Of Course She Did!

The rule is that every time I read a book with an owl in it, I have to tell you about it, no matter how the book makes me feel inside. It is my sad duty to inform you that the Million Dollar Book Club is reading a biography of Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. You knew it would come to this. But that's not the bad part! How can I say this without alienating all the Nelson Eddy fans who flock to the "blog"? Well, reading this book, Nelson Eddy comes off as a scary monster, despite the efforts of the author to sort of gloss over everything that seems to make Nelson Eddy so very definitely a scary, terrifying monster. And the more she glosses it over, the scarier Nelson Eddy becomes. It makes for unpleasant reading. This is the nadir of the Million Dollar Book Club. Hey! I'll briefly liven things up by mentioning that today, while I was getting ready to take my blood pressure, I read some of that Pessoa biography, and Pessoa had a friend with a "full set of gold teeth." A full set! Not just a couple. All of this guy's teeth were made of gold. Okay, now I feel better. Back to the book with the scary monster. So, a contemporary reviewer quoted in the dual biography doubts that the "night owl clientele" of the Cocoanut Grove are going to dig the restrained decorum of Jeanette MacDonald. Anyway, as I texted to Megan - I don't have my phone here, so I'll approximate my observation - "I never dreamed the most messed up people we would ever read about would be Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy." (I know you don't know who they are. Would it kill you to google something? That aside is to you, the "blog" reader.) Megan texted back that they were more messed up than Salvador Dali. I responded they were more messed up than Tennessee Williams. She texted back that they were more messed up than Errol Flynn. And so on. I'll tell you one good thing. This book caused Megan to dig out the Jeanette MacDonald paper dolls she had when she was a kid. Of course she did!

The Math

Watched the Elvis movie DOUBLE TROUBLE today. It starts with him singing the theme song about how he's got double trouble, "twice as much as anybody else." And my first reaction was to say, "Yep! The math checks out." Because double trouble is twice as much as regular trouble. But! Then I started thinking... "twice as much as anybody else?" If so, Elvis would have to assume that the person with the MOST TROUBLE IN THE WORLD (aside from him) had only half as much trouble as Elvis, which doesn't seem likely. DOUBLE TROUBLE struck me as the strangest Elvis movie I have ever seen, and he made some weird ones. I jotted down a few strange things about it in one of my jotting books I usually take on trips, but nobody goes on trips anymore. 1. Robert Altman fave Michael Murphy is in this movie! He seems to be playing... wait. I should mention right now that I'm about to lay down major spoilers for the Elvis movie DOUBLE TROUBLE. Okay! Here we go. Michael Murphy seems to be playing Elvis's good-natured fresh-faced romantic rival. But! He turns out to be a psychotic assassin. So that was a surprise. He and Elvis get into a kind of martial arts fight, and Elvis KILLS MICHAEL MURPHY! Okay, I mean, Elvis ducks out of the way and Michael Murphy makes a leap and falls into a well and dies. 2. Remember, this is a list of just a few of the strange things about DOUBLE TROUBLE. Oh! Elvis is forced to sing a rockin' version of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm." It hurts! 3. Most (?) of the plot is about whether Elvis can hold out until his love interest becomes of legal age (!!!). 4. All right. So Elvis is going around Europe, and I thought, given the title, there would be a prince or a duke or somebody who looks exactly like Elvis. You know that plot. But! There is naught of the sort, save a vague mention that Elvis's girlfriend's aunt looks just like her??? It comes up a few times in passing conversation. But unless I missed something, we never see the aunt. So the promise of some identity comedy based on lookalikes (such as Elvis's KISSIN' COUSINS) is dangled out there and snatched away. There is no good reason (unless, again, I walked out of the room for a moment and missed something) for this movie to be called DOUBLE TROUBLE. 5. Finally, this film has much truck with the uncanny, as Freud called it. There are a lot of creepy masks, weird doll-like figures, mannequin heads (see above) and the like... a definite fascination with the carnivalesque, to use one of Dr. Theresa's favorite phrases from grad school - indeed a term she still finds useful today. And so do I, because sure enough, there is no better... wait. I was going to wrap it all up with a nice bow there, but I just remembered: 6. A minor character who has a mental illness and thinks Elvis is her husband.

Catfish of Ancient Egypt

Here's everything I didn't "blog" about this month. 1. "You should eat a lot of jelly: it oils up your joints." - Mom. 2. For reasons that need not concern you, Ace Atkins and I were discussing the availability of catfish in the Middle East. So when I started reading a book about ancient Egypt (THE RISE AND FALL OF ANCIENT EGYPT by Toby Wilkinson) I was delighted to find many allusions to catfish: "an ivory cylinder shows the king as a vicious Nile catfish, beating rows of prisoners with a long stick." At first I thought that was funny, even though it is not funny to beat people with a stick... I guess it was the vicious catfish that made me laugh, though the more I thought about it, the more convincingly Lovecraftian the image revealed itself to be - and besides, my grandfather taught me long ago to beware the dangerous "whiskers" of the catfish. 3. By coincidence I watched Kurosawa's RAN (based on KING LEAR) and a TV adaptation of THE DRESSER (about a production of KING LEAR) on the same day. So I went to my facsimile of Holinshed's Chronicles for the source, and was distressed to recall I have only volumes 3 and 6. See? This is the kind of crap you're missing out on now that I'm not "blogging" anymore. 4. Nor could I find my copy of KING LEAR, which made me feel like King Lear, ha ha ha, see what you're missing. (Later, by further coincidence, Lear would pop up all over this Orson Welles bio that Megan and I are reading together, though not - I think - as an official selection of the Doomed Book Club.) 5. ADVENTURE TIME meeting! We talked about Fonzie wearing glasses and Jan from THE BRADY BUNCH wearing glasses and that made Kent think of Piggy from LORD OF THE FLIES, and I said that using Piggy's glasses to start a fire was in my cigarette lighter book and Adam asked whether that counted. That got us onto the subject of "burning lenses" and Adam mentioned an "ancient death ray." I think he said, "Is that like the ancient death ray?" I said I remembered Francis Bacon advocating for the use of burning lenses as military weapons (it's in my book!) but Adam said he was talking about "Archimedes and the Siege of Syracuse." Adam knows everything! (See also.) Taking a quick glance at the "internet" I do see an unsubstantiated rumor that Archimedes built a giant mirror with which to set fire to the enemy's sails. On the same day the aforementioned discussion occurred, I read in a tweet by Chris Offutt, "I have a short story that includes a woman using a lighter to heat up a Pop Tart one bite at a time." Both of these tidbits (Archimedes, Pop Tarts) would have easily passed muster for my cigarette lighter book, had I only known about them in time. And you know, as long as we're here, the fascinating

movie WOMAN ON THE RUN has an important lighter in it... I think I can tell you this without spoiling anything (probably not): it neatly marks the beginning of each of the movie's three acts (possibly). 6. A ribald jest from McNeil about Jerry Lewis. A series of them, really. Or one long ribald jest that is carried out and elaborated upon over a number of emails. McNeil's final (?) message on the subject concludes, "Ahhhh. I'm making myself laugh in a parking lot, which makes this all the more wrong." 7. I don't remember much liking the movie HEARTBURN when it came out, but I saw a documentary about Nora Ephron not too long ago and thought if I ever came across HEARTBURN again I'd give it a try - what, 40 years later? Dear God! And I did. And Yakov Smirnoff is in it! Now, it's not Mike Nichols's fault that this one book I read stacked him up as the pinnacle of hip culture against the supposed rancid decadence of Bob Hope, but just remember: Mike Nichols put Yakov Smirnoff in a movie and Bob never did (though I wouldn't be surprised if he were on a Bob Hope TV special, to be fair [He was. - ed.]).

8. Jerry Lewis allusion in TREES LOUNGE. 9. Stopped by Square Books. Katelyn failed to sell me a book she likes, but utterly convinced me to give APOCALYPTO a chance. 10. Watched PINOCCHIO. a. Jiminy Cricket has human feet and toenails, human teeth! Disturbing. b. That fish wants to kiss everyone and everything. c. Jiminy Cricket is consistently sexually aroused by human representations (dolls) of his size. d. Even as a kid I didn't understand why being a wooden boy wasn't good enough. What's all this crap about being a "real boy"? 11. King Lear (see above) vows "to be a comrade with the wolf and owl" (just like Dracula! - though he doesn't say that, of course) and you know what that means!

Ye Olde Pink Trick

Ah, well. Yes! I guess tonight is my only "event" for my new book of short stories entitled MOVIE STARS. Megan Abbott has flown down from NYC to rake me over the coals "in conversation" at Square Books this evening. The primary question is which jacket to wear. What? You're reading a "blog," dimwit. This is what you get. Now, Chris Offutt has upped the ante - again and again! - on "event jackets" around here, which is why I am leaning toward the pink. BUT! I've worn it a lot. True, true, it was mostly in Los Angeles, as seen here with my friend and coworker Julia Pott and our outdated novelty pillow. But in our crazy digital age does geography matter? Besides, I've even worn it on airplanes! Look at that face. That (above) is the deadened visage of a man who has just crawled off an airplane, in fact. Has my pink jacket been overexposed? The airplane wear, in addition, has left it somewhat creased. There may be an unsightly spot or two of indefinite origin, I won't deny it. I tried that old trick of hanging it in the bathroom while the water steams and rages, in the hopes of smoothing it out, to not much avail. I did the same with my "John T. Edge" brand shirt. That's right, he has a shirt brand named after him! He's John T. Edge, damn it. And if you want to know, this particular "John T. Edge" shirt has dots on it that are cleverly made with intricate knots of thread, unseen to the casual observer, lining the inside of the shirt, giving the wearer a cozy sense of... holy God I'm even boring myself talking about this shirt now. You know what? Maybe I'll hit 'em with the old steam again. I MUST wear the pink! I must! Otherwise Chris Offutt is going to be there in who knows what manner of glory, like a wedding guest who dares to arrive in white, I just know it. Hey, I just went to BBB and ate a Pylon with lots of onions, precisely the thing before an event with people. I stopped by Square Books on my walk home and Katelyn said I should "get a puppet buddy," a suggestion I brooded over the rest of the way back, and indeed over which I continue to brood. You can take it lots of ways.

The Musical Question

I saw this title card (designed by Tom Herpich, painted by Joy Ang) for an upcoming ADVENTURE TIME episode and thought it was evocative of Machen, which reminded me that Megan Abbott had recently encouraged me to reread Machen's story "The White People," which I did, though I skipped the prologue, which is cheating. As I recalled, Megan had mentioned how scary the part of the story is in which the nurse is "sweating profoundly" (as opposed to "profusely"), I seemed to think those were Megan's words [maybe it was "prodigiously," or, you know, "profusely" after all - ed.] (in the actual story the nurse is "all streaming with perspiration") so I searched through my emails so I could quote Megan accurately but could not find anything about profound sweat or Arthur Machen in them. Megan, when contacted, said I was thinking of a phone conversation. Isn't this thrilling? Reading the story again, I was struck with this sentence: "And people said the wax man screamed in the burning of the flames." And I couldn't help but wonder whether Robyn Hitchcock might have been inspired by Machen when he asked the musical question, "Is your wax doll still crying in the fire?" A note in the introduction to this collection says that Machen also wrote an "owlishly learned disquisition on various types of tobacco," which makes this a book with an owl in it, but does it count? An owl in a scholarly introduction? I'll put an asterisk by it.

Great Babies of Show Business

You know my cigarette lighter book's publication date has come and gone. It is no use for me to think about cigarette lighters any more! If it ever was. But I read an article by R. Emmet Sweeney which included the phrase "ill-fated cigarette lighter" and I had to know more! So I tweeted at him and he tweeted back at me thusly:

@JackPendarvis You should see this movie. Pivotal and SHOCKING lighter sequence.

— R. Emmet Sweeney (@r_emmet) January 26, 2016

He was speaking, of course, of SUSAN SLADE. So I watched it last night and here are my controversial comments, including numerous spoilers. 1. Lloyd Nolan was always an old man. 2. Lloyd Nolan has a funny way of letting his mouth hang open while other actors talk. 3. Connie Stevens's approach to acting is to repeat a word very carefully to make it appear she's thinking: "I... I..." "You... you..." "I wouldn't put... put it that way." She has an "illegitimate" baby that she tries to pass off as her baby brother and she is always saying, "I can't leave my baby... brother! My baby brother!" She (her character, Susan Slade) is remarkably terrible at remembering to pretend her baby is her baby brother. 3. Speaking of the baby, that is a truly great performance by a baby! He always seems to know his motivation. I'd put that baby up against the baby in Altman's version of POPEYE for all-time great performance by a baby. Connie Stevens sings him a lullaby and he reacts by drifting off to sleep! For example. 4. Here is where the lighter comes in, and it's horrific. The baby in the movie is always grabbing a lighter and playing with it. Then, in the true Chekhovian manner, he sets himself on fire! And they show a doll (it's supposed to be the baby) lying on the floor with flames leaping out of it! Terrifying. You're a little relieved because the "baby" is so obviously a doll, but that also makes it scarier! Don't worry, the baby is going to be all right, they tell us, though we never see the baby in the movie again. I suppose I would have been obliged to include this scene in my cigarette lighter book but I'm just as happy that I didn't. 5. Look at this ashtray!

I don't think this poorly captured, blurry frame can get across the ominous thrill of the camera closing in on this tableau as the telephone rings with no one in the house to answer it. Lynchian! And the ashtray almost glows. I was thinking McNeil would love this ashtray.

White Apples

I keep seeing this commercial where some bald mannequins are having a feast of white apples and this dude comes in and his phone is so powerful it allows him to jump on the table and kick over some bowls of white apples and this one mannequin turns into a real live person because she is so taken with the dude's apple kicking abilities. I bet poet Donald Hall is thrilled by all the free publicity his poem "White Apples" - about a visitation from his dead father - is getting thanks to this timely bit of drama about a guy whose phone is so cool it allows him to jump on a table and kick the apples.

Why Music Boxes Are Creepy

A strangely frequent reason that people visit this "blog" is to search for an answer to that (apparently) eternal question "Why Are Music Boxes Creepy?" I feel bad - guilt-ridden, truthfully - because that old "post" to which they are so often directed (you'd be surprised how many times a day people want to know why music boxes are creepy) is misleading. Some kid had written in to me with the idea that "Maybe music boxes are creepy because they are a purposeless vestige of Europe's aristo-centric period." And I quoted him in that "post" much too approvingly. Of course that's NOT why music boxes are creepy. Nor is this kid's highfalutin statement true in almost any way. Music boxes, for example, aren't any more "purposeless" than anything else. I gave that kid too much of a pass! I was trying to be nice. But now, all these years later, sad people who want to know why music boxes are creepy look to me for answers (several times a day, bewilderingly) and get nothing! And that kid is six years older now, so I suppose he can handle the truth that his big theories are full of beans. People aren't watching a movie about a dark house where a music box starts to play in the dead of night and the hair rises on their arms because they are suddenly reminded of "Europe's aristo-centric period"! Sorry to be so harsh! But you, theorizing kid, are probably at least 28, I'm going to guess, whoever you were, a full-grown adult by now who can accept the facts! I suppose music boxes are creepy because they are light and tinkly, for one thing. Scary noises in literature often start out soft... the rats scratching in Lovecraft, the beating of the telltale heart in Poe ("such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton")... soft music is scary at night... whistling, like in M or THE STEPFATHER... some awful killer is always humming softy to himself as he sharpens his instruments... also, music boxes are meant to be activated by the human hand (might be thought of, in fact, as an "alarm" of sorts... did people place diamonds and gold in them for this reason? Someone else may feel free to research the matter), so if you suddenly hear one in the middle of the night, when everyone is supposed to be asleep, something is wrong... like the record player and the wind-up toys and such in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND... music is a human endeavor, and maybe the mechanism IS an unwelcome (creepy?) reminder that our works can go on without us. And of course the kid from the old "post" WAS sort of onto something... in that a music box is a form of entertainment that a ghost might find comforting. Like, "I remember these!" Yes, just the sort of sentimental object to which a poor dead ghost might be attracted... a private, lonely entertainment even in life... so personal, maybe you shouldn't be overhearing it... a box to receive a particular soul... like a coffin... and yes, it IS a voice from the past, with a limited vocabulary. It can play only one thing... over and over... like a ghost... like the obsessive thoughts of a madman... like me... like that dude in MOBY-DICK... and slowing down, little by little... I was having drinks with Lee Durkee and he mentioned how music boxes are always slowing down... Sometimes they wind down unresolved, like life. There's nothing tenser in music than the "suspended fourth"... that's where the power of the music box's creepy cousin the jack-in-the-box comes in... the relationship between suspended chords and suspense. Bach could really leave you hanging, except he always had the luxury of resolving, except when played on a music box, I guess. Lee Durkee also contended that musical selections have something to do with it. "Music boxes don't play 'Turkey in the Straw,'" he said, emphasizing the jauntiness of that hoedown. I'll have to think about that. Is it true? And in any case I suspect "Turkey in the Straw" could be creepy enough on the right music box... Is the similarly bouncy "Pop Goes the Weasel" creepy just because we've heard it on so many dilapidated jack-in-the-boxes? Or is it the disturbing foreknowledge that the weasel is bound to "pop"?... Melodies are messages... pianos play by themselves in movies... half-forgotten snatches... they're trying to tell you something... they can't quite tell it to you straight... what's creepier than an oracle? And when you open a music box, a little ballerina figurine or such often begins to twirl stiffly... we think at once of what Freud said about dolls in his essay on "The Uncanny," but I think that book is in Dr. Theresa's office at the other end of the house and I don't feel like getting up. In conclusion, I apologize to all the people who have read that lazy and erroneous previous "blog" "post" lo these many years. My intellectual cowardice is beyond appalling! Another possible answer is: music boxes aren't creepy. (Illustration: Vera Farmiga looking at a creepy music box in a scary ghost movie we went to see with Chris Offutt. I saw Vera Farmiga checking into my hotel last time I was in Burbank! Sorry I forgot to tell you. I pestered her with fawning and she was real nice about it. She was wearing a stylish hat!) PS One Kris Simmons, whom I know via twitter, has chimed in to say, ha ha! - wait, is that even a pun? Do music boxes "chime"? - "I think it's because they sound out of tune." And she's onto something I hadn't considered! What could be more ghostly than these rusty gears and teeth and coils and knobby spools... still striving, but bent and warped by senescence? I ask you! Remember Edmund Spenser's ghosts with iron teeth... An out-of-tune music box is an echo, touchingly faded and changed... like a ghost... or a reflection... am I too suggestible? But this picture of Ms. Farmiga hints at a mirror in the lid... wasn't that common in music boxes? And aren't mirrors doorways into other worlds...? We just did a whole ADVENTURE TIME episode about that! Do I need to get all GOLDEN BOUGH on you...? So music boxes have little versions of ourselves inside... or else who's looking at what in that little mirror when the music box is playing by itself...? Okay! I'll keep adding more reasons music boxes are creepy. Send your suggestions to CREEPY MUSIC BOX c/o "Writer" Oxford, MS 38655. If you don't think music boxes are creepy be sure to include NOT CREEPY MUSIC BOX on your postcard.

The Very Heights of Celebrity

I say all of the following as a short man to whom shortness is no "shortcoming." Ha ha, what delightful wordplay. Nor, as a small fat man, do I wish to "belittle" anyone for their stature. Merciful heavens, I'm on fire today! But I couldn't believe it in the ADVENTURE TIME meeting the other day when Ashly Burch said she met Harrison Ford and he was just a little taller than her! She stood up and Kent stood up and she explained to Kent, using his body as a prop, exactly what spot Harrison Ford would come up to on him. I was attending the meeting via video, and could not see their heads nor much else of what was going on. It was a comical sight of torsos magically disengaged, as you may joyfully entertain yourself by imagining. I did get the gist. Harrison Ford, as already stated, is barely taller than Ashly Burch, and Ashly Burch is not a tall woman. I would put Ashly at about Megan Abbott size... and as you certainly recall, I once asked for and received permission to refer to Megan as "doll-like" in a scrupulously fact-checked magazine article. Or I think I said "a living doll." And - I must have told you this before! - Megan says that Norman Mailer was, when she encountered him, about her (Megan's) size. But I guess everybody knows old Norman was a pugnacious little thing. I do like to consider Ashly and Megan, these two remarkable women of my happy acquaintance - short of stature but great in spirit! two of my favorites if you must know - towering, as they by all rights should, over those churning testosterone factories Harrison Ford and Norman Mailer. Once Kent Osborne and Ward McCarthy and I were at Rob Schneider's house - don't ask! - and he was quite the expert on the heights of other celebrities. "Aaron Neville, not a tall man," he would distractedly mutter, for example, as we sipped cautiously at his teeny pony-sized beers. I was reminded quite forcefully of the Napoleon scene from TIME BANDITS as Mr. Schneider's litany - almanac! - of short entertainers began to unfurl itself just a little at a time, taking on a surprising and almost poetic life of its own. I believe he knew Aaron Neville's exact height. And Aaron Neville looks so muscly in pictures! Maybe it's a form of compensation, if Rob Schneider's powers of observation are to be trusted... and why shouldn't they be? I don't think it is any secret that Mr. Schneider is not known as a town-stomping giant himself. Hence his interest in the subject, perhaps. Ward McCarthy and I saw Martin Sheen scurrying out of a Johnny Rocket's hamburger restaurant in Santa Monica once, clutching a bag of hamburgers in his tiny, rat-like hands. I am not sure his hands were tiny! And I am quite sure they were BY NO MEANS rat-like; I just said that to startle you! Pleasantly, I trust. Over the years, my impressionistic gauzy memory has preserved Mr. Sheen as if in amber: a stumpy figure he appears in my strange and inaccurate dreams, with an enormous head. Movie stars all have enormous heads, I have been informed by dubious sources, and spindly little bodies scarcely capable of holding them up. But Harrison Ford is what made me recollect all this. Who knew he was the size of a doll? We do have one personal photo of Harrison Ford with his back turned. Let's "click" here and study it for clues. He's kind of hunched over, which doesn't help. And come to think of it, "Blog" Buddy Chris Offutt has been to Harrison Ford's house! We'll grill him later. But he may not be the kind to take the measure of a man and shout it to the prurient readership of height-obsessed jackals to whom I so willingly cater.

Ceramic Shmoo

Megan Abbott and I were emailing a little bit about the "Shmoo" today and I told her that we nearly had some Shmoo-like creatures on an ADVENTURE TIME episode (Shmoos don't mind being eaten; in fact, they like it!) but the executives (wisely, this time?) put the kibosh on that... so anyway, Megan went looking at Shmoos on the internet and advised me not to look at any Shmoo images, and she is a person who recently sent me a crime-scene photo that included a ventriloquist's doll! So I looked anyway, and I found this ceramic (?) Shmoo with some of the paint rubbed off his face.

The Only Explanation Was Offered By Our Dentist

Yesterday I picked up some good research items from that used book stall I like so much. It's in that strip mall across from Big Bad Breakfast, way in the back of the antique store. Check it out! One thing I found might be the most interesting self-published book I've come across since THE SCRAPBOOK OF A DETECTIVE. This one is by a livestock inspector named Dr. Harold Wallman, and it's a lavishly produced overview of his many collections of things. It's called 640 OF MY COLLECTIONS. They're put into alphabetical order and numbered. For example, collection #5 is "Alligators." The paragraph about his alligator collection begins, "The most intriguing alligator is controlled by two buttons." No set-up or anything, he just gets right to it. I don't think I'm getting across how unusual this book is. I'll keep trying. Collection #141 is "Cinema Photographs." He found most of these "in a Chicago alley. There were way more than I could take in a car, but I kept some... I had some fun with them by putting captions on them as to what I thought each character was saying. In one for 'Bed Time for Bonzo,' Ronald Reagen [sic] is standing there and he says, 'Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle.' The lady holding the chimp says, 'You mean father, Ha Ha Ha.'" Dr. Wallman also has a collection of newspaper articles and cartoons containing the name Arnold. The description is somewhat muddled, but they seem to be a tribute to his friend Arnold Cohn, and he put together a scrapbook that is partly (I think) about the real Arnold Cohn and partly about other people who happen to be named Arnold that he pretends are Arnold Cohn (?), including, writes Dr. Wallman, and note the quotation marks, "a picture of 'him' on a motorcycle, as a wrestler, and with a great body. It ends with his car accidents, death, services and auction. Many entries are completely anachronistic." Collection #155 is "Coffins." The descriptive paragraph begins, "One of my skeletons came in a rosewood coffin." So right away you know that he has a collection of skeletons, and indeed there it is, collection #507: "Skeletons - Human." Here we learn that his RV caught fire in 1986, and the only skeleton he owned at the time was destroyed: "I soon tried to replace it at dealers in Texas and Chicago, IL. I was told that human skeletons were no longer available." He finally got one but "it is light brown in color. The only explanation was offered by our dentist who said it got that way from being kept in the dark." And yes, I read between the lines that he was driving around in an RV with a human skeleton, and you'll have to trust me that it's only one of the disturbing things I've read between the lines - and in the lines - in this book. In a closing thought, Dr. Wallman regrets all the collections he couldn't include. "Too late to be more than mentioned are dolls, scout parapernalia [sic], bird feeders and houses, feathers, crutches, lead sinkers, enema cans, and cloth patches." Speaking of dolls, I believe he claims to have a pornographic Charlie Chaplin doll...? Details are vague, though the doll is mentioned in collection #432, "Pornography." Hmm, it seems that the thermos mentioned there is definitely pornographic (don't ask) and maybe the Chaplin doll is something he picked up in the same lot. "There is also a 'dirty' pocket watch and wrist watch," concludes Dr. Wallman. Such is the fascination of this book that only now do I find time to mention that Dr. Wallman's 392nd collection consists of owls, of course.

That Dang Vampire

Megan Abbott emailed this morning. She's thinking of rereading H.P. Lovecraft for the holidays (!) and wanted to know my favorite stories of his. By coincidence (OR WAS IT?) there was a Lovecraft allusion on last night's ADVENTURE TIME, when a little creature on a pilgrimage, hoping to see a god, saw Finn eating spaghetti instead. The poor little thing cried out, "I thought you'd be beautiful!" and started weeping and melted. And by coincidence (OR WAS IT?) yesterday's ADVENTURE TIME meeting was about a creepy episode idea from Seo Kim (who also storyboarded last night's episode along with Somvilay Xayaphone). It was also based on a night terror (OR WAS IT?) that a friend of Kent's had. And by coincidence (OR WAS IT?) I ran out of things to read on airplanes and at an LAX souvenir shop where by coincidence (OR WAS IT?) a large glowing poster of pal Mary Miller's novel THE LAST DAYS OF CALIFORNIA decorated the register I bought the new, Lovecraftian Stephen King novel. (Also in that souvenir shop: a lifesized cardboard cutout of Martin Short, for which I fantasized about buying a seat next to me on the airplane.) Also (OR WAS IT?) I have been tweeting little fragments of the ghost book I just finished reading to Megan and Jimmy, like so:

@kingfergus @meganeabbott "After she broke up with him, she returned his dead wife's clothes, twisted into 'doll-like shapes'"
— Jack Pendarvis (@JackPendarvis) November 21, 2014

And Bill Boyle, inspired by this, emailed Jimmy and Megan and me some scary "links" to recordings of poltergeist activity (little kids talking in SHINING voices, yaaaah! Dr. Theresa hates it when I say in a raspy voice, "Jack's not here, Mrs. Pendarvis" - as much as I hate and fear her creepy impression of Helena Bonham Carter in FRANKENSTEIN! - so I guess Bill Boyle has taught me a valuable lesson in empathy) and a medium named Leslie Flint channeling the Brontë sisters. I shan't include the "links" lest they drive you mad with fear (see Lovecraft). Hey did I ever tell you that one of my little sister's first words as a baby was "poltergeist"? True story! Plus I'm reading that dang vampire novel now, what is wrong with me. OR WAS IT

Hyperlinks From a Marriage

As of today, Dr. Theresa and I have been married for 19 years. WHAT! For the first 11 years I didn't even have a "blog." WHAT! So anything that happened during that period is none of your beeswax. But everything after that is up for grabs! So here are some highlights: We saw Morgan Freeman get out of his car. We watched SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT and HOOPER. We investigated wild animal noises. We celebrated Dr. Theresa becoming Dr. Theresa. We went to the optometrist together. We were nearly struck by lightning! We watched a raccoon and a possum hang out on our back porch. We hung out with Kent Osborne a lot. We kept track for some months of a neighboring groundhog. We walked through a weird abandoned tunnel. We recalled a schoolyard legend of Grizzly Adams's beard catching on fire. We went to Elvis's house. We went to hear a Frank Sinatra impersonator. We saw a bunch of dragonflies at Robert Johnson's grave. We tried to get a kitten off the roof. We drank champagne out of martini glasses.

Dr. Theresa solved a mystery in my office. Dr. Theresa bought me pants. Dr. Theresa scared me several times with her Helena Bonham Carter impersonation. Dr. Theresa brought a goldfish back to life. Dr. Theresa saved my favorite fork when it was stuck in the drain. Dr. Theresa noted my strange susceptibility to Lady Grey tea. Dr. Theresa proved the existence of the giant turtle movie that haunted her. Dr. Theresa has uttered many memorable phrases. Dr. Theresa warned me not to be torn apart by coyotes in Beverly Hills. Dr. Theresa made coffee and eggs and tortillas at 3 in the morning. Dr. Theresa bought a $5 umbrella. Dr. Theresa made a new notch in my belt for me. Dr. Theresa ordered extra tartar sauce. Dr. Theresa danced with balls of fire. We used to go get a whole karaoke room to ourselves with our friend Caroline. We took a pregnant woman to see PINK FLAMINGOS. We saw a strange woman pushing a face-down doll in a baby stroller. We supported literacy. We had loud upstairs neighbors. We attended a rock and roll show in New York City. We roamed around the restaurants and bars of New Orleans with John Currence and John T. Edge. We ate in a terrible restaurant in Nashville. We had our picture hung up in a restaurant. We had some low-key New Year's Eves. We accidentally took a tap-dancing lesson together. We saw three huge woodpeckers. We bought a drink for D-Day from ANIMAL HOUSE. We went to a midnight screening of BLAZING SADDLES right after Princess Diana died. We stayed in a Ramada Inn that literally had an old graveyard in its parking lot. We domesticated at least one feral cat. We consumed many iceberg lettuce wedges. We watched countless horror movies. Countless! And many episodes of Lawrence Welk. We forced young people to dance. We drove to Booger Bottom on a whim. We observed a robin's nest. We discussed our paper clip preferences. We stood in a roaring wind.

Ghosts Are Real

As you know, Dr. Theresa and I can hardly be bothered to walk up the block to hear music. But this weekend we went all the way to New York City to hear music! That's right, our favorite band The Rock*A*Teens, who were playing their VERY LAST SHOW EVER according to Rock*A*Teens mastermind Chris Lopez, whom we saw in the club (Le Poisson Rouge) when we arrived early - though the next day (about which more later) he seemed more cryptic and less certain when we raked him over the coals about it. We can only hope - the world, I mean! - that the Rock*A*Teens will play again. Our trip began the day before, with drinks precisely at "Megan Abbott Time" - this time with the actual Megan Abbott! Hey, you know how I always wear my glasses way up on the top of my head? Sure, it's probably all you think about! You can see an example in the following photo by Dan Conaway.

Well, I tossed back my head with glee or something and my glasses flew away into a spot from which they were seemingly irretrievable. Megan, a daintily constructed person (I once asked for and received her permission to compare her to a doll in a magazine article) slipped herself behind the banquette in our swank hotel lobby to save them. Later that night, at dinner (about which more later), an efficient and stealthy waiter suddenly appeared behind me with my glasses, which I had lost again in the identical manner. "Sir, your glasses," he said. "A theme!" I thought. "This is hot stuff! The title of my 'blog' 'post' can be 'Sir, Your Glasses.'" And so I jotted in my special book of jottings. BUT IT WAS NOT TO BE. "Ha ha," I thought. "My glasses are always flying off my head. What an intriguing character I am." Dr. Theresa and I were dining at Il Buco Alimentari, a place recommended by John T. Edge. When we arrived, the hostess said, "Oh, you requested the kitchen," and the other hostess said quickly, "No, no, no," which made me suspicious. WHO HAD REQUESTED THE KITCHEN? For we were indeed seated, as if we had requested the kitchen, at a marble counter facing just inches away from where they were cooking the food, a terrific spectacle. The exchange between hostesses made me wonder whether John T. had secretly called ahead to ensure that our dinner would be especially memorable. I have suspected as much of him before! Dr. Theresa had some octopus and then later I had some different kind of octopus. Somehow I thought of Camille's, an old spot in Atlanta, though Camille's was sometimes crummy, especially in its later years, whereas Il Buco Alimentari was glorious, but my octopus made me think of the fra diavolo at Camille's if a mighty, shining archangel had prepared it instead of a human who had given up on life. It was some exquisite octopus there at Il Buco Alimentari is what I'm getting at. And Dr. Theresa said that her own pasta course was like "black pepper and pecorino romano got married and had a beautiful offspring." And there was pork with nectarines and so many other things, things just kept coming, things that could make you cry, a snifter of green chartreuse. And now I'm going to leave the heavenly Il Buco Alimentari to indulge in some memories of shaky old Camille's. Dr. Theresa and I went to Camille's on our third date! Between our first and second date she had gotten seriously ill - not because of our first date, ha ha! I mean, like, she was in the hospital. So on the third date I thought it might do her some good to try to walk to Camille's (she was very weak). It did her no good at all! In fact it did her some harm. Which reminds me of the time long before that when I made my poor sister walk a MILE to Camille's in some uncomfortable shoes which I found out later had caused her feet to bleed like some kind of saint. Good times. Let me explain that at the time, my brother and I were both living in Atlanta, in separate places, and my sister, then a teenager, would sometimes come to visit. So on that trip she and I sat around the apartment and played hangman because I didn't have a car and I forced her to march until her feet bled... and then when it was her turn to stay with my brother, he introduced her to her hero David Byrne! David Byrne shook her hand and she swore never to wash it again. So that was a contrast. Nor did my brother force her to walk until her feet bled. OKAY! Back to the present! The next day Dr. Theresa and I were to meet Megan at the Strand bookstore, where I had never been somehow. Dr. Theresa and I were a little early, so first we ducked into a comic book store around the corner. I got a copy of Seo Kim's book CAT PERSON. It's great! Sitting on a bench waiting for Megan a few minutes later I was just laughing out loud like a lunatic. Also, I was reading CAT PERSON by Seo Kim. I was delighted to see Jesse Moynihan's FORMING on the shelf in the comic book store, both volumes. But an employee told me that the recent ADVENTURE TIME comics cowritten by Kent Osborne were sold out! He told me they sell the minute they come in - they can't keep them in the shop! Our town does not have a comic book store, so I was sad about that lost opportunity. (Later the Rock*A*Teens bass player Will Joiner showed me a picture his niece had asked him to show me. She's getting ready to start 7th grade and she was all done up in her ADVENTURE TIME finery. He said she had never been so excited as when he told her he was going to meet someone who works on ADVENTURE TIME... which is the same way I feel about the Rock*A*Teens!) Megan met us at the Strand and we went down to the occult section in the basement. Dr. Theresa immediately found me several of the kind of "true ghost story" books I like, including one with a Table of Contents that promised a chapter about "The Terrible Flying Jelly Bags." I don't know what those are yet, and I won't until the books have been delivered, but I thought "The Terrible Flying Jelly Bags" would make a great title for a "blog" "post," surpassing even "Sir, Your Glasses." BUT IT WAS NOT TO BE. Megan was trying to choose between a book by a debunker and a book by a spiritualist medium and I suggested the latter because it would be "crazier." An eavesdropping young man turned to us and in a quietly intense voice said, "Ghosts are real." As I recall it, I replied in a friendly conversational tone, "I know, I've seen 'em!" Minutes later, however, on the street (and several times throughout the remainder of our stay in New York) Megan claimed that I had said, "Of course! I've seen many!" and as I was saying it (according to Megan's version, which she demonstrated to a number of people over the next few days, as I've noted) I made a sweeping, Shakespearean gesture with my right hand. That's what she said! I don't remember it. In any case, I "out-weirded the weirdo" (as Megan put it, to which Dr. Theresa sincerely added, "I am so proud of you"). It is true that the quiet and intense young man, whose eyes glimmered with danger and insanity, was flummoxed, stunned, defeated and silenced by my solicitous response. Eventually, Megan and Dan and Dr. Theresa and I were at the Rock*A*Teens show, and I literally can't remember the last time I was so happy.

For one thing it brought Dr. Theresa and me in an emotional whirlwind back to our early days (we've been married almost 19 years!) when Hogan sang at our wedding reception and Lopez picked up a guitar for one number. For this gig, though, all these years later, a band called Ricer opened, and it was a good sign when the lead singer and guitarist announced that her favorite band was The Rock*A*Teens. Then Ricer blew us all away with crashing relentless deafening sterilizing murderous vibrations that made us feel young again. Megan described their sound as "early metal" - I think. It was impossible to hear! In a good way. "They're like Frank Sinatra!" I screamed in Megan's ear, and I believe she agreed. She got where I was coming from! Maybe. After Ricer, Megan and I went and found a photo booth at the back of the club.

The Rock*A*Teens came on and Dr. Theresa danced, sometimes with Dan and sometimes with the girl from Ricer, and sometimes both, probably. I chipped in. It was mass hysteria! Dr. Theresa screamed herself hoarse. The aftereffects are apparent to this very day! She reached up for the stage and Chris Lopez reached down and grabbed her hand. She later called it her "Courtney Cox moment" - for you youngsters, that's a Springsteen reference. The next day, the bass player Will Joiner told us that the R*A*Ts had played for TWO SOLID HOURS, 23 songs, an incredible length for a set list. Lopez crowd-surfed for the first time ever. "I didn't do it on purpose," he said, sounding apologetic. "I stumbled and somebody grabbed me." This conversation took place at a joint called "The Campbell Apartment," where Megan took us, a rococo little bar in a hidden corner of Grand Central Station. Here's a picture I found of it on the "internet."

You can see the top of the nicely-upholstered couch where Lopez and Dr. Theresa and I were sitting. But you can't see the stone lion with wings (a gryphon?) that watches over everything. The atmosphere was suitably phantasmagoric but some of the fancy drinks were tastier than others and Lopez and Dr. Theresa may have had the right idea when they switched to bourbon on the rocks.

Dr. Theresa showed off her tattoo and Lopez asked whether I had got one to match and I said teasingly, "I don't desecrate my body," to which Lopez replied "THIS body?" gesturing humorously at my body. Which reminds me. We were lucky enough to see Ward McCarthy and his dear wife Ann on this trip, our old friends, and their daughter Lily (I knew her when she was a newborn infant and now she's about to start college!) and Ward and Ann LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME as they did when I first knew them. And Chris Lopez looks EXACTLY THE SAME. Whereas I am a fat guy with a lot of white in his beard. What happened? Ward said he and the family had been rafting in some rapids recently. That's not the Ward I know! As I exclaimed to all present. "Yes, because all we did was sit in a bar and complain," said Ward. "But when I wasn't doing that, I was rafting," he added lyingly. I had reason to think of my fatness as I reclined in a marble bathtub, taking a bubble bath and reading a Travis McGee novel just as John D. MacDonald never intended. A tub so deep I could float in it. I DID float in it! This was the day after the show and I was singing everything to the tune of "Don't Destroy This Night," my favorite Rock*A*Teens song, like, "Let's get a drink/ We can sit and think/ Tub so deep/ It puts me right to sleep/ I'm in the mood/ To take pictures of my food." Such were a mere few of my hilarious parody lyrics basd on gritty real-life experiences. I'm like the Weird Al of the Rock*A*Teens! But - and may Ace Atkins forgive me for saying so - John D. MacDonald writes a lot of prose that should ONLY be read in a bubble bath. "One goodnight in a sad alto echoed in an empty corridor in my mind... I stood on a dream bridge and saw an open boat drift under the bridge on the black tide, full of a lost tumble of dead maidens..." WHAT! COME ON! Travis McGee likes to explain life to the ladies. He likes to tell women what's what. "Baby, nothing is easy... real people walk around in the foggy, foggy dew." Okay, Travis McGee! That little speech runs about a page. (Ha ha, look who's talking!) By page 142 two women have literally purred at him - PURRED AT HIM, NOT METAPHORICALLY - because he's so awesome at giving them a squeeze if you know what I mean. Maybe one woman specifically purring in gratitude for his manliness every 71 pages isn't too many, I don't know, what do you think, don't tell me, I don't care. But he's trying to avenge the death of a pal and get his mitts on some weird gold statues so I'm still reading it so sue me. After drinks with some Rock*A*Teens at Grand Central Station it was off to Laura Lippman and David Simon's place with Dan and Megan for a really special evening of conversation and cheese. I am talking about a cheese called burrata, which I guess I am the last to know about because everybody was looking at it and saying, "Hm, the burrata, oh, the burrata," like it was a normal thing. But it was so much more than a normal thing! Plus Laura had thoughtfully prepared some Southern specialties to make us Southerners (she has Georgia roots of her own!) feel at home. Because guess who else was there? That's right, Roy Blount Jr.! "She introduced us to her donkey," Roy said when I asked him to tell us about the time he met Flannery O'Connor. "Funerals are a good thing to be funny after," he said later, on another subject. At one point Megan said "Everything important looks simple," and I wrote it down because I go around writing down things Megan says. Like, a day or two before that, she said in defense of Frank Sinatra, "He couldn't control his overwhelming emotions, that's the worst you could say about him," and then she laughed really forcefully ("merrily," we decided) at the audacity of her own pronouncement. Ha ha ha! At Le Poisson Rouge I wrote down something Dan said but I'll tell you the truth, I'm not sure I can read it. It's dark in there! It's dark and drunk in there. I think it says, "The promise isn't better than the thing." And I think it had to do with how fantastically he had vowed to dance with Dr. Theresa - a promise he easily kept! I have a lot more material here... I mean a LOT more... a whole riff on SNOWPIERCER for example (I think I call Tilda Swinton the Peter Sellers of our time) but even I have my limits. OR DO I?

"Blog"trospective 14: Graveyards

If there's one thing everybody loves it's a graveyard! So let's make a list of "links" to all our graveyard-related "posts" (and don't forget to "enjoy" our previous "blog"trospectives: 1. Tom Franklin 2. Phil Oppenheim 3. Movies 4. The Moon 5. Sandwiches 6. The United States 7. The Beach Boys 8. Arnold Stang 9. Books With Owls in Them 10. Gelatin 11. Monkeys Riding Dogs 12. Kent Eating Chicken 13. When Megan Lived Here)... GRAVEYARDS! APOSTLE by Tom Bissell features visits to the graves of all twelve apostles---artsy project includes grave desecration---bad idea for McNeil's tombstone, a---barbecue next to a graveyard---bats at Faulkner's grave---being funny after a funeral---"The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's Church"---Bissell, Tom; plays Marvel Ultimate Alliance while he should be searching for the apostles' graves---Bissell, Tom; searches for the graves of all 12 apostles---block of wood psychologically represents a coffin---"blogs" are like tombs---Bohemond's gravestone---Britton, Connie; sighted when we were staying at a motel with a graveyard attached to it---character in DRACULA wakes unclad in a churchyard at night---churchyard with gravestones in THE COMPANY OF WOLVES---circus performers' graveyard---coffin inspectors---coffinmaker who yells about his craft, a---confounded from beyond the grave---corpse preserved in a bog; Freud allegedly likened to---cowherd lies in open graves---Dee, Dr. John; grave of used as touchstone in children's game---discussion of appropriate things to carve on gravestones---doll cemetery---dream of---eating dirt from the graveyard---engraving of Dr. Dee and Edward Kelly hanging out with a spirit in a churchyard---Evans, Linda; slaps a man with a leather strap at her father's grave---exhumation of Tycho Brahe---fairybabes hang around in---famed ventriloquist confronts his mother's ghost at her grave---few loose rails thrown over Meriwether Lewis's grave, a---flea climbs into the grave of the flea who loved him---frogs as quiet as grave-rocks---funeral bell---ghosts break up their graves---Gigot peeks through some graveyard shrubbery at his own funeral---grave gone to without its occupant being aware of the entire catalog of celebrity memoirs I have read---graves of the Scribner family---graveside service for Thomas Paine poorly attended---graveyard right there in the parking lot of a Ramada Inn---guy dug up from his grave and mocked on a throne---hair growing out of cracked-open tombs---Hayden, Sterling; attends the funeral of Marshal Tito---I am reminded of something Bill Taft said to me in a graveyard---Johnson, Robert; disputed gravesites of---Lee, Sir Henry; has an effigy of Mistress Vavasour placed on his grave---listening to "Brick House" by the Commodores on the way to Meriwether Lewis's grave---man buried under the flagstones of a kitchen---man who collects coffins, a---mansion where the arrangements for Jayne Mansfield's funeral were made, the---Mature, Victor; consults the caretaker of a cemetery---McNeil ponders a career as a graverobber---men run howling about graves---monkey ghost described outside of tomb---monks rob a grave!---mortuary makeup man---Murray, Bill; attends the funeral of Elvis Presley---my brother attends Michael Jackson's memorial service (there's no graveyard here but you can "click" back on several interesting "posts" about the day, so why not?)---Naked-Rumped Tomb Bat---night-crows on tombs---old tombs break open, releasing hordes of wandering dead---ominous crow cawing in a graveyard's barren tree---"Pale Pity" asked to consecrate Meriwether Lewis's final resting place---parrot screams curse words at Andrew Jackson's funeral---passing the resting place of Meriwether Lewis without stopping---pasta recipes inscribed on tomb---PET SEMATARY---pigs get skinny after drinking from a trough made from a coffin---pinball machines as coffins---"Policeman at Cemetery"---purported King Arthur and Guinevere dug up from their graves and wrapped in silk---resting place of the Biblical Jacob---Roman vampire burial site---Saunders, George; writes book set in a graveyard---shirtless man reads at grave---shrugging disrespectfully at graveside---Shubuta cemetery---STRIKING DISTANCE (film) concludes at cemetery---supposed gravestone of Till Eulenspiegel---toad dressed as Elvis suggested as candidate for formal burial in a grave---tomb of Talbot, the terror of the French---tombs of the prophets, the---"Tombstone Blues"---trip to Poe's grave postponed in favor of GILMORE GIRLS finale---UFO lands behind a cemetery---Van, Bobby; grave of---where all biographies end---witches dance on Berlioz's grave---Yorick skull (from gravedigger's scene in HAMLET)---York, Joe; makes a complex and satisfying visual pun using a gravestone---youthful graveyard encounters of Megan Abbott and Barry Hannah---Zola heroine lives next door to a drunken undertaker.