A Dirty Glass

Dr. Theresa and I watched THE PARALLAX VIEW last night and I was happy to see Paula Prentiss. But then she was just in a couple of scenes! And I thought... she is always just in a couple of scenes! It's not right. Nor is it accurate, but I can think of many examples off the top of my head of the shameful underutilization of Paula Prentiss. THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT. I AM THE PRETTY THING THAT LIVES IN THE HOUSE. CATCH-22. And that was without even trying hard. It's like the executives are afraid her presence is too vibrant. "We can't have the audience shielding their eyes from her vibrant presence the whole time! They won't be able to eat their popcorn!" Always the bottom line with those guys. I mean look at this lobby card. All you get is the back of her awesome haircut. I learned about I AM THE PRETTY THING THAT LIVES IN THE HOUSE straight from the director's brother, Elvis Perkins, which I only mention because I just realized I have met three different people named Elvis. Is that odd? How many Elvises have you met? Maybe not three! Or maybe everyone has met a minimum of three Elvises. I'm sorry I brought it up. And we are getting off the subject. So when Paula Prentiss and Warren Beatty were having their big scene, of course the thing I was thinking was: "She has been a foil to both Warren Beatty and Bob Hope! That is an unusual range she has there!" [Though Bob Hope was the Warren Beatty of his day in at least one way. - ed.] Now, as you know, I don't "blog" anymore, but it seemed important to mention that shortly thereafter Warren Beatty goes to a rough, tough bar in the northern climes and arouses the ire of louts by ordering a glass of milk. Who could help but recall Bob Hope going into a rough, tough bar in the northern climes and ordering a lemonade? No one, that's who! And when Bob similarly arouses the ire of louts, he famously snarls, "... in a dirty glass!" Warren Beatty didn't think of that. And then he dies at the end of the movie. Score one for Bob Hope. (Though see also.) I will note that a tiny bit of inadvertent research reveals that Burt Reynolds's eponymous tiny child sidekick in the forgotten action-comedy COP AND A HALF goes into a rough, tough bar and orders a "milk... in a dirty glass," bringing everything together, especially if you recall that Burt's character in HUSTLE enjoyed drinking milk, too, though presumably in a clean glass. How could I NOT "blog" under such circumstances, with such a myriad of kaleidoscopic thoughts whirling around in my precious, delicate head? Like, I just thought of Leonardo Dicaprio's cranberry juice. I'm like a James Joyce character over here, thinking so much! And wait, don't they mention James Joyce in THE DEPARTED? Hmm, is it possible to think TOO much? "I can't believe he died!" I yelled during THE PARALLAX VIEW. "It was the seventies, who didn't?" replied Dr. Theresa with a jaded shrug. Anyway, I'm sorry I didn't say "spoiler alert" but it ruined the flow. These are the choices we make in life and some of them hurt people. Well, I might as well say Paula Prentiss dies too. I was in denial. I kept yelling, "Is she DEAD? Is she DEAD?" even though she was obviously lying there on a slab in the morgue. I really wanted her to hop up!

Heliocentric Worlds

Brian sent me a tweet in which someone talks (appreciatively!) about "the moment a dud Jerry Lewis bit passes the three-minute mark." The tweeter praised such moments as transgressive. I understand what he's getting at, and he's right, but the more Jerry I watch, the less I can think of those bits (which seldom last three minutes, though they may seem much longer) as "duds." My attitude toward Jerry Lewis is kaleidoscopic! I didn't even mind the sock puppet bit in THE ERRAND BOY last time I watched it. Of course, sometimes Jerry does milk a dud - Milk Duds! - on purpose. He WANTS you to be uncomfortable during Stanley's terrible stand-up act in THE PATSY, or when Kelp and the Dean sit in fraught silence. I've grown to enjoy how he draws things out. The other day I was actually narrating such a moment from CRACKING UP to Pen and Kent, featuring Jerry's compulsion to stretch a gag past its natural life by narrating his own misfortune. I remember a couple of years ago when I got obsessed with listening to a Sun Ra album called "Heliocentric Worlds" over and over. It starts up with some bells jingling and then a noise like a cord being plugged into an amp or a needle dropping roughly on an LP, but after you've listened to that record about ten times in a row, you know when the bass clarinet is going to squeak or whatever, and when the muted trumpet is going to start echoing, you're familiar with the terrain, and what seemed like a jumble turns out to be a path full of friendly landmarks - that electronic burp, which may have been an accident to begin with, becomes a welcoming beacon. What Sun Ra said about peach pie applies here, and I'll repeat it in case you're not up to "clicking" on "links": "if you keep eating peach pie every day, [sooner or later] it's going to taste like something else." And I can swear I "blogged" about this once, but didn't David Lynch famously drink a chocolate milkshake from the same restaurant every day for the same reason? Hey! This is way off the subject, but while I was looking for a frame of my current favorite scene from CRACKING UP (Jerry is a hideous gangster - man, he loves dressing up as hideous gangsters! His grotesque mug shot was the running gag McNeil and I appreciated the most in our recent viewing of THE BIG MOUTH - who becomes mesmerized by the security camera, so that the bank robbery turns into a song-and-dance number; note that carpet, subject of a McNeil theory) I ran across an interesting Jonathan Rosenbaum essay in which he attributes current American disdain for Lewis to (among other things) classism: "regardless of how many rooms his Bel-Air mansion had, Lewis’s nouveau riche manner, like that of Elvis, kept his persona firmly within the realm of the working-class." (See also.) Please "click" on Mr. Rosenbaum's essay, he's so much smarter than me (though I did beat him, I think, in comparing Jerry to Edgar Allan Poe).

Words and Pictures

Dropped by Square Books last night with a snoot full only to discover a hole in my recommendation shelf, which I filled with Céline. I don't think I would have added him under other circumstances. Not a nice man! But that style of his beat me into hysterical submission after only 300 pages or so. Anyway, the recommendation shelf is an ever changing kaleidoscope of literary wonders, ha ha, I'm supposed to be a writer. THE FEVER by Megan Abbott used to be next to that John Wayne bio, so that the Duke was looking askance at the unfortunate girl having some sort of feverish episode on the cover of THE FEVER. Various Megan Abbott books have been spotted on the recommendation shelf from its earliest days. That Lynda Barry book and WUTHERING HEIGHTS are the closest things to permanent fixtures, I guess. You'll note the recent arrival of Seo Kim's masterpiece CAT PERSON. Hey! Remember some years ago when I hosted the first ever "graphic novel" panel at the Oxford Conference for the Book? Come March, I'll be doing another panel with people who write with pictures as well as words. Seo Kim, Kent Osborne, and Natasha Allegri will be coming to town to discuss their work with me. I'll remind you!

I Call Dibs On Waveland: The Opera

I have decided that WAVELAND would make a good opera. I'm going to compose it when I get some free time and learn to compose operas. So NOBODY STEAL MY IDEA! It (the book) is already practically set up as a kaleidoscopic series of solos, duets, trios, and quartets, with a manageable cast of an implicitly varied vocal range.