Winning

The other evening I went to City Grocery Bar to knock one back with Tom Franklin, but I stopped by Square Books on the way and got the new edition of CHOCTAW TALES, compiled by Tom Mould and Rae Nell Vaughn. There was a reading scheduled for the very same time that I was supposed to knock one back with Tom Franklin. So, to be clear, though I did not attend the reading, I did get the book, and that’s something, right? It’s not nothing! Get off my back! Anyway, the book was lying there on the kitchen counter a day or two later and Dr. Theresa said, “This looks interesting,” and I thought she was right! It did look interesting! Who was so smart as to pick up such an interesting book? Me? Wow, I’m great! Such were a few of my amazing thoughts. So a little later I opened the book at random and I think you know where this is going. Have I become too predictable? Has the spark gone out of our relationship, dear reader? In any case, I opened right to a story about an owl and a buzzard arguing over which of them was going to have the most children, which struck me as a pretty funny argument, but I’m not an owl or a buzzard or J.D. Vance. So the owl sits in a cherry tree and the buzzard knocks the owl on its ass with a dead branch... forgive me, the book is downstairs, I’m paraphrasing from memory. Also, I feel I’ve been saying “ass” on the “blog” a lot more frequently. Sorry about that, but not too long ago my brain went a little bit sideways. (See also.) Anyway, the buzzard wins and gets to have more children, if you call that winning. I left the “Animal Tales” section but kept finding owls anyway, including one really good one in the story of a mysterious old woman who chopped off a man’s head and fooled a bear and a couple of wildcats but anyway she turned out to be an owl and nobody saw that coming! I do care about things other than noticing which books have owls in them, but I can’t remember what those things are anymore, can you? Please help me.

Sure Do Know My Stuff

I really know my stuff. What's my "stuff," you may ask? First of all, go to hell. All right! Well, remember how I said this Megan Abbott novel has a night bird in it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's an owl? And then I went on to suggest that an owl might be forthcoming? Remember all that? Do you? Okay! So, here's a quotation for you: "'I bet it was an owl,' Becky said." BOOM! So, to answer your impertinent question, my "stuff," as you call it, is knowing when an owl will be in a book. It's all I've got, okay? To quote beloved ADVENTURE TIME character Root Beer Guy, "It's all I've got!" And then, as you might recall, his wife, Cherry Cream Soda, dressed as a French maid for marital reasons, ran weeping from the room. We weren't messing around on that show!

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.

The Body Finder

It is my duty to inform you that Megan Abbott and I continue apace with what might seem, to an outside observer, our increasingly bizarre book club. For example, now we are reading the memoir of a playwright, all about the time he wrote a doomed (?) play for Mary Martin and Carol Channing. I bring it up because the author includes himself in a group of "eight serious-looking, owl-eyed men." As you know, I am compelled by unknown forces to make a note whenever I read a book with an owl in it. In my struggle to make the current iteration entertaining, I might mention that this is the first time an author has referred to himself as owl-eyed, in my experience. "Owl-eyed," from my understanding of the term, does not come across as a compliment. It is generally applied to other people. I have done no research by which to validate anything I have just said. I will add, just to put a cherry on top, that during his boyhood, the author was known by the unsettling nickname "the body finder," because he found five dead bodies. Those bodies, I believe, were found on five separate occasions, and by accident, as the author shoehorns into a parenthetical. Now, he does specify that he was a teenager when he kept finding bodies. I'm not great at math, but I think that means he found a body on average once every year and four months or so. I'll bet he started getting nervous every time the new year rolled around! We'll never know, because he mentions his body finding abilities so blithely that Megan missed it entirely until I brought it up.

The Money Store

1. If we know anything about Bill Boyle, it is that he suggests decadent or disturbing books to me AND he sometimes gives me something to read on an airplane. This time he recommended a decadent book and I took it upon myself to bring it on the airplane. "I don't want to tell you anything about it," said Bill. "There's a tortoise encrusted with precious jewels." Well! I knew that much from the back of the book. And if that's on the back of the book you have to wonder what else is in there. The book is AGAINST NATURE - no, that's the title - by Joris-Karl Huysmans. 2. Lee Durkee gave me a ride to Memphis. See, the closest airport is in Memphis and my flight is always so early and this time I thought I'd stay overnight closer to the airport... for convenience! But! The last time I tried that, I found my "motel by the airport" experience disenchanting. So I decided to stay somewhere "nicer." I recalled that Elvis fan Ace Atkins had once stayed at an Elvis-themed hotel in Memphis, which sounded like a diverting choice. After my no-refund advance booking (it was cheaper) I read that the place had been shut down temporarily some months ago due to an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease. "Oh, I'm sure they've taken care of it," Ace assured me with the casual air of the physically fit. My room was on the second floor but somehow the ground came right up to the window anyway. So the second floor was also a ground floor. I'm not sure I'm being clear. Some grass and dirt came right up to my window, and just beyond that, the dark, forbidding woods. Woods in Memphis! With naught but a pane of glass betwixt me and them. The window reached the ground, I mean. Something could stroll right through it. It looked like "Young Goodman Brown" out there. I vaguely recall from that Elvis book I was reading that Gladys was frightened by some bushes growing outside the Presley home. Now I know how she felt. 3. Two tiny spots like dried ketchup on my nice gray jacket that I am not actually sure is gray. Is it blue? Back at home, Dr. Theresa and I dismissed these spots as "a shadow" or "a fold in the material" but now I can see in the vast hallway mirror near the swirling white staircase at the Elvis-themed hotel that they are definitely spots of uncouth ketchup. 4. Sitting in the airport reading "he had gone to those unconventional supper-parties where drunken women loosen their dresses at dessert and beat the table with their heads." (!) 5. Flight. Beastie Boys came on the iPod, amiably rhyming "cellular" and "the hell you were," which I noted to tell Jon Host on my return. 6. The airplane food was something I'd never seen before. I might call it "an open-faced breakfast pie." In the center was a slurry composed of everything you've ever had for breakfast. Some of what I think was the egg portion was colored pink for reasons I never managed to grasp. I ate it. 7. An early impression, though the book was first published in 1884, is that AGAINST NATURE advocates for Pen Ward's pet mode of existence, virtual reality: "Nature, he used to say, has had her day; she has finally and utterly exhausted the patience of sensitive observers by the revolting uniformity of her landscapes and skyscrapers. After all, what platitudinous limitations she imposes, like a tradesman specializing in a single line of business; what petty-minded restrictions, like a shopkeeper stocking one article to the exclusion of all others; what a monotonous store of meadows and trees, what a commonplace display of mountains and seas! In fact, there is not a single one of her inventions, deemed so subtle and sublime, that human ingenuity cannot manufacture." 8. A new bartender at my hotel in Burbank asked where I was from and when I told him, a guy at the other end of the bar shouted, "A lot of great writers come from Mississippi!" This is a true fact, but I must tell you from my travels that this is never the first thing a stranger will say upon hearing the word "Mississippi." And I hasten to add that Mississippi has brought endless negative reactions on itself. But it was nice to hear something milder for a change. This guy, who did not hail from the South, I should say, was not up to speed on some contemporary Mississippi writers so I pitched him Mary Miller pretty hard. 9. Went back to Dan Tana's and got the same table! Been there three times, got the same table three times. Let's call it "my table." Let's call it that! I'm scared to ever go back in case I don't get it again. 10. Reading the paper the next morning I see that our friend and former neighbor Jesmyn Ward won another National Book Award, and it felt doubly right after hearing what the nice man at the bar had said about Mississippi writers. 11. My brother sent a pic of us at Dan Tana's. As he remarks, my face is vampirically blurred, as if photography cannot quite capture it. Here we see me in the preparation stages of jotting in my famous book of jottings, no doubt about the fact that we are getting our "regular table." A rare appearance of the jotting book in action!

You may also notice that my hair is sticking up and so is my brother's. That's going to be our gimmick now: the brothers whose hair sticks up. 12. Disagreement with a bartender about Robert Walker's performance in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN. 13. I went to the ADVENTURE TIME wrap party and danced with Andy Merrill. You may remember him as Brak from SPACE GHOST COAST TO COAST! As you can see below, we freaked out because Weird Al was RIGHT BEHIND US.

14. Laraine Newman and I saw Jeffrey Katzenberg in a grocery store. He's gotta eat too! We had lunch (not with Jeffrey Katzenberg). The young woman in charge of the host station spoke engagingly and learnedly to us of Chekhov and Ibsen and Shakespeare. She knew a lot about THE CHERRY ORCHARD and also a lot about actual cherries and how to grow them, and what mistakes not to make when growing cherries, and what the cherries mean in THE CHERRY ORCHARD. I mean WHY CHERRIES? This is the question she answered. Fascinating and delightful! But I don't think I'll tell you. From our outdoor table we could see a bridge that Laraine told me was featured in one of the old, original PLANET OF THE APES movies. I said that Sal Mineo played an ape in one of those and Laraine sort of doubted me! She texted famed comedian Dana Gould right then and there and he immediately confirmed it with his knowledge. Dana Gould is Laraine's version of Google! 15. As the sun was going down I walked alone in the unfamiliar part of town from whence I had parted with Laraine. I found a fancy restaurant tucked - nay, almost buried - in an unlikely location. The bartender had played Hamlet twice! 16. The next morning I went to the Starbucks where I have seen Andrea Martin and (on a separate occasion) the guy from Tenacious D who is not Jack Black. Got the last New York Times from the rack and discovered something small and green on it. Small, green, and sticky. Bright green, emerald, holding there fast, hard candy vehemently licked and rejected or a foul lozenge someone had coughed up? Anyway, I touched it. I've visited this Starbucks often enough to recognize some of the customers who have been going there for years. There's one guy who blows his nose a lot. There he was, blowing his nose! Just like old times. He's been blowing his nose in that Starbucks since at least 2012. 17. "... birds with rats' heads and vegetable tails." When I read that I was like, "Nothing as prosaic as an owl is going to be in THIS book!" But in the very next paragraph: "a patch of virgin forest packed with monkeys, owls and screech-owls"! 18. Breakfast with my brother and nephews at Musso & Frank, where they are breakfast regulars, received warmly by all. My brother adjusted the blinds like he owned the joint! 19. After breakfast, we went to what my brother called "the money store," which turned out to be a hot, cramped box specializing in old coins and old silver and smelling like old farts. My eldest nephew and I looked at some olden utensils. "Look, they have the nicest spork ever made," said my nephew. 20. Dr. Theresa called: the wind blew and a huge limb, itself "the size of a tree" crashed to the earth right outside our house. It was a calamity! Also a miscreant peed in our backyard and ran away hitching up his pants under a fiery barrage of Dr. Theresa's righteous scolding. 21. Pen and I ate at The Smokehouse. Pen audaciously ordered the "steak Sinatra" with salmon instead of steak! We pondered what Frank might have made of that. We summoned up Frank Sinatra's violent, indignant ghost. The waiter said he would have to check what sort of surcharges would be involved. "A million dollars!" Pen predicted. But the waiter came back and said that according to the kitchen, steak Sinatra with salmon instead of steak costs ONE DOLLAR LESS than steak Sinatra! Then another waiter came in bearing a chicken pot pie that astounded everyone in the room. It was as large as... a pie. Like... a whole, entire flaky pie you might see on display for its beauty and wholesomeness in a bakery case. I swear, every person at every table was marveling that such a thing as this could be a chicken pot pie. Everyone stared in wonder - and dare I say envy? - at the recipient of the flabbergasting chicken pot pie. I thought of Dr. Theresa, who loves chicken pot pie, and I thought of her again as Pen and I enjoyed wedge salads, Dr. Theresa being one of our nation's leading proponents of the wedge salad. 22. At the airport I sat right next to a guy who had a big jotting book in the exact color and style of my small jotting book! I waved my tiny version of his large jotting book at him in excited solidarity. His wife laughed merrily at my antics and did not call airport security. 23. I don't "blog" anymore.

The Powerfully Spiced Sausage Meat

Bill Boyle got me reading these stark novels of Osamu Dazai. I read two of them and neither one had an owl in it, as far as I could tell. But as you know, I also like books with gelatin in them, especially Jell-O. (See also.) But I'm not "blogging" anymore, so I can't just "blog" about any old thing anymore, especially seeing as how I don't "blog" anymore. But there was this interesting jelly sequence in this one Osamu Dazai novel: "Oh, I'm sorry. Have you made jelly? That's terrific. You shouldn't have bothered... it would be wicked not to eat your wonderful jelly... It tasted watery, and when I came to the piece of fruit at the bottom, it was not fruit after all, but a substance I could not identify... as I manipulated the peeling lacquer chopsticks to eat my jelly, I felt unbearably lonely." It really made wonder about the particular kind of jelly being discussed, but not enough to look anything up. And I couldn't just "blog" about that! But what if there were TWO books with gelatin in them? Suddenly we would have a theme going! Such a possibility did not even occur to me, frankly, but then there I was in Square Books all of a sudden, and hey! Do you know about this "Constant Reader" program they have? Well, it's not my job to explain it to you. But sometimes you get a free book. And I had this little slip of paper in my wallet entitling me to a free book. And that's when I saw what I didn't even know I needed, inconspicuous on a back table: the recently discovered novel by Walt Whitman. So I got it for free. And I meant to open it to the beginning but somehow it fell open to page 10, which catches Whitman mid-phrase: "preferable to some, is the powerfully spiced sausage meat, or the jelly-like head-cheese." Now we're getting somewhere! PS: Prayer works! After composing the bulk of the above, but leaving a few gaps to fill on my return, I went off to visit my mom and dad for a few days. I took with me a biography of Howard Hughes that Megan and I are reading. In my few free moments, I read some of it, which is how I came upon "Charles W. Perrelle, the able vice-president of production for the Consolidated-Vultee Aircraft Company," who was, somehow, in the eyes of the authors, both a "boy wonder" and an "owlish-looking man." PPS! Not to put a cherry on top, but when I came home I watched the most recent episode of Pete Holmes's show CRASHING, which I had set to record in my absence for just that purpose. The song over the closing credits was "Sometimes I'm Happy," as performed by Jerry Lewis. Life seems to be at its peak.

Sixteen Cucumbers

Mom came to town for a visit. I brought her to the genealogy room at the public library - a strange, dark little room. I can't believe I never "blogged" about that room before. But now I remember: I thought it was good enough to put into one of my failed novels. So I jotted some notes about it in a special jotting book which is now at the bottom of a pile of some other special jotting books, never to be seen again. We poked around the genealogy room and found a thin volume of reminiscences from a man whose name I believe was Glover Moore (?). When Glover was a lad, he and his sister Alice had a pet pig who enjoyed rolling over to have its belly scratched with corncobs several times a day. The pig's tail had two curls in it but sometimes it would run and the curls would straighten out. As it ran, it would say, "U-r-r-gh! U-r-r-gh!" I believe that was the spelling. Anyway, they ate it. The family ate it. I am sorry to tell you. And I was sorry to read it. The pig was "loyal to the end," wrote Glover Moore. And I closed the book and said to my mother, "Glover Moore and his magic pig/ Scratched it with corncobs/ ... 'til it got big." And Mom replied, "I've seen pigs caught and heard them squeal/ Getting ready for the great big meal." And I looked at her across the table and she said with a touch of sadness, "It's true." We also found something called the SNIPES FAMILY COOKBOOK, which included a facsimile of a long letter dated 1899, from Pearl Snipes of Benevolence, Georgia, to her beau Oscar Morrison. Pearl tells Oscar how she received his previous letter while she was at dinner and couldn't eat another bite. Sister teased her about the contents of Oscar's letter, so Pearl ran and shut herself in the other room. The family stood at the door and tried to get her to tell what was in the letter, but she wouldn't reveal a word. She is relieved to have it confirmed that Oscar hasn't been sporting about with another woman. She asks Oscar to give everyone her love and "keep a double portion for yourself." Mom said, "She was forward, wasn't she?" I said, defending Pearl Snipes, "She was his intended!" The letter was signed, "Your devoted intended." I think I have most of that correct. You can't remove the books from the genealogy room, so you have to stuff all the details into your head. Neither Mom nor I had thought to bring pen or paper. I will add that Pearl Snipes placed charmingly arbitrary phrases in quotation marks, kind of like Mattie in TRUE GRIT. The cookbook had a recipe that called for sixteen cucumbers and water with "enough salt to float an egg." There was also a recipe for "Bohemian Coffee Cake," which Mom wanted to copy for Dr. Theresa, having determined with one of Mom's favored genealogy websites that Dr. Theresa is, in part, of Bohemian descent. I said that the coffee cake probably wasn't ACTUALLY Bohemian (there was a recipe for "Martha Washington Cake" with cherry Jell-O, and I don't think Martha Washington ate that) plus there were many stern warnings posted, as I have already noted, about removing materials from the room. As we were leaving the library, whom should we encounter but Carla, who used to work at Square Books, but has recently become a librarian, long a fond wish of hers. Carla showed us her "staff picks" selection, which included my first book. How nice! I know she had lost all hope of ever seeing me at the library. I ran into Carla at the City Grocery Bar and she upbraided me for not being the faithful library patron I had sworn myself to be. She had never seen me there. So it was a sincere "staff pick," I think, with no thought I would ever hear of it. She put me on the shelf with THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, one of my favorite books, and QUEEN OF EARTH, a good movie (pictured). So I felt all right. And I was like, "Hey, Mom, look at that!" Carla told us that the genealogy room is an entity entirely separate from the public library, though housed in the same building - hence the many prohibitions. It has always been empty, in my experience, and running on the honor system, I suppose. There are a number of butterscotch-colored molded plastic chairs stacked up high and teetering in there, and some boxy, dead-looking computers. And Dennis the Menace panels in acrylic stands on the tables, for reasons that elude me. The Snipes family is mightily represented in several thick binders, though as far as I can tell they have no connection whatsoever to Oxford. There is so much Snipes material scattered around that I briefly wondered (though knowing full well the contrary truth) whether the Snipeses were some undiscovered inspiration for the Snopeses.

More True Stories From Real Life

Guess what Ace Atkins got me for Christmas. Why, that's right! An owl costume to sleep in. How did you know? Anyway, it's definitely not weird, at least we can all agree on that. Last night I put on my owl costume and tried to talk about something important with Dr. Theresa. She said, "It's hard to take you seriously when your owl eyebrows are askew." I said, "Oh!" and tried to fix my owl eyebrows. Dr. Theresa said, "Can I tell you something?" I said, "What?" She said, "You're not a real owl." It hurt! In other news, I was slicing some cherry tomatoes yesterday when from out of nowhere the song "Cheeseburger In Paradise" got stuck in my head. Now, this is not a song I find enjoyable or "good." It must have lain dormant in my brain for decades, like the ultimate evil. And there it was. The tomatoes triggered it. It was like when the Cylons got activated! I kept singing, "I like mine with lettuce and tomato, Heinz 57 and french fried potato." And today that song continued to be stuck in my head. And I am afraid I sang a snatch of it some moments ago and Dr. Theresa begged me to stop, announcing that she hates the word "taters." I thought I knew all the words Dr. Thersea hated. But this was a new one. In addition, I protested that the lyrics referred to "french fried potato," not "taters." Dr. Theresa apologized and said that she thought I had been singing "taters." I sat down and thought long and hard about things.

Mayonnaise Bildungsroman

You know who likes condiments? Dr. Theresa! So I got her about 25 condiments from around the world for her birthday. I gave them to her a month early or so, because I was tired of hiding condiments all around the house and also I was like, we should use these before they expire! Maybe under a bed is not the best spot for mayonnaise! Here, pictured, are just a few of the condiments. Maybe you don't think olives are condiments. Maybe I agree! But even if you subtract the olives, there were still about 25 condiments in the birthday package. Just yesterday we realized how many of the condiments we haven't even tried yet... lots! (And that's why I put some yuzu mayonnaise on a ham sandwich yesterday... not the best combo, though going in having no idea what a "yuzu" was - I just took a chance and squirted it on there - I was pleasantly surprised by the bright orange flavor. But not on a ham sandwich. But I ate it. Maybe it would be good in chicken salad...? Don't listen to me! I'm an idiot!) Of the condiments we have tried, I feel comfortable telling you the top four. I'm not sure I have the order right. Nor am I sure Dr. Theresa would agree. 4. Farmer's Daughter Salty Dog Marmalade. That is a fine marmalade! Let me tell you something about April McGreger, maker of the Farmer's Daughter Salty Dog Marmalade. I met her at a Southern Foodways Symposium several years ago, when they were handing out biscuits with her fig preserves on them. Ladies and gentlemen, not since my childhood had I tasted fig preserves SO EXACTLY LIKE my grandmother's fig preserves! I ordered jars for everyone in my family for Christmas, that's how good they were, and how close to home. I'm not sure Ms. McGreger has ever made exactly those fig preserves again. The last batch I saw for sale had bourbon in them, I think. My grandmother wouldn't have done that! The point is, April McGreger and her staff make different stuff every season, based on whatever is fresh and available in abundance. I NEVER (never?) advertise places to buy things on this "blog" but I am going to "link" to Farmer's Daughter. Get one of everything! The Salty Dog Marmalade has grapefruit and juniper and sea salt in it, and I rank it only at "4" because I guess - like ordinary marmalade - there are just a few truly proper things to smear it on. But I could be wrong! Maybe my imagination is insufficient. Anyway, it's amazing marmalade. We also use the Farmer's Daughter Sweet Potato/Habanero hot sauce a lot. 3. "Cereal Terra" (that's the brand) "ketchup piccante." I am afraid it has ruined us for other ketchups. Like, yesterday we broke out an "artisanal ketchup" (I guess) from the birthday batch to try on our hash browns and Dr. Theresa remarked "This is like tomato paste" when compared with the spicy flavor of Cereal Terra Ketchup Piccante (and yes, there are two c's in piccante, because it's Italian, I guess). So Dr. Theresa had to drown the inferior ketchup with a layer of ketchup piccante. I told you she likes condiments! She might rank the Cereal Terra Ketchup Piccante higher on this list. 2. Edmond Fallot Walnut Dijon Mustard. It's from, you know, France! And it has walnuts in it. And it goes on and in everything, which contributes to its high ranking. And it tastes so good you can eat a spoonful of it out of the jar. 1. Duke's Mayonnaise. For much of my life I "hated" mayonnaise. Let's analyze me! Was it because my mom would never put mayonnaise in our school lunches? She was afraid it would spoil before lunchtime! Nor, if we were going to the beach or on a picnic or anything like that (did we ever go on a picnic?), would anything with mayonnaise be included, for similar reasons. So perhaps from a young age I associated mayonnaise with danger. Ha ha ha! Or is it that I thought it was a food for "country people" (of which I was one)? My grandparents liked a spoonful of mayonnaise on a slice of fresh tomato or (as Tom Franklin and I, with our nearly identical backgrounds, have reminisced) a soft canned pear-half, with some cheese grated over it. Maybe I aspired to be too sophisticated for such rustic fare! Or maybe I didn't like mayonnaise. Maybe I wanted to be a big shot! But all through life I had to admit that mayonnaise was the only thing for a classic BLT, and maybe that is where I allowed my secret (even to me) craving for mayonnaise to express itself! Maybe I started to crack some time in the 90s. Is that when every restaurant started serving supposed "aioli"? And I was like, "Hey, this is mayonnaise!" I have heard many "food people" talk about Duke's mayonnaise. I have heard John Currence wax rhapsodically about the "old Duke's mayonnaise factory." And when I ate dinner at the James Beard House in New York City, they gave out packets of Duke's mayonnaise in the gift baskets we received upon departure. Still I resisted mayonnaise. Not anymore! We have already used a whole big jar of Duke's mayonnaise and started another. That's right, I bought it in bulk. In bulk!

Abating the Transmission

Sitting at the bar at the Lamar Lounge with Derrick Harriell yesterday, talking about Joe Louis because Derrick wrote a whole series of poems about the man, and I suddenly remembered that we studied Joe Louis in 4th grade Alabama history. Here is what I remember about 4th grade Alabama history. We studied the notable people of Alabama, who apparently were Helen Keller, Joe Louis, George Washington Carver and William Crawford Gorgas. Yesterday, talking to Derrick, I couldn't definitively remember anything about William Crawford Gorgas except his name, or so I thought. I told Derrick "I think he did something with yellow fever or malaria." Well, I looked him up on wikipedia today and it turns out he is known for "abating the transmission of yellow fever and malaria" at the Panama Canal. So I guess 4th grade history really stuck! Way to go, Ms. Matthews! The main thing I remember about my 4th grade teacher Ms. Matthews (I think we were still saying "Miss Matthews" not "Ms." then, but in Alabama it sounds like "Miz" either way) is that she loved the Miami Dolphins and talked about them all the time. All she did was talk about how much she loved Larry Csonka. And William Crawford Gorgas, I guess. Also, I guess she was the first teacher I had a crush on. The previous ones (except Polly Cherry, my happily named kindergarten teacher) were comforting and grandmotherly, but hardly crush material. Wow, this is self-indulgent. Well, you're reading a "blog" so I don't feel sorry for you. This "post" is really only for Hogan, who loves all 4th grade memories of everyone thanks in part to the noble influence of Lynda Barry. The other thing I recall (I'm pretty sure) from 4th grade Alabama history is these lyrics - and almost no others - of the Alabama state song: "Fair thy Coosa, Tallapoosa." Ha ha! Sounds dirty (though I never would have thought that at the time). But it is a paean to rivers, like FINNEGANS WAKE. I believe the state song also has a line about orange trees, which always confused me. Does Alabama have a lot of orange trees? I loved singing "Fair thy Coosa, Tallapoosa," but always felt ambivalent at best when I got to the part about orange trees (if that part actually exists). There's an Alabama town named Satsuma, which is also a kind of citrus fruit.

Certain Musty Old Letters

You know whenever I go on a little plane trip I like to jot down some things about it to tell you when I get back and then you don't read it and I don't really care. Sometimes I get lazy and don't jot until the trip is practically half over. But this time I STARTED JOTTING BEFORE THE TRIP EVEN BEGAN. I was sitting on the couch, waiting for time to go to the airport, and the Fox Movie Channel was on and I took out my special jotting notebook and start jotting down some things about this scene in this Doris Day movie that was on. Doris Day wore a backless, sparkling orange dress. A fat German guy was swatting grapes into the air for some reason. One grape fell into the butt section of Doris Day's dress and she inadvertently started a "dance craze" by trying to shake the grape out of her butt. I was thinking about how smutty everything used to be. I couldn't think of what to read on the airplane. I was really hoping for ANCIENT EVENINGS, but Bill Boyle isn't back from his trip home yet, and anyway he writes me that he has lost the tattered old copy of ANCIENT EVENINGS he had when he was a teenager, and which he had planned to bequeath to me. So I impulsively grabbed THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL - this despite my reservations about VILLETTE as good airplane material, and VILLETTE was by Charlotte Brontë; THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL is by Anne, the Brontë nobody likes! Ha ha, just kidding, Anne Brontë. But one of the first things I read at the airport was this: "It is a soaking, rainy day, the family are absent on a visit, I am alone in my library, and have been looking over certain musty old letters and papers, and musing on past times... having withdrawn my well-roasted feet from the hobs, wheeled round to the table, and indicted the above lines to my crusty old friend..." Well, that is just the kind of thing I want to read on an airplane. Something about the hobs really got to me, and I don't even know what hobs are! My mellow mood was abetted by gin, my go-to remedy for fear of flying. I eavesdropped on a woman who was ordering crab cakes at the "Sun Studios" themed bar at the airport (!) and the book made me think of how Kelly Hogan and I used to write letters all the time, back when people wrote letters all the time, and how Hogan recently told me she keeps mine in a waterlogged suitcase in her once-flooded garage and sometimes she takes them out. Oh no, I said, don't remind yourself needlessly of the inanities of that callow twerp, and Hogan clarified: "I don't read them - I smell them." An intoxicating brew of moldy sentiments! I was met at the airport by some grad students from the University of Cincinnati, where I was set to speak. I should thank them all, and especially the ones who drove me around while I was there and tended to my every need, and who, in fact, were responsible for my invitation: Luke, Steph, Justine, and Woody - and there were so many more, all nice. Luke and Woody were waiting by baggage claim with a huge poster with my name on it - decorated as well with several startling portraits of me, drawn by Luke's undergrads. They had been reading my short stories in Luke's class and he asked them to draw what they thought I looked like. One had given me a neck tattoo! Another, according to Luke (I haven't yet had a chance to examine the poster in detail, though Luke says he is mailing it to me) wrote her phone number on the poster, and "Call me" - ha ha ha! Woody and Luke drove me into the city, remarking cheerfully as we went over a bridge, "Obama cited this as a dangerous bridge that needs work." I shouted repeatedly to Woody and Luke that I wanted to go "somewhere fancy" for dinner. They said they'd take me to "the fancy hot dog place." Maybe they were kidding, but it WAS a fancy hot dog place, though not pretentious like some other fancy hot dog places I have heard about. It was called Mayday, very welcoming and comfortable, with excellent beer, friendly service and a pleasant, dark atmosphere. My hot dog contained lamb sausage made with cherries! So you will have to admit that was fancy. Somehow people already knew when I walked in the door of the fancy hot dog place about my work with ADVENTURE TIME. Someone wanted me to sign an apron for the kitchen. "My favorite is Lady Rainicorn," she said. She kind of went "Ah!" when I started drawing something at the bottom of my inscription, but it was just a stupid heart with an arrow through it. I'm the only person associated with ADVENTURE TIME who can't draw, reliably disappointing all I meet. It's understandable and even delightful to me that the students at "literary events" now are more interested in ADVENTURE TIME than in my books, which are but dubiously in print - in fact, I have a lawyer working right now to discover who is getting that tiny kickback on the rare occasion when a copy is sold. It's not me! I stayed in a nice bed and breakfast near the campus. My vivid and relentless dreams that first night took place - as if I were awake - in the actual room where I was sleeping, and were populated by humorous, cherubic ghosts or pixies who wanted to remind me whenever I became too relaxed that THEY were in charge. The room and bed were very comfortable, let me stress. But I was tormented all night by mirthful pixies - a first for me - and was tired for the reading. I didn't really want to read from any of my old, dead books, so I read from my cat book that no one wants to publish. As I was preparing my selections - the introduction, part of Chapter One, and the conclusion - I realized that most of the book has been published in bits and pieces, as I've cut it up and used it in lots of different stories and articles and the like. I'm sorry, sort of, that it's never going to appear whole, as "my cat book," though I see in retrospect it is perhaps unwise to write a 10-chapter novel in which nothing happens until the last half of Chapter Eight - a little wholesome advice I was able to impart to the young writers who attended the reading! In the Q&A and in her poetry, my fellow reader Marisa Crawford made some good points in favor of the use of pop culture in literature. One of her poems had Joan Crawford in it (and another made telling use of NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET PART FIVE!) so I was glad that by coincidence I was reading the Joan Crawford section of my "cat book." After the reading, a bar. I sat with two other grown men - the head of the English department and the poetry editor of the Cincinnati Review - and we all talked about our kitties. I noticed that the openly sentimental discussion halted when Chris Bachelder came back to the table! Or maybe I imagined that. Did he exude the air of a man who would not tolerate such weakness? He was friendly and funny. But the cat talk did cease with his approach. Mr. Bachelder is a writer whose fiction I have always enjoyed and admired. I was meeting him for the first time, and we had fun trashing various McSweeney's editors. Ha ha! Not trashing. Affectionately ruminating upon their individual styles and methods. The conclusion of my cat book was published in McSweeney's, and I mentioned how the editor had made me change "solar plexus" to "abdomen." The poet at the table (Don Bogen) kindly took up for "solar plexus." Then we talked about why I had cravenly reverted to "abdomen" during the reading that day even though I had brought an old manuscript with "solar plexus" typed on the page. The strange tyranny of the absent editor! The next morning at the bed and breakfast I sat there reading this in THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL: "I thought it but reasonable to make some slight exertion to render my company agreeable." And I thought, yes, THAT is the kind of sentence I want to write all the time, and no other, editors can go to hell. And then Anne Brontë introduced some complicated plot business about trying to fetch a ball of cotton that had rolled under a table without disturbing a cat. WHY CAN'T ALL WRITING BE THAT? But that was the next day. The night before, as the students were about to leave the bar, I had the sudden urge to inquire, "Where do you go to sing karaoke in Cincinnati?" Luke knew. So a group of us walked some blocks to a gritty, narrow, cash-only joint called, with refreshing lack of irony, Junker's Tavern. Here is a picture of some of us getting ready to go to Junker's Tavern. That's Justine and Luke.

I'm in the middle, doing my thing where I think it's hilarious to look surly in a photo, but it never is. It was a good evening, though I got tired and made Steph and Luke leave before they could do "Mambo #5." Back at the bed and breakfast, the ghosts returned only once in a dream, as parody ghosts with greenish faces and CARNIVAL OF SOULS style dark rings under their eyes, but dressed in colorful rags, shouting, "God bless us, every one!" with Cockney accents and well-meaning but gruesome smiles.

On the plane back, the narrator of THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL was saying, "I was by no means a fop - of that I am fully convinced" and I was like, "Right, pal, keep telling yourself that!"

RBG

Tonight's episode has aired (except in the Pacific Time Zone, but I don't think there are any spoilers here), so I thought someone might stumble across this "blog" while struggling to answer the vexing question, "Who is this jerk and how did he get to do a voice on ADVENTURE TIME?" I am that jerk and I will tell you. I started writing for the show way back in October of 2012. My old friend Kent Osborne, who is the "Head of Story" for ADVENTURE TIME, called out of the blue and asked if I wanted to give it a try. My first instinct was to say no! I didn't know how to write for cartoons. I knew Kent worked for the show, and I had watched and enjoyed a few episodes with my nephews, because it was their favorite show, but I didn't feel qualified. Kent said not to worry, it was just a two-week freelance job. So I said okay. I have hardly ever turned down a quick freelance job! I didn't know that those two weeks were secretly a kind of audition to see how I got along in the writers' room. I got along fine because everyone was nice as pie. And so the assignment turned into steady employment, for which I am grateful. It's the best job ever! I live in Mississippi. Three times a week I meet with my friends in Burbank by video. We just make up stories and talk about feelings and that's about it. Well, there is also a good deal of typing. One of the coolest parts of the experience for me was when my dad helped out with the "We Fixed a Truck" episode. For some reason I recall with special fondness and clarity a chat that Adam Muto and I had about Klarion the Witchboy and his mystical cat Teekl, two characters from Jack Kirby's comic book THE DEMON, not that it yielded anything for use in the show, nor was it meant to. But as often as not the germs of episodes are contained in such random digressions. Very occasionally I will travel to Los Angeles and go to the office in person. (And once Pen and Kent came to Mississippi.) I flew out to read my "Root Beer Guy" lines for tonight's episode. ADVENTURE TIME is recorded mostly like an old-time radio play, with a bunch of people standing in a booth together, stationed at separate microphones. But how did I get the part? Kent suggested I do it, that's all. I didn't think it would really happen. The name "Stephen King" was bounced around as another possibility, but he was never approached. I think Adam asked me during a conference, "Do you think you could do it?" And I answered with joking bravado, "I AM ROOT BEER GUY," paraphrasing Flaubert on the subject of Madame Bovary, ha ha ha, oh boy, what fun we're having now. I should emphasize that the idea for the Root Beer Guy story was all Pen's - that's Pendleton Ward, creator of the show - and brilliantly fleshed-out and brought to life by storyboard artist/writer Graham Falk. Incidentally, I met Owen King, one of the writer sons of Stephen King, at City Grocery Bar during the annual book conference we have in my town. You should come! Kent came to the book conference once! I almost said to Owen King, "I beat out your dad for a role!" But instead I didn't say anything. ("Click" here for another example of something I didn't say.) In the first place it wasn't strictly true, and in the second place it is usually best to keep your fat mouth shut. The only reason I even thought of it was because of how much Mr. King's voice resembled his father's. Now, how did Anne Heche end up playing "Cherry Cream Soda"? After we finished the outline I blurted (fairly inaccurately) that Cherry Cream Soda's part was something like Anne Heche's in DONNIE BRASCO. And Kent cried out, "Let's get Anne Heche!" Because he's kind of obsessed with her, I guess you'd say, though it is a harsh word with which to describe Kent's gentle fascination. And then they got her! And she did it. She was amazing! The genuine emotion with which she imbued her lines gave me no choice but to actually try. So I tried. And now you know as much as I do about life. How sad.

Kerouac Pie Calculation

"... apple pie and ice cream in a roadside stand... I ate another apple pie and ice cream... I knew it was nutritious and it was delicious, of course... I ate apple pie and ice cream - it was getting better as I got deeper into Iowa, the pie bigger, the ice cream richer... she made the sweetest cherry pie in Nebraska, and I had some with a mountainous scoop of ice cream on top." In Chapter 3 of ON THE ROAD, there is a serving of pie and ice cream every 2 1/2 pages!

A Big Year For Gold Lamé Banjo Straps

Recently I was up before dawn watching Porter Wagoner again. He was wearing a red shirt and a green jacket with sparkling yellow ears of corn represented. And for some reason he was holding up a big, scary picture of Jack Palance, which surprised me. Turned out Jack Palance was there to sing some songs! And the big, scary picture was Jack Palance's album cover! So Jack Palance sang "Green, Green Grass of Home." Here is a picture of him singing on the very show. My one regret is that his microphone hand is blocking a proper view of his ascot. His singing voice was not the most accurate in regard to pitch. Sometimes he half-talked it. He was dramatic to make up for his problem staying in tune. For example, "Down the road I look and here comes Mary/ Hair of GOLD! and lips like CHERRIES!/ It's GOOD! to touch the green, green grass of home." Mr. Palance came back out later and sang a song about beating a man to death with a chain! For real! His rhythm slipped and he got a fraction behind the beat but the band just kept plugging along, trying to help him out. He and Porter exchanged the most halfhearted pleasantries I have ever witnessed. Porter had to remind Jack Palance to hold the microphone to his mouth when he talked. On this episode, Porter Wagoner's band wore solid pink suits with white shoes and sparkling purple ties. A featured banjo player had a sparkling golden banjo strap. He did a neat trick in which he would bend the notes his banjo was playing by adjusting the tuning keys while continuing to pick with admirable rapidity. Dolly Parton sang a song. She was great. Her guitar strap appeared to be fashioned of gold lamé. The capsule description of the episode indicated that it was from 1970.

Foodstuffs!

Welcome once again to "Foodstuffs!" Today in "Foodstuffs!" news, it looks like "Blog" Buddy John Currence is over there on the CNN "web" site talking about aspic. Also, pimento cheese, which reminds me of a great sandwich I'd like to tell you about. I used silky pimento cheese, bread from the Honey Bee Bakery and Jimmy Lowe's Sweet Cherry Fire brand pickles, bringing together the utterly distinct foodways of Alabama and Mississippi into one transcendent glory never again to be duplicated in our lifetimes. Food scholars of the future will no doubt examine the contents of my stomach and call it "Bamassippi Cuisine." By the way, I saw Shannon of Honey Bee Bakery fame the other night and told her how much I had enjoyed some tomatoes on a salad, and she said, "I grew those tomatoes." No joke! She did! That is the kind of attention to detail - the kind of COMMITMENT! - you get at the Honey Bee Bakery. Pictured, quivering aspic, NOT made by John Currence! It has a robot in it! What, ARE THEY TAKING OVER OUR ASPIC TOO?

Cherry Flavored Space Commander

Once again I violate my own rule and add a new photo to the memory banks of my dangerously overstuffed computing machine. I hereby give you Laura Lippman's "heavy glass robot." But as you can see, he is not a robot at all! He is clearly some sort of space commander. Another correction: the same "heavy glass robot" "post" was poorly worded on my part, and I made it sound as if I would have poured the robot (sic) down the sink. Clearly, I meant the cough syrup. But ha ha! The confusion reminds me of an old James Thurber joke. See, a guy has a large, lurid bump on his head and his friend asks why. "My wife threw tomatoes at me," comes the reply. The friend is astounded and bemused! How could tomatoes cause such an injury? The first man says, "They were still in the can." Thurber told it better. The "blog" regrets the errors.

Oatmeal Tips

Here it is, the edition of "Oatmeal Tips" you've been waiting for. Novelist Mark Childress claims that he is going to lay down for you to dig (though not in those words; those unfortunate words are mine) the recipe for the best oatmeal ever in the universe, so take it away, Mark! And we quote: "You gotta have McCann's in the metal can. You gotta precook it by boiling 4 c of water and stirring in 1 c of oatmeal, turn it off and let it sit overnight. Then you put in a bowl some frozen pineapple, peaches, blueberries, and/or cherries. A sprinkle of cinnamon and nutmeg. Cover with the oatmeal from yesterday. Zap it in the 'wave 9 minutes. Add butter, sugar, honey, etc., to taste. World's best, nolo contendere." We believe that Mr. Childress is the first "oatmeal tipper" to throw some Latin into the mix. In a followup communique he requests that we "emphasize McCann's and not some granola lovin' Whole Foods knockoff. It's the award winning steel cut that is critical." Do YOU have what it takes to be an "oatmeal tipper" like Mark Childress? Then send your oatmeal tips to "Oatmeal Tips" c/o "Writer" Oxford, MS 38655.

"Blog"trospective 5: Sandwiches

Welcome to Volume V of "'Blog'trospectives," your handy reference guide to the world of the "blog." Our subject is sandwiches. Please browse the index at your leisure, "clicking" lazily here and there. SANDWICHES: alternating mortadella and roast beef---anchovy and egg---anthropomorphic hot dog licking its lips---as symbolic of something no word can describe---as traditional Labor Day fare---at Bobcat Drive-In---baloney in library parking lot---barbecue with slaw, eaten by Lewis Nordan before running away from home---Bendix, William; juicy hot dog stabbed and inspected by---"Big Easy"---big slice of pork, golden brown---bite of ribeye tucked into a Yorkshire pudding, a---BLT---Bogart, Humphrey; eats a sandwich---board---Boom Boom Chicken---Brooks, Foster, enjoys one with a cup of coffee---burgers; destiny of---butter and sugar---butter and sugar in the works of Whorton, Powell, Morrison, and Lee---catfish, bonus---catfish hot dogs---catfish, very likely ersatz---cheeseburger from Handy Andy's (actually a double cheeseburger)---"Cheeseburger in Paradise"---cheesesteaks, possible---chicken salad---chili burgers---chopped-up hot dogs on a waffle---club named "Club Sandwich"---cocktail franks---cold dogs---cold weenies---condiments potentially misremembered---Coney Island hot dog hoax---connection posited between hypothetical hamburger restaurant and alchemy---construction of hot dog observed---consumed at the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair---creme---Cuban---cucumber, with Lizzie Borden---Dagwood---dancing---dancing sandwiches no laughing matter---diablo---double cheeseburger constructed from two single cheeseburgers---double cheeseburgers the night before Thanksgiving---Dudie burger---during a CHEERS rerun---Eagle Rock hot dogs---Earl of---ease of consumption postulated---eaten in presence of a young man with a walking stick, white clown makeup, derby---egg---falling down with hot dogs---fancifully imagined ham sandwich, a---fancy hot dog place---farewell cheeseburgers---feeding a tuna fish sandwich to a possum---fierce-colored hot dogs---football game hot dog---Francis, Kay; wants a drink, is offered a sandwich instead---Frankenstuffs (sandwich ingredient)---Freeman, Morgan; talk of hamburgers leads to sighting of---Freudian hot dog---fried peanut butter and banana---from Alon's Bakery---Gannon, Bill, and---generous salami---giant hot dog crashes into somebody's house in Wisconsin---"great sandwiches of English literature"---grilled cheese---grilled cheese in a secret bar---Habib's hamburgers (Brasil)---ham on rye---ham sandwich used as example in early 20th-century newspaper article---hamburger delusion---hamburger fetched by a scarecrow---hamburger meat as pink and moist as Mario Batali's forehead---hamburger murder scandal---hamburger, raw---hamburgers with Elliot Gould---head in one hand; sandwich in the other---herring---home hot dog cooker---Host, Jon; burger problem of---hot dog at a Mummenschanz show---hot dog bread pudding---hot dog eaten in someone's apartment, circa 1976---hot dog fed to a possum (attempted)---Hot Dog Island---HOT DOG (kids' show)---hot dog preference of Bizarro superdog---hot dog with lots of mustard displayed and subsequently consumed by Dr. Theresa at Turner Field---hot dogs cooked by "Hot Stuff the Li'l Devil"---hot dogs named after Joe Mantegna characters---hot dogs with mustard and sauerkraut in the parking lot of the Clermont Lounge---"Hot Portobello Sub"---hypothetical cheeseburger of Kent Osborne---hypothetical smoked sausage---Ice Cube's pastrami---Impossible Cheeseburger Pie---in the works of Ingmar Bergman---in the works of Ingmar Bergman, Part 2---"International Newspaper Sandwich Award"---Italian beef---Italian beef combo---Ito, Elizabeth; is reminded of the time we ate hot dogs together---Jackie O.'s hot dogs---Jackie O.'s hot dogs (correction)---J.J. Special---Kelly, Grace; eats unidentified sandwich---kid wearing Jughead hat prepares to eat hot dog---lamb sausage made with cherries---leftover Christmas ham and pimento cheese (grilled)---leftover roast---lemongrass-roasted pork po-boy with crawfish---Lobel's hot dogs---Luke makes Lorelai a hamburger shaped like Santa on GILMORE GIRLS---made by Joey Lauren Adams---mail drop facility has name like sandwich shop---man who "can't even fry a hambuger," a---margarine and sugar---marinated chicken sub; discontinuation of---marinated chicken sub; last---"McNeil Month by Month" and---metaphorical hamburger---more chiliburgers---muffaletta---mustard and American cheese---Namath, Joe; eats a stolen sandwich---National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, The---Neutral Milk Hotel plays while I eat a hamburger---no sandwiches on the planet Thanagar---"Olsen sandwich"---on ADVENTURE TIME---on TV---Orange Julius hamburger---Osborne, Kent; eats chicken sandwich during video conference---Osborne, Kent; eats hot dog in Chicago (photo)---"Osborne, The"---Osborne Sandwich mistaken for Pendarvis Sandwich---Ossie's Bar-B-Que and Hamburgers---patty melt, my last---peanut butter in the dark---perfect patty melt---pig ear, thousands of---pimento cheese---Pink's hot dogs---plovers' egg---preference of Harrison Ford for finger sandwiches---prevalence of on "internet"---priest, a; appears while I am waiting for my Osborne Sandwich---Queen's favorite sandwich, the---quest for greatest fast-food hamburger, dimly recalled---rib, with bone---Sandwich, Joe---Saunders, George, eats a corn dog---sausage dog---"Scary Gyros"---sentient---Sheen, Martin; furtively clutches a bag of burgers---Silverstone, Alicia; egg salad sandwiches of---slabs of prime rib as big as terra cotta roof tiles---spies eat sandwiches---split by Bob and Dolores Hope on their first date---Stang's hot dogs---Steak Scrap---square hot dogs---Superman eats like a million hamburgers---Superman roasts hot dogs with his eyes---Superman squats and hunches over as he shovels hamburgers into his mouth---swimming champion in a commercial for---tasty-looking burger, a---Taylor, Elizabeth; cooks hot dogs---Thompson, Wright; presence of glows benevolently over sandwich eating---too abundant---treacle on bread---"Tropical Hot Dog Night"---"tubesteak" as another word for hot dog---tuna sandwich remembered to inspire nickname on sitcom---turtle hot dog---Tweety---unprotected---used in international smuggling operations---Varsity chili dogs---Verdell steps on some sandwich meat---Weenie Whirl---wrapped in newsprint---yuzu mayo on a ham sandwich. Thank you. Please don't forget to enjoy our previous "blog"trospectives. Collect them all! Trade with your friends! VOLUME I: Tom Franklin; VOLUME II: Phil Oppenheim; VOLUME III: Movies; VOLUME IV: The Moon.