I'm Like Ladyhawke

Above, that's Adam Muto's tribute to my beloved characters Frowny 'n' Smiley! But more of that anon. First! I know you are so interested in how I switch from my daytime book to my nighttime book. My process, if you will. How do I stop reading one book during the day and start reading another book at night? Well, it's just like in the movie LADYHAWKE! Except instead of turning into a wolf as Rutger Hauer does with the setting of the sun, I put aside my daytime book and pick up my nighttime book! It's just that simple, folks. And before we go on, I'd like to mention that I repeatedly brought up LADYHAWKE in the Adventure Time writers room, and yet, somehow, we never stole anything from LADYHAWKE to use in the show, no matter how much I begged and cried. All right! But that's not the point. There isn't a point. But I'm sure you remember how sometimes my daytime book will blur into my nighttime book... like the daytime book will mention Gogol and then the nighttime book will mention Gogol, and so on (please "click" for a full catalog)... anyway! Yesterday, as my daytime reading was coming to a close, I read (in THE LOST STEPS by Alejo Carpentier, translated by Adrian Nathan West) "... the grave-faced toucan flaunts his breastplate..." at which point I opened up my nighttime book (a scholarly analysis of the roots of oral epic poetry) to see, of all things, "Rade's sword strikes fire from the captain's breastplate." Now, what does this mean? Nothing. I guess breastplate is an everyday word. Personally, I don't think about breastplates too much. But what is the universe telling me? To buy a breastplate? I don't know why I am reminded of a recent incident... yes I do. Anyway, I was at Square Books and I saw a new volume of previously unpublished Dream Songs by John Berryman. And I was like, well, he's been dead a long time. I asked Richard, who was standing there, whether they were any good or just some garbage someone swept up from John Berryman's floor and Richard said, and I do think this is an exact quotation, "Let's do the test!" And he opened the book at random and stuck his finger in and read the lines he found that way and they were good and so I bought the book. That's how Richard gets you! And this is related too, as I am sure you will agree: tonight, if you watch the special THE ELEPHANT on Adult Swim, you will see, in the commercial breaks on your ordinary television set, some extremely short "Frowny 'n' Smiley" episodes by me. So... when we were in one meeting during the making of THE ELEPHANT, Pen happened to mention that it was the 100th anniversary of the exquisite corpse, an art-making game which inspired the structrue of THE ELEPHANT. So, anyway! Today, in the New York Times, there is an article about the 100th anniversary of surrealism, and it includes the origin story of the exquisite corpse! Isn't that something? Today of all days? And I just thought of another thing: Matthew Broderick appears in both LADYHAWKE and ADVENTURE TIME: FIONNA AND CAKE! Okay, I am going to buy a breastplate.

A Word of Diminutive Form

Y'all are going to go crazy from excitement when I tell you about this! So, remember the other day when I was remembering reading "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" at the University of South Alabama? I don't suppose any of us, if we existed, will ever forget the time I remembered that. So I started thinking to myself, "Jack," I started thinking, "wasn't 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came' some kind of creepy-ass junk and doesn't that mean it probably has an owl in it, which is something you supposedly love, Jack, you wily old bastard?" (I just shocked myself with my own profanity, but I see I have "blogged" the latter word twice before - "click" here and here for context. I know you won't, you bastard!) So I found my giant volume of Robert Browning and started reading "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came." And I read stanza after stanza, and I got to the part where it became clear... well, he's like, "a burr had been a treasure-trove." In other words, it's a bleak landscape! There's nothing there for an owl to perch on! So I was getting discouraged, all right. Then Dr. Theresa, who was preparing dinner, asked me to help out by seasoning the fish. Which I did gladly! And let me tell you: I know you're worried, but I left the book open flat on my TV tray, and it didn't snap shut and make me lose my place, and I'll tell you why: it has a broad, sturdy spine! Just the kind of book spine I go nuts for! So after I season the fish, I sit back down with the book and I'm not feeling too optimistic about any owls, you know, but here's old Childe Roland and he's getting pretty freaked out by this weirdo landscape, and he asks himself, "Will the night send a howlet or a bat?" And with my keen mind hard at work, I was like "A howlet? That's got to be an owlet!" And damned if I wasn't right for once in my sorry life. I looked at the etymology in the OED and here's where it gets super exciting!!! Remember how I like to beat myself up over the time in my second book when I tried to give a character a comical French accent like some kind of jerk? And I was like, "Why did I ever think a French person would say 'owl' like 'howl'?" Well, well, well. The OED says that howlet is "Apparently a borrowing from French... hulotte, in 16th century hulote, a word of diminutive form." So who's the jerk now? Is it still me?

Only Vaguely Related

Well! You remember how I used to think I could read only one book at a time, and then something happened to me and I started shoving several books into my brain at one time like a monster. "This will interest you," I go on to say with the same accuracy as John Goodman in INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS: I have just now decided to categorize two of my "main books" as my "daytime book" and my "nighttime book." Bearing that in mind, I think you will enjoy "clicking" on the following "hyperlink" about how my daytime book and nighttime book, so dissimilar, as a rule, in genre and style, both mentioned Gogol withiin a 24-hour period, followed by a different daytime/nighttime pairing, similarly mismatched, that both mentioned British composer John Dowland. What times those were! I am sure you are still recovering from the shock. Well, now I am on yet another pair of daytime/nighttime books... one is, according to the back cover, "the best-known book by Cuba's most important twentieth-century novelist" and the other is (according to ITS back cover) "the fundamental study of the distinctive techniques and aesthetics of oral epic poetry." So imagine my giddiness at closing my daytime book at a mention of the "Chanson de Roland" - imagine it! - and opening my nighttime book to a mention of the "Chanson de Roland"!!! The latter shouldn't have surprised me, given the subject matter of that volume (THE SINGER OF TALES by Albert B. Lord)... in fact, the "Chanson de Roland" is mentioned on the back cover... but I don't think they told me much, if anything, about the "Chanson de Roland" at the University of South Alabama. We did read "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," which I suspect is only vaguely related, if at all. I know no one has made it this far, but I add for my own records that I started THE SINGER OF TALES because, I believe, Emily Wilson recommended it in the footnotes to her translation of THE ODYSSEY. (See also.)

The Lonely Pelican

You know how I have books just thrown strategically all around the house so I can pick them up wherever I am and fill my noggin with the interesting thoughts that make me so special. So yesterday I read parts of two different books, one a... oh, let's call it an "impressionisitic literary collage"... and the other a crime thriller. And they both mentioned Gogol! You can imagine how I ran around the house waving my hands in the air. Imagine it, I said! But I don't care when a book has Gogol in it. I only care when a book has an owl in it. And you'll say this is cheating, but while reading about Mary Sidney in that Million Dollar Book Club selection, I grew interested in how she translated the Psalms into rhymed English poetry, finishing a project begun by her famous brother Philip Sidney, who had died when... oh, I can't remember. I think he forgot to put armor on his knees when he went into battle? Don't quote me on that! You can look it up and tell me how wrong I am. So, as I say, you'll call it cheating, because I went in knowing that the one psalm I love to babble about all the time has an owl in it. The one that in my King James Bible goes "I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert." Well! In the Sidney version it goes "And so I bray and howl,/ As use to howl and bray/ The lonely pelican and desert owl,/ Like whom I languish long the day."

Artist's Statement

Hey! Tomorrow is the big gallery show opening in Alhambra, California, so check it out! I think I forgot to mention it's ADVENTURE TIME and FIONNA AND CAKE themed, featuring works by more than 50 artists associated with those shows. My piece is called “100 Adventure Time Characters from Memory, Made with Covid.” I call it that because of all the Covid I had when I drew it with magic markers in a sketch pad that Dr. Theresa bought to cheer me up. Now, I was afraid maybe I had shortchanged the lucky buyer, if any, because, despite the ambitious title I had prematurely scrawled on the paper, I didn’t count the characters as I was drawing them, and then, after I had drawn them, I found them impossible to count. Until! Some weeks later, I struck upon the notion of identifying them all by name. Somehow, and I know how, but I’m too tired to tell you, a list of names was a much easier thing for me to count. So I’m happy to reveal that I overachieved, at least quantitatively: there are 106 Adventure Time characters in my drawing. A couple of them were driving me nuts because I couldn’t figure out, once I had recovered from my feverish agitation and actually examined what I had drawn for the first time, who the hell they were supposed to be. I worried maybe I had made some of them up in a delirium. But I thought about it all night and decided that one was a Gumball Guardian (I had forgotten they have noses) and one was the King of Ooo (I had forgotten a couple of his identifying marks, plus I had him in Princess Bubblegum’s crown, which, in my defense, he did wear for a while). Adam said I should sponsor a contest and see if anyone could guess them all. But who was a guy who was good at guessing? Oedipus? Well, he was until he wasn’t. Anyway, not even Oedipus at the height of his guessing powers could have figured some of my drawings out (Pen, for example, thought Chips and Ice Cream were Hot Dog Knights), so I’m going to tell you who I drew, in (once you see the "art") not a really helpful order: Cinnamon Bun, Hunson Abadeer, The Bear Who Liked Finn, Starchy, Tree Trunks’s Alien Husband, Little Dude, One of the Villagers from “The Visitor,” Shoko, Mr. Cupcake, Billy, Abracadaniel, Party Pat, The Comet, The Squirrel from “Up a Tree,” The Cosmic Owl, Bartram, Gridface Princess, Martin, Ice King, Y5, Banana Guard, Patience St. Pym, Flame King, The White Lion Who Became the Vampire King, Abraham Lincoln, Jermaine, Chips, Ice Cream, Lemongrab, Lady Rainicorn, Gumball Guardian, Shelby and his little brother Kent, Big Destiny, Marshmallow Kid, Blank-Eyed Girl, Peppermint Butler, Breezy, Scorcher, Simon, Original Gunter, Ice Thing, Ricardio, Mannish Man, Wildberry Princess, The Squirrel Who Hates Jake, Glob, Grod, Grob (we can assume that Gob is behind them, but I can’t in good conscience count that) Fionna, Mr. Pig, Shermy, Huntress Wizard, Snail, Sleeping Old Man (Prismo’s Physical Form), Tiffany, Princess Cookie, Finn, Joshua, Choose Goose, Toast Princess, Cherry Cream Soda, Flambeau, The Empress, Slime Princess, The Crabbit, Farmworld Finn, Betty, Toronto, Wooby Woo, Dream Warrior, Lumpy Space Princess, Lumpy Space Prince, Tree Trunks, Uncle Gumbald, An Ant, Crunchy, Glass Boy, Magic Man, Leaf Man, Banana Man, King of Ooo, TV, Wyatt, Bubble, BMO, Skeleton (from the Ble offices? Or maybe that’s a guy from the Deadworlds), Jake, Gunter (classic penguin version), Embryo Princess, Rattleballs, Mr. Fox, The Music Hole, Lemonhope, Prismo, Hot Dog Princess, Dream Bird Woman, Owl from “Up a Tree,” Loafy, James Baxter the Horse, Gingerbread Muto, Minerva, Bufo, Morty Rogers, Marceline, Princess Bubblegum. In retrospect, perhaps my biggest mistake was thinking until very recently (today!) that The Empress had one eye in the middle of her forehead like a Cyclops (though I knew better at one point). I could lie and tell you I was trying to draw Blaine from “Wizard City,” but I would only be hurting myself.

Two Knights and a Non-Knight

I am pretty far into THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA and there have been no owls, even though there are owls on the cover. But there are plenty of other things! Like, these two knights are talking and this one knight is like, "Alas, we all must die. Only the hour of our death is not certain." And the other knight is like, "Wait, who has told you all these pleasant novelties? It must be a mortal with an extraordinarily witty turn of conversation. Is he often invited out to supper?" And when I read that, I thought, "Hey! 'Is he often invited out to supper?' must be the 'He must be fun at parties' of the 18th century!" And then I thought, is that something people even say: "He must be fun at parties"? I think I've said it. I think, for example, when I went to see Dr. Theresa get an award - before she was a doctor! - and the speaker at the ceremony, for some reason, was a guy whose whole life was spent studying the sense of smell in lobsters... on that occasion, I do believe that as he went on for some time about the sense of smell in lobsters, I turned to our friend Chuck, who was seated next to me, and said, "He must be fun at parties." So I did a "google search" for the phrase "must be fun at parties" and turned up 145,000 matches, so I guess it is something that people say. More and more often, since my little medical hiccup, I wonder whether I know certain things or only think I know certain things. On the other hand, maybe I was never sure. As I type this long series of thoughts, I am in unbearable suspense about whether the "internet" will stop working, as it often does now, thanks to the good folks at AT&T, ties with whom I am assiduously working to sever forever as we speak. (As further evidence of my mental state, I just looked up "assiduous" to see if it means what I think it means, and it does, almost.) Oh! So a few pages later in THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA, someone (not a knight) is playing a cithara, which took me straight back to the "blog's" big cither/citer/cithern/cittern/kithara/zither craze of 2010. (Citterns were poised to make a comeback in 2011, but it didn't take. Though I will say that as I continue to examine the "blog" for zombie "links," I am astonished to find that the "Frequently Asked Questions about the Renaissance Cittern" webpage not only survives, it was updated - ! - as recently as April 2023. I guess they found out something new about renaissance citterns.) Now, did I immediately assume that the cithara I read about in THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA was identical with a kithara? Good God, no! I learned my lesson back when I stupidly assumed that a cither and a cithern were the same thing ("click" on "link" after "link" for the incredible details). I'm so glad we had this talk. Postscript: Yes, as predicted above, the godawful AT&T "internet" ceased to work at a vital juncture in the composition of this delightsome bagatelle. (Continuing a theme: I second-guessed myself about the existence of "delightsome" as a word and did not find it in the dictionary that came with this laptop. When the "internet" began to work again, however briefly, I checked out the OED online, which cites numerous uses of the word - well, maybe "numerous" is going a bit too far - beginning in the 15th century and ending only a few years ago, in what seems to be an advertising brochure: "our Sheraton Lagos Hotel teams have come up with a line-up of delightsome and inspiring culinary options." Ugh! Now I see why my computer doesn't want me to use "delightsome.")

Helpful Thoughts

Back before I stopped "blogging," I would use this space, among other things, to collect many quotations that felt creatively helpful to me... a commonplace book, of sorts... once I even printed them all out and handed them to a classroom full of bewildered students, back when I had students. A few examples spring to mind, like Sun Ra's advice (I'll paraphrase) to eat peach pie every day, and one day you'll discover that it tastes like something other than peach pie. Or the Maine antiques dealer who said, "I think I'm becoming more and more attracted to things that aren't worth anything." There were many, many more, now scattered to the winds. Well, I still run across helpful thoughts, but I have no place to put them. Like, there was a New York Times article about a plant that lives for a thousand years, and a scientist was quoted as saying, "From weird things, you discover weird things that help you understand things that you didn’t know you didn’t understand." I jotted that in a manuscript I had started in which the protagonist tells the stories of the knights of the round table to his cats. Yeah, I got about two paragraphs into that one before stopping. And just yesterday, I was reading another celebrity biography, as part of my continuing program of adult education with Megan Abbott. It's a Lee Grant memoir, which came highly recommended by Bill Boyle. Anyway, Martha Graham just told Lee Grant, "Ugly is better than pretty!" Exclamation point original to the text.

The Lion Shows Up

Meanwhile I keep dipping into these "Arthurian Romances" of Chretien de Troyes. I've been reading this one called "The Knight With the Lion" for 40 pages like, "Where's the lion?" And just now, finally: "when he arrived a clearing, he saw a dragon holding a lion by the tail and burning its flanks with its flaming breath. My lord Yvain did not waste time observing this marvel." Ha ha, yes, what a waste of time!

I Am a Man

I was sitting in the doctor's waiting room reading some more of these ARTHURIAN ROMANCES by Chretien de Troyes. Sir Calogrenant runs across this guy he describes as having "the eyes of an owl and the nose of a cat, jowls split like a wolf's, with the sharp reddish teeth of a boar," and he doesn't mean it in a nice way! But I have to say Calogrenant is the least judgmental knight I've read about so far. The next knight (Yvain) who meets this guy "crosses himself more than a hundred times" in fear and wonder, while Calogrenant's approach is casual and friendly: "Come now, tell me if you are a good creature or not?" And the guy with reddish boar teeth replies very admirably, I think: "I am a man." And then they have a nice conversation. This is my long way of telling you that ARTHURIAN ROMANCES can go on my big long list nobody cares about - not even me - of books with owls in them. THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY has had several more owls in it, at least five or six, but I didn't tell you about them because that's not my job. Hey, later in this story Yvain puts his sword right in another knight's brain. The injured knight "was confused, for never before had he received such a blow that could split his head to his brain." Yes, that can be confusing! I don't care about owls. But here's one I bought at that antique mall with the good used book stall next to Big Bad Breakfast a few days ago.

You Are Handsome and Good Yourself

Still switching back and forth between THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY and the ARTHURIAN ROMANCES of Chretien de Troyes. Today Gawain, upon first meeting another knight, greeted him like so: "Good sir, may the God who made you more handsome than any other creature grant you joy and good fortune." And the other knight says, "You are handsome and good yourself!" Ha ha ha! That's a pretty nice exchange of greetings. I like it! So they've known each other for about half a minute and they're like, "Now give me your oath here and I will give you mine: if you wish to ask anything of me, I'll never hide from you the truth, if I know it, whether it be to my joy or sadness; and you will likewise swear never to lie to me about anything I wish to ask of you if you are able to tell the truth to me." Knights are intense!

Shattered Lances

Still reading these Arthurian tales... every time these knights take a run at each other they strike such mighty blows that they shatter their lances. Every time! They need sturdier lances. The sturdier lances might cost more but I think they'd save money in the long run.

Knights Hate Carts

Hey! Remember how I told you when you're reading a big, thick book you should also be reading a smaller book that is easier to carry in case you have to go somewhere? Well, that advice doesn't make sense anymore; all of you have your fancy electronic reading devices, so all books are the same size to you, so I guess the joke's on me. But I continue to live by the olden ways. And since my copy of THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY is so heavy, old and delicate - just like me! - I picked out a paperback of some old King Arthur stories for when I need something (physically) lighter. And I was reading this one story where something happens to this knight's horse so he has to ride in a cart for a little ways, and everybody goes crazy about it! The author explains that carts, in the time of which he is writing, were meant only for toting criminals. But I guess that part didn't sink in for me, and I have to say everybody really overreacts. Like, this one guy yells at him, "A man who has ridden in a cart should never enter here. And may God never reward you for it!" Ha ha ha! I don't know why that makes me laugh. Later the knight who rode in the cart defeats another knight in battle and he's just about to cut off that other knight's head but says he'll let him go instead if the defeated knight agrees to... RIDE IN A CART. And the defeated knight says, "May it never please God that I ride in a cart!" He'd rather have his head cut off. Anyway, they really hated carts.

The Scourge of Kings

In this book about the Middle Ages I found out about Bohemond, "the belligerent Norman and the scourge of kings." His gravestone says that "he could be called neither a man nor a god." Pretty braggy, even for a gravestone!

The Quiet Wisdom of Billy Ray Cyrus

Is Billy Ray Cyrus the moral center of the David Lynch movie MULHOLLAND DR.? Ha ha ha, of course not, what are you, stupid or something? But I don't know. So we were going to watch SON OF DRACULA. During last year's Halloween film festival we watched DRACULA'S DAUGHTER with Megan Abbott, so it seemed like the right thing to do. But we couldn't find our Dracula box set anywhere! Can it be that we left it at Megan's temporary apartment from when she temporarily lived here? I GUESS WE'LL NEVER KNOW. As we were trying to think of a substitute, my eye fell on MULHOLLAND DR. and, perhaps influenced by Megan Abbott's and Bill Boyle's recent twittering of tweets on the subject, I asked Dr. Theresa whether it might be ruled an appropriate Halloween movie. After some balking, she acquiesced. So Billy Ray Cyrus is discovered in bed with Justin Theroux's wife and he (Billy Ray Cyrus) says three things (I may be paraphrasing): "Just forget you ever saw it; it's better that way." Gnomic! "He's probably upset, Lorraine." Compassionate! "That ain't no way to treat your wife, no matter what she's done." Chivalric! Then he ruins my theory by popping up in another scene and running his mouth again. That's the problem with theories. But hey! That Bill Boyle. The other day there was some kind of special ice cream truck in town and everybody in town was lined up to get the special ice cream. I was fuming at the sight of a (let me stereotype for a moment) "cool grandma" "aging Vermont hippie" type whose t-shirt LITERALLY HAD THE WORDS "LEADERSHIP" AND "EMPOWERMENT" ON IT just blithely breaking in line ahead of me. And then this fully grown man, fully possessed of all his adult faculties, but HOLDING A BALLOON, blundered out of somewhere yelling, "Mama! Mama!" and he was yelling at her. And then he ordered her to call him on his telephone when she was up near the front of the line and he would come back and join her for a cool delicious ice cream treat! And he just strolled away with his balloon to do whatever the hell he wanted to do besides stand in line. About this time Bill Boyle showed up holding his wonderful little son. And we chatted for a minute and by various winks and nods I was trying to make it clear that Bill and his boy could break in line if they wanted to. I was being the worst kind of hypocrite! But Bill said to his son, "Come on, let's go to the back." And there they went to the back of the line! Bill is teaching that boy right. So anyway I got him some ice cream as a surprise. The son, I mean, though Bill may have taken a couple of bites. Now! Watching MULHOLLAND DR. this time I noticed another way that David Lynch and Jerry Lewis are alike. MULHOLLAND DR. has the most inauthentic "Hollywood audition scene" of any movie outside THE ERRAND BOY and THE PATSY: just some lip-syncing (Jerry's first act!) presented in a ridiculously stylized way in which (using another favorite Jerry ploy) the camera pulls back to reveal that "reality" is a movie set. And I realized that both Mr. Lewis and Mr. Lynch represent a complete rejection, or anarchic subversion, or faux-naïf evisceration of business realities that they perfectly know and loathe.

Frith!

I've encountered the name Frith three times recently. Is that strange? Probably not! The butler's name in REBECCA is Frith. Then Megan Abbott was staying in a hotel on Frith Street or Frith Road in London. I was curious about the address because I was going to check out my handy GAZETTEER OF BRITISH GHOSTS to find any nearby ghosts for her convenience. Unfortunately I am ill-instructed in the use of a gazetteer and ignorant of the geography of London. (Megan did say on twitter that she was visiting Stirling, Scotland, where reside "TWO famous ghosts: the Green Lady & the Pink Lady [unrelated].") Then I was reading in Jonathon Green's history of slang - THE VULGAR TONGUE it's called - about Mary Frith (pictured), also known as "Moll Cutpurse," a 17th-century high-end fence of jewelry and such. She also specialized "in stealing and returning shopbooks and account ledgers that had specific value only to business owners." She dressed like a man and scandalously frequented tobacco houses! In fact she once suffered official public punishment for dressing like a man. A letter-writer reported to a friend, "she wept bitterly and seemed very penitent, but yt is since doubted she was maudelin druncke, beeing discovered to have tipled of three quarts of sacke before she came to her penaunce." Who wouldn't? There was a play written about her in 1611, THE ROARING GIRLE, and she "even appeared on stage at the Fortune Playhouse. She was dressed as a man and closed the evening's performance with a jig." A great typo in this edition says that she died in 1859, which would have made her 275. I've noticed a few other typos so far. Get it together, Oxford University Press! Ha ha, that jaunty admonition was supposed to be the end of this "post," but it strikes me as I type this that the name Frith may not have been a coincidence in the novel REBECCA. The late Rebecca is often praised and just as often decried for seeming like a man, and our nameless narrator offers to to be more like a boy for her husband (!), and I think there is at least one other woman in the book who is described explicitly as boyish, hmm, not to mention Maxim's sister and Mrs. Danvers. And Lee Durkee told me that there was an aspect of Du Maurier's personality that she referred to as "the boy in the box," recently mentioned also by Carrie Frye in an interesting essay, ("click" here). Gee, as long as I'm typing I should mention that I also read in Green about the 16th-century cross-dressing taphouse girl "Long Meg," who hung out with famous poets, the king's jester, and "the Spanish Knight, Sir James of Castille." She "delighted to assume man's apparel and at last went to the wars with King Henry and returned wedded to a soldier, and set up a public house at Islington." I've also learned more about the bookseller Richard Head, who turns out to have been an important collector of criminal lingo. Green is as baffled as I am by John Aubrey's claim that Head "could transform himself into any shape," though it's a fitting thought here.

Eugene Lighting a Candle

Dr. Theresa was watching THE PINK PANTHER on TCM just now and she said, "Hey, wasn't Eugene in this movie?" And weirdly, Eugene popped up on the screen just then, as the butler who is lighting some fireworks for Peter Sellers, who is dressed as a knight and thinks what he has is a regular candle. Mayhem is to ensue. So I got to put my finger on the TV screen and say, "Yes! That's him!" She talked to Eugene on the telephone once but sadly never met him in person. This photo I took of the TV is lousy but I am an old man and don't know how to properly use a computer to take a photo of a TV screen so go to hell.

"Blog"trospective 14: Graveyards

If there's one thing everybody loves it's a graveyard! So let's make a list of "links" to all our graveyard-related "posts" (and don't forget to "enjoy" our previous "blog"trospectives: 1. Tom Franklin 2. Phil Oppenheim 3. Movies 4. The Moon 5. Sandwiches 6. The United States 7. The Beach Boys 8. Arnold Stang 9. Books With Owls in Them 10. Gelatin 11. Monkeys Riding Dogs 12. Kent Eating Chicken 13. When Megan Lived Here)... GRAVEYARDS! APOSTLE by Tom Bissell features visits to the graves of all twelve apostles---artsy project includes grave desecration---bad idea for McNeil's tombstone, a---barbecue next to a graveyard---bats at Faulkner's grave---being funny after a funeral---"The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's Church"---Bissell, Tom; plays Marvel Ultimate Alliance while he should be searching for the apostles' graves---Bissell, Tom; searches for the graves of all 12 apostles---block of wood psychologically represents a coffin---"blogs" are like tombs---Bohemond's gravestone---Britton, Connie; sighted when we were staying at a motel with a graveyard attached to it---character in DRACULA wakes unclad in a churchyard at night---churchyard with gravestones in THE COMPANY OF WOLVES---circus performers' graveyard---coffin inspectors---coffinmaker who yells about his craft, a---confounded from beyond the grave---corpse preserved in a bog; Freud allegedly likened to---cowherd lies in open graves---Dee, Dr. John; grave of used as touchstone in children's game---discussion of appropriate things to carve on gravestones---doll cemetery---dream of---eating dirt from the graveyard---engraving of Dr. Dee and Edward Kelly hanging out with a spirit in a churchyard---Evans, Linda; slaps a man with a leather strap at her father's grave---exhumation of Tycho Brahe---fairybabes hang around in---famed ventriloquist confronts his mother's ghost at her grave---few loose rails thrown over Meriwether Lewis's grave, a---flea climbs into the grave of the flea who loved him---frogs as quiet as grave-rocks---funeral bell---ghosts break up their graves---Gigot peeks through some graveyard shrubbery at his own funeral---grave gone to without its occupant being aware of the entire catalog of celebrity memoirs I have read---graves of the Scribner family---graveside service for Thomas Paine poorly attended---graveyard right there in the parking lot of a Ramada Inn---guy dug up from his grave and mocked on a throne---hair growing out of cracked-open tombs---Hayden, Sterling; attends the funeral of Marshal Tito---I am reminded of something Bill Taft said to me in a graveyard---Johnson, Robert; disputed gravesites of---Lee, Sir Henry; has an effigy of Mistress Vavasour placed on his grave---listening to "Brick House" by the Commodores on the way to Meriwether Lewis's grave---man buried under the flagstones of a kitchen---man who collects coffins, a---mansion where the arrangements for Jayne Mansfield's funeral were made, the---Mature, Victor; consults the caretaker of a cemetery---McNeil ponders a career as a graverobber---men run howling about graves---monkey ghost described outside of tomb---monks rob a grave!---mortuary makeup man---Murray, Bill; attends the funeral of Elvis Presley---my brother attends Michael Jackson's memorial service (there's no graveyard here but you can "click" back on several interesting "posts" about the day, so why not?)---Naked-Rumped Tomb Bat---night-crows on tombs---old tombs break open, releasing hordes of wandering dead---ominous crow cawing in a graveyard's barren tree---"Pale Pity" asked to consecrate Meriwether Lewis's final resting place---parrot screams curse words at Andrew Jackson's funeral---passing the resting place of Meriwether Lewis without stopping---pasta recipes inscribed on tomb---PET SEMATARY---pigs get skinny after drinking from a trough made from a coffin---pinball machines as coffins---"Policeman at Cemetery"---purported King Arthur and Guinevere dug up from their graves and wrapped in silk---resting place of the Biblical Jacob---Roman vampire burial site---Saunders, George; writes book set in a graveyard---shirtless man reads at grave---shrugging disrespectfully at graveside---Shubuta cemetery---STRIKING DISTANCE (film) concludes at cemetery---supposed gravestone of Till Eulenspiegel---toad dressed as Elvis suggested as candidate for formal burial in a grave---tomb of Talbot, the terror of the French---tombs of the prophets, the---"Tombstone Blues"---trip to Poe's grave postponed in favor of GILMORE GIRLS finale---UFO lands behind a cemetery---Van, Bobby; grave of---where all biographies end---witches dance on Berlioz's grave---Yorick skull (from gravedigger's scene in HAMLET)---York, Joe; makes a complex and satisfying visual pun using a gravestone---youthful graveyard encounters of Megan Abbott and Barry Hannah---Zola heroine lives next door to a drunken undertaker.

Out to Lunch

Let me tell you about my thrilling day. I turned on THE TARNISHED ANGELS, which I had dvr'd from TCM. I think before Megan Abbott left town, she and Bill Boyle and I were talking about watching it, but it was impossible to get hold of. After Megan left, I noticed it coming on TV. So I watched some of it this morning but then I started feeling guilty because I shouldn't watch it without Bill Boyle! I watched enough to see that it contained a goodly percentage of the cast of WRITTEN ON THE WIND, which, like THE TARNISHED ANGELS, was directed by Douglas Sirk. Those angels were so tarnished! As you can see from the above frame. Plus Mardi Gras! I mean, it takes place during Mardi Gras. But I turned it off. I was trying to decide what to read next and I recalled that maybe Megan and I were going to read this book of Mississippi ghost stories I got for her by way of apology after rudely scoffing at a ghost story she told me in a public forum. The Rowan Oak ghost story in the book supports BOTH sides of our argument and even quotes our pal Bill Griffith. So I called Megan but she never answers her phone and maybe she called back but I never answer my phone, so you can see the difficulty. So I didn't know whether to start the ghost story book or not. Then I remembered that last night Tim Youd told me he was on the last 17 pages of THE SOUND AND THE FURY, which he is typing as part of an art project at Rowan Oak. So I walked down there hoping I could watch him type the last few sentences ("They endure" and all that, isn't that it?) but the kid sitting by the door told me that Tim was at lunch and Bill Griffith was at lunch and everybody was at lunch. So I went to Square Books instead and bought PYLON, the Faulkner novel on which THE TARNISHED ANGELS is based, and I sat there in the store and read that mint julep murder mystery that Bill told me about, which included a kind of shabby carnival magician (attention Megan Abbott!) and which I must have read years ago, because it's in the book KNIGHT'S GAMBIT, but most of my life is just a blur to me now, which is why I type up these little pieces of crap.

In Which John Wayne Shouts at an Owl

Watched THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS just because it was on the same DVD with SEVEN SINNERS. Saw there was a guy named Fuzzy Knight in the cast. I thought that was pretty funny and envisioned a short "blog" "post" about the fact that there was a guy named Fuzzy Knight. But then Betty Field (pictured, reeling out some pages of dialogue) started reeling out some pages of dialogue, for example, about a place called "Moanin' Meadow": "It's where the haint comes from: frogs as quiet as grave-rocks, light coming from nowhere, and the trees don't rustle, and the flowers grow big but they don't have pretty smells." Then later, on the same subject, "Them that goes in there has daylight dreams they always disremember," something something something, "nightshades dancing with the bats." She just goes on and on like that (with gutsy confidence, I must say). She calls telephones "city telephone machines for talking," a screenwriting affectation often parodied on THE SIMPSONS, such as when Cletus (or is it Brandine?) refers to a mirror as a "reversifying glass." Betty Field talks that way so much that even the other characters have trouble. After one of her monologues a guy says, "For the sake of my aching soul's confusion, what are you aiming at?" Which is of course his windy, colorful way of saying "Huh?" Because everybody in the movie talks that way, just not as much as Betty Field. A blind old lady in a rocking chair says of some premonition, "I knowed it. I knowed it when I heard the fox bark in the night and the voice growed damp and afraid." John Wayne says the way he feels is "kind of like being borned all over again, right side up. I ain't lost from nobody no more." Okay! Somebody else says, "The lightnin' tree took away my speakin'." This is the same character we see catching and eating dust motes in a patch of sunlight under a window, natch. John Wayne talks to owls. "Evening, brother!" he shouts at an owl. Yes, they lay on the old poetry of the hills stuff pretty thick. And I don't know, I kind of liked it! I am not sure whether I liked it because of that stuff or in spite of it. Maybe it's like what Marilynne Robinson said about Poe that time: "Poe at his best is not imaginable without the excesses for which he must be forgiven. I think I have always loved him because to love him requires loyalty."

Strange Crucibles

The introduction to this volume of Paracelsus is bizarre and charmingly old-fashioned and amusingly translated: "Quaint alchemic kitchens in which he is said to have worked are still to be found at various places; with their strange crucibles, retorts, and other vessels, they are awesomely shown to the curious traveler... A man's true personality is always more than his biographical development... The essence of a personality is its living core, which draws its sustenance from the fertile womb of the soul's depths; in these primordial depths of the soul there lies hidden the treasure of the eternal images which are the fountainhead of everything creative... It is said that Wilhelm [Paracelsus's father] was born out of wedlock in an impoverished family of knights, and that throughout his life the circumstances of his birth were a source of unhappiness to him... Thus we find at the cradle of Paracelsus medieval chivalrous virtue and aspiration to higher culture on the side of the father, healthy earthiness and deep piety on the side of the mother. This widely divergent heritage no doubt explains to some extent how it came about that his rather weak and fragile body harboured such a profusion of tensions." Okay! Hey, while looking for an image with which to illustrate this "post" (that's not Paracelsus but who cares? dig that tiny lion with his tongue hanging out) I ran across a "link" referring to Paracelsus as the "stormy petrel of medicine." Ha ha ha! I don't know what it means but I like it. This "link" seems likewise lively and amusingly translated: "Along with his taste for medicine he seems also to have acquired an appetite for alcoholic beverages - an appetite often to bring him reproach in later life... Paracelsus became a traveling doctor, going from town to town, sometimes in dirty rags, and at other times in flamboyant finery. Constant companion was his large sword, in the handle of which he did [hid? - J.P.] his most precious medicines." Ha ha, hmm.