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS---man gets gas from a concoction meant to increase his libido, a---man with a fear of peeing cured by being told the town is on fire, a---mice sleeping under the snow, as fat as butter---parable of a mule and an ass---people cured of various ailments by falling on their heads---pickitivant---Pied Piper story presented as fact, the---possible roots of "willy-nilly"---trees fall in love. In closing I ask you to recall the previous seventeen "blog"trospectives: 1. Tom Franklin. 2. Phil Oppenheim. 3. Movies. 4. The Moon. 5. Sandwiches. 6. The United States. 7. The Beach Boys. 8. Arnold Stang. 9. Books With Owls In Them. 10. Gelatin. 11. Monkeys Riding Dogs. 12. Kent Osborne Eating Chicken. 13. What Happened When Megan Abbott Lived In Oxford, Mississippi. 14. Graveyards. 15. Feeding a Possum. 16. The Twentieth Century. 17. Stuff I Left Out of the Book I Wrote About Cigarette Lighters. If you "click" on them all, and then "click" on every "link" within them, and every "link" within every "link," you will have discovered my own anatomy of my own melancholy. "The world shall end like a Comedy, and we shall meet at last in Heaven, and live in bliss together; or else in conclusion, fade away into nothing." Okay, so long, see you on McNeil's birthday.