Butter Knife

Attention! My friend Sarah will appear in this "post." I happened to notice yesterday - Sarah would never mention it herself; she's too nice! - that I've been dropping the h from her name for how long? Months? Longer? I have decided to investigate no further. But I did want to record my shame here for all to see. Now we may move to happier matters. It's back! The precious little jotting book has been removed from its mothball-filled cedar chest. Now that I have stopped pretending to stop "blogging," I am allowed to take said jotting book with me to Los Angeles, California, and, upon my return, to transcribe my jotted experiences into the form of little numbered jottings. 1. Ace Atkins printed out my boarding passes for me! He said he had left them in his mailbox, and I was concerned, having noticed on our many walks around the neighborhood as we exchange wise thoughts, that the door had fallen off of Ace's mailbox. What if my boarding passes were to blow away in a gentle breeze? I discovered, however, upon my arrival, that Ace has a BRAND NEW MAILBOX! This is the biggest thing to happen in the neighborhood for years. And it reminded me that Dr. Theresa and I had driven past Tom Franklin's house not that long before, and I had admired their sleek, modernistic mailbox. I couldn't decide whether it was new or if I had simply never noticed it before. One day, I vowed, I'll get to the bottom of this! But such thoughts would have to wait, for I was on my way! To wherever I was going. 2. My chosen reading material for the airplane: NIGHTWOOD by Djuna Barnes. My friend Eugene recommended it. He's been dead for 26 years, but I finally got around to it! 3. The new jotting book has an interesting flap on it that it is not within my writerly powers to describe correctly. It also has a built-in ribbon bookmark, burnt orange in color. 4. So, we stayed at the Peabody in Memphis the night before my trip, because the plane left so damn early. Pardon my language! Anyway, I knew I would be rising before the Peabody started serving breakfast, so I ordered a pot of coffee the night before, thinking to down it cold in the morning. Guess what? When I poured a cup, 10 hours after having received it, the coffee was STILL WARM! Here's to the magic coffee pots of the Peabody Hotel. 5. I admit to eating half a Biscoff, my favorite airplane cookie, to help with my fear of flying... the first cookie or sweet of any kind in which I've indulged since the fun little medical incident I enjoyed in March. The king of cookies! The mighty Biscoff. 6. Should I boast that my old iPod is still working hard and well to provide my inflight entertainment? I seem to be listening to a version of "I Love How You Love Me" featuring bagpipes. I jotted as much during the flight. Only when the plane landed did a guy sitting behind me and across the aisle lean forward to ask if he had seen with his own eyes an actual iPod. I was proud to extol its existence, longevity, usefulness, and capacity. He was happy to hear it. 6. I found a Burbank hotel in which my accommodations included a full kitchen - you see, ever since my little medical hiccup, in which part of my human mind was zapped (despite my decision not to investigate further, I did investigate further, and, as I feared, I started dropping the h in Sarah around that point), it is much better if I cook for myself. But the full kitchen did not include any knives of a sufficent sharpness for the necessities of ordinary meal prep. Friends, that is how I ended up cutting up shallots with a butter knife! Let me tell you, it is no easy thing, attacking a shallot with a butter knife, even though a shallot presents itself as a small and tender thing. But don't we all? (See also.) 7. Stopped by the front desk in the morning to see where to get coffee. The "night auditor," as he called himself, was still on duty, a jovial man named Randy. When he asked if I had received my 10% off coupon to the restaurant, and I replied that I had not, he exclaimed, "What the devil!" which I found charming. The way he said "I'm Randy!" was reminiscent, without any of the unsettling atmospherics, of the way Steve Buscemi says "I'm Chet!" in BARTON FINK. 8. When I went to get coffee and asked about a kitchen knife, the server explained that they don't allow sharp things in the rooms. Hmm! She, like Randy, was very nice, and said they would cook anything I wanted, off the menu, to my specifications, so I wouldn't have to stand there brutally murdering a shallot with a butter knife like a chump. Her name was Lourdes, which I found to be a cool name, especially as I was sitting there reading a discussion of miracles in NIGHTWOOD. 9. Not until I returned to the room did I notice for the first time that it was decorated with a large photograph of Jayne Mansfield carrying Bob Hope down some steps (see above)! My powers of observation! They have never been great. 10. Saw a crow in a palm tree but failed to get a decent pic. 11. Elizabeth Ito brought me an illicit steak knife! Which I smuggled into the room, wrapped in a dishcloth (the steak knife was, not I). Elizabeth and I wound up in a photo booth. 12. In NIGHTWOOD: "He'll look as distressed as an owl tied up in a muffler." There! Unlike smiling or drunken owls, this is the type of owl comparison I can understand! Although I cannot approve of the owl treatment described.

13. I met Quinn's cat. He looked like a tiny human person! 14. Met Ashly Burch in Beverly Hills, where I was given a fork with a dramatically bent prong with which to eat my egg whites. No, it wasn't some sort of fancy Beverly Hills utensil for eating rarefied egg whites, it was just a peculiarly, even obscenely destroyed fork (see evidence below) and the egg place just didn't give a damn, presumably. I defiantly swallowed my eggs with the aid of the monstrous fork! You know, and this is true, the last time I ate with Ashly Burch, in January of 2022, as I sat on a wooden bench waiting for my "ride share" to arrive to take me to a fine sushi dinner, I glanced over and saw a fork lying there on the arm of the bench! I took a photo of it at the time, and no doubt shared it on "social media," but I see that it is no longer in my phone, so you'll just have to take my word for it, as I have quit "social media" to the acclaim of millions. What I am saying is that every time I eat with Ashly Burch, there is something weird about a fork. About the bent fork, I made a Uri Geller joke, prefacing it, or softening the blow, by saying, "Now, if I were Dennis Miller, I might say..." and also adding the caveat that Ashly Burch would have no idea what I was talking about when I presently mentioned Uri Geller, which turned out to be true, but she laughed anyway, because she is so nice. Later, I described the incident to Joe Wong, who said I had not really imitated Dennis Miller, because there were not enough allusions to obscure celebrities in my remark. So I gamely tried again, saying, "Looks like Uri Geller and the Amazing Kreskin had a brunch date, cha cha," which Joe kindly deemed passable, though I had added but one allusion. Or maybe "brunch" is an allusion of some kind to something or another. 15. That night, Kate was giving me a ride and I said, "I remember these seat covers!" She has these sheepskin (?) seat covers in her car. Kate laughed and said, "They're old!" She told me I was sitting on the same seat cover where Stan Lee had once parked his bony ass, though she didn't use such crude language, and neither would I, so I don't know what happened just now. Anyhow, it reminded me of the time ("click" here) that Kelly Hogan once touched William Faulkner's buttocks through the very fabric of time itself. I felt the power of Stan Lee's butt! 16. They have spectacular grocery-store brand frozen mango in California. Look, frozen fruits are part of my medically induced breakfast ritual now, okay? So Sarah with an h took me to the grocery store and I was walking around pouting and crying and knocking over huge pyramids of canned goods, as I believe happens in THE DISORDERLY ORDERLY and maybe BACHELOR IN PARADISE???? I am exaggerating my reaction to Sarah's favorite grocery store, but I really was going around saying, yeah, so what? We have these same eggs in Mississippi! And so on. But now I publicly admit that grocery-store brand frozen mango in California is plucked at the peak of flavor and texture. The stuff I'm getting here at home just doesn't measure up! 17. Going home, my inflight screen prominently announced BATMAN RETURNS as an entertainment choice and I felt it was a sign, because I had just been praising that film to Ashly AND Kate AND Adam on my exciting trip. Man, I was ready to watch it. It really struck me as the perfect airplane movie. But the screen was broken! The flight attendant, a very nice person named Davi, showed me that the kids' entertainment selection was working, anyway. "Wallace and Gromit are funny," she assured me, which might be true, I guess, but who cares? Wallace and Gromit can go to hell! I'll tell you what she did, though. I couldn't get my phone to connect to the wifi, so she entered her own password to give me special flight-attendant access to whatever the hell I was doing. I ended up watching Chaplin's A WOMAN OF PARIS, because my headphones didn't fit my phone, and a silent feature seemed to be a good option. 18. I had purposely arranged a 4-hour layover in Atlanta for reasons best left unexplored. 19. As the plane descended, the guy next to me asked if we were landing in Atlanta, which I thought was a funny question from a person on an airplane, but I said yes. 20. As I was leaving Cat Cora's airport restaurant, where the service was excellent - thank you, Ana and Winsome! (That's right, Winsome, another cool name... to Sarah, yes, Ana had but the one n in her name, I checked) - a guy stopped me and said he was a missionary. He said he could sense with his missionary powers (though he didn't put it that way) that I had had some health issues recently and he wanted to pray for me. He might have said "over" me. I said, "You can pray for me later, but I have a plane to catch now." He said it would take 10 seconds. I said all right. Wait! I should mention he was wearing a shirt that said "Fudgie Wudgie" on it. I asked him what "Fudgie Wudgie" meant. He said he was a chocolatier as well as a missionary. I said okay. He prayed over me as advertised. Then he said, "I can see the Holy Spirit all over you." I said thanks.

McNeil's Li'l Bogie Bits

Welcome to the newest recurring "blog" feature since... I don't know when. Since before the TV blew up and I quit "blogging" because I was so dispirited by the blowing up of the TV set? That's right, you're just in time for "McNeil's Li'l Bogie Bits"! Was McNeilileaks our last recurring feature? It was very topical whenever that was... you know, the leaks era of history. When we'd cram "leaks" together with some word to make some other word. Most recurring "blog" features justly wither on the vine, like "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis" and the unlamented "Today's Weather." But we here at the "blog" believe that "McNeil's Li'l Bogie Bits" has a dandy future indeed. In part, that's because McNeil, "inspired," I guess we'll call it, by the Million Dollar Book Club, is reading a 700-page celebrity bio of his own choosing. Because I am all tied up with all the various books to which I have committed myself, some of which I haven't even told you about, and find myself unable to join him in the endeavor (in fact, the bio is one I never read, and finally sold to Off Square Books during a long period of unemployment) McNeil has promised to pass along juicy morsels about the life of Humphrey Bogart as he absorbs them into his mighty brain. And he has given me permission to pass them on to you! Before we get started, I should say that I'm nervous about starting a recurring feature right now. It could be a lot of typing for nothing! Let me explain. The other day, a big old water pipe exploded - much like the TV of yore - under our house (the TV was not under our house) and some guys from the water company came by and dug up our yard. One of them took his shovel and severed a cable "linking" us to the "internet," much like the plow cuts the worm in William Blake's famous aphorism. Anyway, this same guy with the wayward shovel "fixed" the problem, but now the "internet" quits working at random times and AT&T, the worst company in the world, makes it nearly impossible to ask a human to come out to the house and look at what's going on. They just don't care! So all these carefully chosen words may vanish as I type them into the abyss. All right! That being said, we're already three bogie bits behind. Let's get started! BOGIE BIT 1: McNeil summarizes Bogart in his prep school days: "perennially bored, few friends, never cracked a book, oddly naive and vulnerable." BOGIE BIT 2: "During the depression, Bogart and his then wife had to move to some shabby apartment along the East River. One of their neighbors was a comedy writer who used to place his meal in a bag, shake it up, and then dump it out on a plate before eating it. No reason given why." As you may well imagine, the latter detail provided some grist for the usual hilarious email antics of McNeil and myself, as I fancifully pictured the comedy writer placing bread, ham, and cheese in the bag and shaking it up and presto, out comes a ham sandwich! Oh, what fun. McNeil replied that he was imagining mashed potatoes and gravy in a bag. Then he remarked, memorably, "Everything was a salad to this guy." I think that's a direct McNeil quotation, though I admit I am not double-checking. BOGIE BIT 3: Young Bogart used to sit in an arcade and play chess against all comers for a dollar a game! I might be forgetting something, but I believe those are all your bogie bits for the moment. Goodbye for now from all of us at "McNeil's Li'l Bogie Bits."

Huge News

I keep meaning to mention that Square Books has new bookmarks. I am speaking of the free bookmarks that come tucked in your purchase, which have evolved over the years. I'm sure you all recall with fond weeping the column I used to have entitled "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis," in which I would... what would I do? I think I would recommend which bookmark should go with which book. But then I had an epiphany...? Does that sound right? Anyway, this epiphany, if that's what it was, rendered "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis" sadly obsolete. But I still like to tell you when Square Books ups their bookmark game. I haven't visited the store in person since the beginning of our current terrible times, opting for their excellent delivery service instead, but this new bookmark is getting me all worked up for the times to come.

Hello

As you know, I don't "blog" anymore, so how could you know that lately I have had no time to "blog"? We moved into a new house. There was some delay with the TV, telephone, and internet. I was opening boxes of books and putting them into what seemed like the appropriate bookcases. I was going to put this one Philip Roth book in a bookcase in the living room, and I thought, "Huh! I never read this one! That seems like false advertising. Well, you know what? I should go ahead and read it. It's pretty short. Then I can put it on a bookcase in the living room without feeling like an imposter. The living room seems like a place for books you could discuss if somebody asked you." So I checked the copyright page, because I wondered how long this book had been around without me reading it: 2007. I must have purchased it at Square Books when it came out. A bookmark was in there, one of the short Square Books bookmarks from the old days, which you may recall from when I used to review bookmarks, back when I had a "blog." The great irony is that the living room bookcases have been filled and there is no room for this book upon them any longer. Anyway, now I've read most of the book, because books are great, they just sit there for countless years.

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?"

Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis

Welcome once again to "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis," helping YOU match the right bookmark with the right book for more than eight years. But that all ends today. So! Kent Osborne recommended that Stephen King novel and I ripped right through it in two days, though it was a big, fat novel. Nine hundred pages, maybe? And just big in every dimension. Large and bulky. So! Remember when I went to that auction of Bob Hope's personal effects? Well, that auction house keeps sending me stuff in the mail. Like, they sent me a little portfolio of promotional cards, much bigger than postcards, notifying me about their upcoming auctions. I was going to measure one for you. I was rooting around in the kitchen drawer where I thought the tape measure might be. "Where's the tape measure?" I said. To which Dr. Theresa replied, "It's probably in there somewhere." And it probably is. But I never found it. So I can't tell you the exact size of this giant card I used as a bookmark in this giant Stephen King book. But I can tell you this! This promotional card had a picture of the Beatles on it. And at some point in the book, Stephen King's narrator goes by the pseudonym "John Lennon." So that was a coincidence! And there are a lot coincidences in this Stephen King book, coincidentally! Or, as Stephen King's narrator insists on calling them, "harmonics." Huh. I even read the afterword! Stephen King talks about a Norman Mailer book on Lee Harvey Oswald that was one of his primary resources for historical research. And that reminded me that I have a giant Norman Mailer novel about the CIA around here. Chris Offutt gave it to me a long time ago (years?) because he had two copies (!). I seem to recall [somewhat inaccurately - ed.] that the book was roundly mocked when it appeared, which, as you know, makes me want to read it more. I even recall that Norman Mailer's biographer says (I think) that there is a long part somewhere in the middle that is so boring no one should ever read that part, but I can't remember what that part is about [Uruguay - ed.], so I will probably end up reading it. So, I took this giant Norman Mailer CIA novel off the shelf, and it is spattered with old coffee stains, at least I hope those are coffee stains. And I opened it and recalled that I had already read two pages of it years (?) ago, and there was my stubby little Square Books bookmark of coarse paper stock ("Square Books classic" I call it... I just decided!), the kind they used before they switched over to the long, glossy bookmarks. Now I have reread those two pages, and five more pages besides, and there have already been two ghosts, and why am I surprised? "Ghost" is in the title. One wonderful advantage of taking this fat Norman Mailer novel off the shelf is that I now have a place to put the fat Stephen King novel. So they are roughly the same size. Yet I used a huge bookmark in one of them and a tiny bookmark in the other. What a revelation! About my own divided soul. Also: any kind of bookmark works just fine. This discovery means there is no use for "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis." This has been the final "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis." PS Just read one more page, on which were some sentences about "the ice monarch," a fanciful creature of the narrator's imagination, as in, "The ice monarch had installed his agents in my heart." Did Norman Mailer invent the Ice King? Just 1,118 pages to go before the "Author's Note"!

Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis

Welcome once again to "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis," your guide on the "internet" to the complex and fascinating world of bookmarks! As you no doubt recall, a footnote in an old edition of THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY led me to Godwin's LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. Well, friends, a footnote in LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS made me finally want to read THE FAERIE QUEENE. So I searched around the house for the dusty old SPENSER'S POETICAL WORKS I knew I had somewhere. My friend Lucy - with whom I lost touch some years ago - gave me several books that had belonged to her late father, a scholar. This is one of them. I noticed that THE FAERIE QUEENE section already had a bookmark in the middle of it! This bookmark must have been sitting here in just this position for - I'll make a guess - 40 years. It's a white slip of paper, folded over once. Well, the part that has been in the book for all these years is white, but the top part, exposed to air and sun, is brown. At first I thought it would be good to use this old bookmark as MY bookmark. And I even thought I'd see whether there might be a secret message written on the inside of the folded paper. But as soon as I nudged the bookmark with my finger, out of the position it had held for some number of decades, I knew it was the wrong move. I felt intimations of ghostly retribution. I put the bookmark back where it belonged as best I could, but the spiritual damage may have already been done. Today's tip is "DON'T MESS WITH GHOSTLY OLD BOOKMARKS OF THE PAST." That's it for today's "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis." Until next time, "Mark my words!"

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.

Frail

Just last Sunday I was bragging and boasting to Bill Boyle about how much of ANCIENT EVENINGS I had raced through - they said it couldn't be done! - and Bill said, "You've still got a long way to go," and I said, "But I'm reading so fast!" Ha! The next day I got sick. I've been sick all week! Which explains my prolonged and unnoticed absence. Don't worry, Dr. Theresa has been on the case, though she is not a doctor of medicine. I'm on the mend thanks to her! But I found myself unable to open ANCIENT EVENINGS again, I just couldn't make myself do it. Was it because of all the gross stuff in it all the time? Not really, I don't think so. I had a thought on Tuesday, something I wanted to look up about Richard Strauss. And today is Saturday and I still haven't quite summoned up the energy to walk across the room for MILTON CROSS' ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC. Things seem like an effort! WILL I EVEN GET THROUGH THIS "POST"? There was an advance copy of Megan Abbott's forthcoming novel handy, though, and once I felt like reading again, that's what I went for, though ironically (?) it is called THE FEVER and it's about girls who are suffering from "terrifying, unexplained seizures" as I think it says on the back of the book. Yet it's a tonic! Keeps the old heart pumping and the mind racing. In an appalling coincidence, given its subject, I happened to grab as a bookmark a postcard advertising the Frank Tashlin movie THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT. That's not funny! But it's true. Megan's book will put you in a trance, pull you under. It's dream-like and dangerous, and things are starting to get out of control! That's a terrible description but I'VE BEEN SICK. Megan said, "You're like Cathy in Wuthering Heights! When will you be half-savage, hardy and free again?" But everybody knows I more like Heathcliff's kid, the one he left out in the rain, the one lolling all frail on a couch with a peppermint stick, weak and cruel.

Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis

Hello dear friends and welcome once more to "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis," helping YOU pick the right bookmark for the right book since 2007. You will be thrilled to hear that I finally decided what to read next: THE GO-BETWEEN by L.P. Hartley. For a bookmark I happened to snatch up the first thing handy, a sturdy cardboard tag that had been attached to some gloves Dr. Theresa gave me for Christmas. Friends, it works like a charm! A dull gold in color, with black print, it proclaims LAUER GLOVES to be "FINE GLOVES FOR MEN." Beneath that comes the company slogan, italicized AND in quotation marks: "ON HAND SINCE 1908" - ha ha! I added the "ha ha." Haven't read much of THE GO-BETWEEN yet, but it promises to have plenty of characters who wear "FINE GLOVES FOR MEN." And if it doesn't take place in 1908, it is pretty dang close. Even the color matches the mood of the book, yes, the muted gold of memory. All this, mark it! - ha ha, "mark it" - with no conscious effort. Heed, then: I allowed the bookmark to CHOOSE ME. There is a Jungian impulse at work when we choose our bookmarks properly, friends, or maybe I am saying we need to be like that old zen dude I told you about one time when we are picking our bookmarks. May your new year be filled with appropriate bookmarks.

Baloney

"On the ninth, pro-Parliament rioters breached the compound of Whitehall, scattering the servants and putting the queen to flight below stairs..." As you can see, things are heating up in this English Civil War I've been reading about. Luckily for the queen, Sir John Suckling's bodyguards were on hand. They were called "The Sucklingtons," ha ha ha! For real. Oh, English Civil War. A pamphleteer calls Sir John Suckling nothing but a "disguised ding-thrift," whatever that is. It doesn't sound good. But now we must lay aside the English Civil War, at least for a time, for the Adrienne Barbeau autobiography has arrived. Baloney, Pendarvis! It arrived on Monday and you haven't cracked either book since then. This English Civil War book has been lying here with the bookmark on the "ding-thrift" page for days, oh yes, I couldn't wait to tell you about that. Fun side note! Whitehall is where Charles I got his head chopped off! My brother went to a wedding there and saw Kanye West. And now you know all about the English Civil War.

Owl Sick

Man am I sick of being right all the time! Yes, there is an owl in every book, as I weary of telling you, and you - if you exist, which by all accounts you do not - are tired of hearing. Norman Mailer's little paperback about the moon landing got buried under some other stuff at my "work station" and I forgot all about it. But yesterday there it was peeking out at me, and I was looking for something to read, something small enough to carry in my pocket to the Ajax Diner and the City Grocery Bar (ISN'T THIS INTERESTING?) and the bookmark told me I had stopped at the end of Chapter Two. So I started Chapter Three, in which Norman Mailer describes all the kinds of animals you can see around Cape Canaveral, and he hits us right away with some owls, which I noted with a resigned sigh and record here with a sluggish sensation of duty. But allow me to add a postscript in which I find my spirit uplifted. Double checking the passage for owls just now I read again a description of palm trees "as ravaged and scabby as the matted backside of a monkey."

Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis

Welcome once more to "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis." It has been almost four years. Sorry! Before we get to bookmarks I want to say that THE DOG OF THE SOUTH by Charles Portis has green Jell-O in it, just like GIDGET: "lime jello - transparent, no bits of fruit in suspension - and peanut-butter cookies with corrugations on top where a fork had been lightly pressed into them. That was our lunch." And I might add that VISIONS OF GERARD by Jack Kerouac, which I am reading for fun, uses "jello" as a VERB. A big coincidence! So Portis and Kerouac make a common noun (or verb) out of it, while only Frederick Kohner, author of GIDGET, bothers to correctly pay tribute to the brand name. Who cares? THE DOG OF THE SOUTH makes me laugh on every single page, instances of which I have been keeping selfishly from you. But perversely I WILL tell you that it has an owl in it - a metaphorical owl again. The narrator describes himself: "my small pointed teeth and my small owl beak and my small gray eyes, mere slits but prodigies of light-gathering and resolving power." And finally, the bookmark: I grabbed by coincidence my glossy photo of M. Emmet Walsh, who not only has a name like that of a Portis character - he LOOKS like a Portis character: specifically Dr. Reo Symes from THE DOG OF THE SOUTH, who, speaking of things that make me laugh, says this in the passage I just read, "The kind of people I know don't have barbecues, Mama. They stand up alone at night in small rooms and eat cold weenies." But I noticed for the first time there is something confrontational about the glare of M. Emmet Walsh, which I see each time I open the book. So a glossy picture of M. Emmett Walsh makes a weird bookmark! That's my advice. This has been "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis."

Big Book For Big Boy

Going around checking my bookmarks like a guy checking lobster traps (does that simile really hold up? Oh, who cares?) I see that I have so far made it a scant 283 pages into SABBATAI SEVI: THE MYSTICAL MESSIAH by Gershom Scholem (total 929 pages) and who are we kidding? I'm never going back to CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS by Diarmaid MacCulloch. That bookmark is stuck forever at page 635 of 1,016. See, what happens is I always start a big giant enormous important book and suddenly I have to start "teaching classes" again and I put it aside for when I have more time to "concentrate" on "my own reading." Ha ha, what a jerk. So now I have a little time and I guess I'm going to pick up this awful hurting brick called THE YEARS OF LYNDON JOHNSON: THE PASSAGE OF POWER. I think that's what it's called. I'm too tired to get up and look. So how am I going to read it? Great question! I remember when there was a documentary about some guy walking across the United States of America and my friend from Hubcap City liked to jest that somebody should make a documentary about HIM trying to read MOBY-DICK. That struck me as a magnificent idea and I kept saying things like "Let's do it!" and "Come on, let's do it!" and "Come on, let's really do it!" and "I borrowed a camera and I'm coming over on Saturday" until my friend patiently explained, "Sometimes it's more fun to talk about things than to do them." Now I get it.

This Is Not a Flap

Attention, people who do my bidding! Today is the day for you to go see the brilliant and affable Joshua Gaylord read from his brand new novel HUMMINGBIRDS at Square Books. Five PM Central Time. Got it? Mr. Gaylord arrived in town yesterday evening, bearing a gift from New York City - specifically, from Megan Abbott, and more specifically, if I am to believe the bookmark, something Megan Abbott picked up for me at the American Association of University Women Dearborn Branch 59th Annual Used Book Sale. So although Ms. Abbott lives in NY, I suppose Mr. Gaylord came bearing a gift from Michigan. It is a paperback from 1955, costing 35 cents when first published in "a genuine Cardinal edition": HAVE TUX, WILL TRAVEL, BOB HOPE'S OWN STORY by Bob Hope. On the front there is a humorously smirking Mr. Hope, captioned thusly: AT LAST! THE FACTS ON HOW A REGULAR, ORDINARY BABY GREW UP TO LOOK LIKE THIS! And on the back (now, this cannot count as my book flap for the day, because paperbacks do not have flaps) in bright blue font: "What is this man's cobra-like fascination that drives readers mad?" One might also ask what kind of University Woman of Dearborn could bear to part with suchlike treasure? Whoever she is, God bless her and keep her!

Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis

It has been far, far too long since the last edition of "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis," our in-depth online forum for the discussion of the free bookmarks given out by our nation's bookstores. Perhaps the lapse says less about our own negligence than the sorry state of the modern bookmark. Well, all that is about to change! I couldn't help but notice when I recently purchased the funniest book in the world (TALES DESIGNED TO THRIZZLE, VOL. 1 by Michael Kupperman) from Square Books that the bookmark slipped inside by the helpful cashier was heartier and earthier than usual. It was browner, too, and appeared to have interesting little flecks of stuff in it! I am guessing it is made of recycled paper. No matter its actual makeup, here is a bookmark that makes you feel like a regular guy - a crusty, assertive bookmark with a bracing hint of malice. On the small side, but certainly a step in the right direction for an otherwise exemplary store known for the ineffectualness of its bookmarks. Highly recommended.

Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis

Welcome once again to "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis," your online source for finding out which bookmark goes with which book. Today we bought THE BLACK LIZARD BIG BOOK OF PULPS at Square Books. We must admit that the tiny, malnourished Square Books bookmark did not exactly go with our newly purchased behemoth. In fact, it might be easily swallowed. On a happy note, however, we read Laura Lippman's intro to the "Dames" section over at the L&M bar. And truth be told, we laughed aloud at least three times just at that section, rendering any bookmark obsolete. [Note: laughter, however pleasant, does not actually render bookmarks obsolete - ed.] Speaking of bookmarks, we are now reading PNIN by Nabokov, upon the recommendation of Roy Blount, Jr. That's right! Roy Blount, Jr., came over to our house a few weeks ago and recommended a novel... that's just how fancy we have become! The hardcover "Everyman's Library" edition of PNIN comes with its very own bookmark built into the book: a gently frayed golden tassel, as Nabokov might call it. Me, I'm working on my "detective novel," which is the opposite, stylistically, of the Nabokov book. So if I really thought about it, I might be able to come up with a more rough-and-tumble way to describe that bookmark. But take heart! A gently frayed golden tassel is perfect for maintaining order amid Nabokov's fluid linguistics. In fact, we might say as a generality that if your book comes equipped with its own bookmark sewn into the lining, that book is trying to tell you something. Something like, "Use this bookmark!" Why argue? Goodbye until next time!

Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis

Welcome once again to Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis, where we help you learn to assign the proper bookmark to the proper book. Today's column "marks" an unprecedented realization: some books work best with no bookmarks at all. Take Harold Pinter. In the quietly terrifying works of Pinter, your bookmark threatens to become a character, a statement - to obtrude. Any bookmark, even (no, especially!) the simplest - a business card or plain scrap of torn white paper - tries foolishly to reorient a reader who should instead remain subsumed by Pinter's world: mooringless, markerless, suspicious of the ethical implications of our small, sad stabs at convenience and control.

The FBIL's Annotation Korner

I was wondering when I would be called upon to explain Fess Parker to our nation's troubled youth. But the FBIL has gone ahead and done it for me in a brand new edition of his famous "Annotation Korner." He writes in primarily to annotate our recent column on bookmarks: "I had a nice surprise the other day. As you may remember, I purchased a copy of The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks by Donald Harington at Square Books during our last visit to Oxford. One of the first things I did upon getting home to Atlanta was retrieve the bookmark out of the bag. Last Friday, I was packing up Mr. Harington's novel for a weekend trip to Auburn when I discovered two additional bookmarks inserted into the book. That's three bookmarks in one purchase. Such generosity deserves recognition. You know who else deserves greater recognition? Fess Parker does, that's who. The man played both Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone, for Pete's sake. Who else can say that? Speaking of Fess Parker as Daniel Boone, in my younger days I used to watch that show every day when I came home from school. The thing was, I could never understand the theme song's lyrics. To my young mind it sounded as if Daniel Boone 'fought for America/ to make all Americans scream.'"

Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis

It's time once again for "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis," our popular and helpful review of the free bookmarks given out by the bookstores of the world, and your guide to matching each one with just the right book. Theresa has just started reading CHRISTINE FALLS, by Elegant Variation "fave" John Banville, writing under the name Benjamin Black. The dust jacket of the American hardcover is quite fine, as I would like to make clear, because I am about to say that the predominant color makes me think of old Shaky's one-liner about the moon, what with her vestal livery being but sick and green and all. But that deathly element is essential, I think. Theresa found a stunning accompaniment in a bookmark from A Cappella Books in Atlanta. The size is perhaps not ideal - it is a little short for a hardcover - but the color, which Theresa identifies as "lime sherbet," makes for a striking pairing. It almost feels inevitable. The bookmark is cool and unassertive, allowing the cover to do most of the work, but providing subtle - nearly playful - hints that no matter how frightening and thrilling the plot may be, it's only a book. A Cappella offers free bookmarks in various shades. The blue, while unexciting, is a good utilitarian bet. But stay away from the Easter egg pink. We have not yet found the book it suits... though come to think of it, our foil-shiny fuchsia 1980s mass market paperback of ROGER'S VERSION is in storage and cannot be tested properly at this time. So we reserve judgement.