McNeil's Li'l Bogie Bits

It's Dr. Theresa's birthday! And you know what that means, of course: it's time for "McNeil's Li'l Bogie Bits," the regular "blog" feature where McNeil reads a 700-page biography of Humphrey Bogart and gives us the scoop straight from his brain into our eager eye holes. Those who enjoyed the story of how Bogart gave a bellhop a nickel tip will be excited to learn that he tips a masseur in this one. But I've already said too much! Here, I'm just going to cut and paste the email I got from McNeil and my job is done. "THE BIG SLEEP was completed in January 1945. In late January 1945, Bacall was scheduled to be in NY for a publicity tour for the opening of TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT. Because the divorce between Bogie and Mayo had not quite been finalized, the studio didn’t want Bogie anywhere near Bacall. That didn’t happen. Bogie took the Super Chief to NY before her and waited on Bacall to get there (as soon as I typed Super Chief a train flew by the window of the doctor’s office I happen to be sitting in). He checked into the Gotham Hotel. The studio found out and sent a man named Stevens from their NY office to be with him 24/7 – to watch him and 'give him whatever he wants.' One night Bogie was particularly stressed and he and Stevens went to '21', where Bogie had a sandwich and a couple of drinks. Back at the hotel Bogie had a few more drinks. He still felt tense and told Stevens he wanted a massage. Warners had a masseur on the payroll so Stevens rang him up. Twenty minutes later Bogart was getting his massage – along with a couple more drinks he had ordered from room service. When the massage was over, Bogie took, as Stevens recounts, 'The fastest shower I have ever seen a man take. Less than forty-five seconds. No soap, nothing.' Bogie grabbed a towel and finished another drink and wondered where the hell that guy was with his massage. When Stevens told him he had just had the massage, Bogie became irate and demanded he come back and give him a real massage. The masseur lived in Brooklyn, but got on the subway with his table and came back and gave Bogie an hour-long massage. In the meantime, he and Stevens had ordered a steak dinner, which Bogie did not touch, choosing instead to drink more. After the massage Bogie demanded Stevens make a reservation at El Morocco, then Bogie demanded he change the reservation to the Stork Club, then he changed his mind and had Stevens make a reservation at Toots Shor’s. Five minutes later, Bogie took a nap. Sometime around ten pm (it’s only 10!!!) Bogie wakes up and needs another massage…Stevens called the masseur again, in Brooklyn, and told him to take a cab this time and Warners would pay for it. The guy came from Brooklyn for a third time and gave Bogie a brutal massage, which Bogie cursed and drank through. When it was done, Bogie was finally happy, and gave the masseur a $60 tip." You know what? That's the end of McNeil's email, but I decided to come back after all. I wanted to say that I thought I would certainly have a "blog" "hyperlink" to provide about the Super Chief, as I recalled with 88% guaranteed mental accuracy that Vic, the hero of the Doomed Book Club classic THE HUCKSTERS, had a romantic encounter or two on the very same Super Chief. But after combing the "blog" to the fullest extent of my superhuman abilities, I uncovered no evidence that I am not just living in a beautiful dream.

Socks Are the New Beans

Thank God for McNeil! How many times have we all said that, or at least felt it in our bones? In this instance, I am saying it regarding his relatively lonely position as an expert on the "blog." If McNeil didn't "click" on our forgotten "links" in a cold, scientific quest for knowledge, he never would have noticed - as he did just last night! - that an old one, shrouded in the impenetrable haze of the "blog's" very beginnings, had become outdated, and what once had been but an innocent "link" to a fan site for a beloved literary figure I hesitate to name, so as not to drag him into all this, had been taken over, at some point, by a saucy "internet" purveyor of sexy shenanigans I hesitate to describe. So much makes me hesitate these days! Suffice to say, the "website" in question, according to McNeil, though he did not use the following comparison, sought to do for socks what an Andy Warhol novel I read did for baked beans. Back when I made the ancient and troublesome "post," back when the "link" I provided was quite free of such carnal associations, I myself was but a blushing dewy apple-cheeked lad of a mere 43 years of age, and I could not imagine that the "internet" was such an impermanent thing, subject, as we all must be, to the ravages of time, or that devious forces - robots, most likely! - might comb the "web" for dead "links" to replace with their own sinful robot dreams of how sex probably works. Speaking of the ravages of time, three years ago, I thought of a solution to this problem, at least as it pertains to this "blog," but implementing it thoroughly would require effort, and effort is not a thing to which I am currently inclined. So what I am saying is this: just watch out, that's all. No, no, I'll get around to it. I'll fix everything! You just sit there and I'll fix it all. Don't you worry about old Jack.

The Official Record

Well, McNeil has combed through his journals and I find myself compelled to issue a clarification on earlier "blog" matters. As I am sure you will recall with crystal-clear accuracy, and without even needing to "click" on this "link," McNeil claimed that I had boasted to him that I had met Phyllis Diller. I denied it, as I never met Phyllis Diller. McNeil said that in that case I had been lying to him, and vowed to scour his archives for proof. I scoffed at such an attempt. And yet, in a way, I was wrong. And yet, in another way, I was right. In McNeil's journal entry of November 6, 1998, he writes, "Talked to Jack this afternoon and learned that he is going to meet Phyllis Diller next week." First, please note that the meeting is to take place in the future, as far as November 6, 1998 is concerned. And it really was supposed to happen, though I had forgotten about it until McNeil's recent communication. My friend Ward McCarthy and I were making a thing called "The Movie Lounge," and we had asked Phyllis Diller to comment on the Chuck Norris film INVASION USA, in which she sort of appears in a particular capacity ("click" here for more details. I know you won't!). At the remove of all these years, it is easy for me to imagine why she or her representatives abruptly pulled out of the scheduled appearance. Let me say, however, that although I once told McNeil that I was "going to meet" Phyllis Diller, as was supposed to be the case, I never told him that I had "met" Phyllis Diller - an event, I reiterate, that sadly did not occur after all. I cannot recall whom we got to talk about INVASION USA in Ms. Diller's stead. That is a question for Movie Lounge host Kent Osborne. In the sort of coincidence that McNeil and I both enjoy - and I hope it will bring him succor as this incident draws to its belated close - Ace Atkins and I had a talk about INVASION USA on our most recent walk around the neighborhood, which my diary reminds me took place on Monday, February 26 of this year.

Nestled Together

I'm rusty at the old jotting game. As you know, it used to be that when I went on a trip, I jotted everything for you in one of my dear old jotting books. Everybody was simply crazy about that! But then I stopped "blogging," and the last time I went to Los Angeles, why, I hardly even mentioned it. But since then, I quit social media, and as a result, I no longer have anything to do aside from the ocassional jot. Bearing that in mind, I shall now attempt to make you one of those lists that I used to make that everyone adored so much. 1. I asked a question at the front desk of the hotel and the desk clerk said he knew my voice! He said, "Are you Root Beer Guy?" I screamed back in his face, "YES!" That has never happened to me before (being recognized as Root Beer Guy, I mean; I have screamed enthusiastically into many faces), and, I dare say, never will again. (Full disclosure: on a later date, I overheard him telling a coworker "Did you know that guy is the King of Root Beer?" So maybe he didn't have the solid grasp on my character that I thought.) 2. I don't usually use conditioner on my hair. In fact, I would almost go so far as to say I never do. BUT! I figured, what the hell, this hotel conditioner is free. I'm going to put it on my hair! What's the worst than can happen? I also cleaned out my wallet. 3. Rode around with Richard, the chillest Uber driver in the world. If you're ever in California and need a ride, ask for Richard! 4. Remember the drugstore where I famously bought my expensive brush? And, let me double check, did I buy an expensive comb there? Once again, I scream, "YES!" Anyway, that drugstore is gone now! It's just not there. How could they have gone out of business? They must have been raking in a fortune on brushes and combs alone! All kidding aside, I miss you, fancy drugstore. Go with God! 5. I had steak Sinatra two nights in a row, once at Dan Tana's and once at The Smoke House. (I think I have erroneously called it "The Smokehouse" a few times in the past, but their official signage separates the smoke from the house.) I may have formerly insisted that Dan Tana's steak Sinatra is superior to the steak Sinatra at The Smoke House. On this ocassion, however, I must advance the opposite claim! The old Smoke House waiter stood and mixed the spaghetti in with the steak and peppers right at the table, but not with showy theatricality, no, just in the background, in a workmanlike fashion, getting the job done without undue fuss, which, of course, did not add to or subtract from the toothsome nature of the dish in question... OR DID IT? The result, in any case, was delectable. 5. I had stars in my eyes whilst consuming my steak Sinatra that night, for across the table from me sat Jesse Moynihan and his brother! Now, I have never met Jesse's brother before, and, as I have often boasted (most recently a few seconds ago), I quit social media. The only thing I miss about social media is "Pickle Minute," a thing that Jesse and his brother and some of their friends do on Instagram. I'm a big "Pickle Minute" fan! And there, at The Smoke House, I felt I was in a live episode of "Pickle Minute," as Jesse's brother took a photo of me pointing at a fried pickle. For, yes, having spotted fried pickles on the menu, how could two of the hosts of "Pickle Minute" resist placing that order? They could not. 6. Also at dinner, a guy named Joe I met at a party in 2012 and haven't seen or talked to since, but I remembered him, because you meet so few people you can talk about Anthony Braxton with! 7. Had a meeting scheduled at the Bob's Big Boy restaurant where David Lynch used to go every day. It turned out that Bob's Big Boy was too crowded to host the meeting, to my deep chagrin, as I thought it a wonderful coincidence that Lynchian muse Laura Dern was at Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi, whence I had come, at the very same time! 8. After the meeting, I walked around the neighborhood with a person who had been in the meeting with me. We wandered about, talking about the meeting, and what it meant, and sharing our regrets about the salad place across the street from Bob's Big Boy, where we had ended up. Finally, in our circular perambulations, we saw Bob's Big Boy looming before us. "Should we?" said the person. To which I again screamed, "YES!" By now, its lunchtime rush concluded, Bob's Big Boy was quite accommodating. The person ordered a slice of strawberry pie, because the Bob's Big Boy menu stated that the strawberries were "nestled together." When the pie came out, this person observed joyfully, "They ARE nestled together!" The person went on to declare the strawberry pie at Bob's Big Boy "maybe my favorite piece of pie." 9. I brought some Henry James to read on the airplane. I always found him tough going in the past. Anyway, this time, his characters were making lots of wisecracks and I was getting into it. 10. Well, I have left out many of the nice people I saw on the trip, and interesting events, but my jotting is not what it used to be. Special mention must be made of Hanna K Nystrom, who was flying in from Sweden just as I was about to fly back to Mississippi. She thoughtfully made time for breakfast in the brief Sweden-Mississippi overlap we enjoyed. We talked about how cold and gray it was. (Los Angeles was chilly and gray for the whole of my stay, once again lending some weight to the Lorenz Hart lyric.) Hanna said it was colder than Sweden!

Every 12 or 14 Years

If you are a loyal "blog" reader, I am sure you will recall July of 2008, in which I picked up a book of symbols and found a mysterious card tucked inside. Well, yesterday, I picked up a DIFFERENT book of symbols and a DIFFERENT mysterious card fell out, right into my lap. Honestly, this second card wasn't entirely mysterious, though I had never noticed it before. It advertised the "web" site of the organization that had put the book together, a treasury of 18,000 intriguing images, which I combed through for hours. Eventually, I came upon a 14th-century illustration of a lion and a hare from a book called Kalīla wa-Dimna. Speaking of hares, I fell down a rabbit hole - ha ha! oh how I despise myself! - and read some more about Kalīla wa-Dimna, which is how I found out it contains a fable about owls and crows, the details of which I don't wish to trouble you with. Trust me, you don't want to know what happens to those owls! Loyal "blog" reader, are you still there? I am sure you will remember that in June 2010, a Square Books employee told me that crows hate owls and I meant to look up the facts of the matter, but never did. And I never will!

McNeil Month By Month

Everyone knows the story of how I got depressed the day our TV blew up and stopped "blogging" forever. I don't think I have made the connection quite so explicit before, but there was a definite cause-and-effect feeling in the air. Still, once a year, I climb out of my hole to pay birthday tribute to my friend McNeil, except for the one year I forgot. In the old days, this marvelous tribute consisted of remembrances of some of his "blog" highlights. For a long time, you see, McNeil was the primary source of my "blogging" material! As the years have passed, and the "blog" has dwindled, the material has continued to accumulate, I am heartened to report. The post-"blog" entries, for which the source documents are not available to the public through means of the "blog," are helpfully marked with asterisks for the scholars of the future who wish to comb through my humiliating private papers. But I'll be dead, so I won't care! Happy days, McNeil! And for your public, here is your life laid before them once more like a veritable banquet, which I trust it will continue to be for a good long time: September 2006: McNeil contends that he does not enjoy the "Little Dot" comic book. October 2006: McNeil furnishes a memorable quotation. November 2006: McNeil recalls playing Aerosmith on a jukebox. December 2006: First appearance of "McNeil's Movie Korner." January 2007: McNeil's system for winning at craps. February 2007: McNeil doesn't see what's so hard about reading a newspaper and eating a sandwich at the same time. March 2007: McNeil and I are talking about Bob Denver when HE SUDDENLY APPEARS ON TELEVISION! April 2007: Wild turkeys roam McNeil's neighborhood. May 2007: McNeil gets in touch with an Australian reporter regarding a historical chimp. June 2007: First McNeil's Movie Korner Film Festival announced. July 2007: Medicine changes McNeil's taste buds. August 2007: McNeil's trees not producing apples. September 2007: McNeil pinpoints a problem with the "blog." October 2007: McNeil presents a video entitled "Jerry's pre-defecation chills." November 2007: McNeil's Theory of Potential Energy. December 2007: What is McNeil's favorite movie? January 2008: McNeil explains why the wind blows. February 2008: McNeil admires the paintings of Gerhard Richter. March 2008: McNeil comes up with an idea for a Lifetime TV movie. April 2008: McNeil's shirt. May 2008: McNeil's apple tree doing better (see August 2007). June 2008: McNeil is troubled by a man who wants to make clouds in the shape of logos. July 2008: McNeil's apples are doing great. August 2008: McNeil refuses to acknowledge that Goofy wears a hat no matter what I say. September 2008: McNeil's grocery store is permanently out of his favorite margarine. October 2008: McNeil on the space elevator. November 2008: McNeil comes across an incomplete episode guide to HELLO, LARRY. December 2008: McNeil thinks the human hand should have more fingers. January 2009: McNeil discovers that gin and raisins cure arthritis. February 2009: McNeil gets a big bruise on his arm. March 2009: McNeil wants a job on a cruise ship. April 2009: McNeil attempts to rescue a wayward balloon. May 2009: McNeil visits the Frogtown Fair. June 2009: McNeil dreams he is watching an endless production number from LI'L ABNER. July 2009: McNeil sends text messages from his cell phone while watching a Frank Sinatra movie. August 2009: McNeil disagrees philosophically with a comic book cover that shows a mad scientist putting a gorilla's brain in a superhero's body. September 2009: McNeil resembles famed boxing trainer Freddie Roach. October 2009: McNeil wears a surgical mask. November 2009: McNeil reports that a bird broke the large hadron collider by dropping a bread crumb on it. December 2009: McNeil advises me to like the universe or lump it. January 2010: McNeil eats soup. February 2010: McNeil tells of the hidden civilizations living deep beneath the surface of the earth. March 2010: McNeil recalls a carpet of his youth. April 2010: McNeil starts wearing a necktie. May 2010: McNeil's DNA sample fails to yield results. June 2010: McNeil thinks up some improvements for the movie 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. July 2010: McNeil reads to me from I, THE JURY. August 2010: McNeil finds a hair in his crab cake. September 2010: McNeil has a cold. October 2010: McNeil sends a nine-minute clip of a nice old man speaking at a UFO banquet. November 2010: McNeil sits in his car and looks at pictures of Jennifer Jones. December 2010: McNeil fears a ball of fire in the sky. January 2011: McNeil watches DYNASTY. February 2011: McNeil sees clouds that look like guys on horseback. March 2011: McNeil composes a "still life" photograph. April 2011: McNeil is upset when I interrupt his viewing of MATCH GAME. May 2011: McNeil pines for some old curtains. June 2011: McNeil eats Lucky Charms brand breakfast cereal. July 2011: McNeil investigates the history of the Phar-Mor drugstore chain. August 2011: McNeil compares Dean Moriarty to Dean Martin. September 2011: McNeil learns a lesson about pork and beans. October 2011: McNeil finds an article describing Robert Mitchum as "Bing Crosby supersaturated with barbiturates." November 2011: McNeil did nothing in November. December 2011: McNeil discovers scientists creating rainbows in a laboratory. January 2012: McNeil impersonates Paul Lynde. February 2012: McNeil dreams of matches. March 2012: McNeil's Theory of Potential Energy (see November 2007, above) used to chart the influence of Jerry Lewis on Carson McCullers. April 2012: McNeil disturbed by the art in his hotel room. May 2012: McNeil considers grave robbing. June 2012: McNeil's idea for "music television." July 2012: McNeil holds his negative feelings in check out of respect when the man who invented electric football dies. August 2012: McNeil reads me an old obituary of Charlie Callas over the phone. September 2012: McNeil concerned about T.J. Hooker's big meaty hands. October 2012: McNeil eats lunch at Target. November 2012: McNeil loves it when Bob Hope slips on a banana peel. December 2012: McNeil sees rocks that look like squirrels. January 2013: McNeil looks at an old, faded photo of a dog gazing into a Bath and Tile Emporium. February 2013: McNeil watches a video in which a hooded figure talks about "our criminal overlords." March 2013: McNeil wakes up at 6:40 in the evening, momentarily thinks it is 6:40 in the morning. April 2013: McNeil sees a singer who looks just like Bill Clinton. May 2013: McNeil is ashamed of himself for not realizing that Ida Lupino directed some episodes of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. June 2013: McNeil mails a cashew tree. July 2013: McNeil watches GIDGET GOES HAWAIIAN. August 2013: McNeil recalls being rosy-cheeked. September 2013: A fairyland goes on in McNeil's head. October 2013: McNeil recalls tucking in his t-shirt. November 2013: The cover of a book McNeil buys says it is about Jerry Lewis, but on the inside the book is about Willie Stargell! December 2013: McNeil wants to visit an orgone box factory. January 2014: McNeil did nothing in January. February 2014: McNeil wonders whether Tom Franklin puts his hair in curlers. March 2014: McNeil takes a nap in the car. April 2014: The subject of McNeil pops up in an interview. May 2014: McNeil's emails on the "hollow earth" recalled (see February 2010, above). June 2014: McNeil looks forward to getting drunk and making insensitive remarks as I lie on my deathbed. July 2014: McNeil watches Jim and Henny Backus play themselves in DON'T MAKE WAVES. August 2014: McNeil tells about Robert Mitchum's hangover cure. September 2014: McNeil exaggerates the fate of some owls. October 2014: McNeil is incensed that a candy apple costs eight dollars at the airport. November 2014: McNeil's heart overflows with joy. December 2014: McNeil continues his 7-year chimp investigation (see May 2007, above). January 2015: McNeil listens to a conspiracy theorist who says Jimmy Carter was replaced by a series of robots. February 2015: McNeil recalls doing a report about matches in the eighth grade. March 2015: McNeil takes to bed with the flu! April 2015: McNeil and I establish an amazing psychic link. May 2015: McNeil bitterly recalls the time he brought a John Wayne movie to my apartment and we never watched it. June 2015: McNeil dreams about a bearded Dean Martin. July 2015: McNeil has a disappointing encounter with the Grand Canyon. August 2015: McNeil sees a squirrel holding a stick. September 2015: McNeil is saddened by the news of Dean Jones's death. October 2015: McNeil watches STARFLIGHT: THE PLANE THAT COULDN'T LAND. November 2015: McNeil sends video of Joe Namath making and eating a sandwich. December 2015: A coincidence of the type McNeil especially loves. January 2016: McNeil is in a grocery store and they start playing "I Don't Want to Go to Chelsea" over the speakers! February 2016: McNeil watches Don Rickles eat in a bathroom. March 2016: McNeil is duly thrilled when Megan Abbott goes to see CRACKING UP on the big screen. April 2016: McNeil swallows a gnat. May 2016: McNeil recalls the details of a screenplay we wrote in our twenties. June 2016: Destruction comes to McNeil's apple tree! July 2016: McNeil spots Dabney Coleman in an I DREAM OF JEANNIE rerun. August 2016: McNeil points out that Dean Martin had granddaughters named Pepper, Montana, and Rio. September 2016: McNeil is called a "filthy troglodyte." October 2016: McNeil advises me on what to do now that ADVENTURE TIME has been canceled. "I say take it easy for a while... just pretend to write when Theresa's around and then sleep or watch movies when she leaves. Oh hell, you know how to work it," writes McNeil.* November 2016: McNeil sees an owl while walking his dog at midnight. December 2016: McNeil finds an Airbnb listing by "eccentric millionaires" for a treehouse featuring "whimsical taxidermy."* January 2017: McNeil notices that there are lots of ants in his writing.* February 2017: McNeil roots for the guy who stole a bucket full of gold flakes.* March 2017: McNeil reads an article suggesting that all the gold on Earth came from the collision of dead stars and says, "Let's go get us some of this!" seemingly suggesting a trip to outer space.* April 2017: McNeil recalls that he was washing dishes in 2015 when the thought of Gene Gene the Dancing Machine came into his head. Then he discovered that Gene Gene the Dancing Machine had just died!* May 2017: McNeil watches ISLAND IN THE SKY with his dog.* June 2017: McNeil is happy to see a movie with rotary phones and "people looking up stuff in a filing cabinet for a change."* July 2017: McNeil begins alerting me to weather situations in my area like he's my mother.* August 2017: McNeil connects heavenly signs and portents with the death of Jerry Lewis. September 2017: A critique by McNeil inspires a choice of airplane reading material. October 2017: McNeil cruelly but fairly shuts down my scheme of crossbreeding an apple with a lemon. November 2017: "Death knows my weak spot!" McNeil exclaims.* December 2017: McNeil leafs through CARIBOU TRAVELER. January 2018: McNeil catches a cold and stays in bed watching old game shows, writing from his sickbed: "Bobby Van looks so healthy...but would be dead only 5 years later... GATHER YE ROSEBUDS!"* February 2018: McNeil gives me a good idea about how to win a coupla sawbucks from likely suckers. March 2018: McNeil's complaint about sleeping: "I dream way too much."* April 2018: McNeil watches a movie in which Dean Martin claims to "make a hell of an owl stew."* May 2018: I ask McNeil what lightning is for (see January 2008) and he explains it to me.* June 2018: McNeil's mom stumbles on an old book about the comical dog Marmaduke from McNeil's younger days and is excited to deliver it to him.* July 2018: While walking his dog, McNeil sees a bone fall out of the sky. August 2018: Having made it to season five, McNeil, though a stalwart fan, watches what he considers to be the worst episode of BEWITCHED so far.* September 2018: McNeil finds one page of a history skit we did in ninth grade. October 2018: McNeil emails a still from the silent movie BILLY WHISKERS, the subject of an innocuous, decades-long inside joke. Using me as an intermediary, he also consults Ace Atkins about the little-known film version of DARKER THAN AMBER... set in Florida but filmed, as Ace explains, mostly in Germany!* November 2018: McNeil asks me whether Jack Lemmon was left handed. I don't know.* December 2018: McNeil tells me about deluxe reissues of two Paul McCartney albums I've never heard of.* January 2019: McNeil says he only ever bought one cassette tape in his life. (It was Bruce Springsteen's "The River.")* February 2019: McNeil watches IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD and finds it difficult to believe a hardware store would close that long for lunch.* March 2019: McNeil tells me about a used car dealer in his town who secretly dealt drugs and would use his commercials to let people know a shipment had come in. If this guy's dog was on the hood of his car in the commercial, he was ready to deal some drugs!* April 2019: McNeil is thinking about the Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract.* May 2019: McNeil follows up on an email from 2015.* June 2019: Working on a secret project with McNeil. It never comes to fruition. July 2019: McNeil sees a guy in a parking lot trying unsuccessfully to fit a rolled-up rug in his car.* August 2019: McNeil cuts down his apple tree. September 2019: McNeil remarks that Brendan Gleeson should play Donald Trump... a prediction that recently came true!* October 2019: McNeil is at the dentist's office, where the muted cartoon on the television provides the caption "frightened quacking."* November 2019: McNeil is shirt shopping when he realizes that the age of some of his old shirts makes it likely that any new shirt he buys might be the last shirt he will ever need.* December 2019: McNeil watches the old Frosty the Snowman cartoon and is disappointed that Frosty lets himself get trapped in the hothouse again.* January 2020: There's a new vending machine at McNeil's workplace. It dispenses "gloves, knee pads, safety vests - even socks."* February 2020: A comic book cover McNeil likes. March 2020: McNeil ponders inventing "powdered meat." April 2020: McNeil misremembers an idea we discussed in 2005. May 2020: Something McNeil and I noticed in 2014 comes up. June 2020: McNeil gets seven shots of novacaine.* July 2020: McNeil begins noticing obelisks. August 2020: McNeil goes fishing with Dean Martin in the realm of dreams. September 2020: McNeil finds an article that his grandmother clipped from a newspaper... on the back is an intriguing but incomplete item about murder among circus performers.* October 2020: McNeil tells me about a fusion reactor in France.* November 2020: McNeil has a dream about "the best chocolate milkshakes in the world."* December 2020: McNeil reminisces about fence posts. January 2021: McNeil's fascination with obelisks continues to inspire. February 2021: McNeil's decade-old observation about gin and raisins confirmed by the New York Times. March 2021: McNeil has an idea for a toilet that plays commercials.* April 2021: There's a photo of Jerry Lewis hanging in the breakroom where McNeil works, and he had nothing to do with it!* May 2021: McNeil watches a live feed of a stork's nest. He's pretty sure they're storks.* June 2021: Ernest Borgnine's personality is assessed at "a million watts." McNeil rates him 11 watts at most. July 2021: McNeil watches half of CHANGE OF HABIT and it's not as bad as he remembered.* August 2021: McNeil is envious that the fictional character Travis McGee gets to live on a boat.* September 2021: A guy at work asks McNeil if he has change for a quarter, because he's going to "drop a dime" on McNeil.* October 2021: McNeil and I coincidentally have doctor's appointments ON THE SAME DAY!!!!!!* November 2021: McNeil asks if I remember a song our high school band played at pep ralleys. It goes like this, according to McNeil (direct quotation to follow): "bom, bom, bom, bom-bom....bom, bom, bom, bom-bom....bom, bom, bom, bom-bom.....bom-bom-bom."* December 2021: McNeil dreams about Carol Channing... and within the dream, CAROL CHANNING HERSELF HAS A DREAM!* January 2022: McNeil and I correspond about a place where Eleanor Roosevelt used to live. February 2022: McNeil and I discuss a possible plot for something in which some crooks ask for a $250,000 payoff in quarters.* March 2022: McNeil is concerned about the sexual activities of some birds.* April 2022: Someone in McNeil's breakroom at work is listening to a recording of Jerry Clower, which upsets McNeil.* May 2022: McNeil covets a glowing orb. June 2022: McNeil and I debate whether the Falcon or Thin Man movies qualify as "serials."* July 2022: McNeil visits Albany, NY!* August 2022: I am given reason to recall the time McNeil swallowed a gnat (see the entry for April 2016, above). September 2022: McNeil finds a half-smoked pack of cigarettes that belonged to his grandfather. October 2022: McNeil is thinking about Leo Gorcey (pictured above) and abandoned motels.*

Mushrooms

Last night I watched UN FLIC on Ace Atkins's back porch - just look, there I am standing in front of the projector afterward - and I had a pretty good tweet about UN FLIC that I tweeted when I got home but then I realized that nobody wants to read tweets about UN FLIC, so I deleted my great tweet about UN FLIC, and that's when I realized I'd better "blog" about UN FLIC even though I don't "blog" anymore. That's what the "blog" is, I realized: a big old city dump. You don't want to drive out there to the city dump but sometimes there's some unwieldy thing you have to get rid of. So I was supposed to bring something "French" to Ace's, so I found this mushroom recipe in an old French cookbook, and I used about half a bottle of good white wine in these damn mushrooms - pardon my "French" - ha ha! And then they turn out to be these... mushrooms. Just some mushrooms lying there. Just some cold mushrooms lying wearily on a plate. "Serve very cold," the old French cookbook advised. It didn't help. They were just like... mushrooms. You eat one and you're like, "Yep, that's a mushroom." You know, maybe I was too timid with the coriander! "They can't possibly require THIS MUCH coriander!" I yelled. "These old French people were CRAZY!" Well, who's laughing now? The old dead French people, that's who. The only good thing about them (the mushrooms, not the old dead French people) was Dr. Theresa's suggestion that I bring along Bob Hope's cocktail forks for people to spear and eat them with. I also brought Bob Hope's very own personal (former) glass toothpick holder to hold them in! The cocktail forks, I mean. One of my greatest joys of the evening was seeing Bill Boyle's little girl absolutely murdering a strawberry with one of Bob Hope's cocktail forks. (In case some of you don't know why I have Bob Hope's cocktail forks, I bought them at an auction.) Well, anyway,

I didn't understand UN FLIC. Like, Richard Crenna spent a lot of time combing his hair! Like, I think I got up to pee and came back and Richard Crenna was still combing his hair. That's what my great deleted tweet was about. I can't remember the exact wording of my great deleted tweet, but it was something like, "Critics the world over agree that UN FLIC is the film in which Richard Crenna spends the most time combing his hair." So you can see why I deleted it. It's too specific for the high-pressure world of the on-the-go twitter user of today! This "blogger" I found ("click" here) has a more positive spin on that scene (pictured), which I will now quote: "Once we're inside the train, Melville's sure touch returns... The scene goes on for several minutes, during which we see Crenna carefully adjust his coiffure not once but twice... the meticulous preparations are mesmerizing." The fact that I was just all, "Boy, he is sure is combing his hair a lot!" is my own problem. As Bill Boyle pointed out, the long shot of the adorable little helicopter flying over the tiny train made UN FLIC look briefly like a Wes Anderson movie.

Wings

Last night Chris Offutt made a lot of good points about Icarus and I composed an entire "blog" "post" in my head summarizing them until I remembered I don't "blog" anymore. And anyway, maybe Chris will want to write up his own thoughts on the matter one day. In fact, I encouraged him to do so. Volubly! And when I got home, Megan Abbott had emailed me: "if I do a search through my emails with you for the word 'chicken,' dozens of emails come up! chicken foot, chicken leg, chicken comb, chickens brooding under tables, the ghost and Mr. Chicken" (pictured)... the other day Dr. Theresa said, "Hey, I thought you weren't 'blogging' anymore." And I said, "I only 'blogged' like two more times" and Dr. Theresa said "..."

Discontinued Crystal Shrimp

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

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

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

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

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

A Squirrel Holding a Stick

I guess you wonder where I've been. Well, friends, you might just say I've been everywhere... and nowhere. For you see... what? You didn't notice I was gone? That hurts! In any case, the pleasant occasion of my absence was the 4th Annual McNeil's Movie Korner Film Festival. My apologies, as I am sure you have these details memorized, but more than three years intervened between the first and second annual festivals, and more than four and a half years between the second and the third. So it may stun you beyond repair to learn that less than a year has gone by since the previous McNeil's Movie Korner Film Festival and this one. Let's see, that makes for an average of one Annual McNeil's Movie Korner Film Festival every two years, yes, we're finally catching up. No sooner had McNeil rolled into town than we cranked up THE BAD NEWS BEARS (original version). We started with it because one of us, I won't say which (it was McNeil) fell asleep five minutes into it during the last festival. Next: THE WILD AFFAIR, a Nancy Kwan vehicle I learned about ("click" here to learn likewise) from "She Blogged By Night."

Here is a photo from "She Blogged By Night" showing Vidal Sassoon cutting Nancy Kwan's hair for the movie. I am sure you recall how badly Ms. Kwan was treated by a film in the first MMKFF. She was thanklessly blown up! So we wanted to make up for that by watching a movie in which she is treated in a kindlier way. Although she is at least not blown up in THE WILD AFFAIR, her character is treated almost as shamefully by the seemingly endless parade of sleazes she encounters. Kwan holds the movie together, though, and the article from "She Blogged By Night" argues for her agency. Still, it seems to us that Nancy Kwan can't catch a break. Then we watched CASANOVA'S BIG NIGHT and Paul Schrader's BLUE COLLAR. Here's something that McNeil noticed: earlier in the day I had made an incongruous reference to the character "Mr. Bentley" (pictured) from the TV show THE JEFFERSONS.

In BLUE COLLAR, a TV is tuned to that show and the characters are discussing, by name, none other than Mr. Bentley! Plus, a scene from THE BAD NEWS BEARS had reminded me of a similar scene from CATCH-22, a fact upon which I remarked at the time. In BLUE COLLAR, Ed Begley Jr. is seen reading a paperback of CATCH-22! Make of these astounding coincidences what you will. McNeil also observed that both Richard Pryor in BLUE COLLAR and Bob Hope in our previous feature, CASANOVA'S BIG NIGHT, boasted of having "a new technique": Pryor's for bowling, Hope's for kissing. We came very close to a direct Hope reference when Richard Pryor angrily imagines what he might do as a union rep: fly up to Palm Springs on a private jet and play golf with Gerald Ford. Why didn't he say "Bob Hope" instead? But he didn't. And there's nothing we can do about it. McNeil had me pause BLUE COLLAR so that he could expound at some length upon his admiration for the curtains Richard Pryor's character had in his living room. As you well know, the curtains in movies are one of McNeil's main concerns. My nonfiction cigarette lighter book, which has already been typeset, makes reference to close to a hundred movies and TV episodes, I think. I wish I had rewatched BLUE COLLAR sooner, because I would have certainly included the euphemism that Pryor yells at his union rep: "You can flick my Bic!" Richard Pryor comes up quite a bit in my book, and one sad and terrible fact I know from all my research is that Pryor used a Bic when he set himself on fire. But let us turn from thoughts of tragedy: I believe it was between BLUE COLLAR and Robert Altman's QUINTET that McNeil and I looked out the window and saw a squirrel holding a stick. An unusual sight! The squirrel seemed to be holding the stick with some intent. McNeil compared it to the scene in 2001 when the ape-people learn to use weapons. But the squirrel did not have a sufficient attention span, and soon abandoned the stick without putting it to any use. "He almost had it," I said.

"So many dogs eating so many dudes," I idly remarked during QUINTET. McNeil and I agreed that the dystopian snowscape would have benefitted greatly had Jerry Lewis driven through in a ice cream truck, hollering, "I can't sell this stuff!" But he didn't. And now it is my sad duty to report that this is the very first McNeil's Movie Korner Film Festival not to include a Jerry Lewis movie. Pathetic! And now a digression. Ha ha! This whole thing has been a digression. But we took a break from watching movies and walked up to the City Grocery Bar, which has undergone a recent facelift. For one thing, the men's room is no longer just a hellish trough. I kind of miss the hellish trough! The new men's room is sparkling and elegant, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. Owner John Currence tells me that he rescued the piece of sheetrock that has Kent Osborne's still-pristine drawing of his cat on it from the old men's room wall. He plans to frame it and put it in a shadowbox on a wall of the bar! Now, if you drink at the Grocery often enough, you might get your name and usual drink on a brass plaque on the bar one day. And the occasion of our break from the film festival was that Ace Atkins and I have been accorded that honor as part of the general refurbishment. Now. For reasons I cannot recall, McNeil had requested that I get my hands on a copy of the Elvis movie LIVE A LITTLE, LOVE A LITTLE for this year's festival. When the subject came up at the bar, Ace - an Elvis expert - began an excellent discourse on the film's place in the Elvis canon, up to and including the provenance of the dog in it! (In addition to the actual dog, LIVE A LITTLE, LOVE A LITTLE is the movie notorious for making Elvis dance with a man in a dog costume.) Naturally, Ace was invited to join us for the showing - a rare and welcome intrusion into the insular world of the McNeil's Movie Korner Film Festival. Plus he brought Popeye's fried chicken! So our last three films - QUINTET, THE PALM BEACH STORY, and LIVE A LITTLE, LOVE A LITTLE - all use dogs in striking ways. The last two - THE PALM BEACH STORY and LIVE A LITTLE, LOVE A LITTLE - also costar Rudy Vallee. So that's weird. I had a bunch of other stuff to say, but aren't you tired? I guess this year's theme was... dogs?

Bowdow

Combing through the volumes of GREEN'S DICTIONARY OF SLANG, checking out the owl situation, getting to the bottom of this "drunk as a boiled owl" business. I used all three volumes (A-E, F-O, P-Z) to write this "post," aren't you proud? And so I slip slowly into my twilight years of muttering to myself. Here's "owl-eyed," meaning drunk, and yes, I can see that, especially since Cole Sanchez sent me a "link" to a "web" site called "Hungover Owls" or something - why won't I "link" to it here? I don't know! Did some of those owls look exploited? Probably not. I got depressed for some reason. (See also.) But owls do look drunk, apparently. I should have figured that out before now. Which came first, though, the owl or the boiling? I guess that was my primary concern. WHY BOIL THE OWL? The first printed example they give of someone being "drunk as a boiled owl" comes from 1862, though someone was "as drunk as an owl" - a plain old owl, non-boiled - in 1770. BUT! That made me look up "boiled," and in 1877 "there is a balm for a headache caused by last night's debauch to have it said you were 'slightly cheered' or 'stewed' or 'boiled.'" But that's a little later than the boiled owl. So did the boiling of the owl come first? I THINK NOT. Because I looked up "stewed" - meaning drunk - and that goes back as far as 1616. And obviously being "boiled" is a variation on being "stewed" so when you're "as drunk as a boiled owl" maybe you're "as drunk as a drunk owl," huh, well, that's a little redundant. You can be as drunk as a lot of different things according to this book, including a "bowdow," which I guess is a mishearing of "boiled owl" - the book doesn't say that, I'm just guessing. Hmm, looking back I see that the original phrase that puzzled me was "sore as a boiled owl," which does make more sense now, but I think I need to get out Volume Three again and have a go at "sore." This is my life now.

Fatal Fusion

Hey Dr. Theresa and I were driving past a church just now and you know how churches have those little billboards outside with inspirational messages on them? This one said "FATAL FUSION" and that's all it said! On both sides! What is that? Something I'm supposed to know about? I am pretty sure it is not an inspirational message. Sounds like the title of an action movie. I was intrigued! Though not intrigued enough to attend church. I'm probably dumb and everybody knows what fatal fusion is. Speaking of which, I saw Bill and Jimmy at Good Idea Club last night, where we drank wine that tasted like barbecue sauce. And I told them about a description I like in ABSALOM, ABSALOM!: "his eyes looked like pieces of a broken plate" but I didn't tell them the rest of the description ("his beard was strong as a curry-comb") because I didn't want them to know I was too dumb to know what a curry-comb is. The man who is telling that part of the story in ABSALOM,ABSALOM! even appeared to think "curry-comb" was a weird thing to say, because he recalled of his father, who had originally made the description, as if musing on the strangeness of his father's utterance, "That was how he put it: strong as a curry-comb." So a curry-comb seemed like something I should look up in my WEBSTER'S NEW TWENTIETH CENTURY DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, UNABRIDGED, SECOND EDITION from 1974. And it's "a comb with metal teeth, for grooming and cleaning a horse's coat." So now I do feel dumb because everybody with a horse certainly knows what a curry-comb is but guess what. I don't have a horse. Bill and Jimmy told me last night that during the taping of my Lent Magazine interview I had pontificated at some length about iceberg lettuce wedges so naturally I urged them to send me the transcript of that portion. They've sent just a little of it, which I cut-and-paste here, though I must warn you I repeat some stuff that I've already told you on the "blog." The good news is that nobody reads the "blog." Maybe most of what I talk to anyone about comes from the "blog," because the "blog" now functions as a substitute for my memory, which no longer exists where it used to, in my brain. So I guess the "blog" is "canon," as ADVENTURE TIME fans like to say. But here's the wedge stuff: "JIMMY: How’s your wedge? JACK: This wedge is fantastic. The true wedge connoisseur of the family is Theresa. She loves a good, classic wedge. She introduced me to the pleasures of the wedge. One of many things Theresa has taught me over the years. Pendleton Ward took me to Musso and Frank’s, the oldest restaurant in Hollywood. He told me all about how he used to sit there when he was first getting Adventure Time together and work on it. We both ordered a Romaine Salad, which was how it was listed on the menu. But when it came it was like they just sliced a head of romaine lettuce in half and gave me half and Pen half. And that was it! That was your salad! I was like, they are old school here! Grind a little pepper on top, dressing on the side, you kind of spoon some dressing over it and it tastes good! Now, because of that, this wedge seems whorish to me! Tarted up! That sounds like a Harry Potter story. Harry Potter and the Whorish Wedge." Jimmy assures me that plenty more wedge transcript is on the way. Thank God! In conclusion, some dude finally decided to get with the program and send me an "oatmeal selfie." His name is Randal Cooper and here he is. And thank God too for brave souls like him.

Yelling in a Hayfield

I hate to complain about anything in THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL but this character Fergus is a lot like the awful, precocious brats in some sitcoms, always coming up with thudding, smart-alecky one-liners. There's one scene where he's just yelling at a bunch of servants who are toiling in a hayfield, and the narrator (Fergus's older brother) is like, "Leaving him thus haranguing the people, more to their amusement than edification, I returned to the house..." And I was like, "Their amusement?" I imagine they wanted to wring his little neck. But I do love the narrator, who is always trying to convince us and himself that he is not a fop, or, as he just put it, "that I was not the empty-headed coxcomb she had first supposed me to be," and my sympathy for Anne Brontë is always restored by the weird, prim snottiness of the scholarly footnotes in this edition, which seem unnecessarily hard on her ("The author awakens intermittently to the memory of the epistolary device," sniffs one). Here's a sentence from our narrator that tickled me, though: "'Nonsense!' ejaculated I." I like everything about it: the noun, the verb, the pronoun, the exclamation point, the order in which they are placed. It made me think of Tom Franklin's epigraph for his great novel SMONK, taken from Edgar Rice Burroughs: "'Magnifique!' ejaculated the Countess de Coude, beneath her breath."

Let's Look Up Things About Mirrors in Books

Where have I been? Nowhere, I guess. Well, here I am. I've really let things slide. I feel like there are lots of emails I should be answering. Elizabeth broke a mirror, for example, and wanted to know how she might counteract the bad luck, IF she were superstitious, which SHE CERTAINLY IS NOT. And NEITHER AM I. But I was doing other stuff, I guess. So I hope Elizabeth hasn't had too much bad luck yet. At the time I grabbed a handy book: THE WHITE GODDESS by Robert Graves, and checked the index for "mirror," just because it was right there where my hand could grab it with no effort. All I found was something about a mermaid with a mirror and a comb. Colorful, but of little use. I emailed that useless information to Elizabeth then did nothing for several days. The mermaid represented the dangers of love? Something like that. I've got the book right here but I already opened it once, so that's plenty. I am going to walk around now and look for, let us say, five other books that might have mirror information in them. I seem to recall that THE GOLDEN BOUGH has a whole dang chapter about mirrors, or reflections, or something. I'm getting tired just thinking about it. The "internet" seems to be the wrong way to go. Sure I could type in some clever "google search term" and get all the latest info about counteracting the ill effects of a broken mirror, but that's the cheap way of living and who can trust it? Okay, are you still there? Me neither. I walked around and grabbed five books. Let's take a look! First up, THE MAGICAL UNIVERSE: EVERYDAY RITUAL AND MAGIC IN PRE-MODERN EUROPE. Did they have mirrors? Let's find out! Not in the index. But "Mississippi" is on page 132, so let's see what Mississippi has to do with pre-modern Europe. Wow, here's a photo of a statue of a saint covered in snakes. Scary! Scary but unrelated. But wait, here we go: "in northern Mississippi in the late nineteenth century, according to Faulkner, 'the full moon of April [shining on the marriage bed] guaranteed the fertilizing act.'" The footnote says it's from THE HAMLET. Hey, I read that book! But I guess I skipped the part about the moon fertilizing everybody. Books are no use at all. Let's check the next one. It's called THE MIRROR OF ALCHEMY. It has MIRROR in the title! But not in the index. That's what I call the bait and switch, author Gareth Roberts! It does have "Miriam" in the index where "mirror" should be, a name I recall from Robert Graves's mermaid page. Hmm, it says, "see Maria Prophetissa." Okay, I will! She's the sister of Moses, "credited with the invention of... the bain-marie, a vessel containing hot water and giving gentle heat, which still bears her name." Ha ha, I like typing. Up next, the dreaded GOLDEN BOUGH (which, PS, Richard Burton was reading in his diaries). All right! This is my kind of index entry: "Mirrors, superstitions as to, 231." Oh brother, though, it's just all that old jazz about your reflection being your soul or something. Everybody knows that! Nothing in GRIMOIRES: A HISTORY OF MAGIC BOOKS (though see also). Cirlot's DICTIONARY OF SYMBOLS has lots of sentences like "The fluctuation between the 'absent' mirror and the 'peopled' mirror lends it a kind of phasing, feminine in implication, and hence - like the fan - it is related to moon symbolism." Wow, books are the worst. Okay, but the "Mississippi" thing - the nearest word to mirror in that index - was about the moon, and according to this other book, mirrors are about the moon, and this other index in which "Miriam" is the nearest word to "mirror" leads me back to the mermaid ("Marian, Miriam, Mariamne...") in Robert Graves, who he says "can be identified with the Moon-goddess Eurynome whose statue... was a mermaid carved in wood." So what can we conclude from our studies? That writers will eventually bring everything back to the moon. Writers love writing up some junk about the moon. Writers are like, "Let me stick a moon in here, everybody will think I am so great." How I hate them with their fancy ways.