Things About Kings

Whoa! I was just over at Square Books, stumbling around the new release table, and I saw that Peter Ackroyd has already written another book about kings! It is a sequel to his last book about kings. What are you doing to me, Peter Ackroyd? You know I can only take so many books about kings over such-and-such a period of time. On the paperback table I saw this book I keep meaning to tell you about. I've never seen anything but the cover, front and back. It's by some local twins who are also old ladies. On the cover, the old lady twins are dressed up as queens, with crowns and scepters and red capes. One old lady is seated, pulling back her royal cape to reveal that she is wearing sneakers such as a youthful person might don! Her identical sister appears to sneak up behind her, threatening with real malice to bash in her head with her scepter! That is the cover of the book. The back cover claims - and why should I doubt it? - that the olden sisters once bet William Faulkner a prized marble that he could not tell them apart. In conclusion, let's talk about the history book about kings I am reading right now. I forgot about this: I was reading in bed last night about one Count Gondomar (!) who liked the ladies and, as a contemporary wrote, "would cast out his golden Balls to catch them," ha ha! I read that aloud to Dr. Theresa and laughed uproariously like a real jerk. I was purposely misinterpreting "golden Balls" to humorous effect, for which I humbly beg your pardon. Let me further relate that just as I predicted, doublets appear with regularity. A prince's attendant runs up, "rustling and panting in his ruff and doublet."

Likely Doublet Bonanza

Started reading something "serious" for a change - REPROBATES: THE CAVALIERS OF THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR by John Stubbs. So I guess it's back to kings for me! After that one book about kings I gave up on that other book about kings, so we'll see. Right away, in the introduction, there's this: "Since we cannot cancel the term 'cavalier' in the record altogether, we should try to comprehend the depth and variety of qualities it actually denoted." And I was like, "Oh no! Should we?" But I'm going to keep going! After all, it promises doublets aplenty ("Everyone can picture him, the cavalier, with his lovelocks, his broad hat, his mantle and bucket-topped boots, the basket-handled rapier at his side, a buskin covering his satin doublet") and I hardly ever get to use my "doublet" label at the bottom of these "posts." Nothing against author John Stubbs, but his name makes me think about Stubbe Peeter, a man whose 1590 trial records I have read in the LYCANTHROPY READER... "A True Discourse Declaring the Damnable Life and Death of One Stubbe Peeter, A Most Wicked Sorcerer, Who in the Likeness of a Wolf..." well, the title is awful and bloody and goes on and on. (See also.) I thought Stubbe Peeter was also known as "Peter Stubbs" but I see my memory has failed me. According to the index, he was also known as Peter Stump, which seems worse somehow. Wait! Have I never told you about the LYCANTHROPY READER before? My "blog search function" says no. Here's the full subtitle: "Werewolves in Western Culture - Medical Cases, Diagnoses, Descriptions; Trial Records, Historical Accounts, Sightings; Philosophical and Theological Approaches to Metamorphosis; Critical Essays on Lycanthropy; Myths and Legends; Allegory." My friend's wife gave it to him for Christmas! And it scared him so much he gave it to me to get it out of his house.

Milady's Favorite Monkey

A while back I heard Nic Brown reading from his novel-in-progress and his characters were discussing THE THREE MUSKETEERS and I thought, "I need to read THE THREE MUSKETEERS," and now I am, in the Richard Pevear translation. Ah! My vaunted suggestibility! How I love to boast and brag of it - two character flaws working together, like the chocolate and peanut butter in a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup of human frailty. I'm over halfway through the novel and so far there have been no owls, but this sentence gave me comfort and satisfaction: "He had turned around to play with Milady's favorite monkey, who had pulled him by the doublet."

The Haunted Bacon

Another ghost story from John Aubrey. This one comes in the form of a letter from "the Reverend Mr. Andrew Paschal, B.D., Rector of Chedzoy in Somerset." It's all about a fellow named Francis Fry, who met a "Man-Spectre" with a "Pole in his Hand" and a ghostly "Gentlewoman" who sometimes appeared "in shapes more horrid, as of a Dog belching Fire." Boy, did these two cause Francis Fry some trouble! For example, they tore his "best Periwig... all to flitters... I should have told you the Fate of his Shoe-strings, one of which a Gentlewoman greater than all exception, assured me that she saw it come out of his Shoe, without any visible Hand, and fling itself to the farther end of the room." A maid grabbed the other shoelace, "which crisp'd and curl'd about her Hand like a living Eel... other fantastical Freeks have been very frequent... two Flitches of Bacon descending from the Chimney where they hung..." Finally poor Fry "was caught by the Woman Spectre by the Skirts of his Doublet, and carried into the Air... half an Hour after, Fry was heard Whistling and Singing in a kind of Quagmire."