Shaft Punctuation

Well, now that the Million Dollar Book Club has finished its most recent selection - which, as Megan and I were discussing, is mostly a list of people having sex in piles of rotting garbage for art - I have returned to the final volume of OUTLAWS OF THE MARSH, in which our army of former bandits has come up against a military formation called... wait! Remember when McNeil was trying to get me to worship "The Monad"? So, they come up against a formation called "The Great Monad." Can this be a coincidence? Or does everybody just have monad fever? Anyway, these guys are completely flummoxed by the Great Monad! And nothing gets to these guys. The last time they were this upset was back when they were still bandits, about 400 pages ago, and they ran into their greatest adversary... a guy who is good at throwing rocks! I'm not kidding. Individually and as a group, these guys have triumphed over impossible odds again and again, but all of a sudden they're saying "Ow! Ow!" and falling off their horses because they met - seemingly for the first time in their lives - someone who can throw rocks. Don't worry, they eventually get the rock thrower - whose nickname is the Featherless Arrow - to come over to their side, so they can use his rock throwing powers for their own purposes. And yet not even this guy who is good at throwing rocks will be much use against the Great Monad! I'll keep you posted. So, the other night it was Dr. Theresa's birthday and we were driving around singing the theme from SHAFT. One thing we saw was a bunch of golden glinting orbs in a thicket, and then a baby raccoon emerged, and the golden glinting orbs were the eyes of its many brothers and sisters. But the point is we were driving around before that, singing the theme from SHAFT, and to my surprise, when we got to "no one understands him but his woman," Dr. Theresa belted out, with great confidence, "Joan Shaft!" And I said WHAT! Well, it turns out that for her whole life, Dr. Theresa has heard, I suppose, a comma after the phrase "no one understands him but his woman," a comma leading to a syntactically very logical end to that sentence, which would be giving the name of the woman to whom Isaac Hayes is referring, one "Joan Shaft." Dr. Theresa's theory was further bolstered by the fact that prior to the supposed introduction of "Joan Shaft," the protagonist Shaft is referred to by his surname alone. I had to burst her bubble on her birthday and inform her that there is no Joan Shaft. The backup singers are, of course, supplying us with Shaft's full name, John Shaft. Then, as a refreshing break from my mansplaining, the baby raccoon came out of the thicket. It was just like that Walt Whitman poem about the astronomer.

Of Donkeys and Robots

So I'm reading ANCIENT JEWISH MAGIC and Gideon Bohak, the author, is telling of an "erotic spell" in which a charm is written on a piece of tin, to which he adds the parenthetical statement "it's a tin line between love and hate!" Let me explain. This is nothing like the Gideon Bohak I know. Well, there is a footnote in which he makes a fond, gently humorous allusion to his hometown. But the violent whimsy of "it's a tin line between love and hate!" is present nowhere else in this academic... some might say dry as burnt toast... work. Well! Gideon Bohak does favor a jaunty exclamation point in his parenthetical statements (as seen in the example already given), which might count as whimsy if you are a scholar of ancient esoterica. Before I continue exploring this thought, I want to say that I wonder what Gideon Bohak's editor thought of "it's a tin line between love and hate!" Did Gideon Bohak have to fight for it? I am developing an enhanced sense of respect for Gideon Bohak. Anyway, so, yes! In the very next paragraph we have an example of Bohak's penchant for parenthetical exclamation points. He has moved on to a spell which requires the magician (or is it the client?) to "take meat of a donkey in your mouth." I'm sorry I told you that. But I had to! Because Gideon Bohak presently adds the parenthetical statement that putting donkey meat in your mouth is "not very kosher!" Exclamation point his, I reemphasize. He goes on to examine cultural depictions of donkeys as "stupid, stubborn, and lazy," which reminded me, by way of contrast, of the other book I am reading right now, THE ILIAD, in which mules have been put forth more than once as some of the greatest animals you'd ever want to meet. They're always plowing fields faster than an ox, or pulling a big tree trunk down the side of a mountain. Those are the two things I can remember mules (in both cases, metaphorical mules) doing in THE ILIAD. Which brings me to another subject! Last night in bed, as I read THE ILIAD and Dr. Theresa worked a crossword puzzle, I suddenly shouted, "Hey! There are robots in this book!" Let's let that hang in the air for a while. Because I also want to say that I ran into Kelly Kornegay in Jackson, Mississippi, a couple of weeks ago, at the 50th anniversary party for Lemuria Books, which I didn't even tell you about, because why should you know every single thing that goes on in my life? Anyway, Kelly and I were talking about THE ILIAD, and she mentioned living in a new place where she can look out the window and see a donkey, and I got to tell her about the heroic mules of THE ILIAD. Pretty soon it got dark and Ace Atkins and I were standing in front of a stage watching 92-year-old bluesman Bobby Rush, of whom I took a photo with my very own phone and perhaps I will "post" it below. Also, there was a guy dressed as a cowboy who did some of the greatest dancing I've ever seen. He was up there all by himself dancing in his cowboy suit while opening acts played, and finally I thought, I should go dance with this guy! Let's get this party started! And Ace took a video of it, which I texted to Dr. Theresa (who had stayed home) so she could see my moves, and she immediately texted back "Have you been drinking?" And that's an interesting question but I bet you want to get back to the robots I read about in THE ILIAD last night. "They were made all of gold, but looked like living women." So you know I immediately thought of the DC comics characters the Metal Men, just as Homer intended. Furthermore, I checked Emily Wilson's endnote, and she calls them "robot women," so I'm not just coming to crazy conclusions. In fact, I think somebody installed A.I., because "They had a consciousness inside their hearts." And as I was lying there marveling about the golden robot women with consciousness in their hearts, I remembered thinking that I had noticed robots in the RAMAYANA as well. And I didn't just lie there and think about it for a change. I hauled my sorry carcass out of bed and went upstairs and found the RAMAYANA and refreshed my memory about these hydraulically powered automatons: "mechanical men, silently driven by falling water in some hidden way." And much like them, I am now running out of steam.

It Bleeped

Reading Tacitus, I get to a part where this guy dreams there's gold buried under his field. So he runs up to Nero like Chicken Little and says "There's gold in my field!" You can see where this is going. There's no gold. And Nero... well, you know how Nero is. Anyway! So! The translator, A.J. Woodman, is crazy in love with footnotes. There's hardly a page without multiple footnotes at the bottom... or "foot." And are his footnotes dry? I don't know. Is the Sahara dry? I'm assuming the answer is yes, although I can easily imagine a big smart nerd who would tell me otherwise. Anyway, A.J. Woodman's footnotes are so dry they make the Sahara look like the grotto at the Playboy Mansion, as Dennis Miller would put it, causing us all to throw up. But in this singular case, A.J. Woodman's footnote is... whimsical? I don't know what it is. Here, I'll quote it: "'Dream guided treasure hunter to Roman coins' (headline in The Times [London], 11 December 1998)." So that footnote gives us nothing, really. That's not like A.J. Woodman! And really, the Roman coins found in 1998 could not be more different than the gold dreamed of by Caesellius Bassus, which was "not in the form of money but in a raw and ancient mass." (Also, unlike the Roman coins found in 1998, it didn't exist.) I guess A.J. Woodman just thought it was a fun story. It's still a mystery, if so, why he suddenly and very uncharacteristically wanted to be "fun." And certainly it would be going too far to postulate that he put forth the headline from the Times of London as a counternarrative... as if to say, "Hey, sometimes a dream CAN lead you to buried gold! Never give up, kids!" I couldn't find the article (I didn't try too hard), but I found the same story reported in the Irish Independent a full day before the Times of London picked it up. Here's a paragraph: "'In my dream I could see myself in the middle of the field pulling up a haul of coins,' Mr Roberts (46), a plumber, told a treasure trove inquest in Newport, south Wales, yesterday. 'When I had the same dream again a few nights later I took a few hours off and went to the field. I took just two paces and my metal detector bleeped.'" A treasure trove inquest! I didn't know about those. You know what this puts me in mind of? The other day, McNeil told me he had dreamed of salmon patties. And that was weird, because the day before - that is, the day leading to the night of McNeil's dream - I had been thinking about salmon patties! AND... later that night (the night AFTER McNeil's dream), Dr. Theresa - having been privy to neither my salmon patty thoughts nor McNeil's salmon patty dreams - suddenly announced, "I'd like to make salmon patties!"

A Swarm of Bees

I was reading THE ILIAD last night and here come Diomedes and Odysseus, sneaking off to spy on the Trojans. As encouragement, Athena sends along a "dark night heron." And I was like what? No! It should have been an owl! I don't mean to tell Homer how to do his job. And now I'm going to tell you something else, but wait. What about this Diomedes? I had no memory of him from however much I made it through THE ILIAD last time. This guy! I don't know. His self-confidence gets on my nerves. He just goes around spearing everybody like they were Vienna sausages. And when you get him out of bed, he puts something on: a whole lion he happens to have "lyin'" around, ha ha. That's my own clever wordplay, not Emily Wilson's. When I typed it, I thought, "I must be exaggerating!" So I double checked. And (now I will quote Emily Wilson's translation) "Diomedes wrapped around his shoulders a massive golden full-length lion skin." Okay! Gross! Later on, he's tormenting a poor Trojan who's wearing a polecat on his head. What a contrast! You can see why Diomedes irritates me. You strut around in your lion suit running your spear through everybody you meet and this other guy's wearing a polecat for a hat, give him a break! Now, "polecat" is Emily Wilson's word, and it's what my grandfather in Alabama called a skunk. I was like... is this guy wearing a skunk on his head like Davy Crockett? (I know Davy Crockett didn't wear a skunk on his head. But if you ever really study the TV show, he is wearing an ENTIRE raccoon on his head. Freeze a frame and you can see its poor exed-out eyes. But don't do it! It's very troubling.) So I looked it up, even though I long ago vowed never to look anything up, and I assume she means... well, I don't know. I didn't look up much after all. I did see that the European polecat has anal scent glands, so good for him. And I don't think Emily Wilson implies the guy is wearing a whole polecat. But really what I want to mention is that I finished Gombrowicz and returned to Tacitus as promised. So you can breathe a sigh of relief! Over here in Tacitus, Rome is having some bad times, accompanied by the usual signs and portents. You know how that is! "The Capitol was occupied by ominous birds." I know what you're thinking! You're thinking I wish or assume that these ominous birds were owls. But I don't care. You don't know me at all! I just like the phrase: "The Capitol was occupied by ominous birds." A little later, some more bad times come up and "on the pinnacle of the Capitol a swarm of bees took up occupation."

Events Spiral Out of Control

What's a typical day like for me, you ask? What? You didn't ask? Who are you? Where am I? Most days I sit around looking up stuff like how many calories in an apple. Yesterday was different. I went out to see Beth Ann Fennelly onstage at the launch event for her latest book THE IRISH GOODBYE. I got into town a little bit early because the tradition is to have a quick drink at City Grocery Bar before the reading, at least that has always been my personal understanding. And look, I don't make it out to the bar as much since the famous unpleasantness of almost two years ago. So I was disinclined to miss out on my special treat. But get this! City Grocery Bar was closed for a private party! That happens from time to time, enraging me. It can strike at any moment! The private party, not the rage. Although that can also strike at any moment. There is no warning for either one. Anyway, Bill Boyle arrived early as well, so, with a little more than half an hour to go, we departed the venue (Off Square Books) and walked around the corner to Proud Larry's, which even the bartender there referred to as the "backup" for literary whatever the hell it is. Life? Bill didn't want a drink. He was just keeping me company and keeping tradition alive. So important! That's what I said to the golden-brown liquid in my glass so it would know it was not being consumed in vain. Anyway, we had a nice talk (Bill and I, that is, not the glass and I, though we got along great too) and then we moseyed back over at 5:31 PM, just one minute after the event's official start time. And let me tell you something: we couldn't even get in! Not only was every chair occupied, the rear of the store was packed with a standing-room-only crowd AND there were people kind of smushed up in the doorway and spilling out onto the sidewalk. Well! I wasn't really surprised by the turnout, especially for Beth Ann, though I have long assumed that literature is dead. An unsuspecting Dr. Theresa, meanwhile, was on her way, having just finished teaching a class, and I had to tell her to come pick me up at Proud Larry's instead. Please be assured I had already purchased my copy of THE IRISH GOODBYE upon my arrival. Anyway, back around the corner we went and I sat at the bar with Bill again and ordered some to-go food for Dr. Theresa and myself... our go-to order at Proud Larry's, yes, our to-go go-to, that's right, or our go-to to-go would probably be a more proper way to put it, two grilled chicken salads with the lemon-red wine vinaigrette. And, if we're really feeling daring, we cheat and split a quesadilla. And boy were we feeling daring last night! And look, you're not going to believe this incredible tale, but I had already ordered the quesadilla before looking at my phone to discover that Dr. Theresa had texted her request for a quesadilla. Yes, you read that right! That's the kind of magic that thirty years of marriage will get for you. What a night. What a world. What times we live in.

From the Golden Toilet

Speaking of... what? Well, I know what I mean. Going from Queen Elizabeth in my fuzzy little brain to Dr. John Dee, I was put in mind of the chronovisor, a gadget McNeil emailed me about recently, under the heading "Forget the Golden Toilet." Perhaps I should explain the subject line of McNeil's email. Have you not heard of the famous artwork that was fashioned in the beauteous form of a golden toilet? McNeil and I used to amuse ourselves thinking of clever ways to steal the golden toilet, but then someone stole it in real life and ruined our fun. Now, according to all the newspapers, the golden toilet is back - and better than ever, I assume. But why am I telling you this? After all, McNeil has commanded me to forget the golden toilet – review the title of his email for confirmation - and think about the chronovisor instead. I’ll provide a "hyperlink" (here) so you can begin your own stupid journey of discovery about the chronovisor, a device that allows you to see back in time! Supposedly. Well, the idea behind the chronovisor put me in mind of my own big idea for seeing back in time, which involves an impossibly powerful telescope and a faraway galaxy. The narrator of Flann O’Brien’s THE THIRD POLICEMAN (or is it his hero de Selby, much quoted in footnotes?) has a related (?) notion involving an infinite series of mirrors, if I recall correctly, which the structure of this sentence throws into doubt. McNeil declared that my idea would indeed allow us to see ourselves eating lunch in high school, what a dream come true. Anyway, as our email chain became longer and longer, I kept misreading McNeil’s subject header as "From the Golden Toilet," which I finally told him. I think he said I could put that on his tombstone, but I countered that it might work better as the title of an edition of our collected letters.

Grievously Bedaubed

I don't come around here much anymore, because I'm so very, very tired of telling you every time I read a book with an owl in it. No more of that! What else is there to talk about? Nothing, that's what. Well, McNeil lobbed a couple of softballs at me, and I could have "blogged" about them... like, let's see... he found, on this very site, a zombie "link" which, before its zombification, had been about Jack Palance. I neglected to check it out, on account of being so tired and weary and filled with bitterness and ennui and so on. Then he said that by going down a rabbit hole, not his phrase, or more like a Palance hole, also not his phrase, he found a clip of Jack Palance reading from a novel he had written (!)... all right, does the inclusion of that parenthetical exclamation point mean that the spirit of "blogging" is beginning to surge afresh in my congealing veins? I doubt it! But to quote McNeil, "I stopped when he's about to read an excerpt from his novel. I just can't bring myself to listen. I don't know why. It's probably fantastic. Maybe that's what I'm afraid of? Who knows? You watch and let me know." Lacking the energy, I did not follow up on McNeil's request. In a separate communiqué, he mentioned a TV show called DIRTY SALLY, which, to his surprise (I think), I remembered quite well. I remembered how much it bothered me as a child, or whatever I was. "Dirty Sally" was no figurative nickname! This character was a spiteful old woman quite literally covered in dirt. This is what we thought was a normal TV show in whatever year that was! She was "grievously bedaubed," as John Bunyan put it in THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, though he wasn't talking about Dirty Sally. Let me give you more of the quotation: "Here therefore they wallowed for a time, being grievously bedaubed with the dirt." Now, I say that John Bunyan wasn't talking about Dirty Sally, but "Dirty Sally" sounds like one of his characters, doesn't it? He's all about Mr. Clumsy and Johnny Sewermouth and such. Those examples come from my own fertile imagination. Ha ha, we're having a lot of fun talking about THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, aren't we? Yet I'm still filled with a curious mixture of numbness and rage. I didn't even let you know when Megan Abbott was coming to town! Usually, I am like, hey, everybody, there is an event! Pretending that putting such an announcement on the "blog" serves any real purpose. As you can see from the tragically rain-spattered chalkboard above, the gods themselves wept as Megan and I brought our public conversation to a conclusion. As Megan is the other member of the Million Dollar Book Club, we did get to discuss our latest selection in person for a change. It's called WILD MINDS and it's about the early history of animation. And thus I learned of a Warner Brothers character doomed to failure, yes, "a bespectacled owl named Oliver." DAMN IT!

Orange Vinyl Spider-Man Sequel

I finished reading THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES but no I didn’t. Because you get to the end of the first book and then you have to – by law! – read the next volume, which is called INTO THE MILLENNIUM, or, I suppose, THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES: INTO THE MILLENNIUM. Either way, it sounds like a Spider-Man sequel. I need to get over to Square Books and order it up! Meanwhile, the Million Dollar Book Club is working on THE RIGHT STUFF. And here’s what I noticed! Wally Schirra, one of the Mercury astronauts, is a real prankster. Like, he has a little box and tells people he caught a mongoose in it. Then when they try to reach in and pet it, well, it jumps at them like one of those snakes out of a peanut can. You know those snakes. Wally Schirra’s mongoose is some kind of furry sock on a spring. And that made me remember my short story collection MOVIE STARS, when a character goes to an auction and tries to buy a novelty mongoose in a box, operating on the same principle. I got out the catalog from the auction of Bob Hope's personal effects, which I actually attended, and confirmed that Bob’s mongoose box, as pictured in the aforementioned catalog, appears to professionally assembled, whereas Tom Wolfe sure made it sound as if the mongoose box was something Wally Schirra thought up and slapped together himself. I think that’s an accurate memory of my reading experience. But the book is downstairs by the bed and I don’t care enough to go get it. Then I started imagining whimsical fancies, such as, maybe Wally Schirra gave Bob his very own homemade mongoose box! Wouldn’t that be something? It doesn’t seem overwhelmingly plausible, really. Although I’m sure Bob Hope hung out with the Mercury astronauts at some point. Nor does it seem plausible, though, that Wally Schirra was manufacturing his own trick mongoose boxes when there were plenty of trick mongoose boxes, apparently, in the nation’s many novelty emporiums from coast to coast. Maybe Tom Wolfe got this one thing wrong! Unless! What if Wally Schirra saw a novelty mongoose box in a store and thought, "I could make this myself for half the price!"? I guess we'll never know. Speaking of stuff we'll never know, I noticed again that the Bob Hope auction catalog wasn’t too heavy on provenance, which reminded me that I wanted to check it, and not for the first time, to see if I could find a clue (I couldn’t) about what cartoonist made these clever Bob Hope caricatures I bought at the auction. When Quinn came to town, I was like, “Look, this guy made pictures of Bob Hope as if rendered by Goya… and, uh… [trying to think of some names of other artists]” And Quinn was like, “Are these supposed to look like Bob Hope?” And I was like… “!” Because of course! Why would Bob Hope have these hanging in his office if… and my voice, as well as my thoughts, trailed off as Quinn stood there with a doubtful look on her face. So let’s get back to THE RIGHT STUFF! As I texted Megan with photographic proof, I still have an orange vinyl 45 RPM record with recordings from the actual Mercury space flights. It came with my G.I. Joe space capsule, the interior of which glowed in the dark. I got scared and thought it was a ghost! Give me a break, I was three years old. (Speaking of Megan Abbott and Square Books [see above], I’ll be “in conversation” with Megan about her new book EL DORADO DRIVE on August 13. I wouldn’t mention it so early, but I just started reading it and on page 4 [of the galley, anyway] there’s a “bird crying in the night.” As a review of the owl-spotting portion of the “blog” will remind you, we have given much thought to the matter, and just because a bird cries in the night, that does not make the bird an owl. Maybe it’s just an upset bird. I’m not worried! There are plenty more pages to come that might have a definite owl in them.) But I really came here to report about THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES, didn’t I? I think it’s going to end up being JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS length. And contrary to my advice (usually about Thomas Mann), which is, essentially, read the first 200-400 pages and then you’ll be hooked, I was really bopping along with TMWQ for, oh, let’s say 200 pages… then I hit a real dry spell until page 630 (though, miner-like, I uncovered, here and there, random chunks of boldly glittering sarcasm that made it worth the trouble). So you have to get over a very big hump in the middle. Can you handle a 400-page hump? (Remember, this is just the first volume I’m talking about.) But when I got to page 630 I think I said out loud, “Things are starting to happen!” On page 630. Then the book was over not many pages later. Well, it was and it wasn’t.

He's Back!

Going to cut-and-paste an email I sent to McNeil and say it's a "blog" "post." Sometimes that's the way I do it. Other times I take an email FROM McNeil and cut-and-paste it and call it a "blog" "post." That's just the kind of variety you've come to expect from the "blog." Now for that email: "Was reading in the New York Times about how Trump wants to go to Fort Knox and make sure the gold is still there, ha ha! And the article traces the conspiracy back to this guy you used to email me about, Peter Beter, the man with the hilarious name. I think he’s the one who claimed Jimmy Carter had been replaced by a robot. Good to see his work hasn’t been forgotten." End of email. In conclusion, if you "click" on the Peter Beter "link" above, you will see that McNeil was talking about him ten years ago! McNeil was ahead of the times, just like when he discovered that gin and raisins cure arthritis. Please consult your physician before going on a diet of gin and raisins.

Beside You All the Time

I'm back! You didn't know I was gone. And in fact, I was never gone. I've been right here beside you all the time, my darling. With Covid! That's right, I finally became part of the hottest trend from five years ago, the signature disease of our special rotten times. A hint of it flutters still about my weakened flesh as I type these heartfelt words. I am sorry it delayed me from telling you about my dream project. For years, I wanted to interview Ace Atkins about his rosy days of golden youth working on the Pauly Shore film JURY DUTY. As you may confirm by "clicking" here, the first installment is already in the can!

The Cry of the Pork Vendor

Okay, Gadda keeps hitting me with sandwiches. It hurts. "A sandwich with a slice of pork. Big enough to last two days." Couple of pages later there's "a kind of hamburger swollen with papers more than a generous salami sandwich"... okay, that one... there's a lot to "unpack" as a scholar might say, or scholars used to say, or did they ever say that? The latter is not a real sandwich. It's a wallet as metaphorical sandwich. It is, per the translator William Weaver, a "rotten wallet." And look, I don't want to eat a wallet. I don't even want to eat a hamburger swollen with papers, or anything rotten at all. Now, I wouldn't turn up my nose at a generous salami sandwich, although I am no longer allowed to have generous salami sandwiches under the constant hectoring threats of a well-meaning physician. But Gadda includes the cry of the pork vendor, "Get you [sic] roast pork here! Nice roast pork... golden brown." Golden brown! Dear Lord, how much of this can I take?

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!

Passing Through

As you know (?), I take my blood pressure twice a day. Before doing so, I sit silently for five minutes, for a ten-minute total per day. And as I sit so silently and still, waiting to take my blood pressure with all the suspense of someone slowly scratching off a lottery ticket, or Charlie Bucket peeling off the wrapper of a chocolate bar, I read a book. To qualify as my "blood pressure book," the book must be a sturdy hardcover with a mighty spine that allows the volume to lie open flat on the table. That is the only requirement. All this you know. But I don't think you knew that my current blood pressure book is a biography of Fernando Pessoa, which is about as long as THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY. Anyhow! And forgive me for going over some of my other reading habits but it's so obviously important. Anyhow! I have also been reading old comic books at night, ever since Tom Franklin brought me some old comic books in the hospital. But I have to say I'm getting tired of the old comic books. Something has... changed. Something in the... I want to say... no I don't... national mood??? I didn't say it! Let's not talk about it! Once I finish the current pile, which is swiftly dwindling, that may be it for old comic books, at least for a while. Old comic books can't soothe me anymore. Anyhow! ANYHOW! I was very surprised, as Pessoa's biographer, Richard Zenith, which sounds like a name young Fernando Pessoa would have made up, analyzed a specific sort of Pessoa poem by saying, and here I quote my blood pressure book, "And the scenes and moods are not only juxtaposed, they also interpenetrate, passing through each other the way Superman passes through walls, without him or the walls losing their structural integrity." Talk about juxtaposing and interpenetrating: at last my blood pressure book and my old comic books had met! BUT WHY? The comparison is striking for a number of reasons, several of which I am about to tell you until you can take no more. First! The allusion does not seem particularly Pessoa-friendly, especially since Pessoa died in 1935, well before the creation of Superman. Now! We must of course admit that the biographer has an advantage, in this case, over his subject... that of still being alive (as far as I know). Therefore, he can draw from any range of examples he likes, including those from a future unimaginable even to his very imaginative subject. BUT! Pessoa is conducting seances just a couple of pages later. Isn't a ghost something that passes through walls? Might not a ghost be a more universally recognizable figure for the average reader, if the average reader pictures something that passes through walls without losing its structural integrity or altering the wall? I hope it is not blasphemous to suggest that one also thinks of Jesus, in his appearance to St. Thomas. But I'm not done! The biographer's Superman example is interesting to me because... do people know Superman can do that? I mean, I do. But I have made a serious study of all his oddest powers. A superhero who is more famous for vibrating through a wall is the Flash, if you know about the Flash, but, of course, more people know about Superman than know about the Flash... yet the question remains! Does the reader with a rudimentary knowledge of Superman realize that he can vibrate through a wall? I have no evidence to back up what I'm about to say, but I suspect that the average reader, if asked to imagine Superman going through a wall, would picture the "Man of Steel" busting right through it with his super fists, like the Kool-Aid man or the Schlitz malt liquor bull, not that my latter two examples were known for using their fists. The Schlitz malt liquor bull, being a hooved quadruped, was not even capable of making a fist! While the Kool-Aid man may or may not have been able to make a fist, I doubt whether he had the arm extension necessary for pounding down a wall with it, especially as he, if I recall correctly, grasped in one hand a pitcher of the same sweet liquid with which his living body was filled. Nevertheless, it can be easily proven with video evidence that both the Kool-Aid man and the Schlitz malt liquor bull BODILY knocked down their walls, as, I put forth, most people would credit Superman with doing as well. (I am including the "beer label" on this "post," even though the Schlitz malt liquor ads issued, according to my hazy memories, the specific command "Don't say beer, say bull!" May the Schlitz malt liquor bull forgive me and not crash through my wall. Amen. Not that I am worshipping a golden calf! Not even a hypothetical one made, unlike the all-too-fleshly Schlitz malt liquor bull, of golden malt liquor, however tempted I might be at this moment to drink a calf-sized container of such a brew.)

The Latest St. John Chrysostom News

Now, I am sure you recall 2016 as the year when I was reading a book with St. John Chrysostom in it, but it was too big to take on the airplane, so I brought a smaller book on the airplane, and to my surprise, it ALSO had St. John Chrysostom in it! Okay, stay with me. Now cast your mind back to mere days ago, when I took NIGHTWOOD on an airplane, but didn't finish reading it, even though it is short, because of all the things to distract me on the airplane. Well, yesterday, I continued NIGHTWOOD, and a character asks, "Am I the golden-mouthed St. John Chrysostom, the Greek who said it with the other cheek?" He goes on to answer himself, and bear in mind, these are not my words, but those of Djuna Barnes, writing in 1936: "No, I'm a fart in a gale of wind, an humble violet under a cow pad." Take it up with Djuna Barnes! She died in 1982 and is beyond caring whether or not you like fart jokes. You know, as I continued to read, and got deeper, I began to realize - again to my surprise! I get surprised so much! - of whom the rhythm and flow of the words in this book remind me... Barry Hannah! I almost didn't "post" any of this because I knew no one would care but then I decided to "post" it because I knew no one would care.

McNeil Bits

To be clear, these are not "McNeil's Li'l Bogie Bits." These are little bits of McNeil himself, though one of them is connected to his bogie bits, if you will. He mentioned Bogart giving a bellhop a nickel tip, and I wondered what year that was, so that maybe I could calculate how much the nickel tip would be worth today. I have a lot of time on my hands. McNeil was at work, so he did not have his 700-page Bogart biography with him, but, to satisfy my curiosity, he paraphrased, from memory, an interview with the bellhop, who, according to McNeil, "laughed and made an excuse for Bogie, saying something like, 'I'm sure he mistook it for a quarter, haha.'" Thus we may conclude that the nickel wasn't worth a whole hell of a lot. Next McNeil bit! McNeil is always keeping me informed about all the greatest scientific wonders of the age! Sometimes, these developments disturb and frighten him - for example, the massive catapult that shoots satellites into space or the discovery of a giant secret planet. (And here I should remind you that you really need to access the "blog" on your desktop or laptop computer, so that you can enjoy the use of handy labels such as "McNeil's Greatest Fears." If you "click" on that one, it will take you to the numerous examples of all of McNeil's very greatest fears. We're just scratching the surface here! If you are looking at your "blog" on your phone, the labels do not appear, and therefore, much to your sorrow, you will never know the full and staggering extent of McNeil's greatest fears.) Other times, man's quest for knowledge fills McNeil with glee, such as when he was inspired by the idea of making diamonds out of skeletons, and suggested we take up graverobbing. Or when he read, and here I quote myself quoting McNeil, "an article suggesting that all the gold on Earth came from the collision of dead stars and [said], 'Let's go get us some of this!' seemingly suggesting a trip to outer space." This time, McNeil seems pretty hyped up about a company that, as he puts it, "sells sunlight from space. You open their app, and wherever you are (at night and on a clear evening, I presume) they project sunlight down from a satellite. Fine. Of course you could see how you might drive a neighbor insane. Or what a nifty burglar alarm it would be. Or now you would never have to drive at night, I guess." I take McNeil's word for these things. It's good enough for me! Finally, after watching HARRY AND WALTER GO TO NEW YORK due to a 45-year-old recommendation of mine he found while cleaning out his attic, McNeil chose, seemingly at random, a movie from the "blog's" Big List of Movies. Now, I couldn't vouch for it, as I haven't seen it, except for the opening scene. It was one that came to us through a memorable description ("click" here) by noted musician Kelly Hogan, and the name of that movie was SOMEONE I TOUCHED. Summarized McNeil: "Everyone got syphilis but found out about how love works I think."

How I Read Now

I take my membership in the 2-person book club very seriously, as will be confirmed when I tell you that I moved JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS into a secondary position so that I could more faithfully engage with the biography of Polly Adler. Look her up! I don't have time for your lazy ways. Having finished that Marilynne Robinson book, I now read JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS for 10 minutes a day, 5 minutes at a time, while I wait to take my blood pressure. I make it through an average of four pages a day, a pace to which the book makes itself strangely amenable. I first noticed while reading THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN that Thomas Mann is very interested in time - its reality and its narrative uses and representation. That's a great oversimplication. To keep going in the same simplistic direction, the only direction I know, Mann is interested in how an hour can pass like molasses, while a decade can disappear in a blink. It is for that reason, I assume, that my readings of his mammoth text, though brief and greatly separated, feel as if they are taking place in a single unending and languorous haze. It may further interest you to know that I believe I was pronouncing "Thomas Mann" correctly for most of my life, and then, recently, I started thinking I was doing it wrong, so I started pronouncing it a new way, but now, whenever I say it out loud, someone says, "Who?" and I say "Thomas Mann" and they say "Oh..." Then they look at me like that one emoji with a straight line for a mouth. (See also, the time a smart-alecky undergrad corrected my pronunciation of "whilst" in front of the whole class, even though I was saying it right and he turned out to be nothing but an ill-informed little and, as I recall it, wealthy jerk with enviable golden locks. On the other hand, what is this bitterness? I am sure he turned out to be a very nice young man and he did demonstrate considerable ability in the classroom. His single flaw, now that I really contemplate it, was his unwarranted confidence about how to pronounce "whilst." There are worse crimes! God bless you, the handsome and polished pebble in my shoe! See also, then, the time I mispronounced the name of Ashton Kutcher, and was justifiably laughed out of the classroom and made to hang my head in dirty shame.) Oh! But what I came here to say is that though (as I have reiterated countlessly) I am under no obligation to tell you about more than one owl in a book, and I have already told you about two owls in JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS, old Potiphar was just sitting in his special room where he sits as the sun goes down, and behind his head as he sits in a silent, noble fashion, there is artwork representing owls, falcons, and ducks, I believe in that order, but the book is all the way downstairs, under my blood pressure machine, so I guess we'll never know.

Important

By now you are intimately familiar with my new habit of reading old comic books at the close of each busy day. Among the most recent delivery from Tom Franklin was nestled one about Zatanna, the superhero who is also a magician. As you can see in the illustration above, there was an allusion to Phyllis Diller in the old Zatanna comic book. This is important information that I need to relay to McNeil right away. As he is, for all practical purposes, the only person still reading the "blog," I believe that my mission has already been accomplished. But I am going to check in with him privately as well, because I also need to tell him about a double entendre accidentally (?) made by the Flash in the same comic. It is too saucy to be printed here on the "blog." Now, I am sure you will never forget the time I found an owl in an Alan Moore Swamp Thing comic book. And I know you feel as strongly as I do about the time I found out Jan Potocki thought he was a werewolf. (You know, you can "click" on all these "links" to refresh your memory of these matters.) The latter incident caused me, somewhat indirectly, to purchase a copy of Potocki's novel THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA from Square Books. I could almost swear I already had a copy of it at some remote time in the past, but that mystery is forever shrouded in the mists of my mellow golden yesterdays. Anyhow! This paperback of THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA features as its cover the very same Goya etching lovingly reproduced in Swamp Thing, bestowing the presence of its own scary owl upon the later work. Whether there is an owl in the text of Potocki's novel, I have not yet had an opportunity to ascertain. However, my happiness remains unmuted, as the coincidence allows me to inform you that one of the old comic books I read last night in bed happened to be a pre-Moore Swamp Thing, in which some punk-rock vampires used hollowed-out pinball machines as coffins. One punk-rock vampire explained the uncanny similarities between being in a mosh pit and his existence as one of the bloodthirsty undead, a monologue that put me in mind of the fear of beatniks exhibited in pop art of an even earlier era.

The Owl of Conceit

I called it! When the 2-person book club began reading this biography of Polly Adler by Debby Applegate, I said to myself, "Jack," I said, "If this book has an owl in it at all, it will be a so-called 'night owl.'" And what do you know? Applegate gives us "night owls lingered over a bowl of matzoh ball soup." Right again, Pendarvis! You're a genius. But that's not all. After I put down Polly Adler, I picked up my nightly tonic, an old comic book. Of course you recall how Tom Franklin brought me some old comic books in the hospital, and some more old comic books when I got home, and soon I was buying my own old comic books like a deranged fiend. But what you didn't know is that Tom brought me even more old comics books after that! He's like a golden goose that keeps laying old comic books and I promise never to open him up to see how it works, as in the old fairy tale. That story taught me a lesson! Anyhow, I was reading an old comic book from Tom's most recent delivery, a story about a character of whom, like El Diablo and The Shroud before him, I had never heard. And this lively fellow's name was The Viking Prince. So this here Viking Prince meets a princess, and this here princess says, "I WILL NEVER MARRY THIS -- THIS -- OWL OF CONCEIT!" So I shut my old comic book and lay there thinking my wise thoughts. And I thought and thought, and the thought came to me that the hilarious idea of an owl of conceit reminded me of a book I read at least a few times as a teenager, a book called THE PLATYPUS OF DOOM AND OTHER NIHILISTS, and I lay there trying to remember any of the contents, of which only a salacious detail or two came back to me. I still have my copy! As you can see in the photo above, it resides on the drugstore-style paperback spinner I have right here in my home office where I type these mesmerizing words that appear before your wondering eyes like magic. Okay, now I must move on to a spoiler for one of the stupid word puzzles in the New York Times. I know people are serious about their stupid New York Times word puzzles, so if you get up every morning and do a stupid New York Times word game puzzle (not the crossword) like some kind of glasses-wearing egghead, I advise you to stop reading now. All right! Here we go. Have you stopped reading? Ha ha! You don't exist! And if you did, you wouldn't have read this far anyway. So, one of the producers of a secret project I can't tell you about got me going on this particular stupid New York Times word game puzzle thing. So, you must recall that I spent the night tossing and turning and thinking about the platypus. Not something that comes to mind often! Not to my mind. This morning, I get up and do my stupid New York Times puzzle word game puzzle game puzzle thing. And one of the answers is... TRADEMARKS OF A PLATYPUS. In conclusion, I leafed through my old copy of PLATYPUS OF DOOM and there is a cigarette ad in the middle of it. That's how it used to be! I don't think my grandfather owned a book without a cigarette ad in the middle.

Unattributed Owl

I was convalescing this weekend in a MAGIC MOUNTAIN style medical facility when Tom Franklin dropped by with an armload of old comic books to help me pass the miserable hours. Now, one of these comics was a Gold Key publication about a superhero called THE OWL, and he seemed vaguely familiar. Soon enough, I remembered that I had run across a panel or two of the Owl subduing his foes with the use of his gun that shoots out rainbows. I had no context, and I passed it along to you without context, you're welcome. Somehow it never occurred to me - until now! - that a comic book called THE OWL should go on my long list of books with owls in them. After all, I have included other comic books on the list... off the top of my head, THE DEMON by Jack Kirby, DAREDEVIL, and Grant Morrison's THE INVISIBLES. Not trying very hard, I couldn't find details of authorship in my copy of THE OWL, save for a splash page signed by "Siegel & Gill." And you know what? That's all the effort I'm going to put into it. Old me would have scoured the "internet" for more information. But in case you can't tell, I've been sick. Get off my back! I will tell you that the Owl has a robot owl named Owlo. That seems important. In fact, he has an endless supply of robot owls named Owlo, in case something happens to one of them. During Tom's visit, we discussed many things, such as whether Deadman, a ghost superhero who shoves his soul into the bodies of other people, could inhabit Superman, who is, after all, not human, but some kind of freaky alien. Then Tom brought up the obscure cowboy superhero Vigilante... yes, I believe "superhero" is an accurate term. Vigilante (pictured above) doesn't have otherworldly powers, but neither does Batman. Case closed. Anyhow, imagine my delight when, after Tom had left, I found this on the cover of a WORLD'S FINEST comic: "VIGILANTE ROUTS THE 'REFORMED OWL-HOOT CLUB.'" Please note, that's owl-hoot, not hoot-owl, as I originally misread it. The story itself begins with this narration: "DYED-IN-THE-WOOL WESTERNERS WILL TELL YOU 'ONCE AN OWLHOOT, ALWAYS AN OWLHOOT!'" That's right, the cover used a hyphen but the actual comic did not. All this, perhaps, sheds some light on a phrase from TRUE GRIT that I seemingly found mysterious ("click" here for details. You usually ignore such exhortations, but I've been sick!). In conclusion, it seems that I have never mentioned on the "blog" - though it hardly seems possible (that I haven't mentioned it, I mean) - that I had a letter to the editor published in WORLD'S FINEST COMICS when I was a kid. It was a pretty sarcastic letter.

Top Three

Last night we discussed it thoroughly, and you will be excited to hear that Dr. Theresa and I agree about which three movie lines we most often say to each other around the house on various humorous occasions, and they never get old! In the number three spot, we have "I know what you're going to do. It's a bad thing, and I'm going to tell." For number two, "I'm smart! Not like everybody says." Number one came as somewhat of a surprise to us, but we do say it an awful lot, and it is undeniably versatile and useful. I can keep you in suspense no longer. "Ain't nothing horrible going to happen today!" from WALK HARD takes the coveted gold medal.