Animal Friends

I know what you're asking. Did we spend part of our 30th anniversary celebration as you might expect, revisiting the grim site of the miserable death of Meriwether Lewis, which we accidentally discovered on a prior anniversary trip? Yes and no. We paid tribute to it as we drove by, sending good wishes aloud to Meriwether Lewis's ghost, but we were too busy thinking about how we hadn't eaten all day, and we were eager to reach our destination. Sorry, Meriwether Lewis! Now I'll fill you in on the rest of our trip in a massive, unreadable, unbroken chunk of text, such as has been a "blog" tradition for more than 19 years, God help us all. We saw lots of cool animals, including a donkey and a goat who seemed to be good friends. At one point we were stopped at a traffic light behind a huge tanker truck, and printed on the rear of the tank were the words - and only these words - THE WORLD'S BEST COFFEE. "Is that full of coffee?" I blurted idiotically, causing Dr. Theresa to laugh for the next 10 miles. In the instant, I meant it! You may recall that my brain was famously stunned into a stupor at a not entirely distant point in the past. You'd think it would have fixed itself by now! The truck was full of fuel, of course, which it was carrying, no doubt, to a convenience store/gas station purporting to serve THE WORLD'S BEST COFFEE. There is no conceivable reason to fill a tanker truck with coffee. One night we had a great dinner and walked back to the hotel, where, on the previous evening, we had sat in the lobby bar and gazed across at an elegant recess filled with a different kind of furniture, and upon that furniture there sat a man who Dr. Theresa swore was the late Truman Capote. Anyway, we vowed at the time that we would go sit in that elegant recess with the nice furniture on a future evening. Well! I thought it was time. Dr. Theresa wasn't so sure. I kept saying how much fun it would be to sit in the elegant recess and "people watch." Finally, I talked her into it. She sat there grudgingly sipping a ranch water as I tried out a towering wingback chair such as Mr. Burns might use on THE SIMPSONS. Anyway, we were sitting there like that when a woman in leather pants walked by and did a double take. Then she came back and - Dr. Theresa reenacted this gesture often in the aftermath - sort of displayed her palms and circled them in the air as if trying to encompass her wondrous vision (me). "You look regal!" she informed me from across the lobby. So I looked at Dr. Theresa like, "Huh? Huh? I guess 'people watching' was the greatest idea ever!" She laughed and we realized we were feeling pretty great, so we went up to the room and ordered an after-dinner pizza. That's right! We decided we were even because recently the guy who was restocking the greeting cards at Walmart tried to pick up Dr. Theresa. I don't think he was wearing leather pants. In the morning, Dr. Theresa had a few things to take care of, so I went downstairs before her to get some coffee and wait for her to join me for breakfast. As I would be alone for a short time, I brought along my anniversary reading material, Seneca's version of OEDIPUS, translated by Emily Wilson, because I know how to have a good time. A guy got on the elevator with me and said, "You a stoic fan?" I didn't know what the hell he was talking about until I looked down and recollected the Seneca book in my hand. I said, "Sure." He said something about admiring Seneca's letters and I replied, and I think this is an exact quotation, "Yeah, well, the plays are nasty." Thus ended our discussion of stoicism. Sitting there with my coffee, I started thinking about that book I read about ancient Greece not too long ago, from which I learned that the hyper-masculine bros of the "manosphere" are really into the Stoics these days. I wondered, was that guy a "manosphere" guy? Did he think I was part of his special "manosphere"? Well, it's my own fault for carrying around a collection of Seneca tragedies like some kind of secret handshake. As Oedipus says in Emily Wilson's translation, "The guilt of my times is mine." On the way back home, Jon Langford called, and I answered Dr. Theresa's cellphone because she was driving. See, Dr. Theresa is bringing Jon here (to Oxford, Mississippi) for some events soon, including a concert on Saturday the 25th, which you should really attend, though I know you don't exist. But anyway, please "click" on this "link" and get informed! I know you won't. So I kept getting disconnected and finally had to give up because we were tooling down the Natchez Trace, and for the first time in my life, I felt I was in that contrived horror-movie situation... as you know, in a contemporary setting, there must always be a reason for the protagonist's phone not to work. That seemed interesting when I started typing it. As we continued our journey home, the satellite radio with which our rental car came equipped began to play a song I could have sworn was called "Everybody Dance Now," but, as I learned from the accompanying dashboard display, is actually called "Gonna Make You Sweat," which I guess everyone knew but me. Dr. Theresa was very concerned when she believed she heard the narrator of the song declaring that he would make us, the listeners, "sweat until [we] bleed." Sweating until He bled is what the Savior did in the Garden of Gethsemane, as you probably know from Luke 22:44. Well, I looked it up when we got home and yes, the guy in that song wants people to sweat until they bleed. Is this a good way to end this "post"?

Oral Sumner Coad

You couldn't sleep last night! You were up tossing and turning, wondering about the connection between HENRY VI, PART 2 and MACBETH. It's my fault entirely! I don't apologize. Anyhow, I checked my copy of WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: A TEXTUAL COMPANION, an unwieldy volume crammed full of words in a tiny little font arranged in multiple columns across many hundreds of pages, which was of no use at all, as it informed me only of the unbridgeable gulf of time separating the composition of the two works, which seemed to confirm my decision to never care again about looking things up or anything else. But then I went to the “internet” and “clicked” lazily on the first relevant thing I saw: a 1923 letter from a person named Oral Sumner Coad to the academic journal (?) MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES. Writes Coad, “It is a commonplace of Shakespearean criticism that certain of the early plays contain characters or situations that were reemployed in expanded form in some of the later dramas... A resemblance which I have never seen mentioned may be detected between 2 Henry VI and Macbeth.” I’ve got your back, Oral Sumner Coad! And 102 years from now, someone else will bring it up again. Oral Sumner Coad cites three compelling chunks of parallel text from each play, which is more than I’ll ever do. I’m sorry that you’re certainly dead, Oral Sumner Coad!

Orange Vinyl Spider-Man Sequel

I finished reading THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES but no I didn’t. Because you get to the end of the first book and then you have to – by law! – read the next volume, which is called INTO THE MILLENNIUM, or, I suppose, THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES: INTO THE MILLENNIUM. Either way, it sounds like a Spider-Man sequel. I need to get over to Square Books and order it up! Meanwhile, the Million Dollar Book Club is working on THE RIGHT STUFF. And here’s what I noticed! Wally Schirra, one of the Mercury astronauts, is a real prankster. Like, he has a little box and tells people he caught a mongoose in it. Then when they try to reach in and pet it, well, it jumps at them like one of those snakes out of a peanut can. You know those snakes. Wally Schirra’s mongoose is some kind of furry sock on a spring. And that made me remember my short story collection MOVIE STARS, when a character goes to an auction and tries to buy a novelty mongoose in a box, operating on the same principle. I got out the catalog from the auction of Bob Hope's personal effects, which I actually attended, and confirmed that Bob’s mongoose box, as pictured in the aforementioned catalog, appears to professionally assembled, whereas Tom Wolfe sure made it sound as if the mongoose box was something Wally Schirra thought up and slapped together himself. I think that’s an accurate memory of my reading experience. But the book is downstairs by the bed and I don’t care enough to go get it. Then I started imagining whimsical fancies, such as, maybe Wally Schirra gave Bob his very own homemade mongoose box! Wouldn’t that be something? It doesn’t seem overwhelmingly plausible, really. Although I’m sure Bob Hope hung out with the Mercury astronauts at some point. Nor does it seem plausible, though, that Wally Schirra was manufacturing his own trick mongoose boxes when there were plenty of trick mongoose boxes, apparently, in the nation’s many novelty emporiums from coast to coast. Maybe Tom Wolfe got this one thing wrong! Unless! What if Wally Schirra saw a novelty mongoose box in a store and thought, "I could make this myself for half the price!"? I guess we'll never know. Speaking of stuff we'll never know, I noticed again that the Bob Hope auction catalog wasn’t too heavy on provenance, which reminded me that I wanted to check it, and not for the first time, to see if I could find a clue (I couldn’t) about what cartoonist made these clever Bob Hope caricatures I bought at the auction. When Quinn came to town, I was like, “Look, this guy made pictures of Bob Hope as if rendered by Goya… and, uh… [trying to think of some names of other artists]” And Quinn was like, “Are these supposed to look like Bob Hope?” And I was like… “!” Because of course! Why would Bob Hope have these hanging in his office if… and my voice, as well as my thoughts, trailed off as Quinn stood there with a doubtful look on her face. So let’s get back to THE RIGHT STUFF! As I texted Megan with photographic proof, I still have an orange vinyl 45 RPM record with recordings from the actual Mercury space flights. It came with my G.I. Joe space capsule, the interior of which glowed in the dark. I got scared and thought it was a ghost! Give me a break, I was three years old. (Speaking of Megan Abbott and Square Books [see above], I’ll be “in conversation” with Megan about her new book EL DORADO DRIVE on August 13. I wouldn’t mention it so early, but I just started reading it and on page 4 [of the galley, anyway] there’s a “bird crying in the night.” As a review of the owl-spotting portion of the “blog” will remind you, we have given much thought to the matter, and just because a bird cries in the night, that does not make the bird an owl. Maybe it’s just an upset bird. I’m not worried! There are plenty more pages to come that might have a definite owl in them.) But I really came here to report about THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES, didn’t I? I think it’s going to end up being JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS length. And contrary to my advice (usually about Thomas Mann), which is, essentially, read the first 200-400 pages and then you’ll be hooked, I was really bopping along with TMWQ for, oh, let’s say 200 pages… then I hit a real dry spell until page 630 (though, miner-like, I uncovered, here and there, random chunks of boldly glittering sarcasm that made it worth the trouble). So you have to get over a very big hump in the middle. Can you handle a 400-page hump? (Remember, this is just the first volume I’m talking about.) But when I got to page 630 I think I said out loud, “Things are starting to happen!” On page 630. Then the book was over not many pages later. Well, it was and it wasn’t.

Effort

I don't mean to brag, but I was walking on the beach on Christmas Eve, listening to an audiobook of FINNEGANS WAKE. I was listening to Chapter 10... wait! I must already interrupt this wonderful story that has you on the edge of your seat. It wasn't really Chapter 10. More to come on that in a moment. Anyway, I was listening to what I thought was Chapter 10, and, hey, do you remember the comical "French" accent I imposed on a character in my second book? Well, it sure sounded to me like James Joyce perpetrated the same offense, and in a remarkably similar style. So, suddenly, I was proud of myself instead of being so terribly ashamed. I decided that upon my return home, I would double check my physical copy of the book, which was given to me by a defrocked preacher when I worked in a bookstore in downtown Mobile, to see whether Joyce and I had indeed independently hit upon the same inaccurate and even potentially embarrassing method of presenting to the reader a comical "French" accent. And that is what I did, or tried to do. The first thing I noticed upon digging out the book was that there are no chapter headings. I have run into this problem before, notably when I was trying to teach BELOVED during my brief flirtation with doing that kind of thing. Authors! Please number your chapters. Don't be like James Joyce and Toni Morrison. Ha ha ha! What terrible advice. See also the travails of the Dune Book Club. As I leafed through FINNEGANS WAKE - and allow me to state, just to help you understand what I've been through, that the online index to FINNEGANS WAKE I found years ago is now nothing but a zombie "link"! - it seemed to me (as already hinted) that Joyce's chapters were longer than the "chapters" of the audiobook, which, though unabridged, had been broken into bite-sized chunks... bite-sized if you're a hippopotamus! But relatively bite-sized, making my search more of an effort, especially given the fact that I no longer care about anything. I did track it down, though: "you wish to ave some homelette... Your hegg he must break himself." Believe it or not, that's James Joyce, not me. From context, the speaker seems French, though there is some German sprinkled around the passage, too, just to drive me batty. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL! On Christmas Day I was walking along the beach again and the audiobook said to me, "it being Yuletide"... and it was! Dr. Theresa could not walk on the beach with me because she had twisted her ankle. I would not be listening to an audiobook of FINNEGANS WAKE were I pleasantly strolling hand-in-hand along a beach with Dr. Theresa. I am sure you will recall that the last time Dr. Theresa and I visited my parents, we saw a mink run across the road and a pig run across the road. This time, we saw nothing run across the road. While I was taking a bag of trash to a garbage chute, however, I saw a little bright pink lizard of a kind I have never seen before. I want to say it was a salamander, because I have always imagined salamanders - no doubt incorrectly - to be pink. I also saw this guy (above) on the day after Christmas. Oh! I forgot! So I also heard Joyce use "owl-wise," I thought, seeming to mean both "always" and "wise as an owl." And I checked! Like a hero! Just to satisfy myself. And neither my hearing nor my huffing and puffing brain had deceived me, though my brain had added a superfluous hyphen. I found "the eternals were owlwise on their side every time"... and let me state for the record that I do not believe James Joyce was referring to the Marvel superheroes The Eternals, created by Jack Kirby, though, of course, there are certain similarities (see also). I also thought (and still sort of think after consideration) that owlwise could have meant "as regards owls," as, for example, when somebody (is it Jack Lemmon?) in THE APARTMENT says, "That's the way it crumbles, cookie-wise."

Kitty... I Love You!

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

McNeil Special

Typing "McNeil Special" made me hungry for a J.J. Special, ha ha, good times, that allusion is only for me, not to mention which, it is the truth. Very similarly, and much like the time Public Enemy and Jerry Lewis appeared on the same episode of The Tonight Show, this "post" is only for McNeil. I am sure you will recall - because you are McNeil - McNeil's interest in the generational ubiquity of the "Globe Illustrated Shakespeare." That is why I snapped this photo of it (above) during a recent viewing of a film entitled MARRIED TO IT. For those who are not McNeil, if any, it is the chunky red number on the top visible shelf over Cybill Shepherd's head, characteristically daubed with gilt - the book, that is, not Cybill Shepherd's head, which is in need of no such embellishment.

The Ninety Paths to Jerry

Soon it will be Jerry Lewis's 90th birthday. So I have "punched up" an old "post." In the old days there were only fifty, but now there are NINETY different ways to approach Jerry, should you find him unapproachable. I present this as a public service. Choose the path that's right for you! 1. How is Edgar Allan Poe like Jerry Lewis? 2. For that matter, what would Kierkegaard say about Jerry Lewis? 3. Bob Dylan got "deeply into" Jerry Lewis. 4. Jerry was a hero to Richard Pryor. 5. Jerry shares expressionistic instincts with iconic rappers. 6. He made Orson Welles laugh. 7. Freudian aspects of Jerry. 8. He played a gig with Thelonious Monk. 9. A trusted method of immersing yourself in Jerryness. 10. Don't believe me? Take it from bestselling novelist Laura Lippman! 11. Don't believe Laura Lippman? Perhaps famed method actor Edward Norton is more to your taste. 12. Consider Jerry Lewis as the forefather of David Lynch. 13. So can it be a coincidence that Louis CK cast Lynch in a part originally written for Jerry Lewis? 14. As muse to hardboiled Don Carpenter. 15. Jerry's spectacular use of color. 16. Jerry is the inventor of anti-comedy, his aesthetic also appropriated by the cinematic underground. 17. Read the great Jerry monograph by Chris Fujiwara. 18. Jerry a hero to Michael Palin of the Monty Python comedy troupe. 19. Jerry an inspiration for the British version of THE OFFICE that everyone used to love so much. 20. Jerry makes me think of the French painter Henri Rosseau. 21. Do you think Jerry is redundant? No, he is "unfolding redundancy." Joke's on you!

22. Do you like Godard? Well, Godard based some of his scenes on Jerry Lewis scenes. Like this and that. 23. Some maintain that 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY would have been better with Jerry in it. 24. Speaking of which, was Jerry an influence on Boorman's groundbreaking POINT BLANK? I don't know, but he should have starred in it. 25. How about that prescient scene in THE BELLBOY that anticipates Scorsese's THE KING OF COMEDY? 26. The Cinderfella dance! 27. Jerry frequently appears in THE BELIEVER magazine, if that's your cup of tea. 28. I intuit a connection between Jerry and J.D. Salinger. 29. And supposedly Salinger considered Jerry to direct the movie version of CATCHER IN THE RYE, maybe. I said maybe! 30. Jerry's influence on GOODFELLAS. 31. Jerry Lewis is part of Philip K. Dick's mystic vision of the entire universe. 32. You should watch lots of Jerry Lewis so you can practice the fun habit of saying things like Jerry Lewis. 33. Even nature itself aspires to sound like Jerry Lewis. 34. Jerry Lewis is a good singer. 35. Maybe you identify with Jerry's world-weary attitude. 36. He hung out in a diner with Marilyn Monroe. 37. Blair Hobbs detects an aesthetic kinship between Jerry and the photographer William Eggleston. 38. Jerry was an inspiration to Bruce Springsteen. 39. Think of Jerry as a poet. 40. Need a dissertation topic? How about "Medical Ethics in the Films of Jerry Lewis"? 41. In a hilarious practical joke, Jerry ruined Dick van Dyke's meeting with the queen! 42. Jerry was instrumental in getting the great Stan Laurel his honorary Oscar. 43. Jerry is handsome! 44. Maybe you are a "conspiracy theory buff." Well, for real the CIA tampered with one of Jerry's movies. 45. Maybe you're an animal lover. Well, Jerry bought a hearing aid for his dog. 46. Jerry is subversive! 47. Quentin Tarantino + Jerry Lewis = True Love 4ever. 48. (Maybe because he anticipated one of Tarantino's more radical and disruptive narrative decisions by 40 years.) 49. Does he irritate you and make you uncomfortable? MAYBE THAT'S JUST WHAT JERRY WANTS! 50. For example, he once stuck his nose in Frank Sinatra's eye. 51. And took some of the starch out of Tony Curtis by flicking ashes on his jacket. 52. Jerry is complicated. He "both depicts and manifests inadvertent disclosure." - J. Hoberman. 53. Jerry's influence on the Beastie Boys. 54. Jerry appears in works by acknowledged comic geniuses John Hodgman and Michael Kupperman.

55. But perhaps you prefer authors from Mississippi, a chunk of land with a notable literary history. If so, you should be aware that Tom Franklin and Frederick Barthelme have put Jerry Lewis in their well-regarded "Mississippi" novels. 56. So has Don DeLillo, though he is not from Mississippi, nor are his novels set there. 57. ARE you a historian, by the way? Then consider Jerry's breakup with Dean in its implications as "a national trauma." 58. Francis Ford Coppola cites Jerry as an influence. 59. Which reminds me: I recently read an interview that Scorsese did with Lewis in which he (Scorsese) cites THE LADIES MAN as an influence. I always assumed the scene in question was drawn from SATYRICON. But SATYRICON came out after THE LADIES MAN, so maybe SATYRICON was influenced by Jerry too! I just now decided that, while typing this. 60. Jerry's darker side a fruitful subject for literary speculation. 61. Speaking of which, John Waters said Jerry Lewis was "probably a monster!" Can there be a higher compliment? 62. Although (see previous "link") John Waters went on to praise his taste in costuming. So that subject is worth contemplation. 63. Though, intriguingly, to Waters's original hypothesis, Jerry repeatedly acknowledges the collusion of the innocent with the monstrous, especially within a single individual. (See also.) 64. Jerry's art provides some of the same challenges and rewards as Sun Ra's. 65. Jerry envisioned hosting Queen Elizabeth, Jimmy Hoffa and Helen Keller on a talk show. I still want to write that play.

66. Fascinating undercurrents to his on- and off-screen chemistry with Dean Martin. 67. I wrote a pretty good article about him once if you can find it. 68. And this "post" is all right. 69. Try to solve Jerry's universal problem. 70. The complex transparency of Jerry's genius can be profitably compared to Brian Wilson's. 71. Jerry reveals the intrinsic flaws in the very notion of successful human communication. 72. Maybe that's why he's constantly "rewriting his own being." 73. But before he rewrote himself too much, here's a 13-minute clip of young Jerry at his brashest and most engaging. 74. Jerry's anarchic devouring of the hand that feeds him. 75. Maybe you are from the "dance world." Did you know that many highbrow choreographers turn to Jerry Lewis for inspiration? 76. Similarities between Jerry and the great Italian giallo director Mario Bava, if that's your thing. 77. Jerry is a model of tact and restraint compared to the makers of Jason Bateman movies. 78. As Jerry is, so you will be. As you are, so once was he. 79. Jerry, like Elvis, was a target of snobbery and classism. 80. I mean, even when he ended the Oscar broadcast EARLY, the powers-that-be still despised him. He gets under "the man's" skin. 81. For example, when everybody in "the establishment" was dumping on Arthur Penn's BONNIE AND CLYDE, Jerry was one of the first to proclaim its greatness. 82. Did he inspire a character in a Wes Anderson movie? Probably not. But I think he inspired a character in a Noah Baumbach movie. 83. Touchstone for towering cartoonists Lynda Barry and Gilbert Hernandez. 84. Jerry deemed a subject worthy of the Savannah College of Art and Design. 85. Jerry cut short his formal education and set out to educate himself. 86. Jonathan Rosenbaum knows a lot about movies and he loves Jerry Lewis. 87. Tough-to-please James Wolcott likewise. 88. Camille Paglia seems happy about Jerry Lewis. 89. Jerry blurs assumptions about gender. 90. Hey, Sandra Bullock likes Jerry Lewis.

Shredded Wheat

"You haven't blogged in a while. Are you dead?" inquires McNeil. Great question. And it really got me wondering: "Am I dead?" But earlier this evening I saw something that made me want to "blog" again: the closing credits of WHEEL OF FORTUNE. I guess part of it was a dull and common thought: "Huh, WHEEL OF FORTUNE is still on the air, gee." And with its original stars too. But also, during the entire length of the closing credits, Pat Sajak was just reaching into a box of breakfast cereal - Shredded Wheat, I think - and throwing pieces of it at Vanna White's face. She seemed to be trying to catch it in her mouth but he was just pinging her in the face with chunks of shredded wheat.

Get Some Stan's

Last night I was watching that TOP CHEF show because my favorite show NASHVILLE (pictured) wasn't on and Good Idea Club is shuttered for the season - what is Good Idea Club, you ask? None of your damn beeswax, that's what it is, chump, now go to hell! - and I got hungry even though I had had dinner, not that anything on the TOP CHEF show looked especially good, everything looked fairly crummy in fact, they were slopping food to college students, what a horror, so I can't explain it, leave me alone, okay, it was my famous suggestibility that I never shut up about, I guess, I'm weak, okay? Is that what you want to hear? It's what you've been thinking all along but you don't have the guts to say it. I got out a little chunk of cheese and a long, flat cracker and a slice of bresaola - okay, two slices of bresaola, why am I lying to you of all people? - and I ate those things and washed them down with a glass of red wine because that's how I do, what a swell. Yes, "swell" is a noun, too, fool. Read a dictionary! I felt pretty good. Yes sir, I was sitting there feeling pretty civilized with a cracker crammed in my mouth, watching TV. Bresaola! It's a delicious cured beef. You probably knew that already. I guess you know everything, you're such a big shot. I got it from Stan's, do I need to remind you about Stan's? This is not a paid advertisement, I am just telling you like it is. Get over to Stan's. It's a must! Support small business! Small, awesome business. Or if you don't feel like driving clear to Batesville, do what we do and get your Stan's stuff at the little grocery story up on North Lamar, "Farmer's Market," it's called. You can call Stan's and they'll send anything over there and you can pick it up the next morning or so. Like, Dr. Theresa has been known to order a pork shoulder chopped up just so when it gets cold and time to make her famous pork stew. I think it is too late to order a whole duck for your holiday meal - a whole damn duck! - but just calm down. Cripes! You're such a baby sometimes. I think the deadline was the 18th. So why did I wait just this long - EXACTLY A DAY LATE - to tell you? Was it Freudian? Just what kind of hideous monster have I become? Maybe I'm lashing out because I'm frightened you'll sneak over there and get all the bresaola. Who are you? ARE YOU MY SHADOW SELF? Hey and look I'll include a photo of some "Billy Jack Stew" I made the other night when Ace Atkins came over to watch THE TRIAL OF BILLY JACK because now my goal is to be one of those people who puts pictures of food everywhere. Mission accomplished.

Now I can face the dwindling twilight of my years with something like peace. (Hey but remember when Dr. Theresa and I stayed in a Ramada Inn that had a graveyard attached? Dr. Theresa saw Connie Britton of TV's NASHVILLE strolling blithely down the street in a nearby town! She's also fairly certain Tea Leoni once asked her for directions in the parking lot of a Blockbuster in Atlanta.)

Singing and Dancing on an Airplane

Last night I switched over to TCM after the movie TEN THOUSAND BEDROOMS had been on for a while. I seemed to recall that this movie was reviled as one of the crummiest movies ever committed to film, so I watched a little of it. When I came in, Dean Martin and Anna Maria Alberghetti were drinking wine and lounging around on a long couch on Dean Martin's lavishly appointed private jet while another Dean - Dean Jones, to be specific (see also) - was doing some kind of strange peeping tom action from the cockpit. And I was like, "What's wrong with this? Nothing!" I was like, "Why, this movie has everything!" I was like my friend Leslie watching CONTINENTAL DIVIDE: "I don't understand why this movie is 'bad.'" Then Dean Martin got up and put on the radio (or a record player? on an airplane!) and started singing to Anna Maria Alberghetti and then they started dancing and singing to one another and I was going with it. So I decided to look up TEN THOUSAND BEDROOMS in my copy of the book DINO: LIVING HIGH IN THE DIRTY BUSINESS OF DREAMS by Nick Tosches to check my vague memory of how much TEN THOUSAND BEDROOMS was (and is) hated. "The picture almost killed Dean's acting career in one fell swoop," writes Tosches. And, "The picture was a stiff." I will say this: it could not hold my attention, the picture couldn't. I ignored it as I kept reading more passages from DINO: LIVING HIGH IN THE DIRTY BUSINESS OF DREAMS - much more captivating. Wow, I love that book (which I first encountered when Phil Oppenheim loaned me his chunky, tattered mass market paperback)! I remember teaching it in a grad class and this one dude was like, "This book is terrible. Why are we reading about Dean Martin? He's just a jerk." I paraphrase. But anyway, it was as if I had been stabbed in the heart, and if I am recalling correctly, I never recovered and we couldn't really talk about Dean Martin anymore for the rest of the semester due to my trauma. I lost the ability to speak and reason! Say, will the abbreviated remainder of my life be spent nursing festering grudges against students who briefly rubbed me the wrong way? Apparently! So (back to last night) over an hour later I put aside DINO: LIVING HIGH IN THE DIRTY BUSINESS OF DREAMS and glanced at the screen, on which I was startled to discover a slowly revolving platform (seen above) with all these women in pink ball gowns (I guess) playing mandolins (last night I couldn't think of the word "mandolin" and kept mentally calling them "lutes" - like, "Why are all those ladies playing lutes?" A sign of incipient dementia!) and as you can plainly see there were some accordions involved as well. Next thing you know Dean Martin is singing a duet with his butler, all about how hard it is to be a millionaire. His butler sings skeptically in reply. Or replies skeptically in song. Which made me question something Dean Martin said about TEN THOUSAND BEDROOMS, as quoted in DINO: LIVING HIGH IN THE DIRTY BUSINESS OF DREAMS: "I may sing one or two songs in it, but it's definitely not a musical." Here's the thing. Okay, if you sing on an airplane along to prerecorded music, that is arguably diegetic sound (as the film scholars say)... but if you start a conversation with your butler that suddenly turns into a duet, you are in a musical, no doubt about it, sorry, Dean Martin. And the butler song was pretty terrible. Yes, things were sagging. Anyway, I have been listening to Dean Martin records all morning, and I listened to him sing a lyric that goes "I'm just a face without a name, walking in the rain," and he sounds jolly about it, like, "Wheee!" Like, "Ha ha, I'm a face without a name, just kidding." And I couldn't help but think of how Frank Sinatra would sing that lyric ("click" here and extrapolate). But sometimes you can't take all those Sinatra mental breakdowns and you just want to hang out with Dean Martin.

Chunk!

Got my new issue of the BELIEVER magazine in the mail today. It smells weird! Like the ink smells really strong. I feel woozy! But the contents look good. It seems "Blog" Buddy Amanda Stern has interviewed Laurie Anderson (pictured), so that is exciting. And you know how Nick Hornby always tells you about which books he has read recently? This time he has read TWO books by "Blog" Buddy Megan Abbott. He finds her work "psychologically subtle, gripping, and brave." True! My column is in there as usual. You can read a chunk of it on the "web" site - just a chunk! I read the chunk of my column that appears on the "web" site and thought, you know, it works as a chunk. Maybe a chunk is plenty. Chunk!

Blue Lightning

Okay, now back to random illustrations. And here is our final (?) installment about TV marketing sensation "The Ninja Blender." The NBIL, who of course first brought the Ninja Blender to our attention, was excited to see the remarkable device examined on a recent local news segment called, I believe, "Try It and Buy It." He sadly files this report: "The very first thing the TV folks did was load the Ninja full of ice and make some snow. Although the snow looked good, it proved to be pervaded by large chunks of ice! The guacamole that was next on the menu received rave reviews, but ice proved to be a problem once again with smoothies. Here's the kicker: although the blades were forged by ancient Japanese swordsmiths, the rest of the Ninja proved to be made of weaker stuff. On the very first use of the Ninja, bits of the plastic housing actually melted! It must have been the blue lightning. Needless to say, the Ninja received two thumbs down."

The Longest Two Minutes of Your Life

Over on his "blog," Andy Hopkins has been "posting" some obscure novelty records about the Carter presidency. Yes, you heard me right, and so what if he has? Leave Andy alone! It's his "blog" and he can do whatever he wants with it. Besides, it's amazing. One thing on there is an awful ditty making fun of the president's brother Billy, who was quite a caution at the time. Andy correctly refers to "The Ballad of Billy Carter" in his comments section as "the longest two minutes and twenty-two seconds of your life." The chorus goes, "I like peanut butter/ You like peanut butter/ Chunky peanut butter/ Yeah." Then the background singers start going, "Peanuts/ Oh oh oh oh" while the guy portraying Billy Carter makes noises in an insulting goofball accent, like "Awwww" and "Hyuk hyuk hyuk." On the other side of things, Andy gives us this summary of President Carter's career up to a certain point (press play):

"Spalling" Galling

Phil has encountered this sign in Atlanta: "Caution: Bridge Spalling." He writes to inquire, "Does that seem weirdly obscure to you? Even if one knew what 'spalling' was, what is one supposed to do about it? Not be there? You think it's deliberately obfuscatory, or am I being crazy paranoid again?" No, I'm with you, Phil. I am not ashamed to admit that I had to look up "spalling" in my dictionary, and only then concluded that the bridge in question is either being broken into chips with a hammer or just falling apart. Phil speculates: "I can imagine a court case in which someone got hit with a chunk of bridge, and the Govt representative testifying: 'What do you want from us? We told you it was spalling!'" Happily, however, this "post" gives me a chance to put up a picture of one of my favorite actors, Timothy Spall.

You Don't Care

Having completed Singleton's sprawling WORK SHIRTS, which earned its twisty references to The Three Stooges, Flann O'Brien's AT SWIM TWO BIRDS, and BEING AND NOTHINGNESS, I turn my bloodshot eyes to THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES by Jane Jacobs. Somehow I was put in the mood for a thick, chunky book with lots of big ideas. So far it seems fiery! And that's just the introduction. Meanwhile, Tom Franklin can't find enough nice things to say about AN ARSONIST'S GUIDE TO WRITERS' HOMES IN NEW ENGLAND by Brock Clarke. He's racing through it and enjoying every moment. This has been one in a series of slabs of meaningless filler - no reflection on the high quality of the books mentioned.

Friend's Daughter Enjoys Harry Potter

McNeil has dispatched several updates about his daughter's marathon reading of all the Potter books (rereading the first six in preparation for reading the seventh for the first time). On Saturday, July 21, McNeil reported, "As of 6:35 EST ______ was on page 274 of book 4. Empty ginger ale bottles and Zebra Cake wrappers littered the floor of her bedroom. Said _______: 'I hope to have a good chunk of book 5 read before I have to sleep. Of course I'll have to take dinner in my room.' She looked weary and tense, and as if she were in the midst of some bittersweet parting. I let her be. More updates as the situation warrants." At 7:55 that same evening, we received another bulletin: "Book 4, page 414." Today, this: "_______ has read over 3200 pages since 10am Saturday. Not healthy! I couldn't even muster that much energy in grad school for ol' Shaky. She's on page 170 of Book 7." Note: After a brief brainstorming session in the Pendarvis Building think tank, we have concluded that "Ol' Shaky" is McNeil's special name for Shakespeare. The roundtable declared it "very cute." More reports to come.

Big Crazy Party

We have only just recently returned, really, from a big party on the roof of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. We wish we could explain why! But it is a complicated affair, not easily condensed into "blog" form. We did, however, manage to glean several "bloggables" as we wandered to and fro, "moving and shaking," as Theresa called it. The party was tossed by the man who hates "blogs," and for that reason it was strange to see so many people there of such importance to the "blog"... many of whom we know in separate aspects of our lives, but had never expected to see together. Why, there was Barry B., and a member of Hubcap City, and the man who owns our neighborhood bookstore, and the Esquire feature writer Tom Junod, and the "Blog" Brother-In-Law, who kindly and casually began to call me Batman, thus cementing our already strong familial bond. But I can see that this party calls for "paragraph breaks," which I still have not mastered, so perhaps if I tell you more I will divide it into convenient chunks. You know, we tend to barricade ourselves in the Pendarvis Building. We are not "partygoers." And yet, how rife with "blogging" materials such functions are! We have learned our lesson! Parties for all!

As Promised

Agent "M." doesn't mess around! Just hours after her original vow, we have her report--a report that she claims with believable urgency was seven years in the making, and which we proudly present forthwith, I quote (and you know I am quoting accurately, because I retain her non-use of quotation marks around the word "blogger"): "With permission from the blogger, I have decided to expand my observational repertoire and offer thoughts on local food as well as television. My first commentary will concern the Best Chicken Salad in Atlanta. The bronze medal goes to Shield's Meat Market in Emory Village. I love this place--locally owned butcher shop and deli where you can get a sandwich, chips and pickle for about $6. They make their chicken salad from scratch each day. It's what I consider a perfect consistency--more pasty than creamy, with lots of chunks of chicken and bits of celery. The silver medal goes to Belly at the corner of No. Highland and St. Charles Ave. While their chicken salad is on the pricey side, it is worth the splurge. It too avoids the common problem facing so many chicken salads these days--too much mayo--opting instead for more chicken, less sauce. I believe they also put secret ingredients into it--perhaps sun dried tomatoes? Don't take my word for it --check it out for yourselves. Finally, the gold medal goes to...the Brickstore Pub. Their chicken salad comes as a scoop atop their delicious side salad (one of the best green salads in Atlanta with parmesan and yellow raisins and delicious tomatoes), and it is a delicious blend of chicken, mayo...and here's the secret touch...yogurt! While this may sound odd to connoisseurs of traditional chicken salad, trust me--you've never had chicken salad this good. Bon appetit, y'all!"

February Is Coming

And I have to tell you people, it's not going to be pretty. Expect a slim harvest here at the "blog" in February. My writerly duties are taking me out of town for a goodly chunk of the month, with chances to sneak away and "blog" unlikely. I'll try to remind you about the February appearances as they come up, but in case I get too busy you can check my publisher's web site. And besides that schedule, I'll be in California the first week of February, working on that movie script I told you about before. Forget what T.S. Eliot said about April! He knew nothing about "blogs," according to my research.

Penderecki

The Penderecki ST. LUKE'S PASSION will make the hair stand up on your arms! It's the thinking man's Carmina Burana. I don't mean to disparage Carl Orff. That's not in the spirit of the "blog." But it says something, I suppose, that Carmina Burana has been used in so many commercials about eliminating soap scum and so on. It's overexposed, maybe that's it. It has become a shortcut, like the PSYCHO theme or that scary organ thing by Bach, the one that goes, "Doodle-doo, doodle-do duh DUM DUM." You know the one. When I was a lad, there was a request program on the classical music station on Saturday afternoon. Every week some joker would request Carmina Burana, and for some reason they would play it every week, the whole thing, biting a big old chunk out of the request show and spoiling everyone else's fun. So maybe I have a personal problem. But I say, if old Carmina Burana doesn't provide the "kicks" it used to when you were 12, step up to Penderecki and his ST. LUKE'S PASSION. You'll be glad you did! And tell 'em the "blog" sent you.