I Gave Up

I thought I should tell you I stopped reading that giant hardcover "omnibus" of comics I mentioned yesterday. Why? Why did I give it up, I mean, not why did I think I should tell you. I don't have an answer for that one. Maybe because I'm unemployed and don't have anything else to do? As to the former question, however, it's not because I had shamed myself by mentioning it. It's because this "omnibus" is no damn good! The comics are too goofy. Yes, yes, I know I have often boasted perversely of loving the uncool, goofy comic book characters (not to be confused with the Disney character Goofy) the best... your Captain Marvel (the version often called "Shazam" by dimwits, for reasons I could get into here if I felt like it), your Metal Men, your Plastic Man, and so forth. But this glossy pile of junk I was reading was goofy in the wrong way. The goofiness it poured forth seemed born of bitterness and irony. The bitterness and irony of persons who have placed themselves high above goofiness. That's 1989 for you! There's a reason I originally stopped reading comic books when the price went up to 30 cents. Well, the reason was it became too expensive. Thirty cents is a lot of money! But the point is that the goofiness I like, the goofiness of your Plastic Man, your Metal Men, your Captain Marvel, is sincere and joyful... an embracing mechanism, not a distancing one. Anyway, I'd put this volume in the big overflowing garbage box of books they have for urchins to pick through in the park, but it's too damn big.

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!

Old "Blog" Business

Now it is time for the worst part of the "blog," which I enjoy even less than you do - the time when I babble about some fact I just discovered that should have gone into the cigarette lighter book I wrote, which was published in 2016, so it just doesn't matter, so why bring it up? Yes, though I don't "blog" anymore, there are certain pieces of "blog" business that return to haunt us. So, last night I happened to be finally reading the memoirs of President U. S. Grant, in a glossy, maniacally annotated hardcover, which I purchased at Square Books for a no-doubt princely sum long forgotten. In late 2017! So even then, nearly two years after the publication of my so-called cigarette lighter book, it all would have been for nothing. Like everything! So that's no surprise. Anyhow, Grant has some things to say about tobacco smuggling operations between Mexico and the USA in the late 1830s (maybe? The book is big and heavy and sitting in the other room and I'm tired), and about the popularity of cigarettes at that time in general, which (the latter) is a subject that vexed me during my research for the cigarette lighter book. I suddenly realized one day, whilst mooning away at my writing desk, that I needed to know about the history of cigarettes. Otherwise, I might accidentally describe a cigar lighter, wasting everyone's valuable time! I'd hate to tell you, even if I knew, how many hours I brooded about the differences between a cigar and a cigarette. What I liked about the cigarettes that Grant was going on and on about was the corn husks they were rolled in. That put me in mind of the first possible recorded cigarette, at least as far as I could tell on a quick deadline, which (the cigarette) had been coincidentally offered to a travler in Mexico... in 1518! Oh, how my little heart pitter-pattered as I ran to the shelf whereon sat the seldom-opened book I wrote about cigarette lighters. After some scuttling around, I found the passage, but a telltale ellipsis, the lazy typist's best friend, magaged to obliterate the part of the sentence that I vaguely recalled might have had corn husks in it. Oh, wouldn't that have been something, though? My corn husk research might have changed the world, if only I had tried harder.

Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis

Welcome once again to "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis," helping YOU match the right bookmark with the right book for more than eight years. But that all ends today. So! Kent Osborne recommended that Stephen King novel and I ripped right through it in two days, though it was a big, fat novel. Nine hundred pages, maybe? And just big in every dimension. Large and bulky. So! Remember when I went to that auction of Bob Hope's personal effects? Well, that auction house keeps sending me stuff in the mail. Like, they sent me a little portfolio of promotional cards, much bigger than postcards, notifying me about their upcoming auctions. I was going to measure one for you. I was rooting around in the kitchen drawer where I thought the tape measure might be. "Where's the tape measure?" I said. To which Dr. Theresa replied, "It's probably in there somewhere." And it probably is. But I never found it. So I can't tell you the exact size of this giant card I used as a bookmark in this giant Stephen King book. But I can tell you this! This promotional card had a picture of the Beatles on it. And at some point in the book, Stephen King's narrator goes by the pseudonym "John Lennon." So that was a coincidence! And there are a lot coincidences in this Stephen King book, coincidentally! Or, as Stephen King's narrator insists on calling them, "harmonics." Huh. I even read the afterword! Stephen King talks about a Norman Mailer book on Lee Harvey Oswald that was one of his primary resources for historical research. And that reminded me that I have a giant Norman Mailer novel about the CIA around here. Chris Offutt gave it to me a long time ago (years?) because he had two copies (!). I seem to recall [somewhat inaccurately - ed.] that the book was roundly mocked when it appeared, which, as you know, makes me want to read it more. I even recall that Norman Mailer's biographer says (I think) that there is a long part somewhere in the middle that is so boring no one should ever read that part, but I can't remember what that part is about [Uruguay - ed.], so I will probably end up reading it. So, I took this giant Norman Mailer CIA novel off the shelf, and it is spattered with old coffee stains, at least I hope those are coffee stains. And I opened it and recalled that I had already read two pages of it years (?) ago, and there was my stubby little Square Books bookmark of coarse paper stock ("Square Books classic" I call it... I just decided!), the kind they used before they switched over to the long, glossy bookmarks. Now I have reread those two pages, and five more pages besides, and there have already been two ghosts, and why am I surprised? "Ghost" is in the title. One wonderful advantage of taking this fat Norman Mailer novel off the shelf is that I now have a place to put the fat Stephen King novel. So they are roughly the same size. Yet I used a huge bookmark in one of them and a tiny bookmark in the other. What a revelation! About my own divided soul. Also: any kind of bookmark works just fine. This discovery means there is no use for "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis." This has been the final "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis." PS Just read one more page, on which were some sentences about "the ice monarch," a fanciful creature of the narrator's imagination, as in, "The ice monarch had installed his agents in my heart." Did Norman Mailer invent the Ice King? Just 1,118 pages to go before the "Author's Note"!

Another 17th-Century Thing

Hey! Remember when I told you about a phrase my grandfather used that came down to us from the 17th century, maybe? Well! I was reading this BARTHOLOMEW FAIR play by Ben Jonson and a character refers to a "catamountain," meaning (according to the glossary) a "leopard or panther." My grandfather used to say "cattymount," meaning some sort of wild animal that my young imagination pictured as a cougar, though I think he was probably talking about a bobcat (pictured). All right, my grandfather said a lot of 17th-century stuff, or at least two 17th-century things, that's all I have for you, goodbye.

If Your Secretary Could Check It Out

I picked up this glossy coffee-table book about Robert Altman at Square Books a while back. It includes a facsimile of a letter Altman received in 1983: "In talking with my daughter Julie recently, she told me that one of her all time favorite movies was your 'Nashville'. I did not get to see it and wondered if by chance it has been or will be released in a cassette. Don't go to too much trouble but if your secretary could check it out, I would appreciate it. With warm regards, Sincerely, Richard Nixon."

I Used to Know That Guy

I was killing some time in Square Books the other day. I picked up a book called THE DISASTER ARTIST, co-written by my friend Tom Bissell. It's about a famously crazy movie called THE ROOM, which I've never seen. So I didn't think I would "get" the book. But I sat there and read the first chapter or so while a woman stood nearby in the poetry section having a loud, angry conversation on her cell phone about her no-good cousin. If Richard had been around he would have snatched that cell phone right out of her hand! Or something subtler. And the woman knew it! She yelled into her phone, "I'M VIOLATING ONE OF THIS STORE'S CARDINAL RULES!" But anyway, I was irritated by her because I was getting caught up in the story and she was making it hard to concentrate. So anyway, I bought the book! It turns out to be incredibly enjoyable even if you're like me and know almost nothing about THE ROOM. And today I was leafing through the glossy part in the middle with all the photos and I RECOGNIZED SOMEONE FROM MY OWN PAST. He was D.P. on THE ROOM - and still holds that title in the section I am reading - though it seems to have been a nightmarish experience and he doesn't appear to be credited in the final film. I suppose I'll find out why as I keep reading. Anyway, his name is Raphael, and we affectionately called him Raphy, and remember when Ward McCarthy and I went to Las Vegas to cover an Elvis impersonator convention? He shot all that stuff! He was quiet and wry and pleasant and did a good job. We tried to work with him as much as possible. Well, it was a nice surprise seeing his picture.

Bob Hope's Acrylic Writing Desk Goes Careening Through My Brain

Hey I just saw a commercial where a guy eats a cheese potato chip and makes the moon explode. Hey last night I saw a huge slug moving really fast. Hey all day long I study my glossy auction catalog of Bob Hope's personal items and when I close my eyes at night I can't sleep because I see Bob Hope's personal items flashing before my eyes.

Gonna Prove to You That Love Is Groovy

Man, I couldn't sleep at all last night! Was it because I watched a scary ghost movie yesterday afternoon? Well, that's really none of your beeswax. And anyway, I also had a huge iced tea at Taylor Grocery, so shut up. So anyway I got up in the dead of night and turned on the TV and there was cynical city slicker Sarah Jessica Parker forced into wholesome country living by contrived circumstances, learning a little something about life by milking a cow. Ugh! I watched the whole thing, of course. At the end, Hugh Grant is saved from an assassin by Mary Steenburgen, Sam Elliott and Wilford Brimley. Wow! So I was sitting there thinking, "Wow." I thought, "Wow, everybody's schedule worked out perfectly to make that happen." Then I looked out the window and saw a fox in our front yard! (See also.) It was cleverly negotiating a white paper bag - one of several dropped nightly after the bars close by young, starry-eyed drunkards whose well-to-do mommies and daddies have sent them off to college without enough God-given sense to use a trash can - to retrieve the leftover chicken-on-a-stick nestled within. Have I told you about chicken-on-a-stick here before? It's a disgusting "local delicacy." I once wrote a whole long article about my complex love-hate relationship with chicken-on-a-stick and even discussed it in an intellectual "panel" format, to the delight of none. But that need not concern you! All you need to think about right now is the fox I saw last night, trotting happily down the sidewalk with his hard-won chicken-on-a-stick in his mouth. So really I should thank the li'l drunkards, who unknowingly arranged such an unexpected treat for my weary eyes and mind! Then it was 3 AM and WAY... WAY OUT was coming on! I can't tell you how many hours I spent on the "internet" this morning looking for stills of Connie Stevens's apartment in WAY... WAY OUT. I found nothing truly suitable, despite all my expert "googling." Above you can see Jerry Lewis and Connie Stevens on her couch, in front of what I first took to be a mural of some kind: please note the strange bubbling texture of the purplish material... at least we are afforded a good look at that. But, you know, I think it is supposed to be a window. In a wider shot, a huge orange-red moon is visible, and at the end of the scene, Connie Stevens, who is an astronaut, shouts to the moon, "Well, what do you know? I'm coming!" or something like that, indicating to me (along with a nearby telescope) that it is supposed to be a window, some kind of futuristic window (the movie, from 1966, takes place in "the future"), and she is addressing the actual moon. In another "screen grab," which you will find at the end of this "post," you can see more of the crazy couch and pillows and yellow-and-orange striped carpet and other furnishings - dig that lamp! - of the type McNeil loves so well, but the image is blurry and faded, and not in the good way, so you're missing the odd vibrancy of the scene. I had more to say about WAY... WAY OUT, lots more (the title of this "post," for example, comes from the theme song to WAY... WAY OUT, about which I planned to wax rhapsodic; would it interest you to know that only moments ago Dr. Theresa, driven past the breaking point, finally said, "Okay, you're going to have to start humming something else now"?), so much more, and it seemed like a great idea, like something about how Dennis Weaver's turn in WAY... WAY OUT is a gloss on his twitching, weeping, writhing weirdo from TOUCH OF EVIL, but who cares? Honestly.

Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis

Welcome once more to "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis." It has been almost four years. Sorry! Before we get to bookmarks I want to say that THE DOG OF THE SOUTH by Charles Portis has green Jell-O in it, just like GIDGET: "lime jello - transparent, no bits of fruit in suspension - and peanut-butter cookies with corrugations on top where a fork had been lightly pressed into them. That was our lunch." And I might add that VISIONS OF GERARD by Jack Kerouac, which I am reading for fun, uses "jello" as a VERB. A big coincidence! So Portis and Kerouac make a common noun (or verb) out of it, while only Frederick Kohner, author of GIDGET, bothers to correctly pay tribute to the brand name. Who cares? THE DOG OF THE SOUTH makes me laugh on every single page, instances of which I have been keeping selfishly from you. But perversely I WILL tell you that it has an owl in it - a metaphorical owl again. The narrator describes himself: "my small pointed teeth and my small owl beak and my small gray eyes, mere slits but prodigies of light-gathering and resolving power." And finally, the bookmark: I grabbed by coincidence my glossy photo of M. Emmet Walsh, who not only has a name like that of a Portis character - he LOOKS like a Portis character: specifically Dr. Reo Symes from THE DOG OF THE SOUTH, who, speaking of things that make me laugh, says this in the passage I just read, "The kind of people I know don't have barbecues, Mama. They stand up alone at night in small rooms and eat cold weenies." But I noticed for the first time there is something confrontational about the glare of M. Emmet Walsh, which I see each time I open the book. So a glossy picture of M. Emmett Walsh makes a weird bookmark! That's my advice. This has been "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis."

John Dee Fan Club Report

"Was awesome. Especially when they dragged him screaming down to hell." So ran Lee Durkee's review of DOCTOR FAUSTUS at the Globe Theatre, a performance of which he attended yesterday. That was the condensed version, as presented in a facebook comment. Later, Lee followed up with a nice, long email, portions of which will be presented below. Dr. Faustus is thought by some scholars (one scholar?) to be Christopher Marlowe's negative portrait of Dr. John Dee, while Prospero represents Shakespeare putting a nicer gloss on him. Also Neoplatonism is involved, says Lee, but let's keep this rolling along. We don't have all day! All right! And now let's turn it over to Lee Durkee, reporting from England: "a blockbuster version of Faustus all stops pulled Hollywood style. It was great, though it wasn’t Elizabethan in any way; there were more actors on stage in the opening scene than existed in an entire old school troupe, but the play, essentially a series of slapstick vignettes inserted kinda jarringly into the stream of a dark narrative that’s not nearly as interesting... worked because it was prop-filled and bawdy [WARNING: one example of bawdiness follows below - ed.]... I was leaning against the runway tongue of the stage and half the time had to crane my head directly up to see the actors, and what I’ll always remember is that O in the sky above them. Shakespeare’s O, his Globe, which even in a theme park void of ghosts (the remains of the real Globe were discovered a quarter mile away while the new one was being constructed) was haunting, that view upward with clouds passing overhead an Elizabethan archetype... Props galore included giant dinosaur-boned birds, representing dragons, on which Mephistopheles and Faustus scoured the globe looking for trouble. Giant masks of Helen, of demons, behind which costume changes were made. Books opened into flames. A wench ran on stage with a Roman candle spurting fire from her crotch. [I warned you! - ed.] The three trap doors were in constant use, props and people appearing and vanishing, especially during the highlight of the play, the parade of the seven deadly sins. John Dee would have been proud of them... My legs held me up okay in the pit, though we all sat down during intermission... Fun to watch the people in the boxes the same way the nobility used to get ogled by the runts. There were a couple of moments when things went wrong and the actors had to improvise and bite back giggles, and in many ways these are always my favorite moments, the spell gets bubbleburst and replaced by a moment of intimacy between the actors and crowd filled with grins and shrugs. A floating castle helium balloon that was supposed to rise up out of the Globe and reproduce one of Faust’s spells instead floundered in a downdraft, was captured by an audience member, who then let it go a moment later; it drifted back onto the stage just as some regent was complimenting Faustus on his magical castle-in-the-sky illusion. The balloon seemed playful almost and finally Meph grabbed it and stalked off stage with it while Faustus laughed and the crowd laughed... Another great moment was when some king of evilness hit a tennis ball into the crowd, and the crowd member tossed it back, and the king broke out in laughter, as did the audience... afterwards I decided to follow the crowd across the walking bridge over the Thames, just like in the old days, and of couse I got lost and then ended up an hour later, still looking for the tube, finding The Shakespeare’s Head instead and popping in for a pint."

He Really Hates That Axe

I suppose you're wondering why I haven't been "blogging" as much as usual. What? You haven't noticed? Well, that just hurts my feelings. But I've been thinking about this GAME OF THRONES business, and naturally I decided to write one of these sprawling fantasy epics. For real! Except mine's going to be "funny" and everyone will hate it. That's my trademark! I've been writing up a storm (79 pages), plus doing some research: reading one of these WHEEL OF TIME books by Robert Jordan. I've never read them before. I grabbed one at random. I don't understand it at all! It's 981 pages long, and then there's a glossary! I was on a panel with Robert Jordan once. He was wearing his hat and rings and sunglasses and brandishing an ornate cane - he really made an impression. Plus he was incredibly gracious and nice. It was one of my first panels as a "writer" and he - a million seller many times over - made me feel welcome and part of the club. I was sorry to hear he passed away not too long ago. So on page 59 of this book of his I'm reading, a guy's axe suddenly comes to life and attacks him. It flies around the room and tries to chop off his head. "'Just you and me now,' he snarled at the axe. 'Blood and ashes, how I hate you!'" That's just crazy. Everything about it is immune to parody. So you can see my problem. You've really put me in a spot, Robert Jordan.

A Wheelbarrow Full of Money

I have made it to the middle of STUNTMAN!, yes, the glossy center pages with photographs, the best part of any nonfiction book. I haven't made it to SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT II (or even the original SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT) in the text, but in the photo section is an ad that Hal Needham took out in VARIETY after the opening of that sequel, quoting some devastating reviews ("His intentional carelessness concerning the art of filmmaking demonstrates a total lack of regard for his audience") and contrasting them with the fact that SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT II had "THE BIGGEST OPENING WEEK IN THE HISTORY OF THE FILM BUSINESS!" The ad is illustrated with a photo of Hal Needham sitting on a wheelbarrow full of money in front of a bank, shrugging sarcastically! That is some ad. My friend thinks it misses the point. He acutely recalls the feeling of betrayal that came over him as a boy (and worshipper of the original) watching SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT II. Instead of trying to win the race - SPOILER ALERT! - the Bandit decides to save a sick elephant or something. People want to see the Bandit win the race! That's what my friend says. And that's what the critics were getting at. My friend was particularly upset by the part Barry B. once described on this "blog" as "a scene where 30 or so semi and dump trucks were up against 30 or so law vehicles and they were driving around in circles running into each other like a rodeo." That's when everyone was craving a plot the most, thought my friend, and that's exactly the moment when Hal Needham became entranced by the mere logistics of what he was doing and left the fans behind. Hal Needham may have believed he was shaming the critics by sitting on his wheelbarrow full of money, but he was really sort of shaming the audience. That's the thinking around these parts, anyway.

Lame Twitter Joke Gateway to Evil

So I was over there on the twitter the other day and I thought I would make a joke about how, were I asked to write a celebrity profile of Tina Fey for a famous glossy magazine, I would call it "Lady Haha," and how everyone would hate me. You will agree I am sure that it was a delightful spoof of magazine article titles - take that, magazine article titles! - utilizing some "wordplay" on the name of the celebrity singer "Lady Gaga" - something for the youngsters to "identify" with! Truly my wonderful twitter joke had it all. But then I "googled" the term "Lady Haha" and found 66,300 matches, which disheartened me. Moreover, it seemed that maybe there was a real performer calling herself "Lady Haha." Was she some kind of "Weird Al" of the 21st century? I certainly had my fingers crossed as I "googled" "Lady Haha" + wikipedia to double check, because other than rearranging my recommendation shelf at Square Books (yesterday I added a "Wacky Packages" [pictured] compilation and ARMIES OF THE NIGHT by Norman Mailer! Check it out!), I honestly have nothing better to do with my life. Friends, I was led DIRECTLY and AGAINST MY WILL by "Google" to that crazy article Phil sent me about how the CIA is controlling Lady Gaga with brainwashing techniques as part of a Masonic plot to take over the world... yes, to that evil part of the "internet" I have warned you about from which no one ever returns - the same part that explains how Bob Hope is controlling people's minds and actions from beyond the grave with his powerful brain waves. Beware! The author of the article compliments a "surprisingly accurate" wikipedia entry - I'll bet! - on the whole subject. I'm struck by how much I sound like a pawn of the CIA. But the important thing to learn from this is that EVERYTHING on the "internet" - even your mildest twitter gag - will eventually lead you to an article about how the CIA is controlling Lady Gaga with brainwashing techniques as part of a Masonic plot to take over the world... it's the black hole at the center of the "internet"! Heed me, people! PS The other day Lee Durkee sent me something from the same part of the "internet" about a demon head they have found on Mars. Don't "click"! Just to be on the safe side, don't "click" on anything ever, promise? I am saving you from yourself!

Hot Coffee

Did you know that Stella Stevens is from Hot Coffee, Mississippi? Me neither! But if anyone was ever from anywhere more appropriate, I don't know who or where that was. It's a fact I learned from a big gigantic coffee table book called MISSISSIPPIANS, of which there is an advance display copy on view over at Square Books. It is filled with big gigantic glossies of the Mississippians of Mississippi. I also found out that Dr. Theresa's "fave" actor Dana Andrews is from Mississippi! I am not. But somehow I am in the book, so I need to get a copy for my mother. They have a section called "Writers." But they also have a section about nutty kooks who are wacky. That part is called "Colorful Characters." Guess which one I am in. I am not complaining! In fact, I am quite happy and honored to be lumped in with Jerry Clower and Ron Shaprio, my fellow zanies. We're so crazy! Aw, what's the matter, is the sensitive little artiste feeling misunderstood? I promise I am not complaining, because I really want my mother to have this book. And seriously, it is an honor to have one's picture in such a book, out of all the good people in Mississippi who, unlike me, are actual Mississippians. Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I tried to explain the genius of Jerry Clower to Mr. Ward, who is from Connecticut? I kept trying to make the funny noise that Jerry Clower makes. It is like this: "Hrrrroowwwwwh!" Then I got this video editor Ralph (from Arkansas) to start doing it too. We were both doing this: "Hrrooowwwhhh!" Yet Mr. Ward still didn't get it. Ralph tried to tell some stories from Jerry Clower LPs, but it wasn't the same. It's not Ralph's fault! So then we just went "Hwroowwwhhh!" until Mr. Ward could barely take it anymore. Ralph used to say things in normal conversation like, "That would knock a puking dog off a gut wagon," which Mr. Ward enjoyed parsing. (Above, Stevens. Below, Clower.)

4% Atoms!

Did you know the universe is only 4% atoms, and the rest is some freaky stuff you don't want to know about? I read it in the New York Times! Now I'm worried. This is not how things were explained to me as a child. They told me EVERYTHING was made of atoms! That's what they said! EVERYTHING! And that freaked me out, too, a little, but I wrapped my mind around it. And now this! Did you know that four percent is less than five percent? And FIVE PERCENT IS LIKE NOTHING! Like, if you had five percent of something, you'd say, "Where's the rest of it?" You'd be like, "This is a rip-off!" And that's five percent! But we're talking about four percent! I knew there was a reason I felt like this all the time! So, what's the rest of the universe? Well, I guess 25% is "dark matter" and 70% is "dark energy" and I don't like the sound of that one bit! I'm also very upset that one percent is left over, and who knows what THAT is? The New York Times doesn't say! They just kind of gloss over the MISSING ONE PERCENT OF THE UNIVERSE! I also get nervous when I read newspaper articles describing, and I quote, "the first faint hints of a ghostly sea of subatomic particles" discovered at the bottom of an ABANDONED IRON MINE IN MINNESOTA! It's too much like the beginning of a horror movie. I hope you don't mind, but I told McNeil about this first, because he worries about these things.

New Hampshire's Largest Hearth Retailer

I was up at four in the morning and couldn't go back to sleep. Do you know who pays for 30 seconds of local airtime at four in the morning to run their commercial during an episode of CHEERS? Chimney sweeps! There were shots of the interiors of clean chimneys, and a voiceover guy telling you why it is important to keep your chimney clean (a dirty chimney can start a fire, maybe? I believe that was one of the selling points). The name of the company is "Ash Ridders" and their motto is "We Will Get Rid of Your Ash." I couldn't find a "web" site for them, although their address and contact information can be found in a helpfully alphabetized nationwide list on the site of "Fireplace Village," which bills itself as "New Hampshire's Largest Hearth Retailer." Chimneys and chimney-related products and services on the "internet"! It's as if I have entered another world, like when those kids went up on the roof with Dick Van Dyke in MARY POPPINS, except instead of doing that I am wasting time on the "internet." For example, did you know that New Hampshire's Largest Hearth Retailer also has a "blog"? As long as we are on the subject, check out this "hot" entry (ha ha! Because fires are hot!) about how to choose a chimney sweep. Somehow I believe I have glossed over my favorite part of the experience, which is that the admirably focused motto of "Ash Ridders" is "We Will Get Rid of Your Ash."

Flap a Day

The book flap I skimmed for today is from the READER'S DIGEST ILLUSTRATED DICTIONARY OF BIBLE LIFE & TIMES, and gosh is it a dilly! It starts off - STARTS OFF, mind you! - like this: "What are 'screamers' and 'twitterers'?" So naturally right off the bat that makes you wonder if Twitter was predicted in the Bible. In other words, the first sentence on the flap is a question that tricks you into opening the book (just like I did because of the last flap). In this case, then, I didn't even SKIM the flap, really! I just read the first sentence and it was too much to handle. Oh, flaps! Sometimes I think you do your job too well. And yes, I say "tricks," because there is no entry for "twitterer" in the READER'S DIGEST ILLUSTRATED DICTIONARY OF BIBLE LIFE & TIMES (the last thing under "T" is "turban")! Nor does "twitterer" appear in the index OR the glossary. According to the READER'S DIGEST ILLUSTRATED DICTIONARY OF BIBLE LIFE & TIMES, "Turbans were formed by winding strips of cloth around the head." Duh! Thanks for nothing, READER'S DIGEST ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF BIBLE LIFE & TIMES. And as for screamers, if I am recalling the science fiction movie SCREAMERS correctly, they are these sentient little round machines on another planet and they pop up out of the dirt and cut you.

When Is the Role of Ankle Muscles Reinforced?

It was back to the periodicals room for me today! This time I flipped through the JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL CRIME, THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY, and MOTOR CONTROL: THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY STUDY OF VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT. In that one, I was particularly taken with Patrice R. Rougier's article, "How Spreading the Forefeet Apart Influences Upright Standing Control," especially the section bearing this subhead: The Role of Ankle Muscles Is Reinforced When the Forefeet Are Spread Apart. Of the three magazines, THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY was the snazziest and the slickest, featuring a nicely designed glossy cover with a bat on it. And there were cartoons inside! Yes, cartoons lampooning the crazy world of experimental biology. One of them was about the sense of smell of spiny lobsters. In the punch line, one spiny lobster says to another, "Hold on, Dave, I'll have a sniff." There's a weird coincidence to tell: Chuck Steffen and I once found ourselves at an event where the guest speaker turned out to be an expert on the sense of smell of lobsters! I'm not kidding. And that's what his speech was about, though the event was a more general celebration and Chuck and I were surprised to find ourselves listening to a speech about the sense of smell of lobsters. It was not a lively speech. You know, I realize that in this "post" and past ones, I may come across as derisive toward people who study mud, or lobsters, or ankles. But the truth is - and I say this with absolutely no irony or trickiness of any kind; I mean it plain and simple - I think it is kind of cool and even thrilling that people study so many odd and fascinating things, and their work seems to me probably more interesting, useful, and pleasant to contemplate than, say, "blogging," or the construction of some exquisitely "crafted" short story about a faculty cocktail party or suburban family dinner where there's "more going on" than "meets the eye."

Literary Matters

I know what I promised: no more literary matters. Yet here we are. We have seven literary matters. 1) Theresa gave a Brown Bag Lecture today. She refused to let me advertise her performance in advance on the "blog." Despite the absence of this mammoth engine of publicity, however, she drew quite a crowd, which she then proceeded to mesmerize with her highly personal take on the story of Lizzie Borden. 2) Last night we were at the TurnRow bookstore in Greenwood, MS, where I had a conversation with a book club who had just finished up my story collection YOUR BODY IS CHANGING. They were insightful and kind! 3) After the reading, we went out to dinner at Lusco's with Jamie and Kelly, the owners of the store. Lusco's was founded in 1933. Much like Pink's, they display photographs of celebrities who have eaten there. Alice Ghostley, who played Esmerelda on BEWITCHED, ate at Lusco's, if my own eyes are to be believed. But the king of the celebrity diners was "blog"spiration Paul Harvey, who was represented by three or four glossies, as well as a framed page of his typewritten news report - an item from 1979 in which he mentions Lusco's. 4) Speaking of Jamie and Kelly, this "post" is illustrated with a picture of their son LITERALLY drooling over the delectable prose in a galley of my upcoming novel AWESOME. It bodes well for my chances with the much sought after males from 0-1 demographic. (Note: In the larger version of the picture, which I can't seem to reproduce here, you can see quite clearly both the title and a perfect bead of drool.) 5) Also speaking of Jamie and Kelly, TurnRow books now has a "blog." They give THIS "blog" credit for inspiring it, in terms almost too flattering to "link." 6) Last night at dinner I described how much I love the scene in NASHVILLE when Ned Beatty is waiting for eggs to boil. I stood up and demonstrated the way Ned Beatty looks while he is waiting for eggs to boil. Jamie suggested a new "blog" feature: Greatest Egg Scenes. His favorite occurs at the end of BIG NIGHT. I know we are skirting the bounds of the literary right now, but those are pretty high class movies and I'm going to say they count. 7) We are off to New Orleans for the Tennessee Williams festival. I'm on a panel with Julia Reed and James Wilcox. I'm very sorry that my copies of MODERN BAPTISTS and NORTH GLADIOLA, two funny and tender novels by Mr. Wilcox, are in storage in Atlanta right now. I'll miss out on having him sign them! Anyway, expect a slackening of the "blog." These have been our literary matters.