House Style

The Million Dollar Book Club is working its way through a biography of Erich von Stroheim, in which we are apprised of the subject's "night-owl habits." As you know, that is just enough of an owl to encourage me to include the book on my ever-lengthening list of books with owls in them. Erich von Stroheim joins previous Million Dollar Book Club night owls such as Polly Adler and friends, Anna Magnini (as related in Bricktop's memoir), and, of course, Andy Warhol (you may "click" here for corroboration if you are not convinced that Andy Warhol was a night owl) in the Million Dollar Book Club Night Owl Club. But that's not why I'm here! I watched the rest of CAFE METROPOLE, and the plot hinged on games of chance, much like "McNeil Month by Month." And I considered how much I pitied a newcomer to the "blog," given our "house style" that, since the beginning, has avoided the separation of "posts" into paragraphs. I'm doing it right now! Or, rather, not doing it. I was talking about one thing and now I am talking about another thing, and yet there has been nary a paragraph break. I rest my case! Be that as it may, my original intention was to draw the novice reader's attention to some particular sparkling gem from the overwhelming slab of undifferentiated text that is "McNeil Month by Month," thereby giving an orientation... of... uh... what was I talking about? It's too late. As Adam once wisely observed, "If you're doing the thing, you're also doing the thing." Well, I just wanted to draw everyone's attention to the May 2023 entry of "McNeil Month by Month" in which McNeil came up with a way for a dog to win at blackjack. Believe in your dreams!

Kitty... I Love You!

It happened. The other night I finally came across, indisputably, the greatest old comic book among all the old comic books that Tom Franklin has recently given me. As you have already guessed (you haven't), it is about Fly Man. That's right, he has all the powers of a housefly. In addition, he has powers of a couple of other insects thrown in there as a bonus, as well as powers that, while unrelated to insects in any direct way, I chiefly associate with Ant-Man. Now, this Fly Man comic book I've got here came out in 1966, and I really don't know who came first, Ant-Man or Fly Man, but I'm too damn tired all the time to find out. Pardon my strong language. Oh, yeah, he shamelessly rips off Green Lantern, too. But not the way you think! So, Dr. Theresa was trying to sleep, and I was lying there next to her, unable to control maniacal bursts of laughter as I lay there next to her, reading Fly Man dialogue, the sincerity of which I could not measure one way or another. It was beyond definition and reason! With your kind permission, I will quote a few examples here: "IF THERE'S ANYTHING I LOATHE, IT'S A DEDICATION CEREMONIES POOPER!"... "HA, HA, HAA-AAA! HAVE A TON OF BRICKS, ONLOOKERS!"... For context, Fly Man's head appears on a Mt. Rushmore style monument with some other superheroes you've never heard of. The bad guy blows it up, which leads Fly Man to exclaim, "UH-OH! THE BROKEN CHUNKS OF MY OWN STONE FACE... WHIZZING DESTRUCTIVELY TOWARD ME!"... "IN THIS TEENSY SIZE, I CAN SPEEDILY WHIZ IN AND OUT AMONGST THE HURTLING FRAGMENTS"... If you haven't caught on yet, the writers of Fly Man are masters of the adverb, as seen in Fly Man's next word balloon: "BLOCKBUSTER STREAKED OFF, WHILE I WAS BUSILY PROTECTING MYSELF!" Here's Blockbuster, the bad guy, spraying some junk into Fly Man's face, followed by Fly Man's response: "HAVE SOME ESSENCE OF TEMPORARY PARALYSIS!"... "THAT FIENDISH FRAGRANCE HAS PURLOINED MY MOBILITY!" Just a couple more. "WAIT! THAT PUSSYCAT! ORDINARILY, I'M ANNOYED WHENEVER IT KEEPS CONTINUALLY BRUSHING AGAINST ME!" And on the next page, Fly Man says my favorite thing of all, "KITTY... I LOVE YOU!" The backup story in the issue, sadly, does not feature Fly Man. But it does reward us with this bit of dialogue: "OWWWWW! HOW DARE YOU USE CRAB-MAN'S HEAD FOR A TRAMPOLINE?!" The last thing I'll mention is that the publishers run a contest for the readers of Fly Man, including this caveat: "BUY THIS MAGAZINE FOR THE NEXT THOUSAND YEARS TO SEE IF WE PRINT YOUR MASTERPIECE!"

It Only Hurts When I Cry

Well, I happened to scroll past TCM last night, where the film BEACH BLANKET BINGO was playing... there was this woman (pictured) singing "It Only Hurts When I Cry" while she was roasting some wienies in the fireplace, and I stood there and counted the wienies (lying on a napkin on the bricks, bottom right). I am pretty sure there were at least 20 wienies in the scene, including a couple you can't see because I grabbed this screenshot from a faded pan-and-scan version on youtube this morning, giving you little idea of the garish vitality of the original wienies as presented in Technicolor, or whatever process they used on BEACH BLANKET BINGO. It really did look like an awful lot of wienies, but it was a big party and, honestly, there may not have been enough wienies to go around.

A Real Sport

In this Bricktop book she refers to Anna Magnani as "a real sport and a night owl." I almost gave up. I thought for sure we would have had some night owls already in this book. As you know, I don't "blog" anymore, but I did start keeping a list when I noticed that every book ever written has an owl in it, and the list never stops, no matter what else stops, which is everything, everything stops.

Adult Education

As part of my ongoing program of adult education, I am reading Bricktop's autobiography along with Megan Abbott. Bricktop (left) reminisces about "the type of place where gin was poured out of milk pitchers." And I wondered why it mattered out of what the gin was poured. And I still wonder! It did put me in mind of a fact relayed long ago by Megan Abbott, namely, that some people would use cream pitchers decorated with Shirley Temple's face to make martinis, using a handy mnemonic for the perfect recipe: "Gin to the chin, vermouth to the tooth." There, the motivation for using the pitcher is clear. And while I was typing all this, I recalled the lyrics to Screamin' Jay Hawkins's "Yellow Coat," in which the eponymous coat, as part (I believe) of its manufacture, is "laid out in milk and gin." As I prepare to hit the "publish" button, it occurs to me that I have no idea why I have always heard that lyric as explicitly referring to the yellow coat's origin, although the garment's magical and legendary properties are certainly extolled by the narrator. It might just as well be that the coat, with, perhaps, its owner still inside, are supposed to be lying in some milk and gin after (during?) a celebration of some kind.

Failure to Launch

I'm just as sick and tired of telling you every time I read a book with an owl in it as you are of hearing about it. But this is where we are. As you know, Megan Abbott and I have a little two-person show-biz book club, which, at one time, unbeknownst to you, we expanded to include Jim Bouton's BALL FOUR, using the rationalization that the rascally knuckleballer had acted in THE LONG GOODBYE. Well! That opened us up, eventually, to ABOUT THREE BRICKS SHY OF A LOAD, Roy Blount Jr.'s book about the 1973 Pittsburgh Steelers. (They, of course, included Mean Joe Greene, who made a famous Coca-Cola commercial, and Terry Bradshaw, who went on to act in such films as FAILURE TO LAUNCH, but we didn't think of that.) Anyhow, early in the book one of Roy's ancestors is spoken of as being "poor as owl dung."

You Eschew Froufrou Poo Poo

I was thinking about Richard Strauss's tone poem "Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche" and realized I don't really know much about Till Eulenspiegel himself. So I started poking around and was delighted to learn that Eulenspiegel means "owl mirror." So any collection of the Till Eulenspiegel tales might be said to have an owl in it, mightn't it? Sure it might. Why, look. Here's Till Eulenspiegel's supposed gravestone and he's holding an owl and a mirror over his head in case you don't get the point. During my idle research I stumbled on the website for that certain corporate behemoth, the name of which I never utter here. And someone had reviewed a collection of Till Eulenspiegel stories like so: "It seems like the punchline of every single story has to do with Euelenspiegel defecating on or in something or someone. That's it. That's the book's running joke. I suppose if you were an illiterate German peasant sitting around a hearth fire in the 1500s, you'd find these tales of feces and bad puns hilarious, but I didn't." I was fascinated to discover this living person who is so worked up about Till Eulenspiegel. And as you can imagine, he had inadvertently composed one of those "bad reviews" that made me want to read the book more than ever. For good measure, the reviewer rubs this salt in the wounds, though I hate to repeat it so close to our nation's birthday: "Of course, since a good majority of modern Americans are probably less sophisticated than an illiterate German peasant from 400 years ago, perhaps Till Eulenspiegel is due for a comeback. Hollywood could cast Johnny Knoxville... and he could crap all over American audiences, who will double over with laughter at every fart noise." Sold! I was naturally drawn to this reviewer's other reviews, which form a kind of epistolary novel or Robert Browning poem, in which you get to know the narrator by filling in the gaps. It's like that famous intellectual essayist said in his manifesto that time, we don't need novels anymore. Did he say that? It sounds like something somebody with a manifesto would say! Before getting into his one-star judgment of Folgers Classic Medium Roast Coffee Singles Serve Bags, our reviewer indulges in this bit of throat clearing: "I am no coffee elitist. I eschew status-conscious coffee drinkers and the frou frou coffee houses they frequent in order to be seen carrying green fringed cups emblazoned with quotes from left-wing icons." I've spent some part of my life trying to make up narrators who talk just this way, but I see once again that I am unnecessary. Also recommended: the same reviewer on the moral depravity of the Frankie Avalon movie BEACH PARTY.

The Certainty of the Jelly Factory

WARNING! Walt Disney murders an owl in this "post." I don't even want to type it up but I have my rules. Megan and I are reading this Walt Disney biography (WALT DISNEY: THE TRIUMPH OF THE AMERICAN IMAGINATION by Neal Gabler) together and I was ahead of her because I just sit around the house now and she has to ride around on subways all day in New York City and you can't take a giant brick of a book on a subway! But anyway, one day she took it on the subway - to her eventual regret! - and got ahead of ME. And sent me an email that said, "I can't believe we haven't discussed the traumatic owl incident!" I had to confess I had no idea what she was talking about. But I read on, filled with trepidation. And finally I got to Walt's memory of killing an owl when he was a boy. He caught it and when it tried to get away he threw it on the ground and it died. I am sorry to tell you! If it makes you feel any better, he never forgot it, it haunted him, and he had terrible nightmares about it for the rest of his life. Try telling that to the owl who was just minding its own business being an owl. And then the owl floodgates! I mean, two pages later, someone describes the way Walt looked during a pitch (as we call it in the business): how he would "bend forward unconsciously and become like an old owl - hunched up, and his bill would clack a little bit." And in the NEXT PARAGRAPH we are treated to Walt's capacity for acting out a story. He would "suddenly transform himself uninhibitedly into Mickey or Donald or an owl or an old hunting dog." I thought, what, is this book going to be all owls all the time now? Have we unleashed something? But no, on the next page Walt is obsessed over a minuscule mistake in a shot where Mickey Mouse is staring at his own reflection in some Jell-O. So then I started thinking about all the time I've squandered contemplating and calculating how many books I read that have Jell-O in them. Jell-O seems to be a quintessential American literary metaphor! Kerouac! Mailer! Portis! Roth! Gidget! Mickey Mouse! But let me stop myself. Is this what has become of me? Even though I don't "blog" anymore, has "blogging" changed the way I read, keeping me on constant alert for Jell-O and owls at expense of true enlightenment? At least this gelatinous aside gives me an excuse to relate my favorite phrase in the book. Walt tells his father he wants to quit his humdrum duties at the jelly factory to become an artist. But his father "could not possibly see why Walt would sacrifice the certainty of the jelly factory for the uncertainty of art." When you put it that way! I don't know, the jelly factory sounds magical enough to me. During the occupation, just after World War I, Walt drives out to "the birthplace of Joan of Arc, where [he eats] fried chicken on the lawn in front of her shrine." I put that in just for Kent Osborne, who loves fried chicken so much, and also loves to eat at Walt Disney's favorite restaurant in Los Angeles. I think he would enjoy the image of Walt Disney eating fried chicken at the shrine of Joan of Arc.

[A long twitter discussion followed the original "posting," in which Craig Pittman directed a group of us to a 1938 interview with Disney in FAMILY CIRCLE magazine. Disney informs his interviewer, "In my terror, I stamped on the owl and killed it" - a horrific detail omitted by Gabler and one many of us strove not to believe - the description at the beginning of this "post" does its best to posit a kind of terrible accident - against the evidence of Disney's own testimony. Megan put it down, rather beautifully, to "Disney hyperbole and the hyperbole of guilt." Disney, on the other hand, calls it an "unhappy adventure." Seems like a mild way to put it. - ed.]

Three-Eyed Christmas Owl

You know I don't "blog" anymore unless, say, I read a book with an owl in it, but what am I supposed to do with this picture Jimmy sent me? He was walking in Brooklyn, USA, when he came upon a crèche with this toy novelty owl sitting on the roof of it. He also shows the owl from another, closer angle which bolsters his claim that it has three eyes, but I shan't affright you with that. Surely there is some terrifying occult significance we shouldn't think about. This reminds me of a McNeil email from early November, in which he told me of walking his dog at midnight. "I heard a loud noise in the air - similar to a cat's cry," McNeil wrote. "I shined my flashlight toward the heavens and heard it again!" It turned out to be "a giant owl resting on the peak of [McNeil's] neighbors' roof." I didn't tell you about it because I wasn't "blogging" at the time and I'm still not "blogging."

I Regret to Inform You

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

I Knew That You Knew

Saw a movie called HOW SWEET IT IS! on TCM yesterday. Was it "good"? No! It is already slipping from my brain. But how I wish I had known about it in time for the most recent McNeil's Movie Korner Film Festival. It has a psychedelic theme song and credits featuring creepy mannequins, and there's another psychedelic song during a montage, which (as you can see) the artists helpfully entitled "Montage." Some of the lyrics to "Montage" go like this: "I knew that you knew that I knew that you knew that I knew that you knew that I knew that you knew that I knew that you knew." And... "I didn't feel like Batman anymore/ I hit my bloody elbow on the door... The pimple on my neck began to hurt/ and suddenly I wished I'd changed my shirt." In conclusion, I am sure you recall Laura Lippman's wise words, as relevant today as when she first uttered them: "Freeze frame as everyone literally jumps for joy. Now that's how you end a movie." I am delighted to report that the makers of HOW SWEET IT IS! end their movie in that very way.

Alley Breeze

Dr. Theresa and I were eating in an alley last night when we heard Neutral Milk Hotel. I was eating a hamburger and here came the title song from "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea." Not a recording! It was Neutral Milk Hotel, all right, playing live. Oxford Canteen usually closes at 3 in the afternoon, but last night Corbin stayed late serving hot dogs and hamburgers. As you should know, Oxford Canteen is a window in an alley and the kitchen is adjacent to the Lyric Theater, where Neutral Milk Hotel happened to be doing a sound check for that evening's performance. Pretty good hamburger music. The music floated from the stage through the kitchen door and out the window. The song bounced off the brick walls of the alley. Birds were chasing each other and chirping. There was a breeze.

The Opprobrium of Hans Christian Andersen

I haven't told you about this ghost book I'm reading and I think it's because I don't like the way they punctuated the title. It's GHOSTS A NATURAL HISTORY: 500 YEARS OF SEARCHING FOR PROOF by Roger Clarke. If you're going to call it that, I guess you need two colons, but two colons would look weird, so don't call it that! I see in the fine print that the original British title was A NATURAL HISTORY OF GHOSTS. That's so much better. I can just imagine some jerk American publishing executive saying, "No, Roger, we have to LEAD with the GHOSTS or PEOPLE won't GET IT!" But that's not my point. I think it might be the best ghost book I've ever read, and I've read lots of ghost books. That's my point! Let me just quote three or four brief fragments to give you some flavor. 1) "In 1821, syphilitic, mercury-poisoned and deranged, he had his bed removed to a gardener's cottage and called in the dilapidators, watching with satisfaction as they knocked the house down." 2) "Mrs Crowe... possibly had a drug habit, which drew the opprobrium of Hans Christian Andersen on a visit to Scotland. On 17 August 1847, he describes her inhaling ether with another woman at a party, and with a frisson of misogynistic horror he describes 'the feeling of being with two mad creatures - they smiled with open dead eyes...'" 3) "Manning said of the man she had murdered and buried under the flagstones of her kitchen, 'I never liked him and I beat his skull with a ripping chisel.'" 4) "From around the time of the Hammersmith ghost, people's attitude toward ghosts was becoming confrontational. Young men sought to conquer their fears. Every evening, groups of them would be seen prowling the area, looking for the ghost, and anyone wearing light clothing could become a target." Clarke goes on to describe the sad story of a bricklayer named Thomas Milward who "wore the apparel traditional to his trade - white linen trousers, a white flannel waistcoat and a white apron." Some dummy mistook him for a ghost and he "threatened to punch the man's head." His mother-in-law told him to stop wearing white linen for his own safety but he was like, "No way!" (I paraphrase.) Then: "As he walked down Black Lion Lane, he was shot dead with a fowling gun by a frightened excise officer named Francis Smith, egged on after a drinking session with local watchman William Girder in the nearby White Hart pub. They had been exchanging tales about the ghost that had frightened the wife of a locksmith to death." Long story short, the king pardoned Francis Smith on the grounds of (and here I paraphrase again), "Hey, he thought he was shooting a ghost!" This is the same illustration of the Hammersmith Ghost that appears in the book.

"Blog"trospective 14: Graveyards

If there's one thing everybody loves it's a graveyard! So let's make a list of "links" to all our graveyard-related "posts" (and don't forget to "enjoy" our previous "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 Eating Chicken 13. When Megan Lived Here)... GRAVEYARDS! APOSTLE by Tom Bissell features visits to the graves of all twelve apostles---artsy project includes grave desecration---bad idea for McNeil's tombstone, a---barbecue next to a graveyard---bats at Faulkner's grave---being funny after a funeral---"The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's Church"---Bissell, Tom; plays Marvel Ultimate Alliance while he should be searching for the apostles' graves---Bissell, Tom; searches for the graves of all 12 apostles---block of wood psychologically represents a coffin---"blogs" are like tombs---Bohemond's gravestone---Britton, Connie; sighted when we were staying at a motel with a graveyard attached to it---character in DRACULA wakes unclad in a churchyard at night---churchyard with gravestones in THE COMPANY OF WOLVES---circus performers' graveyard---coffin inspectors---coffinmaker who yells about his craft, a---confounded from beyond the grave---corpse preserved in a bog; Freud allegedly likened to---cowherd lies in open graves---Dee, Dr. John; grave of used as touchstone in children's game---discussion of appropriate things to carve on gravestones---doll cemetery---dream of---eating dirt from the graveyard---engraving of Dr. Dee and Edward Kelly hanging out with a spirit in a churchyard---Evans, Linda; slaps a man with a leather strap at her father's grave---exhumation of Tycho Brahe---fairybabes hang around in---famed ventriloquist confronts his mother's ghost at her grave---few loose rails thrown over Meriwether Lewis's grave, a---flea climbs into the grave of the flea who loved him---frogs as quiet as grave-rocks---funeral bell---ghosts break up their graves---Gigot peeks through some graveyard shrubbery at his own funeral---grave gone to without its occupant being aware of the entire catalog of celebrity memoirs I have read---graves of the Scribner family---graveside service for Thomas Paine poorly attended---graveyard right there in the parking lot of a Ramada Inn---guy dug up from his grave and mocked on a throne---hair growing out of cracked-open tombs---Hayden, Sterling; attends the funeral of Marshal Tito---I am reminded of something Bill Taft said to me in a graveyard---Johnson, Robert; disputed gravesites of---Lee, Sir Henry; has an effigy of Mistress Vavasour placed on his grave---listening to "Brick House" by the Commodores on the way to Meriwether Lewis's grave---man buried under the flagstones of a kitchen---man who collects coffins, a---mansion where the arrangements for Jayne Mansfield's funeral were made, the---Mature, Victor; consults the caretaker of a cemetery---McNeil ponders a career as a graverobber---men run howling about graves---monkey ghost described outside of tomb---monks rob a grave!---mortuary makeup man---Murray, Bill; attends the funeral of Elvis Presley---my brother attends Michael Jackson's memorial service (there's no graveyard here but you can "click" back on several interesting "posts" about the day, so why not?)---Naked-Rumped Tomb Bat---night-crows on tombs---old tombs break open, releasing hordes of wandering dead---ominous crow cawing in a graveyard's barren tree---"Pale Pity" asked to consecrate Meriwether Lewis's final resting place---parrot screams curse words at Andrew Jackson's funeral---passing the resting place of Meriwether Lewis without stopping---pasta recipes inscribed on tomb---PET SEMATARY---pigs get skinny after drinking from a trough made from a coffin---pinball machines as coffins---"Policeman at Cemetery"---purported King Arthur and Guinevere dug up from their graves and wrapped in silk---resting place of the Biblical Jacob---Roman vampire burial site---Saunders, George; writes book set in a graveyard---shirtless man reads at grave---shrugging disrespectfully at graveside---Shubuta cemetery---STRIKING DISTANCE (film) concludes at cemetery---supposed gravestone of Till Eulenspiegel---toad dressed as Elvis suggested as candidate for formal burial in a grave---tomb of Talbot, the terror of the French---tombs of the prophets, the---"Tombstone Blues"---trip to Poe's grave postponed in favor of GILMORE GIRLS finale---UFO lands behind a cemetery---Van, Bobby; grave of---where all biographies end---witches dance on Berlioz's grave---Yorick skull (from gravedigger's scene in HAMLET)---York, Joe; makes a complex and satisfying visual pun using a gravestone---youthful graveyard encounters of Megan Abbott and Barry Hannah---Zola heroine lives next door to a drunken undertaker.

It Grows Back Funny

In today's ADVENTURE TIME meeting Pendleton Ward accused me of 1) drinking vodka 2) wearing a robe 3) having "messy hair." 1) It was water! And in any case my clear liquor of choice is gin. By leaps and bounds! 2) It was a nice sweater Dr. Theresa gave me, as Pendleton Ward well knows from earlier encounters! I AM STILL WEARING IT RIGHT NOW. 3) Tom Franklin shaved my head a few years ago at his birthday party (pictured), and I have shaved my own head since then, and it grows back funny, I can't help it. (Photo by Jimmy.)

No Comment, The Hulk

Are you tired of reading about me reading old comic books? Too bad. This is your life now. So I was reading this Metal Men comic book and it sure looks like that by 1968 DC's normally carefree and goofy Metal Men were trying to get all dark and broody and "relevant" like the X-Men and other Marvel characters. (Yesterday I read a 1970 Marvel comic in which the Hulk decides to battle some young protesters on a college campus. My favorite panel shows the Hulk smashing his way through a concrete wall as he shouts, "THE ONES CALLED -- STUDENTS! THEY ARE THE ENEMY THAT HULK WANTS TO CRUSH!" Ha ha! No comment, Hulk. When the leader of the student protesters hears that the Hulk is approaching, he says, "I'M TELLIN' YOU, PEOPLE -- IF THE HULK IS HEADED THIS WAY, IT'S GOTTA BE TO JOIN OUR PROTEST! THAT GREEN BROTHER'S AS MUCH ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT AS ANY OF US!" Then the Hulk lands and he quickly changes his mind. "THAT'S RIGHT -- RUN! RUN LIKE ANTS -- LIKE SCARED RABBITS!" suggests the Hulk.) Anyway, in a Marvel-like twist, the cops are after the Metal Men! Orders come over the police radio: "IF YOU FIND OUT HOW TO KILL A ROBOT -- SHOOT TO KILL!" And in the end, after the Metal Men save the city from a giant fly (!) whose weapon is flypaper (!!) - sort of a counterintuitive approach for a giant fly - everyone still hates them! The robot named Tin, who is made of Tin, says, "L-LOOK! EVEN THE CATS OF THE CITY H-H-HAVE TURNED AGAINST US!" Sure enough, a cat in an alleyway where the Metal Men are hiding hisses like so: "PHFSSSSTT" and the end of the story has our heroes backed up against a brick wall. "THE PEOPLE STILL DON'T TRUST US!" says Lead, who is made of lead. "THEIR SUSPICIOUS EYES HURT WORSE THAN BULLETS!" says Mercury, which seems out of character for him (he was always the grouchy one). By the way, look, I took this picture for you (above) - it's Lead saying, "STOP FIRIN', GUYS! I'M THE SAME LEAD YOU LET YOUR KIDS PLAY WITH --!" ha ha, is that funny? I don't know.

A Washy Draught Indeed

"Feeling without judgement is a washy draught indeed; but judgement untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition." I like everything Jane Eyre says! Especially "deglutition"! Speaking of bitterness, here I am sitting under a sign that says BITTER, yes, I am always sitting under a sign that says BITTER. In this case I am flanked by Bill Boyle and Ace Atkins, and hey, look, I have explained this over and over: now that I am off facebook, here is where you will find the vomitous dregs of my facebookian self-regard. I can't even feel sorry for it. I have no feelings left! Lest anyone misinterpret the conjunction of title and photo, never would I suggest that the City Grocery Bar sells washy draughts if I am understanding any of those words correctly, which almost certainly I am not.

Weird Cedar Mix Tape

Dr. Theresa and I just left an awesome party thrown by Wright Thompson and Sonia Weinberg Thompson at William Faulkner's house and as we crunched home up William Faulkner's pebbled drive under the dark rows of judging cedars the great song "Brick House" by the Commodores (which we also happened to listen to on our spontaneous trip to the lonesome grave of Meriwether Lewis) was emanating from William Faulkner's house with joyful abandon so that was unusual.

Clown Dust

Bill Boyle read the novel THE HUSTLER over the weekend. He says, "It's amazing! Way better than the movie." Plus it has a sad clown in it, and Bill has kindly taken the time to type up for us every mention of the sad clown: "The walls were of gray, cracked plaster, but on one of them, over a painted brick fireplace with broken bricks, hung a huge picture in a white frame. The picture was of a sad-looking clown in a bright orange suit, holding a staff. Eddie looked at this carefully, not understanding what it meant, but liking it. The clown looked mean as a snake... He [Fast Eddie] walked back into the living room and, not looking at Sarah, looked instead at the clown. The clown looked back, sad and mean, holding the wooden staff. His fingers were painted in only sketchily, but they were graceful and sure of themselves. The clown was, apparently, unhappy, but was not to be pushed around; a good, solid clown and a figure to be respected... The apartment was clean, cleaner than he had ever seen it. Even the clown's frame had been dusted off!... He was looking at her [Sarah's] face, fascinated by her skin, which seemed to glow in the soft light from the living room lamp. But he felt nothing, only a simple, admiring fascination, as if he were looking at the orange clown on Sarah's wall, the one in the white frame. The clown that had once seemed ready to tell him something." I guess my favorite thing is the exclamation point that signals how incredible it is for someone to dust a clown painting. Bill watched the movie again, keeping an eye out for sad clowns and spied nary a one, to his disappointment. I would only point out that Jackie Gleason is in it, Jackie Gleason - whose sad-clownness has been debated on this very "blog." I don't think anyone will disagree that the best thing to do was illustrate this "post" with a creepy Jackie Gleason doll.

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.