Shaft Punctuation

Well, now that the Million Dollar Book Club has finished its most recent selection - which, as Megan and I were discussing, is mostly a list of people having sex in piles of rotting garbage for art - I have returned to the final volume of OUTLAWS OF THE MARSH, in which our army of former bandits has come up against a military formation called... wait! Remember when McNeil was trying to get me to worship "The Monad"? So, they come up against a formation called "The Great Monad." Can this be a coincidence? Or does everybody just have monad fever? Anyway, these guys are completely flummoxed by the Great Monad! And nothing gets to these guys. The last time they were this upset was back when they were still bandits, about 400 pages ago, and they ran into their greatest adversary... a guy who is good at throwing rocks! I'm not kidding. Individually and as a group, these guys have triumphed over impossible odds again and again, but all of a sudden they're saying "Ow! Ow!" and falling off their horses because they met - seemingly for the first time in their lives - someone who can throw rocks. Don't worry, they eventually get the rock thrower - whose nickname is the Featherless Arrow - to come over to their side, so they can use his rock throwing powers for their own purposes. And yet not even this guy who is good at throwing rocks will be much use against the Great Monad! I'll keep you posted. So, the other night it was Dr. Theresa's birthday and we were driving around singing the theme from SHAFT. One thing we saw was a bunch of golden glinting orbs in a thicket, and then a baby raccoon emerged, and the golden glinting orbs were the eyes of its many brothers and sisters. But the point is we were driving around before that, singing the theme from SHAFT, and to my surprise, when we got to "no one understands him but his woman," Dr. Theresa belted out, with great confidence, "Joan Shaft!" And I said WHAT! Well, it turns out that for her whole life, Dr. Theresa has heard, I suppose, a comma after the phrase "no one understands him but his woman," a comma leading to a syntactically very logical end to that sentence, which would be giving the name of the woman to whom Isaac Hayes is referring, one "Joan Shaft." Dr. Theresa's theory was further bolstered by the fact that prior to the supposed introduction of "Joan Shaft," the protagonist Shaft is referred to by his surname alone. I had to burst her bubble on her birthday and inform her that there is no Joan Shaft. The backup singers are, of course, supplying us with Shaft's full name, John Shaft. Then, as a refreshing break from my mansplaining, the baby raccoon came out of the thicket. It was just like that Walt Whitman poem about the astronomer.

Not Cool, Medea!

I was giving 3 to 2 odds that there would be an owl in this book of Seneca's plays. You should've taken me up on it! So Medea is whipping up a poisonous stew and she adds, in the words of Emily Wilson's translation, "the heart of a melancholy eagle-owl." Then she does something with a screech owl I can't even tell you about. It's just too awful. That's no way to act! This reminded me of something, which turned out to be John Aubrey's paraphrase of Ovid, in which Medea tosses "the screech owl's flesh and its ill-boding wings" into her bubbling (one assumes) pot. And THAT made me want to look up the passage in my own edition of Ovid, translated by Rolfe Humphries, who gives us "a hoot-owl's wings and flesh." Then he adds "a werewolf's entrails," so that's really something. But that's not the point! As much as we all love the entrails of werewolves, the point, as any longtime "blog" reader - there are none - will know, is that hooting and screeching are two different things. So which is it? Are we to believe John Aubrey or Rolfe Humphries? I'd have to learn Latin to find out. And, as established here previously, by implication, that's not going to happen. Even though Dr. Theresa took four semesters of it as an undergraduate! None of it rubbed off. Well, I had my chance to learn things when I was young. But I was too busy watching GRAPE APE.

Artist's Statement

Hey! Tomorrow is the big gallery show opening in Alhambra, California, so check it out! I think I forgot to mention it's ADVENTURE TIME and FIONNA AND CAKE themed, featuring works by more than 50 artists associated with those shows. My piece is called “100 Adventure Time Characters from Memory, Made with Covid.” I call it that because of all the Covid I had when I drew it with magic markers in a sketch pad that Dr. Theresa bought to cheer me up. Now, I was afraid maybe I had shortchanged the lucky buyer, if any, because, despite the ambitious title I had prematurely scrawled on the paper, I didn’t count the characters as I was drawing them, and then, after I had drawn them, I found them impossible to count. Until! Some weeks later, I struck upon the notion of identifying them all by name. Somehow, and I know how, but I’m too tired to tell you, a list of names was a much easier thing for me to count. So I’m happy to reveal that I overachieved, at least quantitatively: there are 106 Adventure Time characters in my drawing. A couple of them were driving me nuts because I couldn’t figure out, once I had recovered from my feverish agitation and actually examined what I had drawn for the first time, who the hell they were supposed to be. I worried maybe I had made some of them up in a delirium. But I thought about it all night and decided that one was a Gumball Guardian (I had forgotten they have noses) and one was the King of Ooo (I had forgotten a couple of his identifying marks, plus I had him in Princess Bubblegum’s crown, which, in my defense, he did wear for a while). Adam said I should sponsor a contest and see if anyone could guess them all. But who was a guy who was good at guessing? Oedipus? Well, he was until he wasn’t. Anyway, not even Oedipus at the height of his guessing powers could have figured some of my drawings out (Pen, for example, thought Chips and Ice Cream were Hot Dog Knights), so I’m going to tell you who I drew, in (once you see the "art") not a really helpful order: Cinnamon Bun, Hunson Abadeer, The Bear Who Liked Finn, Starchy, Tree Trunks’s Alien Husband, Little Dude, One of the Villagers from “The Visitor,” Shoko, Mr. Cupcake, Billy, Abracadaniel, Party Pat, The Comet, The Squirrel from “Up a Tree,” The Cosmic Owl, Bartram, Gridface Princess, Martin, Ice King, Y5, Banana Guard, Patience St. Pym, Flame King, The White Lion Who Became the Vampire King, Abraham Lincoln, Jermaine, Chips, Ice Cream, Lemongrab, Lady Rainicorn, Gumball Guardian, Shelby and his little brother Kent, Big Destiny, Marshmallow Kid, Blank-Eyed Girl, Peppermint Butler, Breezy, Scorcher, Simon, Original Gunter, Ice Thing, Ricardio, Mannish Man, Wildberry Princess, The Squirrel Who Hates Jake, Glob, Grod, Grob (we can assume that Gob is behind them, but I can’t in good conscience count that) Fionna, Mr. Pig, Shermy, Huntress Wizard, Snail, Sleeping Old Man (Prismo’s Physical Form), Tiffany, Princess Cookie, Finn, Joshua, Choose Goose, Toast Princess, Cherry Cream Soda, Flambeau, The Empress, Slime Princess, The Crabbit, Farmworld Finn, Betty, Toronto, Wooby Woo, Dream Warrior, Lumpy Space Princess, Lumpy Space Prince, Tree Trunks, Uncle Gumbald, An Ant, Crunchy, Glass Boy, Magic Man, Leaf Man, Banana Man, King of Ooo, TV, Wyatt, Bubble, BMO, Skeleton (from the Ble offices? Or maybe that’s a guy from the Deadworlds), Jake, Gunter (classic penguin version), Embryo Princess, Rattleballs, Mr. Fox, The Music Hole, Lemonhope, Prismo, Hot Dog Princess, Dream Bird Woman, Owl from “Up a Tree,” Loafy, James Baxter the Horse, Gingerbread Muto, Minerva, Bufo, Morty Rogers, Marceline, Princess Bubblegum. In retrospect, perhaps my biggest mistake was thinking until very recently (today!) that The Empress had one eye in the middle of her forehead like a Cyclops (though I knew better at one point). I could lie and tell you I was trying to draw Blaine from “Wizard City,” but I would only be hurting myself.

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!

Kinda Scary

I half-watched some of a Frank Capra movie on TCM last night and I'm not gonna say it reminded me of David Lynch, even though it did, but I am aware that everything reminds me of David Lynch now because I just watched a lot of David Lynch.

(Megan Abbott did point out the IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE quality of the recent TWIN PEAKS finale.) But the title of the Capra movie I half-watched is A HOLE IN THE HEAD, which isn't comforting, is it? So Frank Sinatra and his little son are trying to sleep and Carolyn Jones suddenly appears in their window, dancing in her swimsuit and long gloves. It was supposed to be funny! But it struck me as eerie. Once again, this is all my own fault. Then Carolyn Jones shows up with a whole apple in her mouth and strikes a Laura Palmer pose:

The way Sinatra expresses affection for his son is to say he's gonna sock him or punch him or "flatten" him. He's consistently violent in his love imagery, but we never think he's really gonna flatten his son. At one point he says wistfully, "He's a funny kid, you know? I could beat him up, anything, leave him someplace, and I bet he'd still love me. Kinda scary." KINDA!

The background (and foreground) is filled with strange, silent animals, for which I choose this monkey that blows bubbles as representative. The monkey that blows bubbles is next to a photo of Eleanor Parker's husband and son, whom she matter-of-factly describes drowning together before her eyes. Frank Sinatra's little boy is immediately taken with Eleanor Parker because (I think it's obvious) she is like his dead mother come back to life.

She catches the little boy staring at her because she reminds him so much of his dead mother (I believe is the subtext) and gives him a sultry wink as he peeps at her from behind a porcelain dog. Oh, and Dub Taylor works the desk at Frank Sinatra's hotel, where they use the same kind of keychains you get at the Great Northern.

You know, I really have more screen shots than I know what to do with. You should see the ones I'm skipping. There was this disturbingly infantile character (below), a very poor man's Jerry Lewis, who, in his father's words, "runs to the toilet" whenever there's a customer in the store (the same father, Edward G. Robinson, who complains about his "underwear crawling up" on him, a complaint I do not recall hearing expressed so bluntly - or indeed at all - in any other 50s movies; does he say "crawling" or "creeping"? Does it matter?) and you know how much Jerry Lewis reminds me of David Lynch, even though this is not Jerry Lewis, just a tulpa.

I hardly know what to end with.

Well, here's a guy in a white dinner jacket with a pistol on a diving board. Moments later he will pretend to shoot himself in the head with a blank for a laugh, but I don't think that's where the title comes from.

Literary Matters

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

Discontinued Crystal Shrimp

Nobody asked me, but every time I go on a trip I jot down what happens in a little jotting book of jottings and when I get home I type up the jottings for an uncaring world. This set is especially boring. One highlight is buying a comb. But that's not going to stop me. There's a good part where Julia and I see Rory Gilmore. I don't want to get your hopes up. In fact I care very little about you. 1. Rode to the airport with Bill Boyle, who was on his way to France to be lauded. 2. I couldn't bring Tom Bissell's book on the plane. You know how I feel about lugging big, hefty books onto a plane. You probably discuss my feelings on the subject around your family dinner table! So I brought DON JUAN, the book-lenghth poem by Lord Byron: a manageable, if arguably bulky, paperback. But here's what! Right before I left the house I read about John Chrysostom in Tom's book (the name "comes from chrysostomos, 'the golden-mouthed,'" Tom reminds us) and then he

(Chrysostom, not Tom) popped up out of no dang where in stanza 47 of the Byron poem! I was all, "I can't wait to tell everybody!" I was like, "People will finally love me!" And here we are sharing the moment. 3. "All we have are chicken enchiladas," the flight attendant said with a distinct air of foreboding. I said to bring 'em on. Something spurted out of an enchilada and made a small blot on the same blindingly white shirt from which I had just - with some difficulty - removed Pat McHale's infamous wine stains. 4. The plane landed and thus began my layover. I noticed my seatmate removing a flute and two saxophones from the overhead compartment. As we deplaned we had a good conversation about Sonny Rollins and Ornette Coleman. 5. I got on another airplane. My former seatmate was on that plane too! This time he told me his name was Kirk Whalum - a name that sounded familiar to me. He described himself as primarily an "R&B saxophonist." We got to talking about Mississippi and he told me one of his saxophones was to be placed in a museum in Clarksdale. I said I'd go look at it one day. 6. Watched some of the Fey/Poehler comedy SISTERS inflight. They put too much detergent in the washing machine and suds go everywhere, just like the Bob Hope movie BACHELOR IN PARADISE (above), so we're still in that era of comedy, it never ended like you thought it did, the too-much-detergent era of comedy. 7. The plane lands. Leaving LAX I see a limo driver holding a sign that says KIRK WHALUM. 8. Into the Burbank office for an ADVENTURE TIME meeting. Julia told me she had sent a text about how she and I might be able to get onto the GILMORE GIRLS reunion set that very afternoon. In return she received a succinct yet highly suggestive reply ("How that *****"), which, as it so happens to turn out, was not from me. Kent had given her an obsolete number, which now belongs, it seems, to some saucy personage. 9. Julia and I visit the fringes of the active GILMORE GIRLS set, using methods I should not divulge. Fake, possibly carcinogenic snow lies in lumps upon the parking lot, having strayed from its place. For you see, it is winter in Stars Hollow. Fake snow is everywhere. (When did I switch to present tense? Who cares? I may switch back soon.) To paraphrase James Joyce, "Yes, the newspapers were right: fake snow was general all over Stars Hollow." Suddenly Rory appears! Rory Gilmore leaves the set and we watch her as she makes the long walk to a public restroom (and, at some time later, back). How near are we? I'm not a good judge of such things. Let's say she was like a mighty lioness, brimming with grace and power, spied from, say, the relative safety of a safari Jeep... she was close enough, I mean, to to fill us with awe and holy fear. Rory Gilmore was wearing what I would call a "fawn-colored coat," despite the fact that I'm not sure what color a fawn is, other than "fawn-colored." Nobody dared take a picture, not of Rory, but here's

Julia captured in the very moment, this is what Julia's face looks like when she's reflecting the radiance that no mortal sees without sinking into madness. Seeing Rory Gilmore! 10. Back at my hotel, I notice that the pet store across the street has gone out of business. But it - or a fictional version of it - is immortalized forever in my new book of short stories MOVIE STARS, available now at a reputable book dealer near you. While supplies last! 11. Bought an expensive comb at the place where I accidentally bought an expensive brush before. The plastic comb had the words HAND MADE on it. Can that be true? The brand is "Kent." I was going to tell Kent all about it, but I forgot. 12. It occurs to me that I was staying at the very same place where I arrived sans comb in 2007, at which time I decided to do without a comb for the length of my stay. I was so young and bold! What happened to you, Pendarvis? 13. Back at Cartoon Network I had a nice talk with Elizabeth Ito. "You came on the day when they're shaking the building," she said. "I think they're paving the alley. So the building is shaking and it smells like asphalt." Everything she said was true! That wasn't the main thing we talked about. Later in the writers' room we were all laughing a lot and when someone finally opened the door it was clear that the room had filled up with poisonous fumes wafting from the construction site. It had happened so slowly none of us had noticed. We just thought we were having a good time! 14. I saw Ako! She said she still had a picture I drew of a "mush pot." I didn't remember, until she reminded me, that we had discussed the function of the "mush pot" in certain iterations of the children's game duck-duck-goose. 15. Have I never told you of my friend Cristina? She's my Italian pal from the land of Italy. Whenever I go to Los Angeles she takes me to an Italian restaurant meeting her approval. Last time, I told her a favorite line from THE DECAMERON and she translated it back into Italian for me! 16. I could tell you about karaoke but let's just say Tom Franklin did Styx and leave it at that.

17. Who stayed in our private karaoke room until the very end, yes, who shut it down? Kent, Pen, me and the somewhat eerie stranger nobody knew. 18. I came to this couplet in DON JUAN: "His blood was up; though young, he was a Tartar/ And not at all disposed to prove a martyr." And I thought of Jon Host. I thought, "That's a Jon Host rhyme!" You probably don't know what I'm talking about because you don't know Jon Host or how he rhymes but if it's not clear enough yet, I don't care about you and you're not reading this anyway and I don't care about that either. It was pleasant to be reminded of my old friend Jon Host and to consider the pleasure he would have received from "Tartar/martyr." 19. Speaking of friends of long acquaintance, I had lunch with Khaki. She took me to a place where lots of things on the menu were discontinued. The two I remembered to jot down were "SHRIMP STICK....... DISCONTINUED" and "CRYSTAL SHRIMP......... DISCONTINUED." Curiously, the notices of discontinuation were not affixed to the menu at some late date; they were professionally printed right there on the surface, beneath the lamination. These menus had been ordered and printed afresh to accommodate (tauntingly?) an extensive list of items that the restaurant had presumably served in more generous times. I can think of how it could make sense to someone, especially if the plan was to eventually reintroduce some of the dishes... but it feels overly hopeful somehow, like a litany of crushed ambitions. 20. On the way to see Megan Abbott give the keynote address to an organization composed of aspiring crime writers, I passed the Sheraton Universal and thought, "Ah, that's where I scared Marvin Hamlisch in an elevator." 21. I partook ravenously of the free crime writers' breakfast, to which I was not entitled. 22. DON JUAN: "Since in a way that's rather of the oddest, he/ Became divested of his native modesty." THAT'S more of a Jon Host rhyme. 23. Dinner at Dan Tana's, one of those old-time Hollywood chophouses that hold such fascination for me - and Megan Abbott too. Neither of us had ever been. Ward McCarthy and I always talked about going to Dan Tana's back when we worked together in the 1990s, but we never made it. It was, as Megan's friend Alison noted, brighter inside than you would assume Dan Tana's to be, but otherwise it

met and surpassed our most idealized expectations, what with the red leather booth (in the back corner! just the one we would have picked), old-school wisecracking waiters (when asked about the contents of a particular salad, one of them said, "What can I tell you, it's a 22-dollar salad, it's terrible!" The chopped salad, on the other hand, of which the waiter approved, Alison deemed excellent), clams casino, steak and peppers "Sinatra" (superior to the similar and similarly named dish at The Smokehouse) and, we all agreed, the fluffiest gnocchi yet to be encountered. They don't have to make gnocchi that good at Dan Tana's - why, no sane person would expect it! But there it was. And we sat under a big poster of Karl Malden, who I believe had a veal chop named after him on the menu. 24. Tom Franklin, as I have hinted, happened to be out in Hollywood for reasons of his own, and by coincidence we were on the same plane home. Tom walked through the airport looking for soup. He busily checked every restaurant and kiosk. "Why soup?" I said. Tom said, "I love soup." I've known him, what? Thirty years? And I've never seen this side of him, this side that loves soup so much. I asked why I never heard about it before. "I keep it quiet," he said. We got to our departure gate and I watched Tom's bags while he ran off to continue his desperate search for his favorite thing, airport soup.

Flickering Existence

Not by any plan, I have been watching and enjoying a number of John Huston movies lately: UNDER THE VOLCANO, MOBY-DICK and the one he made about Toulouse-Lautrec. So last night I watched THE DEAD. I didn't even consider that today would be St. Patrick's day! No, I just live by the seat of my pants, free and easy. I liked THE DEAD much better than the first time I saw it, back when it came out. Then I was a young punk who was very offended about the way they chopped up the last paragraph of James Joyce's short story, which I probably called "my favorite paragraph" at the time. This time I knew it was coming, so I was all right. Here's a funny fact. I don't think it's a spoiler or will get me in any kind of trouble because it was nipped in the bud. But not long ago I got the urgent idea to end an ADVENTURE TIME outline with Princess Bubblegum reading the last paragraph of "The Dead" to Finn and Jake. Ha ha! I knew it would never get into the show. It didn't make much sense, even. But I convinced myself that it flowed naturally from what had come before. Not the whole last paragraph! I'm not totally crazy! I had Princess Bubblegum starting with "Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland." I probably used to call that "one of my favorite sentences in literature" when I was a young smarty, and I probably still feel that way. Adam was very nice about it. He made the note "I'm not deleting this" on the document. Ha ha! But he did go on to provide some reasonable notes about why this particular episode we were working on should possibly not end with Princess Bubblegum reciting the conclusion of "The Dead." Dr. Theresa didn't watch THE DEAD with me last night, but she told me a funny story about going to see it when it came out. She was just a teenager at the time and saw the title THE DEAD on a marquee and assumed it was a horror movie. You know how she likes horror movies! So she went in expecting a good scare. Ha ha! Well, the short story does have these lines in it, which sound fairly Lovecraftian out of context: "His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence." Scary! So after I watched THE DEAD I wanted to read the short story again. So I got out my paperback of DUBLINERS. And I was like, this is a neat old paperback from the 1950s with a crease in the cover. I know I didn't have this paperback originally. I think I bought it to replace my first copy of DUBLINERS, which I gave away. And then I remembered the circumstances. I was in my 20s and a French girl came to visit Mobile, Alabama. I don't say "girl" condescendingly - I mean to express that we were naive boys and girls then. So three of us boys were keen to escort her around all the time. And we were so jealous of one another that all three of us took her everywhere. Like, if we went to a restaurant, it was a table for four: her and three guys, frantically jostling for position at the table. I recall the restaurant: The Ivory Chopstick. I remember that we all ordered two desserts. Two desserts apiece, I mean. We were so thin in those days. The Ivory Chopstick didn't have a liquor license and they got around it by offering strawberries floating in red wine and an obscenely soaked baba au rhum after dinner. I remember that we took her to a party on the water at Jimmy Buffett's mother's house (!?!). Long story. We all knew Jimmy Buffett's mother in those days. Tom Franklin was at that party and we delighted in strutting around the dock with our new French friend in front of him. I remember that we took her to somebody's house and showed her THE AFRICAN QUEEN on a tiny TV such as poor people like us had in those days. We thought she'd be impressed! (Strange coincidence! Another John Huston movie.) I remember that after the movie she said, "It was not so good." Ha ha! Thus we failed American culture. But I did get to drive her out to my hometown of Bayou La Batre without the other two guys coming along. And that's where I gave her my copy of DUBLINERS. And that's the exciting story of why I eventually purchased this strange but attractive 1950s edition of DUBLINERS instead of that one Penguin paperback everybody else has. So! After watching the movie last night, I wanted to read the story again. But I wanted a little noise on in the background. Don't you ever want just a little noise in the background while you're reading? So I turned on TCM, and because it was Jerry Lewis's birthday, they were showing CRACKING UP! And I thought: this is perfect. I just watched CRACKING UP the other night, so it won't be distracting. But I kept pausing in my reading of "The Dead" to laugh at CRACKING UP. For example, I'd happen to glance up and Jerry would be staring at me, straight into the camera. He does that a lot in CRACKING UP. Or he'd grunt or yelp or do what I can only call his "vocalise." And that was "cracking me up" especially last night. And then there was the scene when a server in a restaurant offers him a choice of many different kinds of salad dressing, including "bleu cheese" and "brown cheese." The phrase "brown cheese" really got me! Was it Joycean, "brown cheese," or that impossibly long and incantatory list of salad dressings, was THAT Joycean? Have I called Jerry "Joycean" before? I'll check. Yes, "click" here!

Cultural Studies

Welcome once more to "Cultural Studies" - gee, it's been two years since we studied any. Culture. Well! Ashly Burch has been bringing up PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET in ADVENTURE TIME meetings for some time now, for mysterious reasons that need not concern you here! But we've talked about that movie a lot, and some of us have watched it again, and it made me want to see NIGHT AND THE CITY again, which features Richard Widmark in somewhat the same mode. With important differences! That you don't care about. But anyway, I was watching NIGHT AND THE CITY last night and was particularly captivated by this shot (above): a bad man in a suit standing calmly on a bridge. It made me think ("click" here; I know you won't!) of this shot from OUT OF THE PAST. Oh! Here's a fascinating coincidence (it's not). When I was looking for a pic of Marlon Brando that reminded me of Princess Bubblegum (WHY? Well, you could find out if you'd trouble yourself to "click" on this "link" - but you won't), the woman in the photo I found turned out to be Jean Peters, who plays Candy in PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET, and whose performance Ashly admires a lot. That publicity still was from VIVA ZAPATA! (exclamation point theirs) which I believe I once rented on VHS from the Phar-Mor drugstore in Mobile, Alabama. Oh! I just got that they had a "pharmacy" and "more"... far (phar) more! In another coincidence sure to amaze you, Eve Babitz goes on and on (and on) about VIVA ZAPATA! in EVE'S HOLLYWOOD, which I just read. So! Another thing coming up a lot in ADVENTURE TIME meetings is this thing where presidential candidates are being asked (this is really happening!) whether or not they would "kill baby Hitler" if given the chance. Kent Osborne asked, "Haven't any of them read 11/22/63 by Stephen King?" And I was like, "Don't tell me what happens!" And I was like, "It looks long, is it any good?" And Kent said it was long but good and he said it's so long because the guy travels to 1955 and has to wait - what is that? - eight years before trying to stop the Kennedy assassination and I was like, "Stop telling me!" So I went up to Square Books and bought 11/22/63 and I guess I'll read it sometime. Goodbye for now from "Cultural Studies."

River Rowdies

I don't suppose any of us will forget where we were on July 27, 2012, the day I lost dozens of "twitter followers" by live-tweeting KING RALPH. It was a massacre! Looking back, I can't blame them. How many times since then have I my own self become heavy-hearted at the excessive tweeting rate of some well-meaning wag or another? And that is why I have decided to help everybody out by putting my live-tweeting of STRIKING DISTANCE into the following handy virtual live-tweeting format, rather than clogging up everyone's "timeline" with it. I promise you all the excruciating boredom of the live-tweet experience with half the mess. Before we begin, it occurs to me that not only did Donald Barthelme invent the TV recap, he simultaneously invented the live-tweet. With preliminaries concluded, come with me as I list the things I see in STRIKING DISTANCE. A police car races toward the camera. Lightning strikes! Words say STRIKING DISTANCE!... Boots sloshing in the rain. Dr. Theresa just walked in and saw me furrowing my brow watching STRIKING DISTANCE and said, "Your seriousness is humorous."... Bruce Willis is disgraced... Bruce's dad is Frasier's dad from FRASIER! He's a cop, JUST LIKE IN FRASIER! Frasier's dad says a very Frasier's dad-like thing about Bruce's "mother's side of the family."... All his former cop friends think Bruce Willis is a "rat."... Bruce drives all crazy, like he's in a cop movie!... Frasier's dad is blasé about all the near collisions, making idle chit chat during the near-death experiences. This really IS like a FRASIER episode! Eight minutes in and we have our first action-movie fireball!... I have a feeling Frasier's dad is about to bite it. ... Ten minutes in: SECOND FIREBALL. ... Dr. Theresa says I should comment on the bad guy's driving gloves, which I totally meant to do... Cars hopping in the air like rabbits! Frasier's dad is still alive for the moment... Uh-oh. I take it back. Here's the reliable Dennis Farina as Uncle Nick? Uncle Rick? He's a cop too. ... They "caught the killer" and Bruce deduces in literally half a second they got the wrong man, just by looking at him... but the other cops don't want Bruce to rock the boat. Not even Uncle Nick or Rick! Uncle Rick/Nick's kid is jumping off a bridge! It's Bruce Willis's own cousin he ratted on! Well, there goes Cousin Jimmy. And here comes the rain. Like God himself is crying for Cousin Jimmy!... TWO YEARS LATER... It sure feels like it ha ha! ... Bruce Willis has a cat. A rat with a cat! Get it? ... Alka Seltzer... microwaving a hot towel... that's Bruce's version of breakfast! ... Now he's a boat cop. All the boat cops are standing around in their short pants. Short pants cops! ... I think Bruce Willis just dumped his crabby boss in the river as a prank. He'll never get anywhere with an attitude like that!... Bruce's name is Tom Hardy! Like the depressing novelist!... Everywhere Bruce Willis goes, other cops try to beat him up... Bruce: sensitive, weepy. The thinking man's cop!... Tom Sizemore, another cop cousin... Bruce Willis lives on a houseboat. Hey! Tom Sizemore talks about THE SIMPSONS! Tom Sizemore's brother AND mother jumped in the river. Stay away from the river, everybody. Do they want to make me suspect that Tom Sizemore is the killer? Because it's working. But it's too easy. He says ominous things like "I... I gotta meet a girl." And just when he comes back to town the killings start again. Too easy... Bruce Willis's new boat cop partner is SARAH JESSICA PARKER! She's introduced to him as a "qualified diver." I wonder if that will come into play! [It doesn't. Chekhov would be ashamed. - ed.]... Rowdies in a speedboat!... Oh, I see. Bruce Willis bends the rules and SJP is "by the book." ME: "What's that guy wearing, a neckerchief?" DR. THERESA (sounding sad about my decline): "It's a tattoo, sweetie."... Bruce Willis knocked somebody down a hole. "Down the hole!" shouted Dr. Theresa... Bruce Willis just shot three or four guys, I lost count. SJP helped him by yelling. Now he has grudging respect for her! You can see it in his eyes... I think I'll have some rye. I might miss something... Thinking, those guys Bruce shot were probably pirates, technically!... "There's an old Italian saying: 'Don't scald your tongue on another man's soup.'" Wise words, Dennis Farina. "Hey, Hardy, we're out of our patrol zone," warns by-the-book Sarah Jessica Parker. You really think Bruce Willis cares?... SJP and Bruce are dramatically acting at each other!... Aw, suddenly SJP spies Bruce behaving tenderly when he doesn't know she's looking! Maybe there's something to this gruff boat cop after all... They're really piling on the Tom Sizemore circumstantial evidence. I ain't buying it! No matter how unnervingly he giggles. Dennis Farina just had this line of dialogue: "Go up there. Go up there. GO UP THERE! Go up there."... This movie has a lot of blue language!... Andre Braugher! He's as young as a baby!... Tom Sizemore sure talks about the river a lot... SJP invites Bruce to the Policeman's Ball, which seems like a great place for him to be beaten to a pulp, which he is. Angry cops conveniently tear off his shirt, exposing him sexily. Tom Sizemore drinks heavily while a fireworks display goes off over his head. This one cop who hates Bruce the most is the guy who played the studio head in THE PLAYER.

Can't think of his name. But boy does he hate Bruce Willis. ... SJP pours Bruce's booze down the sink. She doesn't even know him! That's presumptuous. She hasn't even seen him drunk. I don't even think he's BEEN drunk in this movie (?), though the angriest cop calls him a "lush" once. ... Bruce Willis's cat watches as Bruce and SJP express themselves with an intimacy that is usually reserved for the conjugal bower. The cat seems bored. But POV suggests a creepy killer is probably watching too! ... Ha ha, now SJP and Bruce are chasing a car, but they're in a boat! This doesn't seem practical. THIRD FIREBALL. One hour, seven minutes in. ... It is suddenly revealed that Sarah Jessica Parker's character has a daughter... NAMED SARAH. ... Bruce just had the hoary old line, "I don't know how high up this goes." Dennis Farina: "He's been under surveillance for three weeks." Guy from The Player: "CLOSE surveillance?" Ha ha ha, I don't know why that exchange made me laugh so hard. I guess it was the way the guy said "CLOSE surveillance?" But it's clear that SJP has been spying on Bruce! NOW who's the rat? "Thank you very much, detective, you may step down," says Andre Braugher in that super sarcastic way that only Andre Braugher can deliver! He's not thanking the detective at all! Bruce Willis's cat is hungry. "Go catch a rat," says Bruce Willis to his cat. Ironic!... Somebody's "dead in the water." Literally! I can't tell who it is, even though Bruce is saying "NOOOOOOO!!!!!! NOOOOOOO!!!!!!" But then again I thought that pirate's tattoo was a neckerchief. ... Bruce Willis thinks Tom Sizemore is the killer. I guess he's not so smart after all. Well! The killer is Cousin Jimmy! He ain't dead! I think Cousin Jimmy is the guy who was in MURPHY BROWN. The killer is the dude from MURPHY BROWN! I think. A guy from MURPHY BROWN killed a guy from FRASIER! What's the world coming to? "Are you too proud to drink with a dead man?" - Cousin Jimmy. I'm going to start saying that at bars. That guy's hair! The guy from MURPHY BROWN. He seriously looks worse than Donald Trump. Plus he's a psychotic murderer. Oh, wait! Dennis Farina killed Frasier's dad. So never mind. Ha ha, SJP just stuck out her foot and tripped the guy from MURPHY BROWN. Boat chase! Foot chase! We're back on the bridge. "You'll never beat me!" screams the guy from MURPHY BROWN at Bruce Willis. So I wonder who's going to win! Underwater fight! Lots of bubbles when you're fighting underwater. ... The angriest cop admits he was wrong. Bruce Willis punches him. SJP runs up. They smooch. Flowers on a grave. We see SJP's alleged daughter for the first time. They're all at the cemetery together like a regular family. THE END.

Hynden

So, Hynden Walch (Princess Bubblegum) had just one short line, composed of four little words, in tonight's ADVENTURE TIME episode, and I was lucky enough to be there when she recorded it. She must have done it a dozen times, each time taking a different tack, ranging in subtle degrees of color and emphasis from sweet playfulness to stentorian absolutism, and every time she did it, no matter how she did it, she just killed it. Everybody on the other side of the glass was laughing and shaking their heads and just marveling at the variety of meaning she got out of that one line. Any of the takes would have worked, and each would have cleverly spun the story in just a little different direction. That's a professional, I tell you! It's like going to school, the privilege of watching Hynden Walch give her all to record a single sentence. Hynden Walch is the Marlon Brando of Hynden Walches. (Does Brando KIND OF look like he's wearing a PB outfit here? No, I know. I just like the picture.)

Writers In Chains

Mary Miller and I had lunch at Applebee's today, which reminded me that Tom Franklin and I first met at an Olive Garden, which reminded me of the Christmas Eve in Mobile, Alabama, not too many years ago when nothing was open but a TGI Friday's so Tom and I (both in town to visit our parents) had some rainbow-colored cocktails. And as Tom reminded me yesterday, we used to meet when I got off work (from a coffee shop in Bel Air Mall) at the Ruby Tuesday next door, in which we went over each other's short stories, back before either of us was published. And I also recall that an ex-girlfriend of mine waited tables there and I liked to go sit in her section and whine to her about not having a future. And one day she finally asked me why I didn't stop whining and do something. She was sick of hearing it! For example, she was leaving forever (like the next day, as I recall, though that can't be an accurate memory) to have an adventurous life in Alaska. And she did! She was gone. And I was like, "She's right!" And I quit my job and moved to Atlanta. But anyway, Mary and I split an Applebee's dessert, or such was the plan. They brought it out on a sizzling hot skillet. A blondie on a sizzling hot skillet! Why? And somehow a black plastic cup of sauce had been placed on the sizzling hot skillet, and the bottom of the plastic cup had melted, sending a frightening, violently bubbling, sizzling, burning evil pool of thin white sauce and poisonous black plastic all over the sizzling hot skillet.

What Not to Read on International Women's Day

Happy International Women's Day! It occurs to me that a Travis McGee novel is not quite the thing to read on International Women's Day. If you "click" on this "link" and scroll down to the part where I am reading Travis McGee in a bubble bath - ha ha! Gross! I know you won't - you will note Travis McGee's general attitude. Here, I'll quote myself and save you the trouble: "Travis McGee likes to explain life to the ladies. He likes to tell women what's what. 'Baby, nothing is easy... real people walk around in the foggy, foggy dew.' Okay, Travis McGee! That little speech runs about a page... By page 142 two women have literally purred at him - PURRED AT HIM, NOT METAPHORICALLY - because he's so awesome at giving them a squeeze if you know what I mean. Maybe one woman specifically purring in gratitude for his manliness every 71 pages isn't too many, I don't know, what do you think, don't tell me, I don't care." Okay! And in the book I'm reading now, Travis McGee is eating in a diner and a women's bowling team comes in and makes him feel dirty with their salacious gaze! "Brown-faced stranger, with shoulders big enough to interest them." Ha ha ha! That's Travis McGee, describing himself! Describing how irresistible he must be to the women's bowling team.

Blabbling

Here's part of a paragraph from the "Cry-Babies" section of that book: "Other local terms for crying are: babbling (Whitehaven), blabbing (Lydney), blabbling (Derby), blabbering (Isle of Ely), blahing or blarting (Birmingham, Hanley, Wolverhampton), blaring (Norwich), bleating (Birmingham), moaning (the general term in Liverpool), and slobbering (Rochdale)." The paragraph continues for quite a while. I'll pick it up at the end: "In Scotland, as well as 'bubblin,' they speak of 'girnin' and, of course, 'greetin,' hence epithets like 'girnie bubbler,' 'girnie gowk,' and 'greetin-faced teenie.'" There's even more after that, but I just wanted to get "greetin-faced teenie" in there. I wonder what they thought of Paul Blart in Wolverhampton, ha ha ha, oh boy, are you with me?

Street Jeers

Remember when buildings used to be shaped like things? I was out in California for ADVENTURE TIME work and Verdell suggested several places for dinner, including somewhere "shaped like a barrel." I needed to hear no more! So we went to the barrel. Verdell said, and I believe I'm paraphrasing okay, that there used to be lots of buildings shaped like funny things in Hollywood, and this barrel is one of the last ones - maybe the last one - still standing. So now it has been taken over and reopened by some enterprising youths or something. Standing outside the barrel, as you can maybe see from the photo Verdell took, was a bearded guy in suspenders, whose sole job was to tell entering customers that the kitchen was closed because it was a "soft opening." But the kitchen was not completely closed! They gave us four deviled eggs in a cast-iron skillet. I have to say I was offended on some philosophical level! Why would deviled eggs be associated with a cast-iron skillet? Perverse! Jay - a new character in our story! - speculated that the bacon crumbled on top of the deviled eggs was the link to the cast-iron skillet. Not good enough! So for actual dinner, Verdell and Jay and I went to the reliable Tam O'Shanter, where we ordered MORE DEVILED EGGS. Hey! I did all that part from memory. Now I must consult my famed book of famed jottings. 1. Before dinner I was down in the hotel lobby and I heard a guy telling his life story at the hotel bar (he almost had a love scene with Bo Derek once) and he turned out to be the guy who plays Squidward. AND he was reading a storyboard based on one of my SpongeBob scripts! Right there at the bar. That was a coincidence! 2. The next day I went to Skylight Books to meet Kent. There was supposed to be an ADVENTURE TIME writers meeting but we had all forgotten that it was President's Day and the office was closed. So I bought some stuff at Skylight while I was waiting for Kent and had it shipped to myself. I can't remember the title of this one book I got, but it was written in 1959 and collected and analyzed the rhymes, jokes, songs and stories that schoolchildren make up and circulate among themselves (I think that's right) and anyway I opened to a section called "Street Jeers" and for some reason I thought, "'Street Jeers'! Megan Abbott would love this book!" 3. Kent and I ate in a French restaurant next door to Skylight. We decided it would be real cute if we went to see 50 SHADES OF GREY, which was playing in the movie theater on the other side of Skylight Books. "It would be 'blog-ready,'" I proclaimed of the potential experience! And in truth there's a lot I could say about 50 SHADES OF GREY, but I just don't feel like it right now, sorry. 4. At the end of 50 SHADES OF GREY, when it cut to black, Kent turned to me and said, "Wanna go get some chicken wings?" Ha ha ha ha! Classic Osborne. We walked a block or two to a place called "Ye Olde Rustic Inn" on the sign, but which I believe Kent referred to colloquially as "The Rustic." It was 3 in the afternoon and pitch-dark inside and everybody in the joint was already sloshed out of their minds. Kent said they had the best chicken wings in Los Angeles and told me about a Christmas Eve he spent there eating chicken wings. Michael Jackson came on the jukebox and Kent and I discussed how sad we had been when Michael Jackson died. 5. We were walking everywhere, well, Kent was pushing his bike.

So as we were walking down Sunset Boulevard we came upon a big bus-stop poster of 50 SHADES OF GREY and Kent wanted to take my picture in front of it. He was disappointed that there was a glare on the slogan "CURIOUS?"... 6. The next day I went to work and had lunch with ADVENTURE TIME coworkers Tom Herpich and Adam Muto and Jesse Moynihan and of course Kent. Jesse said he liked my outfit! He didn't use the word "outfit." Also, we discussed society. Tom had some thoughts about the future of transportation. 7. Back to work! This time with some actors from ADVENTURE TIME: Hynden "Princess Bubblegum" Walch (who was telling Jeremy "Finn" Shada about the meaning of Lent) and Steve Little. You'll probably recognize him from EASTBOUND AND DOWN. Look, here's his picture. He does the voice of Peppermint Butler. You know just the other day I was at Square Books and a young woman who works there (her name is Miracle!) was telling me how Peppermint Butler is her favorite character... AND last time I saw Jimmy he was saying that he identified with Peppermint Butler.

Is there something going on in the zeitgeist with Peppermint Butler? Probably not. 8. Marceline came in. By which I mean Olivia Olson, who plays Marceline. Of all these folks, she was the one I'd never met. Kent forgot to introduce me! So she just breezed into the booth thinking I was probably some old weirdo who was hanging around. 9. A break in the recording session! I walked out and beheld a strange sight. Now, the recording studio is on the first floor of the building, but the windows are high up, and I saw a row of people standing on chairs and other objects in order to peek out the window. Pendleton Ward took this photo of the phenomenon:

There was a big police standoff happening! "Every cop in Burbank is out there," as Kent said. There were SWAT vans and helicopters and everything, massed against some poor soul who had stolen a car, I think. This went on for some hours. 10. But work must continue! Back to the recording booth. Marceline had some more lines. Standing there waiting, Elizabeth Ito (a director on ADVENTURE TIME) mentioned Kent's tweets about 50 SHADES OF GREY, and as I was answering her I realized, oh good, this is my introduction to Marceline, because it was just Elizabeth and Marceline and me hanging out, and Marceline was intently listening as the old weirdo stranger who was standing around earlier talked at great length about 50 SHADES OF GREY. "Uh, I'm Jack," I said, after describing 50 SHADES OF GREY to Marceline for a while. 11. After all the work was done for the day I wanted to go back to the hotel but the standoff was still happening. I couldn't find Kent. I called his cell. "I'm on the roof!" he said. Cole Sanchez offered to take me out the back way and get me an Uber. While we waited for the Uber, Cole told me about a special backpack he carries his dog around in! 12. I went on a terrifying Uber ride with an extremely old man - who knows? maybe he was a terrible driver when he was young, too. But he swerved all over the road and generally behaved like a maniac. And the first thing he asked me was, "How do we get to Burbank?" to which I replied, "Uh, we're in Burbank." It was all downhill from there. 13. Sitting at the bar at Musso & Frank, waiting for some more people show up. I saw a bottle of Plymouth gin, which I've never had, but it's in all the Travis McGee books, so I thought I'd have a Plymouth gin gibson in honor of my pal Ace's hero Travis McGee. Pen showed up and had one too! He told me about the outcome of the police standoff: "They shot him with a beanbag and his pants fell down," said Pen. But when I showed him that I had jotted his sentence in my little jotting book, he added, "Not in that order." 14. While I was having dinner at Musso & Frank, Dr. Theresa was back in Mississippi having dinner with independent producer and actor Maggie Renzi. Maggie Renzi told Dr. Theresa about the movie she and John Sayles want to make next - which I would never reveal, in case it's a secret -

BUT LISTEN TO THIS! In an email on Feb. 3, my brother said he had an idea for a movie: "it's amazing... sad... triumphant... interesting" he wrote about this idea. AND IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME IDEA THAT MAGGIE RENZI TOLD DR. THERESA THE OTHER NIGHT. (Here's a photo of Maggie Renzi speaking to Dr. Theresa's Gender Studies class just hours ago!)

15. Speaking of my brother, he was among the party at Musso & Frank and revealed a fascinating piece of information I can't tell you... YET. 16. Pen took me to his house after dinner and strapped a thing on my head (pictured). It was like 50 SHADES OF GREY, ha ha, not really! It was the latest in virtual reality technology! I seemed to be flying, superhero style, over an old city. When I first started flying, I accidentally swooped toward the ground and shouted "Aaaaaaaaaaah!" exactly like the audiences in 1903 who went to see THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY and got scared that the train was going to run over them. (Did that really happen? I am going to say yes.) There was also a virtual reality where you throw a ball to some kitty cats. That was more my speed. 17. McKay mailed me a copy of THE LEOPARD by Giuseppe di Lampedusa. She was thanking me for my recommendation letter because she got accepted into a swank artist colony in Italy. I hate to tell her, but she got in on her own merit. I write the most glowing recommendation letters imaginable but they're just the kiss of death. Nobody gets into anything that I recommend them for! I'm glad McKay proved to be the exception. So I was reading THE LEOPARD on the plane and it is a book with an owl in it: "from the overhanging bell tower came an elfin hoot of owls."

18. On the flight back I had a layover in Minneapolis, and I am almost 100% sure that Lou Ferrigno (who plays Billy on ADVENTURE TIME) was on it! In fact, he broke in front of me in line to get on the plane and even jostled me! I am almost 100% sure I was jostled by Lou Ferrigno! It wasn't on purpose, I am sure. I am no more to Lou Ferrigno than an ant! Nor should I be. When the plane landed, and he stood to retrieve something from the overhead bin, I noticed that the man I took to be Lou Ferrigno had a high-tech looking black gizmo behind his ear. This is anecdotal and rude to boot, but I recalled that Mr. Ferrigno has a hearing impediment, so that small gadget, whatever it was, helped confirm my assumption. Now I am going to look for a current photo of him. Well, yes, by God, it was him!