Sensitive Compartmental Information Facility

Oh, so you say you CAN handle the kind of stuff McNeil and I talk about? All right. I'll give you the straight skinny, and then you'll be sorry. So McNeil sends an email: "Reading The Apocryphon of John and it's blowing my mind. BOOOOOM. In a way it makes the vicissitudes (!!look at my big word there!!) of the OT God a little easier to understand. I said a little. And I'm talking bout the Monad, y'all...which is what people really should be worshipping, I guess." All right! So it looks like McNeil is starting a cult and trying to get me to worship "The Monad." So I'm like, hey, I think I have that book around here somewhere. But I look all around and I can't find it. BUT THEN! I remember an anthology called THE GNOSTIC BIBLE, which is on a shelf behind glass, and I have to move my blood pressure machine to get to it, and I can barely be bothered to make the effort. Finally, I drag my old carcass over there and take it down and I'm like, hey! And I email McNeil: "one of the sections is called The Secret Book of John, which seems to correspond to the book you're talking about. For example, it mentions 'The One,' which a footnote explains is 'The Monad.' And so on. So let's get busy, Apocryphon style!" And there was some other stuff McNeil brought up about A.I., but let's not get into that right now. We have enough problems! Oh yeah, and McNeil had given me an assignment, which was to study "the passage about halfway through, maybe, where man is created. There is a long long list of people who worked on the project - and how they felt about it afterward." I still haven't done that. Sorry! So McNeil follows up with "There should be a place we meet and discuss the Apocryphon - a place like Omaha or Des Moines - and in a pergola near a nature preserve or something so it seems spiritual and also inexpensive. We could wear hats like they do in Masters of Atlantis." And I shoot back my own suggestion: Yankton, South Dakota! McNeil goes "At that pizza place you're obsessed with - but only if they can provide us with a SCIF." And I don't know what the hell a SCIF is and McNeil has to explain it to me. But about this pizza place... see, for my 60th birthday, I thought McNeil and I could meet at a pizza place I knew about through one tweet, back when twitter existed. The way I remember it now, this place had a pizza with crab, beef, and cheddar cheese on it, which was named (the pizza was) after Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Because you know how much they loved crab, beef, and cheddar cheese on a pizza! I even looked up local forms of entertainment and I think I found several casinos in the area. Alas, that plan came to nothing. A lot of things came to nothing that year. Some of you know what I'm talking about. Hey! Speaking of religion, I see that the announcement is up at Square Books: I'll be "in conversation" with Tom Franklin about his new novel DEVILWOOD in February! So I can finally tell you... remember when I said I was reading a manuscript with owl balls in it but it doesn't mean what you think it means? Well, that book with the owl balls in it is DEVILWOOD, as can finally be revealed. Owl balls!

The Short Version

You know, several days ago, McNeil and I had a pretty good thread going about James Franciscus, and in my heart I was like, "Oh, there's a rich vein of 'bloggable' material here." Then I was like, "Well, I better find a photo of James Franciscus, because no one knows who he is." Then I was like, "Gee, how am I going to explain what McNeil and I are talking about?" Then I realized that once I began explaining James Franciscus, I would have to explain a lot more things, and pretty soon I'd be explaining the universe. And then I got depressed. The short version is that McNeil got some information about a James Franciscus movie from one of his old books, but when he consulted the "internet" about it, he discovered that THERE IS NOT EVEN A SINGLE ALLUSION TO THIS MOVIE ANYWHERE ON THE "INTERNET." And then McNeil blamed Elon Musk for creating this new reality we live in, in which the James Franciscus movie McNeil wants to see has been erased from what we laughingly call "existence." We laughingly call it that! Laughingly! Anyway, the main thing is you know three things about me: I have a "daytime" book I read during the day. I have a "nighttime" book I read at night. And I have proven that every book has an owl in it. Therefore, it should come as no shock that yesterday during the day I found an owl in my daytime book and during the night I found an owl in my nighttime book. But let's dig deeper! Just like a burrowing owl! My daytime book is a Million Dollar Book Club selection by J. Hoberman, all about the avant-garde art scene in New York in the 1960s. In a footnote, I noticed a place called "The Night Owl Cafe." And I was like, "You can't hide from me in a footnote, owl!" So, at night, I'm reading... well, remember when I was reading that James Ellroy book while I took my blood pressure? And I chose it because it had a reliable-looking and charming spine? But I didn't really care for the words on the pages of the book itself? Anyway, I was in Square Books the other day and I bought the sequel (see also). So the narrator calls Richard Nixon a "foul owl on the prowl." A few pages later, someone calls our narrator a "night owl." And that reminded me of how James Ellroy seems to love the phrase "night owl." And who can blame him? I will conclude with the astonishing fact that in yesterday's reading, both my nighttime book and my daytime book namechecked the film THE CRY OF JAZZ (see also). All of which reminds me, Dr. Theresa says I'm supposed to take my blood pressure today.

Names

I told you how everyone in OUTLAWS OF THE MARSH has a nickname. Over halfway through volume three, we meet a guy called "the Ugly Son-in-Law." This guy is so ugly... and it sounds like I'm about to tell a Rodney Dangerfield joke, but it's just part of the plot... he's so ugly his wife dies from looking at him! Speaking of names, I saw the rapper-turned-actor Ludacris in a vitamin commercial. Ludacris tries drinking an unpleasant smoothie, but he just can't do it! In disgust, he exclaims, "Man, when did health get so LUDICROUS?" I view this as lazy writing. Sorry, writer of the Ludacris vitamin commercial! Anyway, Ludacris puts aside the terrible smoothie and happily takes his vitamin. So he should have used the homonym (if that's the correct term) for his own name as a positive thing. It should have been saved for the end of the commercial, when he's happy. He should have swallowed his pleasant vitamin and said, "Man, health just got LUDICROUS!" Like it's a good thing. I am seeing some problems with this approach. I do not envy you, vitamin writer! It may interest you to know that I saw two different Ludacris commercials for two different products back-to-back! Immediately before the vitamin commercial, Ludacris and the race car driver Danica Patrick were trying to talk me into getting some kind of insurance (?) that pays for your auto repairs. They were like, "Who's going to pay for your next car repair? YOU?" They meant it in an encouraging way, in that it wouldn't have to be me if I just paid a small monthly fee for their service instead. But the tone struck me as "Who's going to pay for your next car repair? YOU? Don't make me laugh! Look at yourself! You couldn't pay for a stick of gum!" You may ask where I encountered back-to-back Ludacris ads. Why, on the old people channel, of course. The old people channel is what I call the channel that shows things old people might like, for example, the sitcom HAZEL, which is about a wisecracking maid who helps rich, often withered, white people get everything they desire. My relationship with HAZEL is complex. I guess I talk about it a lot. In recognition, Ace Atkins bought me a HAZEL coffee mug I drink from at least three days a week. Most other days I drink from a souvenir mug from the Smoke House that Ace brought back from a trip to Los Angeles. And when both of those are unanvailable, I drink from a giant mug that informs me I am a "diamond in a rhinestone world." Ace got me that one too. Maybe that's what he really thinks! Anyway, Ace buys most of my clothes and personal kitchen accessories.

Zoological Adjustments

Well, well, well. I guess you'd think I was pretty foolish if I went out and bought the first few books of Aristotle's METAPHYSICS just so I could fact-check Thomas Aquinas when he says there's an owl in it. But that's just what I did. And hold onto your hats! There's NOT an owl in it! Here's what it says in my brand spanking new (by which I mean 1933) translation of the METAPHYSICS: "just as it is with bats' eyes in respect to daylight, so it is with our mental intelligence..." That's right! It's bats! Not owls! NOW what are you saying? I bet you're saying "Money well spent!" I troubled myself to scrounge about halfheartedly on the "internet" to find out why Aquinas says owls instead of bats. And you know, I found out a couple of things, sort of. I skimmed over a scholarly article called "Power and Limits of the Human Mind: On the Arabic Reception of the Analogy of Bats and Daylight..." Look. There's more to the subtitle but I'm getting tired of typing. It's like an email I got from McNeil this morning. He was writing about the movie DOCTOR, YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING! but had the energy to type only "Dr. ... kidding" (ellipses McNeil's). And I mocked him for it! But look at me now. Anyway, if I'm reading it correctly, this guy (his name is Amos Bertolacci) says that when translating from Greek to Latin, people began subsituting "owl" for "bat." And he explains why, but I don't think I understood it. Here, I'll quote it for you: "The interpretations of the bats’ analogy in Latin philosophy and theology have a different character from the ones considered here: Latin translators from Greek made Aristotle’s text less problematic by means of zoological adjustments, i.e. by identifying Aristotle’s bats with other night animals (night ravens or owls)." Then he goes on to say that some people even substituted eagles for bats! That's just crazy. (The latter being my conclusion, not Mr. Bertolacci's.) The article led me to another "web" site containing, in full, Thomas Aquinas's critique of Averroes's gloss on Aristotle's metaphysics, where I read with my own two eyes and my own pea-sized brain Aquinas taking Averroes to task for his bat observations... leading me to conclude (and bear in mind "I ain't no doctor with a degree" to quote Aretha Franklin) that Aquinas knew very well that they were bats in the original, not owls! All of this is to come to the shocking point: for the FIRST TIME EVER, I am going to REMOVE a book from my BIG LONG LIST OF BOOKS WITH OWLS IN THEM. So long, Aristotle. You had your chance! And you blew it. To quote Bill Boyle imitating Robert De Niro in COP LAND, "YOU BLEW IT!!!!!"

Square Bananas

Hey! On July 8 at 5:30, I'll be reading from my novel SWEET BANANAS at Off Square Books. You may "click" here for details, though I have just told you most of the details. Shall I tell you something else? Shall I? Hmm? That date is my birthday. So just think about what a tragedy that night might turn out to be. How can you afford to miss my ultimate humiliation? There will even be banana-flavored treats, which I cannot eat, because I take a medication that is high in potassium. A SINGLE BANANA COULD KILL ME! Okay, that part isn't true, as far as I know. But would you come to the event if I promise to eat a banana and see what happens? We'll have a countdown clock! Now, despite my glib demeanor, how this all came about starts with some sad news. Hingston & Olsen, the wonderful publisher who specialized in limited editions of marvelously intricate printed objects, has gone out of business. That's the only reason that copies of the very rare novel SWEET BANANAS are available. If you will pretend to recall, the original run was a limited edition of 365 copies with 365 different covers. Those are all gone. But there were a few extra copies in the warehouse - for safety, I suppose - without the covers. And they kindly asked me if I would like to have them and I said yes. And now I'm passing the savings on to you like some kind of mattress salesman. A box of 16 got lost in the mail, so you can look for those on the black market, I guess. But I sincerely doubt you'll beat my rock-bottom prices!

Sentence

Here's a sentence from Charlton Heston's journals: "The pope's apparently terminal illness canceled a cocktail thing."

Words

1. Dr. Theresa and I have been watching DARK SHADOWS, the original series. Yesterday, Angelique (pictured... photo taken directly from our TV!... spoiler, she's a witch!) said the word "gazebo," only, get this: she pronounced it "Ga-ZAY-Bo." I was instantly transported to 2007, as I usually am all the time. I remembered doing a reading from my second book at A Cappella, and I was reading from a short story that had the word "gazebo" in it. Suddenly, I froze up. My brain did a thing. Foreshadowing? I was like, wait, how do I say this word? I stopped the story cold and rambled aloud to the stupefied audience about the weird thing I was experiencing. "Is it Ga-ZAY-Bo? That can't be right. But I kind of want to say Ga-ZAY-Bo." It stopped not just the story but the event - and perhaps time itself - dead. Or maybe it did the opposite. Because for once in my professional life something got people interested. They were all going, "Ga-ZEE-Bo! Ga-ZEE-Bo!" So I felt crazy. Probably the only reason I remember this so well is that I "blogged" about it at the time ("click" here. I know you won't! I hate you!). Also, this nice guy I knew back then in Atlanta, Jamie Allen, "blogged" about it too, providing more details, which selfsame details I recall, though his "link" has become a "zombie link." He found it amusing that I could think even for a split second it was pronounced "Ga-ZAY-Bo." So, yesterday, when the beauteous yet evil Angelique said it that way, I paused the show and exclaimed about it and relived the whole experience, like Proust. Dr. Theresa seemed to recall the incident as well, and speculated it might be a "Southern" way to say gazebo. (We had previously researched Angelique, or the actor Lara Parker, who played her, and found out she went to high school in Memphis.) I was thinking maybe that's just the way people said it in 1968. I was alive then! I must have heard it somewhere. Anyway, this little kid on DARK SHADOWS, David Collins, came into the room (in the same episode) and also said "gazebo" for some reason, pronouncing it just as Angelique had, with a ZAY. And he's from New Jersey. What a night! Nor had the night concluded. I went upstairs and looked in the OED, which gives both British and American pronunciations with the everyday familiar ZEE, not the mysterious and intrusive ZAY. But here's the interesting thing. Ha ha, there's not an interesting thing. Among its historical examples of usage, the OED includes the spelling "gazabo" from 1828. Now, are you trying to tell me the person who wrote down "gazabo" was pronouncing it "Ga-ZEE-Bo"? Get real! To be fair, there is the spelling "gazeebo," two e's, in a cited work from 1843. And wait, there's more! The OED provides an alternative meaning for "gazebo." It's a rude expression for a guy. An example from 1896 has some dude being called "a cheap gazabo." There's that spelling again! Oh my God. We're really uncovering some big stuff here. I'm resisting the urge to look up "gazebo" in my GREEN'S DICTIONARY OF SLANG. 2. In the past few days or weeks, I used the word "descendants" in a couple of "posts." For whatever reason, I started wondering if I had spelled it right. And I hadn't! I put an "e" where the "a" should be. And I wondered... have I been misspelling it my whole life? Further research into the "blog" revealed... yes! I have been misspelling "descendants" my whole life. I haven't corrected earlier occurrences if you want to go back and search for them and look at them and make fun of me. 3. This one is about a string of words. To be specific, "A churchyard haunter at whom the owl hoots and the ivy mocks..." A character says it in BETWEEN THE ACTS, and the context implies he is quoting from a preexisting literary work, so I poked around a little bit, wondering what he might be quoting. My flimsy research indicates it's a mash-up or scramble of quotations, or possibly a jumble, or maybe nothing. So that settles it. But while I was looking around, I came upon a wonderful "web" site in which a scholar has catalogued all of Virginia Woolf's allusions to plant life. Well, maybe not all of them. I don't know. But a lot of them! And I felt pride because it has a "blogspot" address. There are so few of us left, I assume. Her entry on ivy ("click" here) contains, incidentally, a number of asides on owls, a bird with which Woolf seems to have habitually associated ivy. Well, I think we've covered everything. Just like ivy! 4. GREEN'S DICTIONARY OF SLANG: "gazabo (also gazab, gazabe, gazaboo, gazaybo, gazeaboo, gazebo, gazebu, gazeebo, gazimbat, gazuny, gezeybo) an awkward, strange or stupid person... also any fellow." 5. Update [added May 31]: A couple of episodes later, Angelique says "gazebo" twice in quick succession, each time using the more familiar ZEE pronunciation. Who got to her?

The Pendarvis Art of Living

Yesterday I got a promotional email from Square Books, saying that Gin Phillips would be on the Thacker Mountain radio show. And I was like, "Gin Phillips, Gin Phillips. Don't I know her? Did I maybe do some readings with her in Atlanta?" Digging deep into the "blog" archives, which must now substitute for my memory, I realized I was thinking of Hollis Gillespie. Now, Gin Phillips and Hollis Gillespie... are those names really so much alike? No. But I understand why my brain would think so, even if it had not been famously zapped in an unfortunate incident from the recent past. Anyway! Before I thought to check the "blog," I decided to do an "internet" search of my name alongside the name of Gin Phillips, hoping to confirm what turned out to be a false recollection. AND! The good old A.I. robot that pops up unbeckoned whenever I search for something helpfully informed me that I was the author of the books THE PENDARVIS ART OF LIVING, YOUR BODY IS CALLING YOU (see also), and, of course, my renowned novel CIGARETTE BOY. You are perhaps unfamiliar with what I laughingly call my work, so let me explain that none of those books exist. YET!

Mom Right

When I was growing up, there was a local grocery store Mom didn't like. It's still there and she still doesn't like it. But now that I am adult man with sophisticated opinions, I am always like, "Mom, it is just a grocery store like any other. Why do you go so far out of your way for groceries?" And then I continue to lecture my mother on a variety of topics. I'll tell you, though... I have a single vivid memory of this grocery store from childhood. I don't know why it should be vivid. It involves a cigarette. It was the late 1960s or early 1970s. Cigarettes were everywhere. So that's not why the memory is vivid. Three of my four grandparents constantly blew cigarette smoke into my cherubic face. Benignly, I add! But anyway, I saw the back of a guy kneeling in a white uniform at a dairy case... putting in milk bottles... he turned, and I saw his face... he had a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, a cigarette with, probably, the longest ash I had ever seen. Or ever have (when not deployed comically, as in the case of Nathan Thurm or a 20-year-old infomercial for a blender)! It seemed miraculous that the ash hadn't fallen off his cigarette - which was mostly ash! - and into the whipping cream... anyway! Somehow it filled me with uncanny horror. I don't know why we were even in that grocery store, the one Mom didn't like. None of this is the point. Some of it is the point. Now I'm going to reveal the kind of personal detail that has security experts quaking in their boots. Sometimes, Dr. Theresa and I like an apple and an orange at night. We have been off desserts ever since some medical shenanigans. So, yes, sometimes an apple and an orange will hit the spot. For whatever gendered reason, it is Dr. Theresa who peels the apple and orange as part of the elaborate ritual. She likes peeling an apple! What do you want me to do? So... oh! I forgot to say that Dr. Theresa and I frequent the forbidden grocery store when we are visiting my parents. And this time, we happened to bring back some apples. So... afterward, when we would have our apple and orange, and the apple turned out to be insipid, I would say, "Is this one of those ****** apples?" (Here, I named the grocery store Mom doesn't like.) And every time, yes! The flavorless apple came from that grocery store. Finally, I was obliged to call Mom on the phone and say, "Mom, you were right!"

Big Peanut Inside You

Speaking of M&Ms and unpublished novels, one of my unpublished novels contains this paragraph: "I thought up a commercial where a doctor shows an anthropomorphic M&M an x-ray and says, 'You’ve got this big peanut inside you. I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do.' And the M&M bursts into uncontrollable sobs, but he eventually gets a grip. He walks out in the waiting room and there’s his wife sitting with her pocketbook on her lap. She’s an M&M too. She has this beautiful, expectant look on her face. Close-up on the M&M. His eyes are vacant. He’s in total shock. What’s he going to tell her? His life is spinning out of control!" End of quote. Scientists of the future will be able to piece together all my unpublished works from the pathetic shards provided here over the decades. By the way, I am proud to confirm that, yes, March 2026 is the month with the most "blog" "posts" since April of 2016, infamous as the period in which our TV blew up and I stomped my little hoof and swore never to "blog" again. Then we had the pandemic, leading to what I have creatively taken to calling "these times we live in," during which, little by little, I began to "blog" more and more, just to put a little smile on the face of the world. How’s that going?

Witold Gombrowicz Is Like Jim Gaffigan

Time and time again we have established that I am wrong about everything. Here, let me give you a recent example! So, remember when I said I remembered going to Square Books and... wait. Please remind yourself that my brain was zapped by mysterious forces just a couple of years ago. But remember when I said I had seen a version of THE ILIAD blurbed by Emily Wilson but not translated by her? That can't be the case. Because I went to Square Books yesterday and saw with my own eyes Emily Wilson's translation of THE ILIAD, which I had convinced myself did not exist. And why would she blurb an ILIAD when she had a fresh new ILIAD of her own? I said to Mevelyn... wait! Let me tell you about Mevelyn. Mevelyn is from Cuba. She is a great bookseller. Case in point, she has forced me to buy a lot of Alejo Carpentier with her hypnotic powers. She tells a good ghost story. She knows everything about books! You can ask her about the different translations of DON QUIXOTE, for example, and she'll point out all their strengths and weaknesses. I always hope that Mevelyn will be working when I visit Square Books so I can hear a good ghost story or a nightmare she had about Karl Marx. Anyway, I grasped Emily Wilson's translation of THE ILIAD in my wizened paws and I says to Mevelyn, I says, "Hey! Mevelyn! Wasn't there a recent version of THE ILIAD with a blurb by Emily Wilson, but she didn't translate it? I feel like I'm going crazy!" So it sounds familiar to Mevelyn, too! She feels like she saw it recently. So we stand there a long time trying to figure out what the hell we are talking about. We are having one of those folies à deux that people enjoy so much. Anyway! When I got home, I realized what I had seen was a new translation of THE AENEID for which Emily Wilson wrote the introduction. Not a blurb! An introduction! Not THE ILIAD! THE AENEID! The important thing is that I had a coupon, so I was able to get Emily Wilson's translation of THE ILIAD for free, just about. That's the thing! Get yourself a "Constant Reader Number" at Square Books! Then you too will be able to grab an almost-free book once in a while. And so it came to pass that THE ILIAD is my current "nighttime book" and the DIARY of Witold Gombrowicz is my current "daytime book." I have reached the point in the diary where Gombrowicz has begun to attack himself, sotto voce, the way Jim Gaffigan does in his standup act. You know, Jim Gaffigan will tell a joke and then he'll switch to a soft, high-pitched, almost strangled voice, pretending to be an audience member, questioning his own premise. Is that a good description of what Jim Gaffigan does? No? How the hell would you know? Anyway, now Witold Gombrowicz is doing what Jim Gaffigan does... in diary form! It's like when Milhouse said that ALF was back in pog form. Everything is like when Milhouse said ALF was back in pog form.

Feelin' Ancient

Am I going to read THE ILIAD? I'm afraid it appears likely. Was it Emily Wilson who got me on this ancient kick? I read her translation of THE ODYSSEY and her biography of Seneca, and then six plays by Seneca that she translated, which ruined me for reading things that were not ancient. I've even read ancient things I haven't bothered to tell you about on the "blog," such as Josephus. Josephus! And before I took up Witold Gombrowicz for the Million Dollar Book Club, Tacitus was my daytime book. Sitting around reading Tacitus in the broad daylight like some kind of animal! And I guess I'll pick up where I left off if I ever finish Gombrowicz. Okay, I'll be right back. I need to do a little research. All right, I'm back. I have confirmed a nagging feeling. It wasn't Emily Wilson who got me into all this. It was Kirk Douglas! ("Click" here for details.) Sorry, Emily Wilson! Anyway! I guess you're wondering where all this ILIAD crap is coming from, though. Well, remember when I decided to become interested in Simone Weil? I don't suppose any of us will ever forget it! So I'm going around learning stuff about Simone Weil and I see that she wrote a famous essay about THE ILIAD. So I get hold of that and I'm like, "Uh-oh! Here we go again!" And do I want to get my Robert Fagles translation of THE ILIAD off the shelf? Well, hell, no. Didn't I read it already? Or part of it? Did I ever finish it? Also, it's on a shelf behind a glass door with latches at both the top and bottom. That's a lot of work! The bottom latches, in addition, have some stuff piled in front of them, such as my blood pressure machine. Oh! Speaking of my blood pressure machine, let me come clean about something. I've told you many times that I stopped reading old comic books. I still say that is true. However! I do have a gigantic hardcover DC "omnibus edition" of comics that I currently sample while relaxing for five minutes before blood pressure time. This sturdy volume has just the kind of spine I need for laying out the book flat on the dining room table, where the medical task in question is undertaken. So yesterday, or the day before, I think, I saw a representation of the DC comics character the Spectre, and... here... allow me to quote an email I sent to Adam Muto on the subject: "I was looking at a DC comic book from 1989 and it had the Spectre in it, and he was really ripped! I was like... he's a ghost! Has he been going to the gym? You're the only person I could think of to tell." I did not add... "Or should I say RIPped?" because I thought such wordplay would make Adam sad and disappointed. Then I poked around on the "internet" because I was afraid "ripped" wasn't the right term. I spent a lot of time on "web" sites dedicated to parsing the difference between being "ripped" or "shredded" or "jacked" or "swole." But we're getting off the subject! Are we? Well, I recalled seeing a newish translation of THE ILIAD at Square Books. And given the fact that I'm going to have lunch with Tom Franklin one day soon, I just know I'll stop by on the way and pick it up. I can see the future! This ILIAD wasn't translated by Emily Wilson, but it had a blurb from Emily Wilson. [Wrong! - ed.] Now, as a person who has both given and received blurbs, I know that blurbs aren't really worth spit. Except for the time Lauren Graham blurbed one of my books! That one counted!

Events Spiral Out of Control

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

Hey!

As I'm sure you saw coming, the latest Million Dollar Book Club selection is the DIARY of Witold Gombrowicz. "Hey!" I hear you objecting. "Hey! Hey there! Listen to me! Hey! Isn't, by your own admission, the purlieu, if you will, of the Million Dollar Book Club the so-called 'celebrity tell-all'? And, if so, how do you figure Witold Gombrowicz fits in? How do you figure THAT, my good sir?" That's a great question, and I'm not going to answer it. I will say that the solution of the puzzle resides in the fact that I have no money. It stems from that. I can elaborate no further at this time. "Hey!" There you go again. "Hey! Isn't it 'ironic,' if that is the right word, for a member of the so-called 'Million Dollar Book Club' to have no money?" Well, maybe. Do you know what that reminds me of for some reason? Now, this is gettiing far afield, speaking of purlieus, of what I wanted to tell you about the diary of Witold Gombrowicz. But you know what? A distinct advantage of being broke and unemployed is how much time you have to ramble incoherently about whatever you want. So, as I was saying, your question somehow puts me in mind of... well, to explain it, we have to go back in time to when I was in the hospital and Tom Franklin brought me a bunch of old comic books to cheer me up. And after that, I was buying old comic books for myself, at least for a little while, and there was one comic book from my youth that it took me some time to track down, because I couldn't recall the name of it, nor of the characters within it. But I kept seeing flashes of the cover in my mind. And at last I figured out that I was thinking of something called "The Green Team," some adventurers who were "boy millionaires," just to show you how the insidious, curdled influence of the loathsome Richie Rich wormed its way even into the halls of the noble DC Comics corporation. And, the way I remembered it, there was one "boy millionaire" who kind of got into the club under the wire, on a technicality. So that's what I was reminded of. But the thing I wanted to tell you about the diary (or DIARY) of Witold Gombrowicz is that within it... and this is a first! Hold onto your hats!... within it, old Witold is reading the diary of Franz Kafka... itself a former Million Dollar Book Club selection! You heard right. For the first time, the subject of a Million Dollar Book Club selection is reading a different Million Dollar Book Club selection! I don't have to explain the cosmic repercussions to you, do I? Because I have time.

Ham-Fisted Doofus

After I finished reading the Apocryphal Gospels during the 11-day blackout, I turned to BLACKWATER by Michael McDowell, which seemed like a good, creepy thing to read in the dark. I had been previously impressed with the author's deep geographical and metereological understanding of the Gulf Coast of Alabama as displayed in his novel THE ELEMENTALS, so it was extra sad that in BLACKWATER, he misspelled the name of my hometown Bayou La Batre. One character suggests moving there as part of a scheme of vengeance, to which her husband replies, "What would you and I do in Bayou le Batre, that old place?" Which, if I am being honest, is something we used to ask ourselves, if only from time to time. The answer was to go down to Schambeau's or Red's Drugs and look at the new comic books! And to wander around in Schambeau's and wonder why Mr. Schambeau (his first name was Crum!) regularly stocked Purina Monkey Chow. Did someone in town own a monkey? If so, who? An unsolved mystery to this day! Truly, Schambeau's was a wonderful grocery store to stir the imagination. Well, when I first opened BLACKWATER, the title page popped right out in my hand! It simply removed itself from the book in what seemed, given the circumstances, an ominous sign. I was reminded of when McNeil called me a "ham-fisted doofus" because I once broke an egg in my hand in an attempt to remove it from its carton. This led McNeil to come up with the idea of chickens who lay eggs with edible shells. I could have sworn I "blogged" about both the thing he called me and his egg idea, but it turns out I put those two tantalizing pieces of the McNeil puzzle into two separate unpublished novels. Well, the hell with it. Here I am giving away these remarkable tidbits for free! I give up. Note for historians of the future: an email search indicates that McNeil called me a "ham-fisted doofus" on May 6, 2019.

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.)

Green Means Go

Hey! You know how THE ELEPHANT, a special I worked on with Kent Osborne, Rebecca Sugar, Ian Jones-Quartey, Patrick McHale, Pendleton Ward, and many others, will premiere on Adult Swim December 19? Pretty soon! And how the next day, on HBO Max, assuming it still exists, there will be a "Behind the Elephant" special ABOUT the special? A special about a special. What will they think of next? But guess what? Whatever you guessed, you were wrong. Because if you watch THE ELEPHANT on December 19 on an old-timey TV set like an ancient caveman, you'll see Frowny 'n' Smiley! Yes, stop pinching yourselves, THAT Frowny 'n' Smiley, famous for being a thing no one remembers from back when I was on twitter. Only now they're in TV form! Like when Milhouse said ALF was in pog form. I got the green light to spread the word. I call it a show, but I'm lying. Frowny 'n' Smiley episodes are 15 seconds long. So I don't think you can comfortably call that a show. But it's something! And you're going to love it. LOVE IT! Let Frowny 'n' Smiley worm their way into your shriveled up hearts, you monsters! Learn to feel again!

Don't Flip Out

Hey, remember when I was reading, oh, let's call it a semi-experimental fragmentary "literary novel" and at the same time I was reading, oh, let's call it a pulse-pounding thriller, and they both mentioned Gogol and everybody got so excited? Well, I finished those two books and started on two more mismatched volumes... this time, a book of academic lectures by John Ashbery and a mystical sci-fi adventure by Philip K. Dick. And hold onto your hats, because THEY both mentioned John Dowland, noted composer of the English Renaissance. Are you flipping out? I need you to get a grip on yourself! Anyway, I have moved on to KING SORROW, a book by Joe Hill about a scary dragon. Now, look. I would have been happier had I not known about the dragon, and I was just reading along for 100 pages like, where is this going, and all of a sudden there is a dragon. That would have been a surprise! But I don't think telling you about the dragon is a spoiler because the big scary dragon is on the cover of the book. All right! So one character in the book offers to go to a place called the Nite Owl and pick up some beer, which I mention for the usual reasons. On the previous page, however, Mr. Hill has informed us that the characters shop exclusively at 7-Eleven. Now we are getting into the kind of stuff that makes me the foremost literary critic of our times. First of all, I never really thought about how to spell 7-Eleven before. Left to my own devices, I would put it like this: 7-11. That's wrong! I thought about it because the novel brings up 7-Eleven enough to make one ponder the spelling. That being said, why does the character offer to go to the Nite Owl instead of the 7-Eleven? Well, the character in question is rather quippy, and maybe he thinks "Nite Owl" has a better ring to it for the quip he is making at the time. I have to say, he's right! Or maybe Joe Hill decided he had mentioned 7-Eleven enough on the previous page. We'll never know! Also, is "Nite Owl" the actual name of a chain of late-night pharmacies or something? That's something else we'll never know, because I'm so lazy.

Lost Souls of the "Internet"

Well, Season 2 of ADVENTURE TIME: FIONNA AND CAKE started today, and I do not believe you will consider it a spoiler if I mention that Fionna's clock radio awakens her in an early scene. You know how people's clock radios are always awakening them in early scenes. Whom should we hear on the airwaves in this particular case but DJ Slime, spinning the hits? Now! In some misguided areas of the "internet" I have run across speculation that this character is a version of DJ Plop Drops, who was played by John Hodgman in the original series. There are several reasons why this cannot be true! Personally, I immediately came up with four such reasons without even trying, because my brain is lightning fast despite recent "difficulties." But think about it for a second. I could list the reasons, but then I ponder how many times I would have to type the phrase "DJ Plop Drops" and I lose the will to live. For you see, simply put, DJ Slime is FionnaWorld's answer to Slime Princess - a sentence that will make sense to some people. I am happy to clarify for those people, and kindly invite all other people to go to hell. And I am happy to tell you that DJ Slime, the Slime Princess of Fionna's world, will be portrayed, vocally, by my brother, my actual brother, who is actually a radio DJ in real actual life. Here is a video ("click" here) he made about his childhood hero (and current, though dead, hero) Mel Blanc, who led him to... well, just "click" on the "link." Do I have to do everything for you people?

Animal Friends

I know what you're asking. Did we spend part of our 30th anniversary celebration as you might expect, revisiting the grim site of the miserable death of Meriwether Lewis, which we accidentally discovered on a prior anniversary trip? Yes and no. We paid tribute to it as we drove by, sending good wishes aloud to Meriwether Lewis's ghost, but we were too busy thinking about how we hadn't eaten all day, and we were eager to reach our destination. Sorry, Meriwether Lewis! Now I'll fill you in on the rest of our trip in a massive, unreadable, unbroken chunk of text, such as has been a "blog" tradition for more than 19 years, God help us all. We saw lots of cool animals, including a donkey and a goat who seemed to be good friends. At one point we were stopped at a traffic light behind a huge tanker truck, and printed on the rear of the tank were the words - and only these words - THE WORLD'S BEST COFFEE. "Is that full of coffee?" I blurted idiotically, causing Dr. Theresa to laugh for the next 10 miles. In the instant, I meant it! You may recall that my brain was famously stunned into a stupor at a not entirely distant point in the past. You'd think it would have fixed itself by now! The truck was full of fuel, of course, which it was carrying, no doubt, to a convenience store/gas station purporting to serve THE WORLD'S BEST COFFEE. There is no conceivable reason to fill a tanker truck with coffee. One night we had a great dinner and walked back to the hotel, where, on the previous evening, we had sat in the lobby bar and gazed across at an elegant recess filled with a different kind of furniture, and upon that furniture there sat a man who Dr. Theresa swore was the late Truman Capote. Anyway, we vowed at the time that we would go sit in that elegant recess with the nice furniture on a future evening. Well! I thought it was time. Dr. Theresa wasn't so sure. I kept saying how much fun it would be to sit in the elegant recess and "people watch." Finally, I talked her into it. She sat there grudgingly sipping a ranch water as I tried out a towering wingback chair such as Mr. Burns might use on THE SIMPSONS. Anyway, we were sitting there like that when a woman in leather pants walked by and did a double take. Then she came back and - Dr. Theresa reenacted this gesture often in the aftermath - sort of displayed her palms and circled them in the air as if trying to encompass her wondrous vision (me). "You look regal!" she informed me from across the lobby. So I looked at Dr. Theresa like, "Huh? Huh? I guess 'people watching' was the greatest idea ever!" She laughed and we realized we were feeling pretty great, so we went up to the room and ordered an after-dinner pizza. That's right! We decided we were even because recently the guy who was restocking the greeting cards at Walmart tried to pick up Dr. Theresa. I don't think he was wearing leather pants. In the morning, Dr. Theresa had a few things to take care of, so I went downstairs before her to get some coffee and wait for her to join me for breakfast. As I would be alone for a short time, I brought along my anniversary reading material, Seneca's version of OEDIPUS, translated by Emily Wilson, because I know how to have a good time. A guy got on the elevator with me and said, "You a stoic fan?" I didn't know what the hell he was talking about until I looked down and recollected the Seneca book in my hand. I said, "Sure." He said something about admiring Seneca's letters and I replied, and I think this is an exact quotation, "Yeah, well, the plays are nasty." Thus ended our discussion of stoicism. Sitting there with my coffee, I started thinking about that book I read about ancient Greece not too long ago, from which I learned that the hyper-masculine bros of the "manosphere" are really into the Stoics these days. I wondered, was that guy a "manosphere" guy? Did he think I was part of his special "manosphere"? Well, it's my own fault for carrying around a collection of Seneca tragedies like some kind of secret handshake. As Oedipus says in Emily Wilson's translation, "The guilt of my times is mine." On the way back home, Jon Langford called, and I answered Dr. Theresa's cellphone because she was driving. See, Dr. Theresa is bringing Jon here (to Oxford, Mississippi) for some events soon, including a concert on Saturday the 25th, which you should really attend, though I know you don't exist. But anyway, please "click" on this "link" and get informed! I know you won't. So I kept getting disconnected and finally had to give up because we were tooling down the Natchez Trace, and for the first time in my life, I felt I was in that contrived horror-movie situation... as you know, in a contemporary setting, there must always be a reason for the protagonist's phone not to work. That seemed interesting when I started typing it. As we continued our journey home, the satellite radio with which our rental car came equipped began to play a song I could have sworn was called "Everybody Dance Now," but, as I learned from the accompanying dashboard display, is actually called "Gonna Make You Sweat," which I guess everyone knew but me. Dr. Theresa was very concerned when she believed she heard the narrator of the song declaring that he would make us, the listeners, "sweat until [we] bleed." Sweating until He bled is what the Savior did in the Garden of Gethsemane, as you probably know from Luke 22:44. Well, I looked it up when we got home and yes, the guy in that song wants people to sweat until they bleed. Is this a good way to end this "post"?