Door Trouble!

Well, you know I don't "blog" anymore, but I usually tell you if I go to Los Angeles and all the wonderful things that happen there in the magical city of broken dreams. I went to Los Angeles recently, but much of the "material I gathered" is going straight into a secret project I'm working on with McNeil for actual publication. And the rest, well, I thought about using the "interesting details" in a novel, but then I thought, oh, that sounds hard, writing a novel, maybe I won't do that. 1. Scallops at an Elvis-themed hotel. Does that sound like a good idea? Ordering scallops at an Elvis-themed hotel? As you know, I often stay in Memphis the night before a flight, for easy access to the airport. And sometimes I stay in an Elvis-themed hotel. And this time I ordered scallops, which, even as I was doing it, seemed like the last thing a person should order at an Elvis-themed hotel. Well! I'm still here. The scallops had an aggressively candied flavor. 2. At the Elvis-themed hotel, my hotel door wouldn't shut all the way! Well, I put on that latch thing they have at the top of many hotel doors and hoped for the best. 3. I lost my favorite pen somewhere in Los Angeles. Almost immediately! Why bring your favorite pen on a trip? On the other hand, why settle for a less-loved pen? Don't you want to feel happy? A grown man ought to be able to keep track of a pen. Should a person of a certain age, however, have outgrown notions like "favorite pen"? 4. By a weird coincidence, I was in town on a national holiday, just as it occurred in 2015 (please do yourself a favor and "click" here for corroboration), so the office was closed on Monday, and I found myself in the EXACT same bistro in which Kent and I had a green chartreuse before going to see 50 SHADES OF GREY together at the movie theater next door, so I had a green chartreuse in Kent's honor, though Kent lives in Vermont now, and I was all alone, it was a desperate sight, let me tell you, drinking a green chartreuse all alone and thinking of Kent. 5. "My twin will hug me... sometimes." - Hilary Florido. 6. Dan Tana's, just the place for dinner with my brother! I got there a little early, so I sat at the bar waiting. I listened to a guy who seemed to be on a first date telling a woman that he was directly descended from William Bradford. He was telling her all about what kind of wine to order after her martini. A Malbec will be velvety and heavy, but without the tannins of a cabernet, he yammered. Whereas a "pinot" will be "fluffy." See? This could have all gone in a novel. Anyway, it wasn't a first date, because he suddenly asked, "What's your name?" She said her name was Lurleen, a name I know because it was the name of the wife of the awful governor of Alabama, George Wallace, who briefly became governor herself, and I was born in Alabama, so we know the name Lurleen. But this guy was enraptured. "WHAT A BEAUTIFUL NAME!" he rhapsodized. Ha ha! If this were a novel I couldn't use the word "rhapsodized." I'd be kicked out of the novelist club. Then he said something that surprised me: "My wife's name is Melody." I didn't see that coming! But he was still trying to pick up Lurleen, I'm pretty sure. "WHAT ARE YOUR PASSIONS?" he oozed. Ha ha, I hate my verbs today. I hate them so much that I sort of love them! She said she liked to paint and what do you know, this guy's brother is a famous artist! "I could do you a lot of favors in the art world," said the putative descendent of William Bradford. "And do you know why? Because my brother loves me! HE LOVES ME!" How the rest of the story went, I just don't know, because my own brother showed up, speaking of brothers, and we were escorted to our table. 7. As my brother and I were eating I glanced up and thought I saw Thomas Middleditch, star of TV's SILICON VALLEY, sitting at the bar. I asked my brother, "Hey! Is that that guy?" My brother said I had to be less obvious so he could find a reason to stare inconspicuously. So I looked in the opposite direction, which frustrated my brother! "No, you have to look in sort of the SAME direction!" he said. So I looked at the TV over the bar, where there was a car race going on, which seemed like something a person would look at, and my brother was able to stare properly at the person whom he indeed confirmed to be Thomas Middleditch. 8. But then, later, out on the sidewalk, after dinner, we seemed to be walking behind that same guy, and I humorously remarked that he would think we were stalking him. "That's not the same guy!" my brother said. I insisted it was the same guy who had been sitting at the bar. "He's wearing the same suit!" I said. "Yes, he's wearing a black JACKET!" my brother replied dismissively. Trouble in the family! So I thought the guy had never been Thomas Middleditch, and my brother thought the guy sitting at the bar had been Thomas Middleditch and this was a different guy we were looking at now. I suppose we'll never know, unless Thomas Middleditch gets in touch. I will just say that the guy at the bar, whom we both took to be Thomas Middleditch at the time, was really making a meal out of his knuckle. He was gnawing ravenously on the knuckle of his right forefinger like there was no tomorrow! 9. Reading a book in translation and the translator uses "trooper" when he means "trouper." How can I trust him now? 10. Back at the hotel in Burbank, I returned to find my hotel room door cracked partly open! If you will glance up at #2, above, you will see that a theme for the trip had formed! I gently and suspiciously pushed the door the rest of the way open, like a person in a movie would do. Nothing was amiss. 11. Cole Sanchez taught me the word "subluxation," meaning a hyperextension of the joint, and I asked him what a hyperextension of the joint was and he said it was when he, Cole, made someone's elbow or knee go in the direction it doesn't want to go. Ouch! It's all part of of what I believe he called "Brazilian jiujitsu," which he practices. He also told me about choking people until they pass out. Don't get me wrong, it is another move in the same sport! "They can submit," he explained, meaning that the person can tap out before they become unconscious. I asked whether there were people who refuse to submit and Cole said that yes, some people are so annoyed that you got past their defenses they would rather just let you choke them unconscious than undergo the humiliation of submitting. 12. I went to see Dianne Wiest performing her magnificent and inexhaustible heart out in Samuel Beckett's great play HAPPY DAYS. I made up a funny blurb for it: "It's a different kind of 'Cheers' for THIS Sam and Dianne!" I eavesdropped on the people sitting in front of me. They have stopped eating octopus because they met a really smart octopus. The guy had a long gray ponytail and was wearing a bracelet that said "RESIST!" Anyway, it's funny because Julia Pott had just been talking at dinner the night before about not ordering the octopus for similar reasons, though to my knowledge she has never met an octopus in person. I'm skipping over most of the dinner with Julia because it's going undiluted into my project with McNeil, alluded to in the introductory paragraph above. 13. During the Beckett play, a certain segment of the audience would go HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! whenever Dianne Wiest, as the character Winnie, said something like, "One forgets one's classics." HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! "One forgets one's classics." HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! They were laughing like it was the farting scene in BLAZING SADDLES. Naturally it made me think of what Kierkegaard said about farce, which makes me no better than them. 14. There was a guy in the hotel bar two nights in a row who also laughed HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA, but I don't know what about. His laugh suggested he was either an opera singer or Paul Bunyan. Booming, highly articulated and distinct HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAs. He really pronounced each HA. "Boy, that guy really enjoys life," I said out loud to myself, bitterly, alone at the hotel bar.

Jennifer Lawrence Admires a Conch

I guess you think I "blogged" an awful lot in May for somebody who stopped "blogging" in April. Shows how much you know! There was so much stuff I didn't "blog" about in May! You wouldn't even believe it. Here is some of it. 1. Stopped by Square Books and bought a notebook. Katelyn said, "Don't you like ______?" (She named another brand.) I said I found the binding inferior. "You should write a letter to the company!" said Katelyn. "I love writing letters to companies." I asked her, "What are you, a ninety-year-old man at heart?" "She does it after she eats her liver and onions," said Slade. Katelyn guilelessly confirmed that she loves liver and onions and wishes she knew how to cook it for herself. 2. Ace wasn't in his office, where I was supposed to meet him, so I sat in the anteroom (?) and looked at a magazine with this caption on the cover: "With a team of wildlife experts, Uma Thurman moves a white rhino threatened by poachers to safety." But you don't see any wildlife experts; you just see Uma Thurman hugging a rhinoceros's head. I like how scrupulous they are not to give us the false impression that Uma Thurman was out there wrangling rhinos by herself. 3. I started reading the new Don DeLillo novel, which is about cryogenics, I guess. That made me recall all of a sudden that McNeil and I tried writing a screenplay called BLUE PERIOD back when we were in our twenties. The plot was that two guys (?) got trapped in an industrial walk-in freezer and told each other stories while they waited and hoped for help to arrive. One story was about a war with Antarctica, maybe? All the stories were about being cold. I remember that McNeil invented a weapon called the ICBM (Icy Cold Banana Malted instead of Intercontinental Ballistic Missile). Another story was about a scam artist with a cryogenics lab. He froze celebrities and thawed them out on a desert island, where they were forced to act in a movie he had written. That's all I remember about the screenplay. McNeil, confirming that such an attempted screenplay existed, said it featured a character named Dean running for office with the slogan "Dean Is Clean." 4. I met with Julia via computer monitor. I thought she said, "You look great!" She actually said, "You look gray!" 5. My doctor's waiting room suddenly has all of Richard Howorth's old NEW YORKER magazines in it - with his home address on the mailing labels and everything! 6. Dr. Theresa went to lunch at Handy Andy and I had pangs of jealousy, traces of which I allowed to cross my face. I had been craving Handy Andy, having recently written about it for publication (details forthcoming, surely, though I am not "blogging" anymore): I feared I had misremembered the condiments with which the Handy Andy double cheeseburger is dressed! Fact checking! Dr. Theresa even offered to bring me one home to examine and consume, but then we remembered that I had a doctor's appointment shortly (different doctor; never mind why I have so many doctors!) and a double cheeseburger might not sit well at a doctor's appointment. 7. This other doctor had more standard waiting room fare: in PEOPLE I read about how Tennille of The Captain and Tennille was embarrassed by a damaged finger she suffered in a wheelbarrow accident as a child. That's why she always turned down movie offers! Meanwhile, "The Captain" wore his famous captain's hat even to bed, humiliated by a failed hair transplant. They struck me as... tragic? "Jennifer Lawrence admires a conch" was a phrase I read in US magazine. 8. In an ADVENTURE TIME meeting I was trying to say the title of the TV show THE BIG BANG THEORY but I accidentally said "8 1/2 MEN." Sadly, I was not trying to be esoteric or funny. My brain had simply fizzled out and died. A good laugh was had by most. 9. We drove past Tom Franklin's place and there was a chicken pecking in his yard. I don't think he owns chickens! (See also.) This was a fluffy chicken with black feathers, salted with white. 10. I realized that I didn't give you a truly complete picture of everything I learned from THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY. I kept a bunch of it off the "blog" and crammed it instead into a novel that will probably never be published, but here's the epigraph, anyway: "Bees indeed make neat and curious works, and many other creatures besides; but when they have done, they cannot judge of them." 11. McNeil's apple tree (below) is producing again. 12. Megan Abbott and I emailed back and forth about what Lady MacBeth meant by "spirits that tend on mortal thoughts" and I sent her a chapter about demonology in Shakespeare from some old book. Only afterward did I realize that the old book was by T.F. Thistelton Dyer, who provided the epigraph for my new book of short stories MOVIE STARS! Yes, that is just one more example of the meaningless junk I didn't "blog" about this month. "Posting" this a week early I do hereby vanquish May's tyranny over my troubled and searching mind.

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.

My Nephew Is a Genius

Last time I went to Atlanta I forgot to bring my little jotting notebook in which to jot my little notes. You won't catch me making that tragic mistake twice. 1. On the drive to Atlanta this weekend, "Jokerman" by Bob Dylan played. Some particular lyric - I can't recall which; by necessity, one cannot jot while driving - made me think for a split second, "Maybe this song is about Jerry Lewis!" (You may "click" here to refresh your memory about the time Bob Dylan got obsessed with Jerry Lewis.) It did have a "sad clown" vibe. But it also has a bunch of mystical stuff about "kings dressed in scarlet" or something. So never mind. Or, wait! THE KING OF COMEDY. I believe he dressed in scarlet. I don't really think "Jokerman" is about Jerry Lewis. But I was driving alone and had time to think. 2. The occasion of the drive was Barry Mills's birthday party. Who should be there but Craig "Sven" Gordon. We reminisced without irony about the old band we used to be in together, just like a couple of living relics from the cliché museum. 3. Somehow the band Kansas came up, prompting Sven to reveal that the lead singer of Kansas moved into his neighborhood for a time and could often be spotted jogging! 4. Chris Lopez came to the party. An interesting beetle landed on his arm. It looked just like a piece of popcorn. 5. Last time I saw Barry's daughter she was two years old. Now she's nine. Barry told her how when she was two, she liked it when I made crazy trumpet noises, it would really make her laugh. So once I was doing that and Dr. Theresa encouraged me like so: "Work it, Jack!" And Barry's two-year-old daughter suddenly shouted, "Work it, Jack!" Ha ha ha! Barry's daughter bore the retelling of this story with good grace uncommon in one of her age. She was thoughtful and polite about the rambling of her elders. 6. Look!

Barry's birthday cake, of admirable fluffiness, was decorated in remembrance of that kids' show that Barry and I used to make. 7. I met a guy who is working on a feature film about the founding of McDonald's, starring Michael Keaton and Laura Dern. He showed me a picture of "the first McDonald's" building and set that he had helped construct in a town north of Atlanta. "It'll be there a few weeks and then it will be gone, like it was never there," he said. I probably said, "I just had a dream about Laura Dern!" I probably said, "Tell her!" 8. I met a woman named Jenny who I thought said she was "as culpable as any vicar." I asked her, "Did you just say you are as culpable as any vicar?" She replied, "No." She also wanted to know what Lopez and I were like when we had "velvet nubs for horns." Or did she say "fuzzy nubs"? My jotting is unclear on this point. Perhaps she said both. She meant to ask what we were like when we were young. Lopez said, anticlimactically, that one of us would generally walk into a bar and the other one would be there, and one of us would say, "Are you gonna finish eating that?" Jenny asked whether we would sit across from one another or on the same side of the booth on such occasions, and the conversation dwindled. 9. Hey! Remember when I was amazed to learn that there were chickens living on the roof of Manuel's Tavern? I finally got to eat some of those eggs, "rooftop eggs" they were called on the menu, when my sister and brother-in-law and nephew Jasper had brunch there. Jasper wanted a pancake and some French fries. My sister was hesitant! But I was a strong advocate for this hugely appealing and innovative idea. I couldn't believe I had never thought of it myself! French fries are a perfect breakfast food. Why doesn't everybody serve French fries with breakfast? They are not that much different than so-called "home fries." My sister finally said okay, and I like to think my relentless nagging had something to do with it. 10. On the drive home, I saw a coyote run across the highway! I don't think I've ever seen one in person before. I know Melissa and Chris have some living out near their place, but coyotes strike me as exotic in our region. I guess they're not. I have to remind myself about the time I was so excited to see some wild turkeys on the side of the highway, and every person I know told me it's no big deal to see wild turkeys and that I was a sucker for being excited. And now I suppose you're all going to tell me that everybody has French fries for breakfast where you come from. Liars!

Dream Neighbors

Hey remember how you don't care what I dream and I don't care that you don't care? Here we go again! So I dreamed that the neighbors were doing construction (as they are in real, waking life) and one of their machines, parked in our driveway, was run by a small dog that had to walk around and around incessantly on a long leash, tangling and untangling it (that part is only in the dream). So some of the other neighbors gathered (not real ones; dream neighbors) to comment on this little fluffy white dog who had to walk around and around, powering this huge machine. Some, such as Dr. Theresa and I, thought it was awful! Others thought it wasn't so bad. One woman said, "It's the same thing the dog would be doing anyway, going for a walk," and I made a sarcastic remark about how it wasn't the same to get on a merry-go-round and to take a trip to Disneyland. That's what I said in the dream. This angered the woman. She said quietly, to end the conversation, "That's that." I said, "I beg your pardon?" and she hissed, much louder, "THAT'S THAT." And she hissed a great hiss. So then Laura Dern came up! She was on my side. She was like, "Let me handle this." So she did a trick where she took an old rocking chair apart without using her hands - I'm just telling you what I dreamed! - and there were some roller skates concealed in the inner workings of the rocking chair, and Laura Dern put them on and did an "eccentric dance" with skates on. A player piano started playing! (It was a piano from my childhood, and I assured Dr. Theresa it had always been a player piano because I didn't want her to be scared. BUT IT HAD NEVER BEEN A PLAYER PIANO.) Some guy started playing the harmonica, blatantly disregarding that he was playing in a different key than the piano, which I worried would enrage the neighbor even further. But Laura Dern started singing like this: "Wah wah wah!" Somehow it reconciled the piano and the harmonica. The hissing neighbor reluctantly enjoyed the performance, and an uneasy truce occurred, thanks to the antics of Laura Dern! So the neighbors all left and finally we could get back to the wedding celebration that was going on! Yes, one of my older relatives (I guess) had married Phyllis Diller! Who is dead in real life. Also, Pendleton Ward was staying with us. Secretly! He had been hiding out during the dog controversy. Also, there was a casket in the room where the wedding reception was. And someone was inside it! Kind of under glass, Snow White style.

And Phyllis Diller said to me, "You've loved me since you were a kid, haven't you?" And I said, "I've loved you since I was in the womb!" which got a huge laugh in the dream. Ha ha, it's cool to mention wombs in a dream, right? And Phyllis Diller said she was planning on going out on the town with me one New Year's Eve so I could impress my friends. "I'll go dressed as Carol Burnett!" she said, which was some kind of joke - about Halloween, I think? - and everybody else laughed but it took me a second to catch on. I know I dreamed about the dog because I read about the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, right before I went to bed. After they had lopped off her head, a little dog ran out of her clothes, where it had been concealed the whole time! "Yelping, it slid in her blood," writes Peter Ackroyd. Sorry! But that's real life, not a nightmare, though it seems like a nightmare, and I read it before retiring as a violent storm raged.

Amongst the Region's Fearful Residents

Last night at a City Grocery Bar get-together to welcome our new writer-in-residence, the great short story writer and novelist Mary Miller, Lee Durkee was talking about how many swans Richard III used to eat and Ace Atkins was astonished when I claimed never to have seen the movie FLUFFY. Looking at the poster Ace emailed me (above; the guy with the hatchet makes me nervous), hmm. Maybe I have seen it. It seems to fit snugly in that group of films I used to watch that included Soupy Sales learning how to fly and Mickey Rooney hanging out with a talking duck. From the imdb summary of FLUFFY: "Wherever he goes, Potter's ponderous pet incites mayhem amongst the region's fearful residents... Our heroes find themselves on the run from the law when Fluffy is accused of eating someone!"

Update Update

IOU so many updates! HALLOWEEN FILM FESTIVAL UPDATE: Halloween Film Festival continued with DEMENTIA 13, ISLAND OF LOST SOULS, and THE OTHER (pictured - yikes!). JERRY LEWIS UPDATE: As you know, I like to tell you as a public service whenever the New York Times mentions Jerry Lewis. It used to happen all the time. Lately, I've had to scavenge. They did it the other day, but it was just one of those dumb "the French love Jerry Lewis" throwaways that is supposed to make some kind of point but never does. Yesterday, in an article about that director Ratner, there was a passing mention of Richard Belzer calling Jerry Lewis on his cell phone. Another throwaway, but tantalizing. Imagine having Jerry available at the touch of a button. Imagine it, I said! RECOMMENDATION SHELF UPDATE: You may recall that my recommendation shelf had hit hard times. I spruced it up and it immediately sold three more books. Immediately! You're welcome, Gogol. Total books sold: 27. The Lynda Barry did not sell yet, but one of my spies at Square Books reports that an eight-year-old girl leafed through it with great interest. A good sign for the future of the world! FOOD EATING UPDATE: Yesterday, with the conclusion of the Southern Foodways Symposium, I ate what was easily one of the greatest (and hugest) breakfasts of my life, including a garnish of the lightest, fluffiest, most flavorful fried pork skins that have ever happened. The incredible chef Alon Shaya was in town with his crew from the restaurant Domenica in New Orleans. As an extra surprise, Chef Shaya walked from table to table hoisting an Alabama wild boar haunch, aged in his cellar for two years and turned into wild boar prosciutto. In the serving line, they cracked a raw egg over your squid ink gnocchi and it poached itself.

Busted Slats

And another thing about Luke from GILMORE GIRLS! Why would a fancy house in the Hamptons - an area described hilariously in a widespread "internet" summary of REVENGE as "a world of rich caviar and lavish living" - have a ramshackle old porch swing with busted slats? Why, it is ONLY SO THE SULLEN YET SOFTLY PINING BARTENDER CAN, UNBIDDEN, BRING OVER HIS TOOLBOX AND FIX IT. Your honor, I rest my case. Perhaps never so clearly have the writers of the TV show REVENGE revealed their all-encompassing debt to Luke from GILMORE GIRLS. I do not blame the writers of REVENGE, who are probably nice people just trying to do their best. Luke from GILMORE GIRLS is a powerful archetype that has inspired the souls of artists for ages. I could not find another picture of Luke with a hammer, but here is Rory building a house with a fluffy pink hammer.

Hay You

Concerned that there aren't enough good shows about hay on TV? Just get up at 3 AM unable to sleep the Jack Pendarvis way! Hay shows await you. On the channel that airs the Porter Wagoner reruns, I came across a show called MACHINERY OF THE PAST, which made me think of BROADWAY DANNY ROSE, when the lounge singer is encouraged to perform his tribute to "Great Crooners of the Past Who Are Deceased." So when I tuned in to the most recent episode of MACHINERY OF THE PAST, they were visiting a hay museum. A hay museum! It was a long, long visit to the old hay museum. This fellow had every kind of hay machine you can imagine, and if you are like me, you can't imagine any. I swear he had something called a "hay tanner," though when I looked it up on the "internet" this morning, I found little evidence of such a thing. I found people NAMED Tanner Hay and Hay Tanning, and people who didn't know any better greeting a person named Tanner like so: "Hay, Tanner!" Also I found a tanning salon in the city of Hay, Washington. But as for the actual device, whatever it is called, the docent of the hay museum explained that it "fluffs up your hay" when your hay is wet. There was a machine called the "hay conditioner" as well, and a marvelously gigantic contraption entitled "The Haybuster loose haystacker." The only other thing I remember is that the guy REALLY WANTS YOU TO UNDERSTAND that he DOES NOT TAKE GOVERNMENT MONEY for his hay museum.

Goat vs. Octopus

On our first night in New Orleans we were ushered through the kitchen of a restaurant Goodfellas style, in what felt like a single tracking shot. We emerged in a secret room, where we consumed a goat. Do you think I am kidding? I am not! "Blog" Buddy Pia Z. Erhardt ate the goat with us. The next day I was invited to lunch with John Currence and Elvis Costello. Reader, I DECLINED! I can't believe it either. But yes, I am a professional, and my panel - my reason for being in New Orleans - was scheduled for lunchtime, so I hurried over to the panel place, all ready to get paneled. BUT IT TURNED OUT THAT THERE WERE TWO PANELS!!!!! AND MY PANEL DID NOT START UNTIL 3:30!!!!!!!!!! So I totally would have been able to have lunch with John Currence and Elvis Costello AND fulfill my duties to my gracious hosts, but by the time I figured it out, it was too late. O monstrous fate! But I really can't complain. The panel before mine was very interesting to hear. And anyway, we were in New Orleans, so the fun was just getting started. "Blog" Deputy Rhea came to my panel, so that was nice. It was great to see her in person! Afterward, Theresa and I went to Rio Mar and got to see Adolfo Garcia again. We were with John T. Edge, so Chef Garcia began bringing out all kinds of interesting and delicious things to surprise us, including what he called "the best ham in the world" and he knows what he is talking about. It comes from the "famous black pigs of Spain" who get to romp around wherever they want and feast on their favorite acorns, which they find for themselves. I am paraphrasing, and any errors are mine alone, certainly not Chef Garcia's. We ate octopus two nights in a row. On the first night it preceded the goat. That particular octopus was served as a carpaccio and adorned with these exquisite little slices of some sort of tiny, delicate oranges, I guess. That was at Domenica. Oh baby! Well, while we were talking to Adolfo Garcia, and eating every amazing thing he brought out, John Currence showed up with his sous chef (is that the right phrase? I'm an idiot!) Heath. So the five of us went from restaurant to restaurant, sharing many, many, many small plates of things, including some fried hog's head cheese from A Mano (another Garcia restaurant). I believe our marathon dinner stretched over four restaurants (more for some of us; see below), not counting the Carousel Bar, where no food was. In the French 75 bar at Arnaud's, we had a fried oyster I can only describe as fluffy. It was so good! Like something between an oyster and a cloud. And John Currence and John T. found a bartender there (in the French 75 bar at Arnaud's) to worship. An artist! (That's him in the picture. He's so good that I immediately found his picture on the "internet." I am ashamed to say I didn't learn his name, but that's because John T. and John Currence were hogging him to themselves, and I was away from the bar most of the time. Theresa and I sat on a comfortable loveseat watching a lovely older woman dressed in Phyllis Diller style smoke via cigarette holder.) The legendary musician Dr. John loves this bartender so much that he made a little statue of him. We saw it! Currence pronounced his concoctions "sophisticated." I had one of his Ramos gin fizzes, which was also like a cloud. I guess everything is like a cloud to me. He made John Currence something called an "aviator." It utilized creme de violette. I had a sip. It was like a cloud! Not really, but why stop now? It WAS remarkable, though. Oh yeah, the night before, we had a secret contraband liqueur made from Perique tobacco, of which there are only 25 acres left in the world, I think. But they'll grow more if this hooch gets off the ground. I have no idea what I'm talking about. What's Perique, for example? Is that a thing? And I forgot to tell you how we hung out in a mansion where Tennessee Williams wrote a play, next to the funeral home that made the arrangements for Jayne Mansfield. And I forgot to tell you how John T. and Theresa and I went to breakfast and had some ham hock and red pepper jelly on toast. And a bunch of other things made of pork. And did I mention that the goat and the octopus were placed in a cage where they battled to the death? Not really! But that was a little joke I told during my panel, inspired by a conversation with Rhea. Theresa and I stopped eating things at some point. John T. Edge and John Currence were last seen heading to a place called Cooter's for some fried meat pies.

Exclaims the Announcer

Just watching a short online promotional video for the Ninja Blender. "It instantly blasts ice into fantastic fluffy snow!" exclaims the announcer.