"Blog"trospective 19: Adventure Time

Remember how I kept bragging about quitting social media? I guess it was a damn lie, because I briefly got on "Tumblr," as I call it, to answer questions about ADVENTURE TIME: FIONNA AND CAKE Season 2 and the Adult Swim special THE ELEPHANT. But not MYSTERY CUDDLERS, which, as you may recall, they chucked down the gaping garbage hole to trash town. Well, all of that is over, by which I mean that everything I have worked on for the past number of years has been released and consumed and here I sit in the cold ashes. So! I thought I would make a catalog (below) of every time (?) I have mentioned ADVENTURE TIME or its various spin-offs on the "blog." That way, the hordes of acolytes I gathered on "Tumblr" can visit this "post" the way they might walk around a famous tomb or other, slightly more interactive landmark. I also encourage them to check out my previous "blog"trospective on THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY, thought by many to be the ADVENTURE TIME of the 17th century. And now I give you a series of "hyperlinks" filled with ADVENTURE TIME tidbits and gristly byproduct. Eat up! actual cat sneeze inspires FIONNA AND CAKE---ADVENTURE TIME art show---ADVENTURE TIME artists Natasha Allegri, Kent Osborne, and Seo Kim appear on a panel in Oxford, Mississippi---ADVENTURE TIME clip sponsored by cream to get rid of your age spots---ADVENTURE TIME compared to Balzac---ADVENTURE TIME comic books sold out in New York---ADVENTURE TIME episode named after cat---ADVENTURE TIME features a line that is "classic Frasier"---ADVENTURE TIME joke (in "The More You Moe") based on when my sister visited my brother and me in Atlanta and I made her sit in my apartment and play hangman but my brother took her out to meet David Byrne---ADVENTURE TIME; Lovecraftian influence on---ADVENTURE TIME party at Kent Osborne's house!---ADVENTURE TIME podcast, poor performance on---ADVENTURE TIME wrap party---Allegri, Natasha; gets caviar out of a vending machine---allusion to THE SEARCHERS in ADVENTURE TIME---alternate, worse ending to "Time Sandwich"---Archimedes, Fonzie, Piggy, and Jan discussed in ADVENTURE TIME meeting---art students ask questions about ADVENTURE TIME---at a French restaurant with Pendleton Ward and Megan Abbott---Atkins, Ace; watches "The Box Prince"---before an ADVENTURE TIME meeting, Kent eats his fourth meal of chicken in a row---behind the scenes of writing fan favorite "The Box Prince"---belt worn to Peabody Awards---bent fork in Beverly Hills---Bergman, Ingmar; influence of on ADVENTURE TIME---big panel at Wondercon with Prismo, Flame Princess and more---birthday balloons from the office---book about weeds useful for writing FIONNA AND CAKE---"Bukowski with more stabbing" (assessment of a William Boyle short story during an ADVENTURE TIME meeting)---Burch, Ashly; inspired by PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET when writing the character of Martin Mertens---Burch, Ashly; photo of surrounded by Emmys---cat jumps in lap during ADVENTURE TIME meeting---CAT PERSON by Seo Kim on my recommendation shelf---cat refuses to do tricks during ADVENTURE TIME meeting---cat who looks exactly like Kent Osborne's cat shows up in ADVENTURE TIME meeting---Chuck E. Cheese a proud sponsor of ADVENTURE TIME---cheered up by Pen and Kent during an ADVENTURE TIME meeting---coincidental resemblence between Coppola film TWIXT and "Root Beer Guy"---commenters have no idea how damn old I am---Cosmic Owl in context of ancient owl deities---Cosmic Owl spotted in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY---cross-cultural discussion of syrup in the writers' room---dancing to a playlist by Kate Tsang---dangerous ride on ice and snow undertaken during FIONNA AND CAKE meeting---Did Norman Mailer invent the Ice King?---DIRTY GRANDPA (film) brought up during ADVENTURE TIME meeting---DJ Slime is not the same as DJ Plop Drops---DON'T LOOK NOW allusion---during an ADVENTURE TIME meeting, Pen comments on my messy hair---earliest "blog" mention of ADVENTURE TIME---eating at the Smoke House with Adam and Kate---emailing Adam about DC comics character the Spectre---executives won't let Martin eat those little creatures who are helping him out---fate of my favorite bar revealed during ADVENTURE TIME meeting---feeding a fish during an ADVENTURE TIME meeting---final visit to the old Cartoon Network building---Finn sounds like a student of Pythagoras---flaunting an Emmy---Ford, Harrison and Martin Sheen; heights of discussed in ADVENTURE TIME meeting---Franzen, Jonathan; knows about my Emmy---Hanuman of Hindu lore somewhat reminiscent of Jake---going to the races with Pen---Grammer, Kelsey; sadly does not voice a giant mushroom---Hanna and I argue over Rory's best boyfriend---HEAVEN'S GATE allusion in ADVENTURE TIME explained---Hernandez, Gilbert; writes a Jerry Lewis reference into an episode, but it does not make it into the final cut---Herpich, Tom and Steve Wolfhard on oatmeal and Twitter---Herpich, Tom; drawing by evocative of Machen---Herpich, Tom; portrait of the author by---hiccups disappear during an ADVENTURE TIME meeting---holding a Peabody---home office tidied before Kent arrives for an ADVENTURE TIME meeting---Horton, Edward Everett; discussed in FIONNA AND CAKE meeting---I am presented with a machete in honor of my work on ADVENTURE TIME---I forget the title of THE BIG BANG THEORY during an ADVENTURE TIME meeting---I get all excited by the first CHEERS reference on ADVENTURE TIME---I see Cher at the hotel where I stay for ADVENTURE TIME meetings---I see Garry Marshall at the hotel where I stay for ADVENTURE TIME meetings---I see Vera Farmiga in the hotel where I stay for ADVENTURE TIME meetings---I try to draw Lady Rainicorn on an apron---idea for an unusual bread pudding prompts thoughts of Cinnamon Bun---I unsuccessfully suggest "Glucupricon" as an ADVENTURE TIME episode title---idea to have Jake punch a mountain vetoed---in the recording booth with Anne Heche---influence of Shmoo on ADVENTURE TIME---INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978 version) influences ADVENTURE TIME---Jake-shaped cheese ball---Jansson, Tove; works of often came up in writers' meetings---Kay Lenz, whose film BREEZY inspired the name of an ADVENTURE TIME character, comes onboard to play another ADVENTURE TIME character!---Kent eats a chicken sandwich during a meeting---Kent's role in a local stageplay inspires an Ooo-style cuss word in ADVENTURE TIME: ELEMENTS---Kid President (?) visits the ADVENTURE TIME writers' room---Kim, Seo; thinks up a snake---King of Ooo hunts his subjects for sport---lack of toilets at Versailles discussed during ADVENTURE TIME meeting---Lawless, Lucy; role on ADVENTURE TIME---Lizard Princess---local record store owner wants me to bring my ADVENTURE TIME Emmy to the store and perform as "DJ Emmy"---maudlin reflections upon the cancellation of ADVENTURE TIME---McHale, Patrick; spills red wine on my nice white shirt---McNeil watches ADVENTURE TIME on Christmas Eve---McNeil's advice on what to do after ADVENTURE TIME cancellation---meeting T-Bone Burnett at the Emmys---memorable summary of "The Great Birdman"---Moynihan, Jesse and Cole Sanchez give me a BREEZY poster---obscurest pop culture reference in ADVENTURE TIME---Muto, Adam; recommends a hat shop---Muto, Adam; uses the Jack Kirby comic OMAC as an example in a meeting---my father, a lifelong machinist, contributes to "We Fixed a Truck"---my job in the ADVENTURE TIME writers' room DUNE book club---office is closed for President's Day, so Kent and I go to see 50 SHADES OF GREY---Olson, Olivia; has to scream a lot for work even though she has a cold---on Twitter before an ADVENTURE TIME meeting---Osborne, Kent; caught in a photo with Taylor Swift!---Osborne, Kent; dresses up as Finn---Osborne, Kent; eats from the SAME BAG of Utz cheese balls during writers' meetings FOR YEARS!---Osborne, Kent; gets out his lightsaber---owl wears shirt that says "OWL" on it---OZARK MAGIC AND FOLKLORE (book by Vance Randolph) useful in writing an ADVENTURE TIME episode---pants falling down at the Emmys---passing mention of Spirit Dream Warrior---Pen and I are asked to envision a prequel to Willy Wonka---Pen and Kent visit Faulkner's house---Pen thinks Barry Lyndon farted---Plastic Man as spiritual forefather of Jake the Dog---Pott, Julia; reveals during a meeting that she was in a Burt Reynolds movie!---practicing saying "Wow" as Root Beer Guy---President's Day means nothing to Hanna K. Nystrom---Princess Bubblegum reads James Joyce to Finn and Jake (failed suggestion)---pyrographical portrait of Marceline by Emily Quinn---quoting Lady Rainicorn's mom---quoting Root Beer Guy---reading a book about magic before an ADVENTURE TIME meeting---rewatch of THE WIRE influences ADVENTURE TIME---Root Beer Guy goes on a sexy vacation---Sanchez, Cole; as Adventure Time's resident clothing expert---Sanchez, Cole; teaches me the word "subluxation"---Shawn, Wallace; farts on ADVENTURE TIME---signing posters at Wondercon---some background on "Root Beer Guy"---talking about trombones too much in a writers' meeting---tiny beatnik---trying and failing to get LADYHAWKE allusions into ADVENTURE TIME---trying to explain a comic book in a meeting---Tsang, Kate; makes two single cheeseburgers into one double cheeseburger---twice-as-long season is twice as much work---visiting GILMORE GIRLS set with Julia Pott after an ADVENTURE TIME meeting---Walch, Hynden; acting abilities of---Ward, Pendleton; draws Kent as "Galactus - Destroyer of Chickens"---Ward, Pendleton; rents a house with Cyclopes (yes, that's the plural of Cyclops) on the wallpaper---Ward, Pendleton; runs over a bottle---Ward, Pendleton; wants us all to dress as English peas to accept Peabody Award---watching ADVENTURE TIME with nephews---watching BARRY LYNDON with Pen---while locked out of my car, I find an ADVENTURE TIME-related coaster in my pocket---William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County mistaken for Ooo---winning an Emmy!---WINTER'S TALE (film) brought up in meeting---WIRE creator David Simon mocks Kent Osborne's difficulty with eating an egg---wolf dream and Dr. Doom discussed in meeting---Wolfhard, Steve and I sit next to Squidward in a bar---Wolfhard, Steve; creates hair apes---Wolfhard, Steve; inspired by Jamie Farr---working on STAKES---working on the Minecraft tie-in---writers' meeting sidetracked by David Lynch clips---writers' room produces DUNE book club---writing a poem in iambic pentameter for "Thanks for the Crabapples, Giuseppe"---writing lessons gleaned from ADVENTURE TIME meetings---Wynn, Ed; voice of inspires Choose Goose---Xayophone, Somvilay; plays Theremin during an ADVENTURE TIME meeting---Xayophone, Somvilay; wants a pizza with just mint on it. (JAKE THE DOG CHEESE BALL CREDIT: BLAIR HOBBS)

It's Back

Yes, yes, I'm always going on about owls and nobody knows why. Now that we have that settled, would you be surprised to learn that the 125th selection of the Million Dollar Book Club - SHAKESPEARE'S SISTERS by Ramie Targoff - has an owl in it? No, you would not. The diarist Anne Clifford - one of the eponymous, if figurative, sisters in question - writes "I may truly say I am like an owl in the desert." Longtime "blog" and/or Bible fans will recognize the psalm that she is only very slightly paraphrasing. Why, we've seen it quoted in so many books, including THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY. So many books we've lost count! Well, two or three. Four, counting the Bible. And who wouldn't count the Bible? You? Don't make me laugh.

Not Cool, Medea!

I was giving 3 to 2 odds that there would be an owl in this book of Seneca's plays. You should've taken me up on it! So Medea is whipping up a poisonous stew and she adds, in the words of Emily Wilson's translation, "the heart of a melancholy eagle-owl." Then she does something with a screech owl I can't even tell you about. It's just too awful. That's no way to act! This reminded me of something, which turned out to be John Aubrey's paraphrase of Ovid, in which Medea tosses "the screech owl's flesh and its ill-boding wings" into her bubbling (one assumes) pot. And THAT made me want to look up the passage in my own edition of Ovid, translated by Rolfe Humphries, who gives us "a hoot-owl's wings and flesh." Then he adds "a werewolf's entrails," so that's really something. But that's not the point! As much as we all love the entrails of werewolves, the point, as any longtime "blog" reader - there are none - will know, is that hooting and screeching are two different things. So which is it? Are we to believe John Aubrey or Rolfe Humphries? I'd have to learn Latin to find out. And, as established here previously, by implication, that's not going to happen. Even though Dr. Theresa took four semesters of it as an undergraduate! None of it rubbed off. Well, I had my chance to learn things when I was young. But I was too busy watching GRAPE APE.

Incurious

Well, there's this series of books I don't really like that much. I guess the first one was okay, but as I think back, it was just sort of a novelty, maybe. And the second one I didn't enjoy at all. This hit me recently when I saw a new hardcover in Square Books the other day, a third book in the series, hot off the presses... and friends, I bought it! Why? It may have something to do with a problem in my brain. Oh boy, I've thought of a few more points to touch upon before we get to the gist, if there is one, which there almost certainly is not. Yes there is. But no one will like it. I recommended the first book in the series to Dr. Theresa recently when she was looking for something to read in bed. It was only some days later, when I saw the third in the series at Square Books, that I truly considered whether or not I had actually "enjoyed" the first... which I had, up to a point. But enough to recommend it to Dr. Theresa - a person to whom I have made sacred vows - to read in bed? Well, it was too late! It was already happening! Something else you may not be wondering... Jack, you may not be wondering, isn't it very seldom that you "post" something negative... admitting that you don't like a book, for example? Aren't you afraid of hurting the author's feelings? Well, I'll tell you. No. Because I know you! And you don't exist! And even if you do exist, which you don't, you never "click" on my "hyperlinks," so you will never, ever know what books I am talking about. I know what you're thinking! You're thinking, okay, this third book - which you bought for full price in hardcover - in a series you don't care for: does it have an owl in it? You bet your ass it does! It's a stuffed owl with "incurious glass eyes." I am sure you will recall the "cheap glass eye" an owl has in a John D. MacDonald novel. Or if you want to get fancy, you can think of a stuffed owl whose glass eyes are "knowing topazes" in a fancy Italian novel... or James Joyce, whose stuffed owl has a "clear melancholy wise bright motionless compassionate gaze." One day we'll have to write a monograph on approaches to owl eyes in literature. Apparently, there are two. Oh, and the owl in my current book is just one of a series of unfortunate stuffed creatures with "incurious glass eyes"... to quote: "Crows, foxes, rabbits, owls, just about every form of wildlife." Oh, really? Was there a walrus? A walrus with incurious glass eyes? Come on!

Passing Through

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

The Rose/Wexler Ratio

I just finished reading JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS. What, you thought I wouldn't crow and bellow about it in a boastful manner? Just think back on how I strutted around after THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY. And there are 1.5 Anatomies in 1 Joseph, or as we call it around here, "The Rose/Wexler Ratio." (The studious and scholarly may "click" here for more information about the origins of that useful term. You non-"clicking" bastards!) My first thought, of course, is that JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS ends exactly like WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING, an allusion that Kent Osborne will get if he ever stumbles across this "post." The rest of you will have to read all 1492 pages of JOSEPH and then watch the Sandra Bullock vehicle in question before enlightenment may occur. Next I'll say that it is almost impossible to believe that one person could be responsible for two such towering works of imagination as the novel under consideration and THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN. I'll put it mildly, as I am not exactly allowed, living in the unnamed town where I do, to express the secret thought rattling in my brain, but... let's just say Thomas Mann gives William Faulkner a run for his money. I've already said too much. All my blabbing about Thomas Mann during the course of this journey, as I guess I'm calling it - sorry! -, has had unintended consequences. For example, Tom Franklin dug out his old, presumably yellowed, copy of THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN, read a few pages, and said (I think this is an exact quotation), "Jack likes THIS?" I'm glad it happened! And I'll tell you why. It allows me to reiterate a couple of interesting points. 1. You can't just dig out your old paperback! You have to spring for the John E. Woods translations (assuming you are reading either book in English). 2. You have to give THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN 100 pages of grace. Just trust it for 100 pages! Do I have to remind you of what Keats said? I'd insist that you "click" here to find out, but who are we kidding? How I hate you! End of interesting points. For the moment! Bill Boyle told me that Annie Baker, a playwright we both admire, in turn admires Thomas Mann, particularly in the Woods translations, I believe. An inside source, drawing from the private content of an encounter at a party, revealed to me that a certain famous author (we'll call them "Famous Author") personally confided in my source that they (Famous Author) enjoyed every Thomas Mann novel EXCEPT for JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS!!! One may only assume that Famous Author did not heed my variation on point #2 above, which is that the latter novel requires anywhere from 200-400 warm-up pages before really kicking in. Let me also state that Famous Author famously and authorially ragged on the state of Mississippi (where I dwell) as containing not even one single inhabitant capable of reading a book. Before I left social media like a true hero of our age, I responded indignantly to Famous Author's assertion, having perused an old comic book starring the giant, dimwitted duck Baby Huey on the very day of Famous Author's proclamation. Though my brave social media statement regarding Baby Huey has been lost in the bog of dead and dying tweets, as they were formerly called, it gives me no small pleasure to know that as an illiterate Mississippian with drool rolling down my face, I was yet capable of gleaning more than Famous Author from the inestimable trove of JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS. In a final incident worthy of consideration, Mary Miller informed me with some excitement that Lee Durkee was reading and enjoying THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN. I was so thrilled to have someone with whom to talk about it! So I hopped on my phone like a happy teen and texted Lee at once, whereupon he issued, just as swiftly, a strongly worded denial. It turns out that Mary was confusing Lee with... me. I was the one who had told her about THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN. With this charming anecdote I lay the entire matter to rest, just like the Biblical patriach Jacob at the end of JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS. Spoiler alert!

My Problems

Let me tell you about my problems. I went to visit my parents. That's not a problem! But practically as I was walking out the door, I realized I had not brought a book to read. Now, I didn't want to bring this Lydia Davis book, because I was almost finished with it, and I didn't want to finish it down there on the Gulf Coast and be sitting around with nothing to read. Nor did I wish to bring the next entry in the 2-person book club, because it is a real whopper, almost exactly as long as the unabridged ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY. So I kind of glanced along a shelf in my home office and saw a brittle, used Travis McGee mass-market paperback I purchased for money in 2014 but never read because even Ace Atkins, the world's biggest Travis McGee fan, had described it to me in what I took to be unflattering terms. And I have a lot of misgivings about Travis McGee to begin with! But somehow it seemed like the perfect thing to take on my trip. So a character in the book describes herself in the following manner: "I look like a big goggly owl." I respect you enough not to belabor the reasons why this is important to the "blog." Furthermore, the character once again confirms Ace's observation that Travis McGee's author especially likes women who are also powerful storybook giants. The description of her devouring an enormous picnic lunch lies somewhere between Rabelais and Lovecraft. As we have seen in the past, Travis McGee fears being eaten by women, though I have never thought to reconcile it with his sexual appreciation of hungry giants.

How's the Owl Today

A long time ago, probably in a meeting for ADVENTURE TIME: DISTANT LANDS, Adam mentioned the movie WINTER'S TALE (not to be confused with the Shakespeare play with a very similar title)... I believe that all Adam said by way of assessment was (and this may not be an exact quotation) "It's a weird movie." I couldn't tell if he meant it in a good way, a bad way, or was just stating a fact. But that movie has been in the back of my head for some time. I believe I remarked to Adam that my friend Caroline was wild about the novel upon which the movie was based. I seem to recall that she read it more than once. Again, the facts may not back me up on that. It's just what I have sitting here in my brain. So I watched a little bit of it last night. For reasons unknown, I was like, "It's time!" I got distracted for about two seconds and I looked up and Colin Farrell had made friends with a magic horse? I was like... "What did I miss?" But the main thing I wanted to say is that Russell Crowe goes to a restaurant and orders a pan-fried owl. Now, I can't add WINTER'S TALE to my long list of books with owls in them, because I don't know whether anyone orders an owl for dinner in the book or if it was just a whimsy of the screenwriter. Let me emphasize that the restaurant in the movie did not serve owl, which fact led Russell Crowe to murder the waiter, as one does. So, it's a universe where you can make friends with a magic horse, but you can't go to a restaurant for a nice plate of owl. Such reflections reminded me of the books I have read in which owls are eaten by people... COMING INTO THE COUNTRY by John McPhee and THE WOMAN WARRIOR by Maxine Hong Kingston. I reflected, further, on the use of owl eggs as folk medicine, as reported by Burton in his ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY... a practice which apparently spread to the new world ("click" for details), if it wasn't here already. Maybe I've read other books in which owls or owl eggs are consumed, but I can't remember them right now (see the subject of my failing mind, above), and the whole subject appalls me, frankly. I'm sorry I brought it up. This is why I don't "blog" anymore. PS Here is a sobering postcript indeed. As I was meaninglessly searching for the hyperlinks with which to festoon this surely unread "post," a passing mention led me to recall that my second book, YOUR BODY IS CHANGING, features a political banquet at which owl is served. Weirdly, I was trying to remember the title of that particular short story last night (I still can't remember it), for what I believed were unrelated reasons. I guess my brain was trying to tell me something. Nice try, brain!

The Third Owl

Well, there have been two more owls in ULYSSES. I don't need to remind YOU that it's not my responsibility to tell you EVERY time an owl appears in a book, but the third owl is unusual enough to warrant comment, plus it is an actual owl, not - like the first two - a figurative one. It sits on the mantelpiece of Mr. Bloom, "an embalmed owl, matrimonial gift of Alderman John Hooper" with a "clear melancholy wise bright motionless compassionate gaze."

We'll Meet Again

Well I just went to Los Angeles on my final ADVENTURE TIME trip. And though my jottings in my precious book of jottings in which I jot whenever I go on a trip have decreased as my "blog" dwindles into the oblivion it so richly deserves, I feel one last round of thorough jotting transcription is in order on such a melancholy occasion. So let's see what I jotted. The plane landed! I made it to Cartoon Network in Burbank just in time for a meeting. I leapt out of the cab, tripped over my own suitcase and landed brutally upon my knees. "This trip is starting out well!" I probably mused sardonically with my famed sardonicism. I had to use the Cartoon Network first aid kit, which was top notch. Now! I always like to buy a big bottle of seltzer at the grocery store across the street to have in my hotel room, as future biographers will be interested to note. So, once safely in my room, or so I thought, I opened my seltzer bottle to have my ceremonial first sip and seltzer went everywhere! It went on important stuff that shouldn't get seltzer on it. I was beginning to think the trip was cursed, and I was already bummed out because of its elegiac nature. Also, Adam Muto had STIRRED HIS COFFEE WITH A KNIFE during lunch that day! I had a roommate from Wisconsin a long time ago, and once when I stirred with a knife he said, "Stir with a knife, stir up strife!" I had never heard such a thing. But I immediately added it to my catalog of superstitions. So I was inclined to blame Adam for the ill-augured nature of the trip, though Kent reminded me that I fell down and scraped my knees BEFORE Adam stirred his coffee with a knife. I'm not sure that matters! The next morning I woke up with a piece of grit or something in my eye. My eye was swollen and red and the lid was drooping down and the corner of that eye emitted a constant stream of ugly tears. "Well, I can't go anywhere. I guess I will sit in the hotel room and clean out my wallet." Such was the content of my thoughts. "I guess this is how I am spending my last ADVENTURE TIME trip." I threw away a big pile of scrap paper from my wallet, keeping just three things: 1. My ticket stub from when Kent and I went to see 50 SHADES OF GREY. 2. Something funny I wrote down that Bill Boyle said when he was drunk. 3. My visitor's pass from when Julia and I secretly skulked around the GILMORE GIRLS set while they were shooting. Then came a knock at the door. It was Steve Wolfhard bringing me eyedrops! What a pal. Steve's thoughtful gesture allowed me to leave for a meeting I had in Beverly Hills with some degree of confidence. My eye was still bothering me a little when I sat down to a fancy lunch in fancy Beverly Hills. (This was not a lunch meeting; the meeting came later. I was alone.) I ordered a bitters and soda and when I squeezed a lime wedge into it, the lime juice squirted into my "good" eye, for I was wearing my glasses atop my head as I am prone to do. The curse had not yet lifted, I felt, despite Steve's kind gesture. (Oh yes, that reminds me, Steve and I were staying at the same hotel, the one where the guy who plays Squidward always hangs out in the lobby. One evening I came down to the lobby to find Steve sitting right next to Squidward on a banquette, entirely unawares! So I wrote Steve this important note in my ever-present jotting book.)

For my Beverly Hills lunch I had a salad of poached shrimp. There were some hearts of palm in there and some special, hairy radishes. The couple at the end of the bar ordered the same. What a piece of work these two were! First the salad didn't have the kind of hearts of palm they like. Then there weren't enough. They decided they wanted a whole bowl of hearts of palm so they could distribute them throughout the salad in their own inimitable way. But not that kind. They wanted them chopped into a different shape. Then the dressing was too sweet and there wasn't enough of it. And so on. They sent their plates back like six times. Beverly Hills! Well, I liked my salad so much I decided I was going to come back to this place for dinner after my meeting. There would be a whole different dinner menu upstairs! And so I did. That night, the guy seated at the table next to me, very close, asked if he were disturbing me by using a little light to look at the menu. I said not at all! I told him that I had used my candle for the same purpose and had burned my hand, in keeping with my cursed journey. Then I said, "Pardon me, are you an actor?" And he said yes. And I said - and I said it in exactly this peculiar and formal way - "Are you, in fact, Timothy Dalton?" And he said yes. So in a minute I got up and went to the spacious and lavishly appointed Beverly Hills men's room and called Ace Atkins (rudely forgetting the time difference) and told him I was sitting next to a James Bond, because I knew he'd want to know at once. Ace is a James Bond expert! Oh! I forgot to tell you. Flashback to an hour earlier! While I was waiting downstairs for the restaurant upstairs to open for dinner, I sat at the bar where I had enjoyed my luncheon of poached shrimp and watched a 70-year-old French woman (she herself mentioned her age) being - I am almost certain - flattered and cozened by a down-at-the-heels gigolo! Beverly Hills USA! Well, I felt heartened after my encounter with Timothy Dalton. I felt that he had lifted the curse! And so he had.

Why, the very next night I met Lyle Partridge and Steve and Pen and Sam Alden and Ryan Pequin (of THE REGULAR SHOW) at the Club Tee Gee, a dive with glitter on the ceiling, where I played a bunch of Kelly Hogan songs on the jukebox and Ryan took this picture of Lyle and me!

Lyle drew a lot of great pictures on Post-It notes so now I have those in my wallet with that other stuff I mentioned earlier. At one point I told the story of the time I got lost in the North Georgia woods and

Lyle drew this depiction, the accuracy of which you will appreciate if you go back and read the story. Sam was describing what he called the "hubristic death" of one of his eccentric ancestors and I ask idly if he also happened to be related to John Alden. And he is! He is the direct descendent of John and Priscilla Alden, one of the greatest love stories in American history! Boy was my mom excited when I called her from the airport the next day and told her. "Speak for yourself, John," Mom said, quoting Priscilla, and then demanded a picture of Sam so she could look at him. Okay! "It's no big deal, they had thirteen children," Sam said, implying that half the people in the room were probably the descendants of John and Priscilla Alden, I guess. We all loaded up and went to a party that Kent was throwing for all your favorite ADVENTURE TIME writers and artists, past and present. I sat on the floor next to Ako Castuera and we sang a bunch of songs associated with David Lynch movies.

We sang "Blue Velvet" and "I Told Every Little Star" and "In Dreams." We sang these songs at the top of our lungs half-recumbent on the floor on some sort of shaggy pillow in the middle of the room while people were trying to do other stuff and get on with their lives. On Kent's balcony, we sang "We'll Meet Again" not once but twice at widely separated key moments. Not a David Lynch song but a sentimental choice for the occasion. You know what? I'm leaving a lot of stuff out. A LOT! I feel rushed and weird in my gut because I have my last ADVENTURE TIME meeting in a couple of hours. And I'm not "blogging" anymore, anyway, as you can see. No, but really, I have twice as many pages of jottings that I didn't even get to. But everything has to end, even ADVENTURE TIME, even jottings, even parties. The day after the party Pen brought Kent a bag of fried chicken to cure his headache and I rode along. You know how Kent loves his chicken, ha ha ha! What a life. It had been raining and the sign on Kent's gate was smeared and wistful.

Pen and I had been eating at a shawarma place and noticed a tray of unexpected fried chicken glowing in a golden, almost holy light in the kitchen. It seemed like a sign! A sign for Kent. You don't believe me about this glowing chicken but I'll show you if Pen will send the photo he was compelled to take by the majesty of this glowing chicken of which I speak. [And he just did! - ed.]

Jennifer Lawrence Admires a Conch

I guess you think I "blogged" an awful lot in May for somebody who stopped "blogging" in April. Shows how much you know! There was so much stuff I didn't "blog" about in May! You wouldn't even believe it. Here is some of it. 1. Stopped by Square Books and bought a notebook. Katelyn said, "Don't you like ______?" (She named another brand.) I said I found the binding inferior. "You should write a letter to the company!" said Katelyn. "I love writing letters to companies." I asked her, "What are you, a ninety-year-old man at heart?" "She does it after she eats her liver and onions," said Slade. Katelyn guilelessly confirmed that she loves liver and onions and wishes she knew how to cook it for herself. 2. Ace wasn't in his office, where I was supposed to meet him, so I sat in the anteroom (?) and looked at a magazine with this caption on the cover: "With a team of wildlife experts, Uma Thurman moves a white rhino threatened by poachers to safety." But you don't see any wildlife experts; you just see Uma Thurman hugging a rhinoceros's head. I like how scrupulous they are not to give us the false impression that Uma Thurman was out there wrangling rhinos by herself. 3. I started reading the new Don DeLillo novel, which is about cryogenics, I guess. That made me recall all of a sudden that McNeil and I tried writing a screenplay called BLUE PERIOD back when we were in our twenties. The plot was that two guys (?) got trapped in an industrial walk-in freezer and told each other stories while they waited and hoped for help to arrive. One story was about a war with Antarctica, maybe? All the stories were about being cold. I remember that McNeil invented a weapon called the ICBM (Icy Cold Banana Malted instead of Intercontinental Ballistic Missile). Another story was about a scam artist with a cryogenics lab. He froze celebrities and thawed them out on a desert island, where they were forced to act in a movie he had written. That's all I remember about the screenplay. McNeil, confirming that such an attempted screenplay existed, said it featured a character named Dean running for office with the slogan "Dean Is Clean." 4. I met with Julia via computer monitor. I thought she said, "You look great!" She actually said, "You look gray!" 5. My doctor's waiting room suddenly has all of Richard Howorth's old NEW YORKER magazines in it - with his home address on the mailing labels and everything! 6. Dr. Theresa went to lunch at Handy Andy and I had pangs of jealousy, traces of which I allowed to cross my face. I had been craving Handy Andy, having recently written about it for publication (details forthcoming, surely, though I am not "blogging" anymore): I feared I had misremembered the condiments with which the Handy Andy double cheeseburger is dressed! Fact checking! Dr. Theresa even offered to bring me one home to examine and consume, but then we remembered that I had a doctor's appointment shortly (different doctor; never mind why I have so many doctors!) and a double cheeseburger might not sit well at a doctor's appointment. 7. This other doctor had more standard waiting room fare: in PEOPLE I read about how Tennille of The Captain and Tennille was embarrassed by a damaged finger she suffered in a wheelbarrow accident as a child. That's why she always turned down movie offers! Meanwhile, "The Captain" wore his famous captain's hat even to bed, humiliated by a failed hair transplant. They struck me as... tragic? "Jennifer Lawrence admires a conch" was a phrase I read in US magazine. 8. In an ADVENTURE TIME meeting I was trying to say the title of the TV show THE BIG BANG THEORY but I accidentally said "8 1/2 MEN." Sadly, I was not trying to be esoteric or funny. My brain had simply fizzled out and died. A good laugh was had by most. 9. We drove past Tom Franklin's place and there was a chicken pecking in his yard. I don't think he owns chickens! (See also.) This was a fluffy chicken with black feathers, salted with white. 10. I realized that I didn't give you a truly complete picture of everything I learned from THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY. I kept a bunch of it off the "blog" and crammed it instead into a novel that will probably never be published, but here's the epigraph, anyway: "Bees indeed make neat and curious works, and many other creatures besides; but when they have done, they cannot judge of them." 11. McNeil's apple tree (below) is producing again. 12. Megan Abbott and I emailed back and forth about what Lady MacBeth meant by "spirits that tend on mortal thoughts" and I sent her a chapter about demonology in Shakespeare from some old book. Only afterward did I realize that the old book was by T.F. Thistelton Dyer, who provided the epigraph for my new book of short stories MOVIE STARS! Yes, that is just one more example of the meaningless junk I didn't "blog" about this month. "Posting" this a week early I do hereby vanquish May's tyranny over my troubled and searching mind.

McNeil Log

In what may be a perverse secret campaign to keep me "blogging" against my wishes, McNeil sends the following email: "If you die before me, and if there is a viewing, I'm going to act like your tie needs straightening. When I pull my hands out I'll snap a ten dollar bill by the ends, hold it up to the light, then fold it up, put it in the pocket of my swimming trunks, put my hand against my side in a defining gesture and exit." I like how he saves the swimming trunks detail, and the casual way in which it is revealed. He adds, "You know who else does that gesture a lot? Major Healey!" And as soon as I read it, I could picture Roger Healey with his hand in just that position. But does that make it true? I have always intended to keep a log of McNeil's activities, even in the absence of the "blog."

Final note: McNeil and I have spent our whole lives spelling it "Healy," but according to imdb it's "Healey." Also: I just remembered something else from THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY. Burton talks about something you're compelled to do "will or nill," meaning whether you want to or not. And I wondered whether the roots of the adverb "willy-nilly" lie in that phrase. It makes a kind of sense! But I don't care enough to look it up.

"Blog"trospective 18: The Anatomy of Melancholy

As promised, though I have "stopped 'blogging,'" I have returned to you just long enough to boast about finishing all 977 pages of THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY. That includes the first appendix, "The Conclusion of the Author to the Reader" (reworked by Burton for his introduction and left out of most subsequent editions), but not the second appendix, in which Burton's birthdate is deduced through astrological data. It only took me something like a year. I won't rehash my many excuses, no, I won't say how big and bulky the 1927 edition is and how I couldn't carry it on airplanes. I won't point out the good, long run I had of reading it before I was interrupted. But - before we get to the main body of this, the final "blog"trospective, I will tell you what I learned from THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY since the last time I saw you. 1. Compared to Blind Alfred Reed, Robert Burton is kind of progressive. He (Burton) gives us (as is his wont) several pages of quotations from ancient scholars enumerating what is supposedly wrong with women. But then he has to admit, "And that which I have said (to speak truth) no more concerns them than men, though women be more frequently named in this Tract; (to apologize once for all) I am neither partial against them, or therefore bitter... If any man take exception at my words, let him alter the name, read him for her, and 'tis all one in effect." 2. "Eating the egg of a night-owl causeth abstemiousness, according to Iarcha the Indian gymnosophist." Burton is speaking of sexual or romantic abstemiousness, though the idea that an owl's egg can cure alcoholism somehow made it to the United States, as reported previously on the "blog." Another of the "absurd remedies" for love mentioned by Burton is the wearing of "Characteristical Images," such as "the seal of a woman with disheveled hair." 3. "Gentle youths" are advised to "Let not the Doves outpass your murmurings... or oyster kissings," which would seem to imply that oysters are good kissers, as good at kissing as doves are at murmuring. I did very little research into the matter. We all know that oysters are supposed to be an aphrodisiac, so why shouldn't they be good kissers? I also recall that prostitutes were called "oysters" and "monkeys" in Burton's time, and though I doubt that's what is meant here, it does make me realize I took at least one of Burton's allusions to monkeys too literally. 4. After one victory, Caesar's soldiers sang a song that went, "Citizens, look to your wives, we bring you a bald adulterer." Gee, what a nice song. I learned of it in Burton's section on the sexual prowess of bald men (pictured). 5. Speaking of which, I learned the word "cornute," which, had I thought about it for a second, I would have known meant to put the horns on, or cuckold, but I didn't think at all, no, I just looked it up in my old dictionary. 6. Lots more owls in these final pages. At least half a dozen. In the passage urging young women not to marry old men, Burton tells how Sophocles, "a very old man, as cold as January, a bed-fellow of bones... doted yet upon Archippe a young Courtesan" and quotes an old poem: "Night-crows on tombs, owl sits on carcass dead,/ So lies a wench with Sophocles in bed." Ha ha, take that, Sophocles! 7. "As a dam of water stopped in one place breaks out into another, so doth superstition." This seems to anticipate Freud! Does it? I don't know. I think of Dr. Theresa's favorite phrase, "the return of the repressed." 8. He calls the goddess Venus "as common as a barber's chair." Was that a familiar insult at the time? Anyway, it's kind of snappy, if rude. 9. Burton says that people can be obsessive on one subject but otherwise fully functional: "they are like comets, round in all places but only where they blaze." A nice phrase! 10. Well, Burton has thought a lot about religious tolerance and I can't say he's for it. He does think burning people at the stake might be a little extreme, sometimes: "We have frequently such Prophets and dreamers amongst us, whom we persecute with fire... I think the most compendious cure for some of them at least, had been in Bedlam. But enough of this." 12. Yet at the same time he doesn't care for hellfire preachers, "nothing but gall and horror, and a mad noise, they make all their auditors desperate, many are wounded by this means, and they commonly that are most devout and precise." 13. "A Tuscan Sooth-sayer, as Paterculus tells the story, perceiving himself and Fulvius Flaccus his dear friend, now both carried to prison by Opimius, and in despair of pardon, seeing the young man weep, said, do as I do; and with that knockt out his brains against the door-cheek, as he was entering into Prison, and so desperately died." Well, that's a terrible story, sorry! But I can't help liking the phrase "knockt out his brains against the door-cheek." It's vivid! 14. Here's Burton's version of that Bible verse I like: "I am like a Pelican in the wilderness, an Owl because of thine indignation." Ha ha! No, I don't know why that's funny. 15. "... the more they search and read Scriptures, or divine Treatises, the more they puzzle themselves, as a bird in a net, the more they are intangled and precipitated into this preposterous gulf." I know how they feel! 16. I learned the word "Mormoluches," which seems to mean "hobgoblins." And now take my arm as we stroll through THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY as summarized previously on this "blog": against vainglory---aliens (two green children who fell from Heaven)---alkermes---Aquinas beats a talking brass man to pieces with a hammer (1927 footnote)---architectural talent of bees, the---Artemidorus the Grammarian loses his wits by the unexpected sight of a crocodile---bats and owls hover in melancholy darkness over a shady bower---Burton critical of, yet defiant about, his own work---company of young men and maids cursed to sing for a year without stopping---compares the profession of a physician unfavorably to that of a hangman---contains numerous owls---cucubuth---cultivating a taste for exquisite sauces is an impediment to happiness---Cupid and Death exchange arrows---delusion of live frogs in belly---dizzards---emperor who was bad at kissing, the---February a peak time for werewolves---fairies walk about in little coats---fairybabes of tombs and graves---fiery urine---glucupicron---invention of the ball---led (by a 1927 footnote to Burton) to Godwin's LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS---man gets gas from a concoction meant to increase his libido, a---man with a fear of peeing cured by being told the town is on fire, a---mice sleeping under the snow, as fat as butter---parable of a mule and an ass---people cured of various ailments by falling on their heads---pickitivant---Pied Piper story presented as fact, the---possible roots of "willy-nilly"---trees fall in love. In closing I ask you to recall the previous seventeen "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 Osborne Eating Chicken. 13. What Happened When Megan Abbott Lived In Oxford, Mississippi. 14. Graveyards. 15. Feeding a Possum. 16. The Twentieth Century. 17. Stuff I Left Out of the Book I Wrote About Cigarette Lighters. If you "click" on them all, and then "click" on every "link" within them, and every "link" within every "link," you will have discovered my own anatomy of my own melancholy. "The world shall end like a Comedy, and we shall meet at last in Heaven, and live in bliss together; or else in conclusion, fade away into nothing." Okay, so long, see you on McNeil's birthday.