Speaking of Fox Mulder

I wanted to “post” this earlier, but the AT&T “internet” stopped working over and over. Anyway, here’s what you’ve been waiting for. I got one of those junk headlines that you get on your phone, something like “The Queen’s Favorite Sandwich That She Ate Every Day Since She Was Five – And It’s So Basic!” So I took a screen grab of it and sent it to Ace. That’s all we do all day every day, grab stupid things that appear on our phones and text them to each other. Then I texted the same screen grab, with its accompanying photo of Queen Elizabeth II, to Sara, along with my own humorous commentary: “The answer? A foot-long chili dog.” Sara’s reply was something like (a close paraphrase here): “OMG, really???” So I sadly had to reply that no, Queen Elizabeth II did not, as far as I know, eat a foot-long chili dog every day for 90 years. As Sara expressed it in a subsequent text, her tragedy – ha ha! she didn’t say tragedy – is that she “wants to believe.” Just like Fox Mulder from the X-Files! I added that part. Speaking of Fox Mulder, I was reading another old comic book about The Atom, and he was fighting these tiny guys who lived in a cave and rode around on the backs of bats. The editor interrupted the story to announce that tiny people of a proper size for riding small flying rodents into battle most likely really existed at some point! He insisted, in the capital letters typical of old comic books: “THE ELVES, THE BROWNIES, THE LEPRECHAUNS, THE FAIRIES, ALL MAY BE FANCIFUL RECOLLECTIONS OF A RACE OF TINY HUMANS! CHARLES FORT WRITES OF THEM.” Naturally, I was interested to run across this use of Charles Fort's captivating ramblings as evidence. I always thought Charles Fort would be a big deal on the “blog,” though he has never ended up in even 10 “posts” so far, after all the “blog’s” horrible countless years of thankless and unwanted existence. You remember Charles Fort, of whom it was once recorded on a book flap that he "collected and published reliable accounts of colored rains, living things falling to earth, unknown objects in space and in the oceans, people who have mysteriously appeared and disappeared." Charles Fort, to whom Tom Wolfe casually alluded: "Cassady began fibrillating the vocal cords, going faster and faster until by dawn if he had gone any faster, he would have vibrated off, as old Charles Fort said, and gone instantly into the positive absolute. It was a nice weird party." Charles Fort, whose glowing owls inspired the owls in my own second book. Charles Fort! That’s what I wanted to say. I wanted to say Charles Fort. Oh! In conclusion – and you will have to pardon me in advance for blue language on a level such as never, in my memory, has been attempted on the “blog” before – I watched THE DISORDERLY ORDERLY again, and as I was looking it up afterward in Fujiwara’s excellent monograph, I ran across Jerry Lewis’s defense of the puppet sequence from THE ERRAND BOY, which, having grown wise over the years, I now welcome with arms open wide. In fact, I’m ashamed of some of my earlier “posts” in which I seemingly apologize for Jerry. Back in those days, I just wanted everybody to like me! Now I don’t care anymore. So, Fujiwara interviews Jerry, who says of the part of the movie in which he, Jerry, cavorts tenderly with (if I recall correctly) a flirtatious, languorous ostrich puppet and enjoys maudlin interactions with a little finger-puppet clown… Jerry, who says of himself, actually, “We call that a director with steel balls.” And I was like, you know what? He’s right!

Sex-Crazed AI

I guess you want to know how my project is going, the one where - ever since McNeil found a former outside "blog" "link" to a literary treasure that had been salaciously commandeered by sex-crazed AI robots (FOOTNOTE! I originally titled this "post" "What's Up With Zombies," going so far as to research whether or not "With" should be capitalized in a title, before changing it to "Sex-Crazed AI," which I felt would "generate" more "clicks") - I am slowly "clicking" on every previous "blog" "link" to make sure that insidious zombie "links" are replaced by a wholesome alternative. So far I've looked at between 250-300 "posts," I estimate, out of 6910, as of this one. So it's going to take a while. I have to say that I can't believe I've "posted" just 6910 times so far. It feels like 691,000. What a wasted life. But that's not your problem! Oh, as I go through these old "posts," I am also deleting any image, or dead spot where an image used to be, that was originally acquired by what I later learned (around 2008?) was the ignorant and problematic method of "stealing bandwidth." Very often, as a result, if you "click" on an old "post" (I know you won't! Partly because you don't exist), you will see former me excitedly advising you to check out a real groovy accompanying image that isn't there. You know what? Who cares?

Tell Your Invisible Friends

I know you don't exist, but if you did, I would strongly encourage you to go out this evening to Square Books, where Ace Atkins will unveil his action-packed new thriller DON'T LET THE DEVIL RIDE. Happy publishing date, Ace, or "pub day" as in-the-know literary types probably call it with their smug eggheaded ways. And because you don't exist, dear "blog" reader, you can bring all your friends, who also, just from using logic, don't exist, because you won't have to worry about seating, as none of you exist! Now, I'm not saying that Ace Atkins fans don't exist. They exist by the carload! I can vouch from experience that Ace Atkins fans will cram Off Square Books (the annex where readings take place) full to bursting. Ace and I were trying to figure out, in fact, how many of his book events I have moderated for him over the years. We can't put it together, quite, but at least 8 or 9. One I particularly recall is from 2015, due to our in-depth discussion of Clyde the orangutan, which left the crowd enthralled and begging for more. And I've never missed an Ace Atkins book event in at least 13 years, though, sadly, I can't make it tonight. But that's okay, because the acclaimed and gifted novelist Michael Farris Smith will be putting Ace through his conversational paces, well, well, well, I guess Michael Farris Smith is Ace's new best friend. :(

My Secret

A lot of people ask me... and by "people," I mean hypothetical beings from an alternate universe... "Jack," their disembodied voices plead, "how do you decide what to read?" The answer is simple: the obituaries, of course! All of my ideas about everything come from obituaries. A New York Times obituary is how I came across an anthology called TECHNICIANS OF THE SACRED. On the first page of the actual text (a distinction I make because of the three - three! - prefaces) there is an owl. My instincts in this matter having been honed to the finest of points, I feel confident in saying there will be several more owls before I am done. In fact, screech-owls, as distinct from regular everyday owls, make an appearance on the same page, in the same poem from the Cahto people of northern California. It is, if I am reading it correctly, which I am not, a list of things that were not there before the beginning of time. "Owls were not they say." Turns out a lot of animals and things weren't around back then. "Then clouds were not they say. Fog was not they say. It didn't appear they say. Stars were not they say. It was very dark." The last line has an echo in the last line of a story in my second book, which (the coincidence) gave me a good feeling, though you might justiably object, if you existed, which you don't, "It was very dark? I bet a lot of people have written that sentence." Well, it works at the end of the story, or is intended to, in the same way that it provides a satisfying resting place for the poem. The sentence in my story goes, if I recall it correctly, "Pretty soon it was dark, and between the lit cities it was very dark." I remember it chiefly because I got a rejection from some very high-toned magazine (I can't remember which, but it was a big one), on the bottom of which the editor or reader grudgingly scrawled, "The last sentence was good." Ha ha! Which reminds me: the other day it dawned on me that all my books are out of print. Someone who should know (Richard Howorth) told me it's not true, but I admit to lingering doubts, even in the face of his unquestionable expertise as the former mayor of the town and, more significantly, the owner of Square Books. Anyway, before Richard gave me that comfort, the notion came to me to organize an event in which I read from my out of print books (all my books). I thought I could sell whatever copies I could scrounge up around the house at bargain basement prices. Then I realized we have just one copy of SWEET BANANAS, of which there were not that many copies to begin with. So I looked around the "internet" and found exactly one for sale, and I bought it. Now, I wondered with some anticipation what would be on the cover, because, as you would not recall even did you exist, each copy had a different cover, featuring the beginning sentence (or so, as we shall see) of each of the novel's 365 chapters. Well! I was delighted, despite all my failures as a writer, as enumerated in part above, to unwrap the package and discover by wild and statistically unlikely happenstance my favorite chapter of the book staring at me from the cover. (See above.) Yes, that's a whole chapter, just so you know what you're missing. I think it's Mary Miller's favorite, too. She mentioned it in ELECTRIC LITERATURE as one of her favorite sentences. It is churlish of me to note in the face of such generosity that it is two sentences.

The Belt of Dorian McNeil

McNeil has been following all the recent developments about my new belt with great interest. He was reminded, in fact, of certain details about his own belt, which I quote here in part: "I have this belt I wear every day. I bought it in Toronto in October 2004. It shows no signs of wearing out before the fall, so I feel comfortable saying it will last 20 years... On the inside of the belt, if that's what you call it, there was a sticker with a maple leaf on it. I guess to let everyone know who took off my pants that my belt was made in Canada. That sticker only began to fade after about 15 years, and now has completely disappeared. But the belt still looks brand new. It's like a magic belt. Or maybe as I get older, my belt gets younger." Obviously, the title I bestowed on this "post" only works if the picture had stayed young while Dorian Gray got older... which is how pictures work in real life, which wouldn't have made old Oscar much of a story. But "The McNeil of Dorian Belt" didn't sound right.

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.

Not Publishing

You know how I am always being inspired by phrases. It is a real weakness! And I find most of them in the New York Times, which is just piling shame on top of weakness. But it is too late to change my life now. Anyway, I was reading about Emily Dickinson's house in today's New York Times, and came across a phrase to add to my collection: "Dickinson ‘had such freedom in not publishing,’ Cybulski said. ‘She could leave all those variants in.’” It reminded me of something notably eloquent that Sonny Rollins said about his grave distrust of recordings, I swear to God he really said it, but I have "clicked" on my Sonny Rollins "label" for this "blog" (visible on your laptop, but not your phone, I think; much like Cinemascope, the "blog" is not ideally suited to your phone) and I can't find that interview or quotation anywhere. I'd like to recall exactly what he said because I'll never say it right like Sonny Rollins. Something... about... how music is meant to exist temporally, fleetingly, and to capture it does it a disservice, because it falsely values that one captured moment over all the uncaptured moments that are at least equally important. That's not even close! But it does remind me of something I just read in the new Bob Dylan book. Old Bob maintains that a spectacular song and a spectacular record are not the same thing. "Some of our favorite records are mediocre songs at best, that somehow came alive when the tape was running." Well, I have "blogged" twice in two days, is this the beginning of a disturbing trend? After the TV blew up in 2016, we had a nice steep descent going, and 2019 proved to be a banner year for not "blogging." Then, the unpleasantness. Everything is still somewhat skewed. As of yesterday, we surpassed that nice low 2019 figure, meaning we'll just have to do better (less) in 2023.

A Most Unpleasant Owl

As you know, I tell you every time I read a book with an owl in it. Why? I guess because I've been doing it for more than 10 years and there is no way to stop. Now, the moment I picked up a book by Salvador Dali, I felt a 98% certainty it would have an owl in it. But little could I have known it would be an owl of such a thoroughly unpleasant mien. This owl was a vision of Dali's, I guess we could say. It appeared on people's heads. It was, if I recall correctly, a kind of hallucinated figurine, and on the owl's own head was... how I can say this? Some poop. Poop adorned the head of the owl. Poop of a particular... no, I shan't continue. What am I, the author of Till Eulenspiegel? Ha ha, you guys know what I'm talking about.

Invisible Obelisk

I don't "blog" anymore, but by no means did I want you to think that McNeil has stopped looking for obelisks. He sent me the above photo (seemingly from a television show called UFO) and requested a glowing orb to put on his desk. He also told me to "note the obelisk." Friends, I looked all over and didn't see the obelisk! I communicated my alarm to McNeil! I concluded - too hastily - that the thing resembling a crystal ball was the "glowing orb," not the white circle, which, as I examined it, looked so flat and artificial that I decided McNeil has placed it there through computer wizardry, in order to mark the obelisk in question. I furthermore concluded, on the basis of zero evidence, that McNeil had meant to draw a red circle (or suchlike) around the obelisk but had, instead, made an opaque white circle by mistake. Confronted with my theory, McNeil was appalled. The flat white circle was indeed the object of McNeil's admiration, a supposed "glowing orb" original to the work as televised. The obelisk, he said, was on the left front corner of the desk (from the POV of someone sitting behind it). Then I saw it! And if you look, you can see it too. Maybe you have already seen it with your fresh young eyes that are not yet old and weak like mine. In conclusion, I mentioned to McNeil that the white dot looked like something that may have been placed there by censors to cover a large hole in the seat of the man's pants. Yes, McNeil replied facetiously, that would explain the slide whistle sound effect when the man turned around. And now you know why I don't "blog" anymore.

A Realist

I came here to tell you one thing, but two other things intervened, so now I have to tell you three things. I will save the thing I originally wanted to tell you for last. I don't know why. First, here are the other two things. 1. Last night Dr. Theresa and I watched another mediocre movie, this one about the devil. To compensate for its mediocrity, it starred Vera Farmiga. "I know I always say this, but I think she's really pretty," said Dr. Theresa, to which I replied, "I know I always say THIS, but I saw her in my hotel lobby in Burbank once. She was wearing a hat!" Then we chuckled knowingly, for what is marriage but saying things to one another that you know you've said before, and enjoying it? Well! We are not even to the first thing I am going to tell you yet. Later in the movie, some other dude came along, some old dude, I was like, "Who is this old dude? He looks familiar." Dr. Theresa was like, "He was in some TV show? I can't remember." So we sat there a while and I suddenly remembered: "Oh yeah! He played a mad scientist on a TV show called FRINGE. And once, on an entirely different trip, I saw HIM in the lobby of that SAME HOTEL!" As you can imagine, the coincidence made at least one of us giddy with excitement. 2. Saw a tiny bit of BLUE HAWAII this morning. You may be asking yourself (you aren't), "Why are you watching so many Elvis movies lately?" Why, he is nothing less than the "star of the month" on TCM. Anyhow, for Elvis's first onscreen number, as he zooms toward the beach with his girlfriend in a convertible sports car, he sings a swingin' version of the old French (Canadian?) ditty "Alouette." What? They couldn't come up with an original melody for the first number in BLUE HAWAII? So they do a nursery song? (See also, the time he was forced to sing "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" in a movie.) But that's not what I wanted to tell you either! What I wanted to tell you is that the wikipedia article on "Alouette" somehow skips over this usage entirely (as of this writing), meaning that I know something wikipedia doesn't know. It makes me feel like a god! I would fix it (would I?) but I don't know how. To be fair, the lyrics bear no relation to "Alouette," relying thematically, rather, on Cole Porter's "Always True to You in my Fashion," although (as perhaps goes without saying) employing none of the wit. 3. Finally! All I meant to do is quote a letter from Katherine Anne Porter to Tennessee Williams: "I am a realist in that sense that everything is real to me, nightmares, daydreams, the world visible and invisible."

I Checked My Pants

I won't lie to you: last time I went to the Emmys my tuxedo pants kept falling down. I'm not good with those tuxedo waistband adjusters, as I assume they are called. So this year I decided to buy some suspenders. Upon a close examination of my order, I realized I had purchased "button suspenders," which require suspender buttons to be sewn into the pants. "Oh no!" I exclaimed. "Am I going to have to sew buttons into my pants?" Reader, I just went to the bedroom closet and checked, and I am happy to inform you that my tuxedo pants already have buttons sewn inside for just such an occasion. I thought about "tweeting" this, but imagine what an insufferable "tweet" that would be. So, even though I do not "blog" anymore, I placed it here, where no one will ever see it.

One Man's Vanishing Legacy

Out doing chores yesterday. Stopped to fortify myself at Big Bad Breakfast and was not really surprised to see that the omelet named after my novel is no longer on the menu. The novel has long been out of print, so why not the omelet? And the restaurant has expanded its geographic and philosophical reach beyond esoteric localized allusion. (See also, however, via this "hyperlink," the time our photograph was unceremoniously removed from the wall of an Italian restaurant.) Next to me at the counter, a young woman looked at her phone and shouted, "OH MY GOD! MY FATHER CANCELED MY BATHING SUIT ORDER!" Her boyfriend then described his mother's homemade lemon cake frosting in what I would call almost gothic detail. Then he referred to the time he had gone for underage drinks with his father the greatest night of his life. And I thought, well, you know, maybe he's just a guy who likes his parents, is that a crime? I don't "blog" anymore, and should really put this young couple in a novel instead, but I'm too tired.

Pen Runs Over a Bottle

1. Lee was about to pull up to give me a ride to Memphis when I discovered that the button on my jacket was precariously loose. It took the desperate combined efforts of Dr. Theresa and me to thread a needle. Suddenly that infomercial I saw in January 2011 about an innovative needle with a huge eye didn't seem so damn funny anymore. Once we got the needle threaded, precious seconds ticking away, Dr. Theresa secured that button in place like a speed demon. But that wasn't the end of the troubles! This is exciting already. So! 2. When Lee and I were about halfway to Memphis, I glanced down to discover that I was wearing the wrong shoes. For you see, I had an appointment at the Magic Castle in Hollywood later in the week, thanks to my friend Kate, who is a magician, and they (the Magic Castle, not magicians in general, nor Kate in particular) have a dress code, for which reason, and with some exaltation, I had recently purchased my very first ascot. Anyway, Dr. Theresa had to mail me my shoes. Or they would have never let me into the Magic Castle! 3. The Von's across from my hotel in Burbank no longer stocks the gigantic bottles of seltzer I like. 4. I saw Kent, who happened to be visiting from his new home (well, he's been there a long time now!) in Vermont. He wasn't going to the Magic Castle with us but asked whether I had been with him at the Magic Castle years ago when a guy made a baby appear. I said I thought I would remember something like that, but now I wonder. Was I? Did I? Would I? 5. Kent told me a dream he had had the night before, which I will abbreviate to its ruin. A yellow cobra comes out of a faucet and starts fighting a rat. Then a monkey runs into the room, grabs up the cobra, and begins choking the rat with it! I suggested that the yellow cobra coming out of the faucet meant that Kent needed to pee. 6. In TENDER IS THE NIGHT (the book I brought to read on the airplane) someone's monocle falls out due to a surfeit of emotion! Like in a cartoon! 7. Kent walked by while I was talking on the phone to Dr. Theresa. "Did you tell her about my dream?" he asked. Ha ha! Sure, we kidded him, it was the top of our agenda. Dr. Theresa used to call Kent "Big City" as part of an inside joke. Now, as she decided during the very phone call being described, she's going to call him "Big Maple." Because of Vermont. He has a beard now! Because of, I assume, Vermont. As these shenanigans were taking place I was about to leave for the Magic Castle, so Kent fussily rearranged my ascot (which I had tied myself; I'm not so hot with ties, but noting the ascot loophole in the Magic Castle's dress code, I deduced that an ascot would be easier to tie than a regular necktie... and I was right! An ascot, in its raw appearance, is like a big clown tie). 8. There are some things I can't tell you about the Magic Castle but maybe one day I will. One of them involved the invisible piano player who performs there. I wish I could tell you! Another guy kept making lemons appear out of thin air. Where were those lemons coming from? It was crazy! Magic is crazy. 9. At a Holiday Inn with Julia Pott, Pen, and Kent. "It is happening again," Julia kept saying during the karaoke at the Holiday Inn, purposely and accurately invoking TWIN PEAKS. Everyone there had chosen a sad song, as if by psychic prearrangement. Pen and Julia are especially fine dancers. Kent is a great dancer too, but what I remember is Kent and me sitting at a tall two-top with our really bad drinks, watching the fluid motions of Julia and Pen under the spell of a scrawny white-haired stranger moaning a song of absent love. (Pictured, above, a higher floor of the Holiday Inn.) 10. Back at my own hotel, alone... they were shutting down the bar when I came in... as I was sipping my nightcap a couple sat down next to me, a man and a woman. "The bar is closed," said the bartender, Harvey by name. "But we're getting married tomorrow!" objected the woman. Harvey has been known to do me a favor, so I proclaimed with a flourish, "Oh, allow me to get these two some champagne!" To which the bride-to-be responded quite severely, "No." Then, after a pause, "I want a 'chard.'" So I was like, "Never mind!" She went on: "Champagne is for tomorrow." And I said, "I understand." Why was I trying to force champagne down the throat of these innocent victims? And so to bed, as Samuel Pepys would say. 11. Now we have reached Saturday, and - speaking of Samuel Pepys - a bawdy section of our tale, so be forewarned, as bawdiness was not an area in which I normally dabbled, back in the days when I "blogged." At home on the Saturday in question, Dr. Theresa was suffering the calamity of a football game day. The streets were wild, she reported, and the home team was playing a team called "something like the Cockmasters," an assertion on her part that made both of us laugh even as she said it. "Well, it's something like that," she repeated, and vowed to find out. I begged her not to enter "Cockmasters" into the search engine of the computer. Anyway, it was the Gamecocks, which Dr. Theresa said she liked even less than Cockmasters, given the actual name's association with the practice of animal cruelty. 12. Talked by phone to Megan Abbott. We spent some incredible amount of time (I will say 20 minutes) just parsing the monocle sentence from TENDER IS THE NIGHT (see #6, above): "His monocle fell out, with no whiskers to hide in - he drew himself up." Megan solved it for me. She also said I sounded sedated, like late-stage Judy Garland. From Megan that's a compliment! 13. "I'm happy talking to an idiot." - Rae Gray. 14. Saw Rae Gray and Ashly Burch and many others at a kind of sendoff before Kent returned to Vermont. Talked about books a lot with Rae and Ashly and we laughed uproariously about a number of things, as well as becoming somber and contemplative when the occasion arose. Steve Little was there and when he saw my jotting book he produced his own jotting book in solidarity! Then I admitted I had neglected to bring a pen and he seemed disappointed in me. 14. My friend had a birthday party. Hmm! I can't remember why he's always anonymous. Maybe I made him anonymous because I didn't know him that well when he started appearing on the "blog." Anyway, now he's anonymous forever and subsequently my tales of his birthday party will be shrouded in vagueness and mystery... like why were at least half a dozen cast members of VERONICA MARS there, supplemented by the equally dazzling stars of iZOMBIE and PARTY DOWN? See? Already I've said too much... let me be clear. My friend was not the creator of VERONICA MARS, whom I did meet for the first time that night, however, and who, upon learning that I reside in Mississippi, told me he had played at a club in Jackson in 1985, but he couldn't remember the name. I was pleased to correctly assume he meant a place named W.C. Don's, and to tell him the possibly true fact which I barely recalled hearing somewhere that it had burned to the ground. I played there in 1990. We just missed each other! He swiftly produced a photo of himself with a mullet in front of W.C. Don's. 15. My friend Joey, knowing me to be a huge VERONICA MARS fan, introduced me to Kristen Bell, to whom I remarked how surreal it was for me to see the residents of Neptune (the town where the show takes place) walking around, which prompted her to explain to me the concept of acting, ha ha! I'm making it sound like she thought I didn't know the difference between fiction and reality but that wasn't the case... I hope! No, she was explaining from long experience why people feel and act the way they do when they see someone who performed in something in which they (the viewer) became emotionally invested. But just for a joke (and because it was true) I pretended to conflate another actor from the show with his character, leaning in and murmuring confidentially, "Don't be alarmed, but Logan is standing right behind you." And then an incredible thing happened. Kristen Bell became Veronica Mars! Her voice and posture changed instantly, and she said in character, "That's okay, I have eyes in the back of my head." What a good sport to indulge me so! And what a dexterous display. It was something to witness, and I felt lucky to witness it. Then I ate some creamed corn. 16. The next day Pen and I were out doing stuff and we stopped on a side street. Pen said, "I'm going to park my car better." We were already on the sidewalk. Pen hopped back in his car and pulled up a few inches and immediately ran over a bottle that disintegrated into a million sprinkles of brown glass with a terrible BANG! I jumped and started laughing. We had just been discussing Groucho Marx in the car, and that's where my mind was. "I'm going to park my car better." POW! The timing was perfect. In a movie, his tire would have gone pssssssssssst, but the tire was fine. 17. "You think you're with a decent candy maker and then he starts screamin' at you," is one thing Pen said about Willy Wonka. 18. "It was often easier to give a show than to watch one." - TENDER IS THE NIGHT. 19. Sitting in the airport thinking I have nice shoes but my socks are falling down. As long as I bought an ascot, why not sock garters? 20. Also I saw a man with shoes so shiny they made me ashamed. Maybe his shoes were TOO shiny. Blindingly gleaming they were! Dr. Theresa always says she likes a leather shoe that's been broken in so it has some character. She understands me! 21. Rising to depart from the plane which had returned me to the Memphis airport, I heard a plaintive meowing behind me that made me pine for home. Why, this passenger had been traveling with her cat the whole time and I never knew.

Barkley Absconditus

I'm four episodes into THE BIG VALLEY and it's interesting because the whole drama centers around an empty place where a person used to be... not until Laura Palmer in TWIN PEAKS was there another absent character so important to a show. He's the dead patriarch, Thomas Barkley, and I just saw an episode where the town is unveiling a statue of him, but there's a shadow over the face and we can't really see it, can anyone? Yes, yes, THE BIG VALLEY swirls around a terrifying abyss of meaningless where "the father" is supposed to be. Where is the supposed pillar of society? I don't suppose it's a coincidence [yes, of course it is! - ed.] that two bridges have fallen down in four episodes. I'm sure there is some theological approach to THE BIG VALLEY, something from Nicolas of Cusa, something about the deus absconditus.

Literary Matters

It's time once again for "Literary Matters"! No one enjoys those. They're not enjoyable. 1. I covered this one on twitter yesterday, but it's sticking in my mind. I read in the New York Times about Jimmy Buffett "grinning and splashing Tabasco on a modified Cobb salad." The editorial machinery of the New York Times saw fit - for the sake of accuracy, one supposes - to make sure the reader did not receive the false impression that Jimmy Buffett was eating a completely traditional Cobb salad. BUT! They did not care to let that same reader know in what way the Cobb salad had been modified. That's really all I have to say about that, except that I can't stop thinking about it. 2. EVERYBODY has been telling me to read BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL. Why, Randy Yates stopped me on the corner outside his own restaurant just to ask whether I had read it. And he was only one of many to make that query. And I needed something to read after MEASURE FOR MEASURE. (Ha ha, don't worry, I haven't given up on THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY; I just read this in it: "Cupid and Death met both in an Inn, and being merrily disposed, they did exchange some arrows from either quiver; ever since young men die, and oftentimes old men dote"... but I need a new "carry-around" book.) BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL is done up at least partway in that poetic style that Chandler made permissible for crime stories (instead of bubbles in the bathwater there are "little zeroes of suds"), and I'm more than fine with that! Okay! But then I had to stop on page 12 when he referred to the "trashy tune and words" of a Hank Williams song. The idea of someone sitting around proclaiming something "trashy" has never set well with me. And I know I should not confuse the author with the narrator! But here's a guy working in a genre that has been (unfairly) called "trashy" and he is going to have his narrator refer to the towering melodic and lyric achievements of Hank Williams as "trashy"? He should be on Hank's side! The irony (?) is compounded by the fact that this is a slick nyrb paperback, which has "rehabilitated," I guess, his "pulpy" novel. 3. Have you ever noticed in those books how your tough-guy narrator always wants to tell you when he takes a hot shower and eats some steak and eggs? It's a tendency I noticed in Spillane a lot. Maybe it's realism! I always thought it would be interesting to write a detective novel where there's no crime to solve and the detective just tells you about all the eggs he eats and hot showers he takes. The narrator of BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL "had no more idea of falling in love with her than I had of making a meal of the big yellow cake of soap in the Victorian bathroom," curiously combining both tendencies. 4. So I put down BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL. I'm gonna come back to it! I just have to shake off that unnecessary sideswipe at Hank Williams, though it's really got its claws in me. But in the meantime I thought I'd see what some of these here Shakespeare experts had to say about MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Out of three scholarly tomes I opened, two fell open EXACTLY and AT ONCE to the part about MEASURE FOR MEASURE, as if guided by the ghostly hand of Shakespeare himself! 5. Okay, I told you I'd read some more of this novel. Just three pages later the narrator is complaining that descriptions of women's legs in books are "trash." I don't know whether he's obsessed with trash or I am. But he's used the term twice in three pages. And now he's washing down seconds of potato salad with ice cold beer. Don't get mad at me, kind recommenders! I'm going to give this guy more of a chance than he gave Hank Williams. 6. I WAS WRONG! It's more like Cain than Chandler, but that's not what I mean. See, he's using the Hank Williams song ("If You've Got the Money, Honey") in a much more complex way than I expected... as a kind of shifting leitmotif. "Before it had sounded frank and functional. Before it had sounded gay and uncomplicated. Now the tune had a nasty taste to it." So, see, he was going somewhere with that, and I'm the sap. 7. I'm "not 'blogging' anymore, but I thought a late addendum to an old "post" would be okay. I'll probably come back to brag when I finish THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY too. But in the meantime, from BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL, "She split some canned wieners and fried them with the eggs." See? I told you this kind of narrator always tells you when he eats eggs. 8. "... his hand busy as a tarantula in a fly cage." Gross! And I don't even know what a fly cage is. I assume it is a cage full of flies. And then you put a tarantula in it. But with its obvious debt to Chandler's "tarantula on a slice of angel food," the pendulum of influence swings back. I said I'm not "blogging" anymore but I keep sneakily adding to this list. Pitiful.

I Didn't Do That Thing I Do

Hey remember when I "live-blogged" the movie STRIKING DISTANCE (1993) and then I "live-blogged" another movie from 1993? Don't worry, I'm not going to do that again! First of all, MIXED NUTS is from 1994. Also, my heart's just not in it anymore. I perked up when I saw it coming on. Not with delight. I saw it at the theater when it came out, which is something you say a lot as you get older and older, and nobody cares, but you keep saying it: "I saw this in the theater when it came out!" It starts with Steve Martin riding a bicycle. He has brown hair. Does that spell trouble? Sometimes Steve Martin has brown hair in movies. I can't nail down what it portends, exactly, unlike Dr. Theresa and her observation about Burt Reynolds's vanishing moustache. But I can say that I prefer prematurely white-haired Steve Martin. So as Steve Martin was bicycling around, I said, "I am NOT going to 'live-blog' this." The cast list is crazy, as befitting a movie called MIXED NUTS. But I only really got electrified when I saw Jon Stewart's name pop up. "Weird! I AM going to 'live-blog' this!" I briefly lied to myself. But then I got bored again. A pregnant Juliette Lewis chases a guy dressed like Santa into the street. He tumbles into a couple of roller skaters who are carrying a Christmas tree between them. Whilst succumbing to a deadly lethargy I recognized one of the skaters as Parker Posey. Then Garry Shandling showed up in his second unbilled role as a sleazeball in a movie I thought about "live-blogging"! "It's an omen!" I shouted into the abyss of my being. "I guess I better 'live-blog' this after all... no, I'm going to bed."

Famous Sleeves

You want to hear about my birthday yesterday? Probably not! So, Dr. Theresa took me to Memphis, where we did a lot of fun things. For example, we went to the comic book store and Dr. Theresa got me a hardcover of Grant Morrison's THE INVISIBLES that's over 1500 pages long! When we got home Ace Atkins dropped by unexpectedly with a bottle of very fancy birthday rye. So I had a sip of that after dinner. Ace also brought news that Laura Lippman and Megan Abbott had TIED for the Strand Critic's Award for best novel that very evening... a tie I had MAGICALLY PREDICTED:

@LauraMLippman I predict a tie

— Jack Pendarvis (@JackPendarvis) July 8, 2015

My brother is visiting the folks right now and going through some old pictures. He sent me this photo (above) of my high-school self hobnobbing with Greg Evigan whom you may remember (or not) as TV's BJ of BJ AND THE BEAR. "The Bear" was a chimpanzee. I distinctly and humiliatingly recall that I was handing him (Evigan, not the chimpanzee) some song lyrics I had written. Ha ha ha! Was he even a singer? I thought this was going to be my big break into show business. It wasn't. Well, I was up late last night, contemplating all the birthday fun I had enjoyed, and noticed that MIDNIGHT COWBOY was coming on, so I watched it. I don't believe I have seen it since I was 20 years old (look! Birthdays make old men nostalgic) and visiting McNeil in North Carolina. (You can see a photo of McNeil and me at 20 or so by "clicking" here.) I know I was 20 because it was the same trip when we went to see RISKY BUSINESS at the theater. Wow, MIDNIGHT COWBOY and RISKY BUSINESS, what a racy trip that was in retrospect! [Edit: I can't believe I forgot to mention that this time MIDNIGHT COWBOY really reminded me of NORWOOD!] What else did I do on my birthday? I read some more of these ARTHURIAN ROMANCES by Chretien de Troyes. One story features a woman "who dressed herself in such elegant sleeves that she was called The Maiden with the Small Sleeves, and this name was embroidered along her sleeves." Ha ha, she was really owning it! Reminds me of Edward III's jacket, am I right, folks?

The Margrave of Anspach, Subsequently Her Lover

Easter Sunday was cloudy and uneventful. To pass the time I picked up my old copy of THE NIGHT-SIDE OF NATURE; OR, GHOSTS AND GHOST-SEERS by Catherine Crowe. It's a first edition, I think. The front cover has become completely detached. Otherwise it's just fine. I opened it up and read, "Monsieur De S. had been violently in love with Hippolyte Clarion, the celebrated French actress, but she rejected his suit, in so peremptory a manner, that even when he was at the point of death, she refused his earnest entreaties, that she would visit him. Indignant at her cruelty, he declared that he would haunt her, and he certainly kept his word. I believe she never saw his ghost, but he appears to have always been near her... he signaled his presence at her bidding, by various sounds... Sometimes it was a cry, at others, a shot, and at others a clapping of hands or music... the margrave of Anspach, who was subsequently her lover, and Mr. Keppel Craven, were perfectly well acquainted with the circumstances of this haunting." So this guy follows her around after he dies and she makes him do tricks for her new boyfriends! I think that's okay. She's making the best of a terrible circumstance if you ask me. I mean, she can't have him arrested.

Paper Boat

Reading in this history of slang about a cool Elizabethan guy named John Taylor who did all kinds of crazy things, including rowing "some forty miles in a boat of varnished brown paper, kept buoyant by eight inflated bullocks' bladders, and powered by 'oars' made of giant dried fish tied to canes." PLUS I just got back from the post office, where I picked up my expensive used copy of Green's three-volume DICTIONARY OF SLANG, which by definition (Green's own definition! In this history of slang he writes that "the need for a level of perceived secrecy remains: when a slang word is coined it may well enjoy a period, however brief, of 'invisibility'. But once it has become 'revealed', then the immediate need is for re-coinage") is a foolish purchase, obsolete from the moment it was published, but I like obsolete things. The first thing I'm going to do is look up owls, and not because it will force me to put GREEN'S DICTIONARY OF SLANG on my list of books with owls in them, which is frankly a grim chore, but because maybe I'll finally find out why owls are portrayed as drunken in so many forms of expression. But I'm kind of scared to look! Is it that I'm reluctant to solve one of the mysteries that haunt me? Is it that I'm afraid the answer won't be there? Honestly, who cares. I'm going to lie down now.

Omens and Fiends

Lisa Howorth was talking to me about MRS. DALLOWAY and I realized I have never read it. So I went and got a copy at Square Books. At the same time, Bill Boyle's birthday was coming up. So I got him a pretty nice edition of AN AMERICAN DREAM by Norman Mailer. And then I realized I've never read that either, though I have a copy I got from that used book stall I told you about before. And what poor taste to give a gift on which you can't stamp your personal guarantee! So that's how I started reading MRS. DALLOWAY and AN AMERICAN DREAM at the same time. Incompatible, one would think! Oh, but the human brain loves to mash stuff together, am I right, people? (See also.) So when I put down AN AMERICAN DREAM and picked up MRS. DALLOWAY and read about "one of those spectres who stand astride us and suck up half our life-blood... It rasped her, though, to have stirring about in her this brutal monster! to hear twigs cracking and feel hooves planted down in the depths of that leaf-encumbered forest, the soul," well, I thought: "That's kind of Norman Mailery!" I mean, I had just read in AN AMERICAN DREAM, "Yes, I had come to believe in spirits and demons, in devils, warlocks, omens, wizards and fiends, in incubi and succubi..." Of course, in Woolf these things are metaphorical, and I'm never sure with Mailer. Ghosts and magic are real for him. It's to his credit (I think!) that I can't tell whether AN AMERICAN DREAM is ABOUT a crazy person or BY a crazy person. Then you have Woolf's Septimus Smith (makes me think of the name of the Mailer character Sergius O'Shaughnessy) who thinks clouds are sending him messages (to be fair, I may be exaggerating: it's a skywriter advertising toffee, so Mr. Smith IS being sent a message, but not one to him personally - he believes it's part of something beautiful and universal) and that "the human voice in certain atmospheric conditions... can quicken trees to life!" Whereas when I last left AN AMERICAN DREAM's Steve Rojack (like Septimus Smith, forever changed by his experience of war) he was sitting in a bar, convinced that he could make one patron's foot hurt or another get the hiccups with magical invisible bullets he'd mentally send their way... Oh well, I'm just a short way into both books and like Steve Rojack and Septimus Smith and everybody else I'm making connections that aren't really there.