Bob, Birds, Brontë, O'Brien

I was standing in Square Books the other day thinking, "Should I read a book by Edna O'Brien? She had a fling with Robert Mitchum!" That is a terrible reason to read a book but maybe no worse than lots of others. I picked O'Brien's novel WILD DECEMBERS because they compare it to WUTHERING HEIGHTS, my personal fave, on the back. Of course you can't always trust the back of the book to give you the best information. But O'Brien's epigraph is from Emily Brontë, and the title of the book comes from it, so okay. And it's really good so far! The book, I mean, not the epigraph, although the epigraph is just dandy. As soon as the second paragraph of the first chapter I thought we were going to get an owl: "There were birds always," writes O'Brien, and then she lists some birds, but owls are not among them. Still, I'm only on page 22 and there have been tons of birds so far and much talk of birds. I believe there is a fair chance of owls.

Earth Squirrel Wins

"Look, I'm busy," you say. "I don't have all day to sit around reading every 'post' you ever wrote about corn. I'm no purist! I'm just a guy or gal on the go and the pressures of my job are enormous. If I could read just one thing you 'blogged' about corn, what would it be?" First of all, let me say that is the trouble with this modern world! But okay. I suppose the third runner-up would be my discovery of the curious predominance of corn flakes in the index of Hal Needham's autobiography. And then of course no one can deny the excitement of reading about the corn they eat on Venus and Mars! What could possibly top that? No, not the erotic celebrity kernel-flinging of the glamorous Julie Christie. Sure, that is a good guess, but not everything is about action and thrills and eating corn in outer space with big Hollywood movie stars all the time! It may surprise you to learn that we have to "come back down to earth" - ha ha! - to enjoy the simple pleasures of the time Dr. "M." saw a squirrel eating corn on the cob. No sir, it just doesn't get any better than that. Now there's something to ponder while you sit in your skyscrapers worrying about your briefcases at your big business meetings: that adorable little squirrel just nibbling away without a care in the world! I wonder about the last time that cheeky little fellow had to put on a fancy "necktie" and meet someone in a conference room. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh my. Although the other day a particularly wiry and patchy squirrel came right up the front walk and onto the porch with disquieting urgency of purpose and leapt onto the screen door and glared at me malevolently with a large, black acorn jammed into its mouth and that wasn't adorable. It was ominous and terrifying. I looked into its eyes and the abyss stared back.

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."

The Search for Stanley Myron Handelman

Phil confirms that - as we guessed - he knows who Professor Irwin Corey was. In fact, Phil will SEE your Professor Irwin Corey and RAISE YOU a Stanley Myron Handelman. He writes: "I was searching Prof Irwin Corey no more than two weeks ago! I wanted to make sure he was doing well after I found out that Stanley Myron Handelman had died (uh, two years ago; reference below). There's no connection between the two, other than in my faulty neural wiring." Phil then provides a "link." If it makes you feel any better, I have no recollection of Stanley Myron Handelman, so I guess I'm not such a big shot after all. I like that he had three names! You never see that anymore. Just Oliver Wendell Holmes and Stanley Myron Handelman. Those were the only two. PS: Hey, Phil, look what I found. It's a "web" site by Robert Goulet's son-in-law, on which he says that he's sorry he and Stanley Myron Handelman didn't stay in touch. There are lots of behind-the-scenes candid show biz shots on the "web" site of Robert Goulet's son-in-law. Here (above) is a picture of Robert Goulet's son-in-law with the actress Gloria DeHaven, for example. It has nothing to do with Stanley Myron Handelman, but what does? Hey, remember when I was only going to use random illustrations from the "blog's" past in order to save room on my computer? Lately I seem to be kissing my noble intentions goodbye. PPS: When Jerry Lewis first came to Hollywood, he had a wild fling with Ms. DeHaven. Here's Jerry as quoted in the Levy book: "I never had fifty bucks in my pocket at one time; now I'm walking around with thirty-five hundred in hundred dollar bills, and I got a starlet on my arm. It's fantasyland." So somehow I brought it back to Jerry.

A Hasty Man

Speaking of interesting old 45s, here I am violating my own rule again by adding a new image to my already dangerously overloaded computer. But it had to be done! As promised, I watched THERE'S A GIRL IN MY SOUP all the way through to its closing credits, so I could find out for McNeil who sang "Arabella Cinderella." Here is the single, and as you can see, the performer is Mike d'Abo. I found the picture on Mr. d'Abo's "web" site, which he still maintains (I think; his last message appears to be from 2007, though the site itself was updated just a few weeks ago). The main page shows Mr. d'Abo with his family, and they look very happy and nice, and I admit that I somewhat regret my easy dismissal of "Arabella Cinderella," of which, after all, only snippets are heard in the film. And what kind of man judges a snippet? A hasty man, that's what kind. Please note that the 45 cover includes a shot of Goldie Hawn flung over Peter Sellers's shoulder, and I must admit that her underpants are showing, which is out of keeping with the "blog's" usual policy vis-à-vis raciness. But the "blog's" editorial board decided that the unexpected discovery of the "Arabella Cinderella" 45 was of sufficient interest to allow for an exception. (By the way, having at last seen the film all the way through, I must admit that it does not adhere to the socio-comedic tradition of a ritualistic affirmation of bourgeois norms, as McNeil and I originally speculated. In fact - SPOILER ALERT! - Ms. Hawn traipses off into a seemingly abusive relationship and the abandoned Mr. Sellers reverts to shallow hedonism, and the whole thing turns out pretty bleak if you ask me, so who's bourgeois now? Well, the movie still is, somehow. As Henri Lefebvre observes in his CRITIQUE OF EVERYDAY LIFE, "Protesting against bourgeois stupidity and oppression, the anarchic individualist is enclosed in 'private' consciousness, itself a product of the bourgeois era, and no longer understands human power and the community upon which that power is founded. The historical forms of this community, from the village to the nation, escape him… By following alienation to its very extremes he is merely playing into the hands of the bourgeoisie.") A final curiosity: Ms. Hawn's underpants are a bright, shiny green in the actual film. The 45 jacket has faded, perhaps, or there was a mistake by the printer, or perhaps the color was purposefully altered. Another mystery!

The Excessive Cordon Bleu Impulse

Whenever I talk about the "blog" of Andy Hopkins, I seem to emphasize the mom-and-pop grocery store angle and not the way he digs up old homemade novelty 45s and lets you listen to them RIGHT THERE ON HIS "BLOG." Recently, for example, he put up one called "Truck Drivers Don't Eat Duck." I don't want to give away too much of the story (SPOILER ALERT!) but this truck driver stops at a roadside cafe, where the waitress offers him "duck under glass" (!), prompting his memorable response. As always, the best part is Andy's thorough analysis. "The key changes are idiosyncratic, but the lead guitarist makes taste, not waste, when finessing the leaps," he notes. At the end of the song (MORE SPOILERS!) the truck driver vows to order chicken cordon bleu next time and fling it in the face of his hardworking server, which seems excessive to say the least. Surely the waitress did not choose the daily special. She is just trying to make an honest buck like anybody else. The source of the truck driver's rage is hard to pinpoint, and the object of it curious indeed! As Karl Marx observed, "This antagonism [of worker vs. worker] is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short, by all the means at the disposal of the ruling classes." It is something to think about with Labor Day coming up.

Things I Can't Do

Phil Oppenheim sends in a breathtakingly mean-spirited email about the Gilmore Girls, one to which I cannot even make a reference without violating every human rule of decency. Did you want to hurt me, Phil? Because mission accomplished! Sheri Joseph writes in to suggest (not for the first time) that I get a myspace page. I've tried, Sheri! I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I give up. I've also forgotten my password and I think I'm banned for life somehow. Plus I look at those pages and they drive me nuts because I'm old. Too many colors and lights! Things are moving around and bouncing around and frankly I just don't suppose I'm man enough to keep it under control. Finally on today's list of things I can't do, I love TCM and watch it constantly, and I wish I could be a "guest programmer." I even tried to send Robert Osborne a copy of my first book so he would think it was awesome and ask me to help out with his busy workload as the face of the network. But that didn't happen. Right now TCM is having a "guest programmer" contest and I encourage all "Blog" Buddies to enter, especially Jeff McNeil and all the members of the Ivan Bonar Appreciation Society. I can't enter, to my horror. First of all, you have to "upload a video of yourself." What? I'm already lost. Second, I'm kind of sort of working for Cartoon Network at the moment, which probably disqualifies me (both networks are under the Turner umbrella). But if I DID win, the four films I would program (all in the Turner library) are THE TORRID ZONE, GENTLEMAN JIM, AVANTI! and CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE. So if anyone reading this wins the contest, and if you enter it because you heard about it here on the "blog," please throw me a bone. Live my dream for me! (Pictured, Simone Simon, who plays a benevolent ghost in CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE, and who, I learned the other night from my big fat book, had a fling with George Gershwin.)