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.

Now I Have Nothing

You know I don't "blog" anymore, and now I have quit social media, so I have nothing. (You may "click" on this heart-tugging letter in the unlikely event you have questions or concerns. It won't help!) Still, once in a while you get something you have to put somewhere. McNeil writes: "You know how I said I was catching up on movies I missed from way back. Well one of them is the extremely mediocre THE WOMAN IN RED. So I caught this scene when Gene Wilder comes home with a load of 'work' his boss gives him. I think he is supposed to work at a PR agency and they are doing something with a trolley line." McNeil is incredulously delighted to recognize (see photo, above) the "Globe Illustrated Shakespeare" as part of the workload Gene Wilder's boss has sent home with him - in McNeil's description, "a giant red book that used to be on every bargain table in the 80s. An uncle gave it to me for xmas one year and I still have it." My grandmother gave me one as well, McNeil! It's around here somewhere. I will email you in a moment so we can discuss whether the scarlet volume, conspicuous in its rich burden, bears thematic relevance to the eponymous figure. [Editor's note: The predicted correspondence with McNeil indeed occurred. The author was given to understand that the load of "work" was in fact a ruse concocted by Wilder's character; therefore, the ludicrous use of Shakespeare was the character's, and not an error by the prop department or the director, who was Wilder himself. McNeil speculates that another item in the armful may be the script of the film itself, which, if it could be proven, would rocket the enterprise into unexpectedly mystical or existential territory.]

Buckle Up

Dipped into WAGNERISM by Alex Ross again. I arrived at this promising sentence: "It was the age of esotericism, occultism, Satanism, Spiritism, Theosophy, Swedenborgism, Mesmerism, Martinism, and Kabbalism." It was at the beginning of a section! When a section starts like that, you just buckle up for a roller coaster ride.

Nightttown

Much in the manner that James Joyce wanted scholars to pore over his works for entire lifetimes, I am going to spend the weeks and months to come trying to figure out this joke book that Ace Atkins gave me. It is reputedly by Milton Berle, though I suspect he had some help, if you want to call it help. I'm not sure some of these things are jokes! I know it is a joke book because right at the top there it says "Milton Berle's Joke Book." But - and this is a matter for further study, I'll have to get back to you - it seems to aspire to a narrative structure, which seems uncalled for. One section is just Milton Berle imagining what other people famous at the time might say in apparently nonexistent movies that he seems to be creating in his febrile head. (Parenthetically, I will digress: more accurately, upon further scrutiny, the section purports to be made up of movie scripts that a talking elephant named Klinemine Klinemine is reading at the library. You can see why I'm going to need to spend some time with the text.) I will quote one example in full. "BETTY HUTTON (after a quarrel): Leave this house. I never want to see you again. Go this instant. BING CROSBY: I have one last request to make before I go. BETTY (sweetly, oh, very sweetly): Well, what is it? BING (brutally): Before I leave forever, would you mind getting off my lap?" Now if that isn't straight out of the Circe section of ULYSSES, what is? Maybe it's the "sweetly, oh, very sweetly" that sounds Joycean. And the "Klinemine Klinemine" of course: pure multilingual punning and mystical doubling in the tradition of FINNEGANS WAKE. Well! But is it a joke? The Bing Crosby thing, I mean? I don't see how. Why Betty Hutton's sudden change of mood, for example? Are we to take it that her instigating rage was disingenuous? Why? And wouldn't the "joke," such as it is, work better on the radio, assuming it could work at all? In what way could it be convincingly filmed? I feel strongly that Milton Berle isn't providing enough context. In the pure terms of the joke as a platonic object, what's the setup? Are we supposed to believe that Milton Berle is that experimental, or that the elephant with whom he has made friends for the purposes of the plot is that experimental, or, to be as accurate as possible, that the elephant who is friends with Milton Berle goes to the library and seeks out movie scripts that seem to have been cut up and pasted back together by William S. Burroughs, so devoid of traditional structure as to verge on the abstract? On the next page there's a joke about zoo sex, I guess it's all right. I know I'm not "blogging" anymore but I need somewhere to thoroughly analyze this book, which I would truly believe was produced in a lab by a crude form of artificial intelligence if it weren't so old. (PS I didn't realize it was Bloomsday until after I first "posted" this! Dear me, how precocious I am. It's a real freaking shame I don't "blog" anymore.)

Owls and Aliens and Snakes and Stuff

Adam sent me some comic books in the mail! So I was happy. One of these characters goes underwater and has a vision, and I thought, "Are those owls?" But whatever he was seeing, their heads looked rounder than I thought an owl's heads should look. But then I closed my eyes and pictured some owls, and sure, I could think of some owls that have round heads. In fact, I was 99.9% sure that this guy was underwater having a vision of some owls. But .1% of me was like, "What if they're supposed to be pigeons?" But I was going to go ahead and say that this book has owls in it anyway, and put it on my widely celebrated list of books with owls in them. And let me stress that the problem was mine, not the artist's! Plus I was like, "Pigeons can't be in a mystical vision!" Why was I shaming pigeons? Aren't they kinda like doves? And doves are in mystical visions all the time!

My sliver of lingering doubt was laid aside when I came to this panel a few pages later, and it is why I can report with 100% confidence that DUNGEON MASTER: BOOK ONE by Joe Daly has owls in it. Looking back in the morning light, I can totally see that they are owls, I mean, it's not even a question! You can tell by the way they're standing! I guess the problem is I don't trust my own eyes. Another reason I should have known they were owls is that I was vaguely reminded of an illustration from Emile Grillot de Givry's anthology. None of this is your problem!

Jerry 101

I just heard that Jerry Lewis passed away. Dr. Theresa and my pal Phil Oppenheim alerted me simultaneously. I feel terrible! I am going to try to update an old "post" that had ninety introductions to Jerry Lewis for the curious. I am going to try to find eleven things to add so I can call it "Jerry 101." [As a work meeting was coming up as this "post" was being typed, several, though not all, of the hastily retrieved final additions may be of a lesser quality. - ed.] 1. How is Edgar Allan Poe like Jerry Lewis? 2. For that matter, what would Kierkegaard say about Jerry Lewis? 3. Bob Dylan got "deeply into" Jerry Lewis. 4. Jerry was a hero to Richard Pryor. 5. Jerry shares expressionistic instincts with iconic rappers. 6. He made Orson Welles laugh. 7. Freudian aspects of Jerry. 8. He played a gig with Thelonious Monk. 9. A trusted method of immersing yourself in Jerryness. 10. Don't believe me? Take it from bestselling novelist Laura Lippman! 11. Don't believe Laura Lippman? Perhaps famed method actor Edward Norton is more to your taste. [See also - ed.] 12. Consider Jerry Lewis as the forefather of David Lynch. 13. So can it be a coincidence that Lynch was cast in a part originally written for Jerry Lewis? (See also.) 14. As muse to hardboiled Don Carpenter. 15. Jerry's spectacular use of color. 16. Jerry is the inventor of anti-comedy, his aesthetic also appropriated by the cinematic underground. 17. Read the great Jerry monograph by Chris Fujiwara. 18. Jerry a hero to Michael Palin of the Monty Python comedy troupe. 19. Jerry an inspiration for the British version of THE OFFICE that everyone used to love so much. 20. Jerry makes me think of the French painter Henri Rosseau. 21. Do you think Jerry is redundant? No, he is "unfolding redundancy." Joke's on you! 22. Do you like Godard? Well, Godard based some of his scenes on Jerry Lewis scenes. Like this and that. 23. Some maintain that 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY would have been better with Jerry in it. 24. Speaking of which, was Jerry an influence on Boorman's groundbreaking POINT BLANK? I don't know, but he should have starred in it. 25. How about that prescient scene in THE BELLBOY that anticipates Scorsese's THE KING OF COMEDY? Or the possibly relevant fact that Jerry directed parts of THE KING OF COMEDY? 26. The Cinderfella dance! 27. Jerry frequently appears in THE BELIEVER magazine, if that's your cup of tea. 28. I intuit a connection between Jerry and J.D. Salinger. 29. And supposedly Salinger considered Jerry to direct the movie version of CATCHER IN THE RYE, maybe. I said maybe! 30. Jerry's influence on GOODFELLAS. 31. Jerry Lewis is part of Philip K. Dick's mystic vision of the entire universe. 32. You should watch lots of Jerry Lewis so you can practice the fun habit of saying things like Jerry Lewis. 33. Even nature itself aspires to sound like Jerry Lewis. 34. Jerry Lewis is a good singer. 35. Maybe you identify with Jerry's world-weary attitude. 36. He hung out in a diner with Marilyn Monroe. 37. Blair Hobbs detects an aesthetic kinship between Jerry and the photographer William Eggleston. 38. Jerry was an inspiration to Bruce Springsteen. 39. Think of Jerry as a poet. 40. Need a dissertation topic? How about "Medical Ethics in the Films of Jerry Lewis"? 41. In a hilarious practical joke, Jerry ruined Dick van Dyke's meeting with the queen! 42. Jerry was instrumental in getting the great Stan Laurel his honorary Oscar. 43. Jerry is handsome! 44. Maybe you are a "conspiracy theory buff." Well, for real the CIA tampered with one of Jerry's movies. 45. Maybe you're an animal lover. Well, Jerry bought a hearing aid for his dog. 46. Jerry is subversive! 47. Quentin Tarantino + Jerry Lewis = True Love 4ever. 48. (Maybe because he anticipated one of Tarantino's more radical and disruptive narrative decisions by 40 years.) 49. Does he irritate you and make you uncomfortable? MAYBE THAT'S JUST WHAT JERRY WANTS! 50. For example, he once stuck his nose in Frank Sinatra's eye. 51. And took some of the starch out of Tony Curtis by flicking ashes on his jacket. 52. Jerry is complicated. He "both depicts and manifests inadvertent disclosure." - J. Hoberman. 53. Jerry's influence on the Beastie Boys. 54. Jerry appears in works by acknowledged comic geniuses John Hodgman and Michael Kupperman. 55. But perhaps you prefer authors from Mississippi, a chunk of land with a notable literary history. If so, you should be aware that Tom Franklin and Frederick Barthelme have put Jerry Lewis in their well-regarded "Mississippi" novels. 56. So has Don DeLillo, though he is not from Mississippi, nor are his novels set there. 57. ARE you a historian, by the way? Then consider Jerry's breakup with Dean in its implications as "a national trauma." 58. Francis Ford Coppola cites Jerry as an influence. 59. Which reminds me: I recently read an interview that Scorsese did with Lewis in which he (Scorsese) cites THE LADIES MAN as an influence. I always assumed the scene in question was drawn from SATYRICON. But SATYRICON came out after THE LADIES MAN, so maybe SATYRICON was influenced by Jerry too! I just now decided that, while typing this. 60. Jerry's darker side a fruitful subject for literary speculation. 61. Speaking of which, John Waters said Jerry Lewis was "probably a monster!" Can there be a higher compliment? 62. Although (see previous "link") John Waters went on to praise his taste in costuming. So that subject is worth contemplation. 63. Though, intriguingly, to Waters's original hypothesis, Jerry repeatedly acknowledges the collusion of the innocent with the monstrous, especially within a single individual. (See also.) 64. Jerry's art provides some of the same challenges and rewards as Sun Ra's. 65. Jerry envisioned hosting Queen Elizabeth, Jimmy Hoffa and Helen Keller on a talk show. I still want to write that play. 66. Fascinating undercurrents to his on- and off-screen chemistry with Dean Martin. 67. I wrote a pretty good article about him once if you can find it. 68. And this "post" is all right. 69. Try to solve Jerry's universal problem. 70. The complex transparency of Jerry's genius can be profitably compared to Brian Wilson's. 71. Jerry reveals the intrinsic flaws in the very notion of successful human communication. 72. Maybe that's why he's constantly "rewriting his own being." 73. But before he rewrote himself too much, here's a 13-minute clip of young Jerry at his brashest and most engaging. 74. Jerry's anarchic devouring of the hand that feeds him. 75. Maybe you are from the "dance world." Did you know that many highbrow choreographers turn to Jerry Lewis for inspiration? 76. Similarities between Jerry and the great Italian giallo director Mario Bava, if that's your thing. 77. Jerry is a model of tact and restraint compared to the makers of Jason Bateman movies. 78. As Jerry is, so you will be. As you are, so once was he. 79. Jerry, like Elvis, was a target of snobbery and classism. 80. I mean, even when he ended the Oscar broadcast EARLY, the powers-that-be still despised him. He gets under "the man's" skin. 81. For example, when everybody in "the establishment" was dumping on Arthur Penn's BONNIE AND CLYDE, Jerry was one of the first to proclaim its greatness. 82. Did he inspire a character in a Wes Anderson movie? Probably not. But I think he inspired a character in a Noah Baumbach movie. 83. Touchstone for towering cartoonists Lynda Barry and Gilbert Hernandez. 84. Jerry deemed a subject worthy of the Savannah College of Art and Design. 85. Jerry cut short his formal education and set out to educate himself. 86. Jonathan Rosenbaum knows a lot about movies and he loves Jerry Lewis. 87. Tough-to-please James Wolcott likewise. 88. Camille Paglia seems happy about Jerry Lewis. 89. Even comedians who resist his influence must grapple with his legacy. 90. Jerry blurs assumptions about gender. 91. Hey, Sandra Bullock likes Jerry Lewis. 92. And John Sayles says "he did it all," though he was likely just being polite. 93. Jerry helps redeem the troubling "monkey riding dogs" trope. 94. Jerry advances clowning from sadness to rage. 95. Jerry's singing provides ballast in one of those ubiquitous "peak TV" shows that no one can get enough of. 96. Just the thought of Jerry Lewis makes someone laugh alone in a parking lot. 97. Jerry makes comedy of our basic existential choice. 98. See my AV Club interview on Jerry Lewis's literary influence, I guess. 99. Jerry of sufficient interest to narrowly escape being drunk-dialed by Cary Fukunaga. 100. Noted author Megan Abbott finds that watching Jerry is "akin to psychosexual quicksand"! 101. Appropriately at this moment, Jerry Lewis distracts me from James Joyce's elegiac short story, "The Dead," supplanting death with life!

Owl Grease

THE BIRDS came on TCM yesterday and I thought, "I wonder if Messiaen ever saw this movie?" That's considered a real knee slapper around here. But then I really started wondering. And I remembered there was a book on the case right next to me all about Messiaen. But I looked through it and it's not that kind of book. I thought maybe Messiaen would have enjoyed the soundtrack to THE BIRDS - in fact it was the soundtrack that made me start thinking about him - but disapproved of the bird behavior. Or maybe he would've found some mystical interpretation of the bird behavior. And you know, maybe he would have hated the soundtrack. I guess we'll never know. I did open the book to some diary notes of Messiaen, which is how I know that he heard the call of a pygmy owl at Bryce Canyon, Utah, at 5:20 in the morning on May 5, 1972. In related news, Chris Offutt told me he has been reading my "blog." And I was like, "WHAT!" Because as you know I don't "blog" anymore. But to save me some time, Chris sent me part of his next novel... JUST the parts with owls. I believe I counted five owls, though as Chris pointed out in his accompanying email, some of those could be the same owls. Chris gave me permission to quote from his owl passages but I'm hesitant to spoil anything. The piquant title of this "post" comes from Chris's manuscript and already I feel I've said too much.

Crossing a Fence

Today is Record Store Day, so all locals please go support the fine people at The End of All Music. I'll tell you how fine they are! It became a running gag: I kept going in and asking in vain whether the new Blind Alfred Reed compilation had arrived. The anticipation really worked me up! Like the Beatles were coming to America! This Blind Alfred Reed record took on a glow and a power in my mind that it can't have possibly earned. I was a walking joke! So David stopped his busy day to email me the moment it came in and I ran down and got it. He didn't have to do that. But he remembered me. He respected my incoherent ravings. Service at its finest! Shop local. Now I have played it and Blind Alfred Reed turns out to be a bit of a misogynist! More than a bit. That's what you get for wanting things too much. Like he has a couple of tracks telling girls not to bob their hair. He really hates bobbed hair! On a girl. Of course Brian Wilson did once ask "Where did your long hair go?" in a judgmental way, addressing the Caroline of "Caroline No"... but as presumptuous as it was, that seemed to be a purely personal matter between individuals, whereas Blind Alfred Reed believes - and I don't think I am exaggerating - that women will go straight to hell, literal hell where the devil reigns, for the sin of bobbing their hair. So that ain't good. I detected a strong note of compassion in Blind Alfred Reed's "Always Lift Him Up and Never Knock Him Down." Very forgiving! "When he's sick and tired of life and takes to drinking," says Blind Alfred Reed, "You should lift him up and never knock him down." No talk of this particular sinner going to hell, so I thought that was a step up. And I was waiting for a similar verse about sinning women, but none came. It should have tipped me off when another affliction visited on our hypothetical dude who we shouldn't knock down was "a scolding, aggravating wife." There's another song where Blind Alfred Reed is upset about women wearing "skirts so short and tight they can hardly make it when they cross a fence." Ha ha! What I want to know is that if Blind Alfred Reed is blind - I haven't read the copious liner notes yet, but he must be, right? - how does he know about how tight the girls' skirts are and how short their hair is? I guess somebody told him. Or maybe he was like, "Come over here and let me make sure your hair isn't bobbed." (Opening up the booklet to confirm the copiousness of the liner notes I see that Blind Alfred Reed's fiddle was made in Italy in 1695.) In conclusion, I am no doubt being reductive in a knee-jerk way about Blind Alfred Reed's artistry, and the more I listen the more subtlety I will be bound to detect, I am sure. He has a song called "There'll Be No Distinction There" - a mystical view of total equality in heaven, transcending all races and religions... though he does feel the need to point out that "no woman will be flirting with another woman's man" up there.

Margot Sings of the Aswang

Hey! Remember when I told you about aswangs in the works of Norman Mailer and Lynda Barry? Go on, "click" on it, it won't kill you. But an aswang will! I was watching THE FORBIDDEN ROOM last night and up popped a title card: "Margot sings of the aswang - the jungle vampire" - and, reader, that's just what she did, that title card wasn't messing around. There's Margot above, singing of the aswang, accompanied by hiccups and seizures, mystical or otherwise. Nor were we done with aswangs after Margot's descriptive song on the habits of aswangs. Just as one example, Margot is later menaced by what I think another title card calls "blackened banana figures." These are talking rotten bananas, or "ASWANG BANANA!" as a third title card shrieks. Doing the bare minimum amount of research on the semi-reliable websites most readily available to us, I see that the aswang does supposedly leave a "banana trunk" in its victim's place... "a banana trunk carved in the cadaver's likeness" elaborates another website, but who's to say which website has the most reliable aswang information? I'll tell you what that reminded me of, though: faerie lore! Like, when the fairies spirit away a human baby and replace it with a block of wood. I remember some scholarly interpretation I read somewhere, something about the block of wood being a psychological representation of the coffin... but I walked all around the house last night and I couldn't figure out which book I was thinking of, I opened a lot of books, it occurs to me I might have too many books of faerie lore.

The Ninety Paths to Jerry

Soon it will be Jerry Lewis's 90th birthday. So I have "punched up" an old "post." In the old days there were only fifty, but now there are NINETY different ways to approach Jerry, should you find him unapproachable. I present this as a public service. Choose the path that's right for you! 1. How is Edgar Allan Poe like Jerry Lewis? 2. For that matter, what would Kierkegaard say about Jerry Lewis? 3. Bob Dylan got "deeply into" Jerry Lewis. 4. Jerry was a hero to Richard Pryor. 5. Jerry shares expressionistic instincts with iconic rappers. 6. He made Orson Welles laugh. 7. Freudian aspects of Jerry. 8. He played a gig with Thelonious Monk. 9. A trusted method of immersing yourself in Jerryness. 10. Don't believe me? Take it from bestselling novelist Laura Lippman! 11. Don't believe Laura Lippman? Perhaps famed method actor Edward Norton is more to your taste. 12. Consider Jerry Lewis as the forefather of David Lynch. 13. So can it be a coincidence that Louis CK cast Lynch in a part originally written for Jerry Lewis? 14. As muse to hardboiled Don Carpenter. 15. Jerry's spectacular use of color. 16. Jerry is the inventor of anti-comedy, his aesthetic also appropriated by the cinematic underground. 17. Read the great Jerry monograph by Chris Fujiwara. 18. Jerry a hero to Michael Palin of the Monty Python comedy troupe. 19. Jerry an inspiration for the British version of THE OFFICE that everyone used to love so much. 20. Jerry makes me think of the French painter Henri Rosseau. 21. Do you think Jerry is redundant? No, he is "unfolding redundancy." Joke's on you!

22. Do you like Godard? Well, Godard based some of his scenes on Jerry Lewis scenes. Like this and that. 23. Some maintain that 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY would have been better with Jerry in it. 24. Speaking of which, was Jerry an influence on Boorman's groundbreaking POINT BLANK? I don't know, but he should have starred in it. 25. How about that prescient scene in THE BELLBOY that anticipates Scorsese's THE KING OF COMEDY? 26. The Cinderfella dance! 27. Jerry frequently appears in THE BELIEVER magazine, if that's your cup of tea. 28. I intuit a connection between Jerry and J.D. Salinger. 29. And supposedly Salinger considered Jerry to direct the movie version of CATCHER IN THE RYE, maybe. I said maybe! 30. Jerry's influence on GOODFELLAS. 31. Jerry Lewis is part of Philip K. Dick's mystic vision of the entire universe. 32. You should watch lots of Jerry Lewis so you can practice the fun habit of saying things like Jerry Lewis. 33. Even nature itself aspires to sound like Jerry Lewis. 34. Jerry Lewis is a good singer. 35. Maybe you identify with Jerry's world-weary attitude. 36. He hung out in a diner with Marilyn Monroe. 37. Blair Hobbs detects an aesthetic kinship between Jerry and the photographer William Eggleston. 38. Jerry was an inspiration to Bruce Springsteen. 39. Think of Jerry as a poet. 40. Need a dissertation topic? How about "Medical Ethics in the Films of Jerry Lewis"? 41. In a hilarious practical joke, Jerry ruined Dick van Dyke's meeting with the queen! 42. Jerry was instrumental in getting the great Stan Laurel his honorary Oscar. 43. Jerry is handsome! 44. Maybe you are a "conspiracy theory buff." Well, for real the CIA tampered with one of Jerry's movies. 45. Maybe you're an animal lover. Well, Jerry bought a hearing aid for his dog. 46. Jerry is subversive! 47. Quentin Tarantino + Jerry Lewis = True Love 4ever. 48. (Maybe because he anticipated one of Tarantino's more radical and disruptive narrative decisions by 40 years.) 49. Does he irritate you and make you uncomfortable? MAYBE THAT'S JUST WHAT JERRY WANTS! 50. For example, he once stuck his nose in Frank Sinatra's eye. 51. And took some of the starch out of Tony Curtis by flicking ashes on his jacket. 52. Jerry is complicated. He "both depicts and manifests inadvertent disclosure." - J. Hoberman. 53. Jerry's influence on the Beastie Boys. 54. Jerry appears in works by acknowledged comic geniuses John Hodgman and Michael Kupperman.

55. But perhaps you prefer authors from Mississippi, a chunk of land with a notable literary history. If so, you should be aware that Tom Franklin and Frederick Barthelme have put Jerry Lewis in their well-regarded "Mississippi" novels. 56. So has Don DeLillo, though he is not from Mississippi, nor are his novels set there. 57. ARE you a historian, by the way? Then consider Jerry's breakup with Dean in its implications as "a national trauma." 58. Francis Ford Coppola cites Jerry as an influence. 59. Which reminds me: I recently read an interview that Scorsese did with Lewis in which he (Scorsese) cites THE LADIES MAN as an influence. I always assumed the scene in question was drawn from SATYRICON. But SATYRICON came out after THE LADIES MAN, so maybe SATYRICON was influenced by Jerry too! I just now decided that, while typing this. 60. Jerry's darker side a fruitful subject for literary speculation. 61. Speaking of which, John Waters said Jerry Lewis was "probably a monster!" Can there be a higher compliment? 62. Although (see previous "link") John Waters went on to praise his taste in costuming. So that subject is worth contemplation. 63. Though, intriguingly, to Waters's original hypothesis, Jerry repeatedly acknowledges the collusion of the innocent with the monstrous, especially within a single individual. (See also.) 64. Jerry's art provides some of the same challenges and rewards as Sun Ra's. 65. Jerry envisioned hosting Queen Elizabeth, Jimmy Hoffa and Helen Keller on a talk show. I still want to write that play.

66. Fascinating undercurrents to his on- and off-screen chemistry with Dean Martin. 67. I wrote a pretty good article about him once if you can find it. 68. And this "post" is all right. 69. Try to solve Jerry's universal problem. 70. The complex transparency of Jerry's genius can be profitably compared to Brian Wilson's. 71. Jerry reveals the intrinsic flaws in the very notion of successful human communication. 72. Maybe that's why he's constantly "rewriting his own being." 73. But before he rewrote himself too much, here's a 13-minute clip of young Jerry at his brashest and most engaging. 74. Jerry's anarchic devouring of the hand that feeds him. 75. Maybe you are from the "dance world." Did you know that many highbrow choreographers turn to Jerry Lewis for inspiration? 76. Similarities between Jerry and the great Italian giallo director Mario Bava, if that's your thing. 77. Jerry is a model of tact and restraint compared to the makers of Jason Bateman movies. 78. As Jerry is, so you will be. As you are, so once was he. 79. Jerry, like Elvis, was a target of snobbery and classism. 80. I mean, even when he ended the Oscar broadcast EARLY, the powers-that-be still despised him. He gets under "the man's" skin. 81. For example, when everybody in "the establishment" was dumping on Arthur Penn's BONNIE AND CLYDE, Jerry was one of the first to proclaim its greatness. 82. Did he inspire a character in a Wes Anderson movie? Probably not. But I think he inspired a character in a Noah Baumbach movie. 83. Touchstone for towering cartoonists Lynda Barry and Gilbert Hernandez. 84. Jerry deemed a subject worthy of the Savannah College of Art and Design. 85. Jerry cut short his formal education and set out to educate himself. 86. Jonathan Rosenbaum knows a lot about movies and he loves Jerry Lewis. 87. Tough-to-please James Wolcott likewise. 88. Camille Paglia seems happy about Jerry Lewis. 89. Jerry blurs assumptions about gender. 90. Hey, Sandra Bullock likes Jerry Lewis.

My Nephew Is a Genius

Last time I went to Atlanta I forgot to bring my little jotting notebook in which to jot my little notes. You won't catch me making that tragic mistake twice. 1. On the drive to Atlanta this weekend, "Jokerman" by Bob Dylan played. Some particular lyric - I can't recall which; by necessity, one cannot jot while driving - made me think for a split second, "Maybe this song is about Jerry Lewis!" (You may "click" here to refresh your memory about the time Bob Dylan got obsessed with Jerry Lewis.) It did have a "sad clown" vibe. But it also has a bunch of mystical stuff about "kings dressed in scarlet" or something. So never mind. Or, wait! THE KING OF COMEDY. I believe he dressed in scarlet. I don't really think "Jokerman" is about Jerry Lewis. But I was driving alone and had time to think. 2. The occasion of the drive was Barry Mills's birthday party. Who should be there but Craig "Sven" Gordon. We reminisced without irony about the old band we used to be in together, just like a couple of living relics from the cliché museum. 3. Somehow the band Kansas came up, prompting Sven to reveal that the lead singer of Kansas moved into his neighborhood for a time and could often be spotted jogging! 4. Chris Lopez came to the party. An interesting beetle landed on his arm. It looked just like a piece of popcorn. 5. Last time I saw Barry's daughter she was two years old. Now she's nine. Barry told her how when she was two, she liked it when I made crazy trumpet noises, it would really make her laugh. So once I was doing that and Dr. Theresa encouraged me like so: "Work it, Jack!" And Barry's two-year-old daughter suddenly shouted, "Work it, Jack!" Ha ha ha! Barry's daughter bore the retelling of this story with good grace uncommon in one of her age. She was thoughtful and polite about the rambling of her elders. 6. Look!

Barry's birthday cake, of admirable fluffiness, was decorated in remembrance of that kids' show that Barry and I used to make. 7. I met a guy who is working on a feature film about the founding of McDonald's, starring Michael Keaton and Laura Dern. He showed me a picture of "the first McDonald's" building and set that he had helped construct in a town north of Atlanta. "It'll be there a few weeks and then it will be gone, like it was never there," he said. I probably said, "I just had a dream about Laura Dern!" I probably said, "Tell her!" 8. I met a woman named Jenny who I thought said she was "as culpable as any vicar." I asked her, "Did you just say you are as culpable as any vicar?" She replied, "No." She also wanted to know what Lopez and I were like when we had "velvet nubs for horns." Or did she say "fuzzy nubs"? My jotting is unclear on this point. Perhaps she said both. She meant to ask what we were like when we were young. Lopez said, anticlimactically, that one of us would generally walk into a bar and the other one would be there, and one of us would say, "Are you gonna finish eating that?" Jenny asked whether we would sit across from one another or on the same side of the booth on such occasions, and the conversation dwindled. 9. Hey! Remember when I was amazed to learn that there were chickens living on the roof of Manuel's Tavern? I finally got to eat some of those eggs, "rooftop eggs" they were called on the menu, when my sister and brother-in-law and nephew Jasper had brunch there. Jasper wanted a pancake and some French fries. My sister was hesitant! But I was a strong advocate for this hugely appealing and innovative idea. I couldn't believe I had never thought of it myself! French fries are a perfect breakfast food. Why doesn't everybody serve French fries with breakfast? They are not that much different than so-called "home fries." My sister finally said okay, and I like to think my relentless nagging had something to do with it. 10. On the drive home, I saw a coyote run across the highway! I don't think I've ever seen one in person before. I know Melissa and Chris have some living out near their place, but coyotes strike me as exotic in our region. I guess they're not. I have to remind myself about the time I was so excited to see some wild turkeys on the side of the highway, and every person I know told me it's no big deal to see wild turkeys and that I was a sucker for being excited. And now I suppose you're all going to tell me that everybody has French fries for breakfast where you come from. Liars!

Sleeping Habits of Bob

I won't lie to you, this Bob Hope bio is kind of running together now. Everything's a blur. Lots of numbers. Like, how many acres of land Bob bought (10,000). I don't know. On the plus side, Jim Dees sent me this photo of Bob Hope here in town, on the University of Mississippi campus in 1973, with the homecoming queen. Dees said he went to see Hope perform and that an army of cue card men, real pros, zoomed and zipped all around him. Wherever Bob turned his head, there was a cue card! Dees said Bob made a lot of "local" jokes... about the neighboring community of Water Valley, for example. As I knew from the book, Bob always sent "advance men" to town ahead of him so he could personalize his act for a hometown crowd. I did notice that Bob's method for putting himself to sleep was similar to the one Nabokov wrote about, which I also remembered from the memoirs of monk and mystic Thomas Merton. Rosemary Clooney proclaimed Bob's sleeping method to be "very yoga-like." And when I was contemplating "blogging" about that, I thought, "What is wrong with you, Pendarvis?" Yet here we are. Oh, Bob said that he and Doris Day had an affair. And I thought Megan Abbott would like the detail that "publicist Frank Lieberman once saw Hope and [Marilyn] Maxwell check in for a night at a cheap motel decorated with tepees and a neon sign that said SLEEP IN A WIGWAM TONIGHT." And some of the near-death experiences Bob had during World War II were interesting, like Jerry Colonna making brave wisecracks as the plane went down over Alaska.

Owls, Monkeys and Oysters

I must say I was not surprised at all to run across owls on page 100 of THE VULGAR TONGUE: GREEN'S HISTORY OF SLANG. In the 17th century, women who worked in a brothel were called, among other things, "owls, monkeys and oysters." On another subject entirely - ENTIRELY! - I received a copy of ADVENTURE TIME: THE ART OF OOO from its publisher. I flipped it open and happened to find this quotation from Pen: "One day I walked into Adam's office and saw some doodles on his desk; one of them was of these two overlapping ovals that he had made into eyes, and the body around it was a screaming fat owl with stars in its wings..." This is the origin of the Cosmic Owl, the inspiration for which is revealed later in Pen's comments to come from the way "the light hits one of the urinals" in a men's room at Cartoon Network: "it bounces off and casts this mystical face on the wall in front of you - just starin' at ya." But here's the thing! The other day I caught the last part of the movie 2001 on TCM and I saw the Cosmic Owl! It's in the part where the astronaut is going to crazy land, you know. Here's the frame (above). I'm telling you, it's the Cosmic Owl.

Suddenly, At Dusk

About 30 pages to go in THE DHARMA BUMS (see also) and I was really getting worried because there were no owls in it. And there were many opportunities for owls! What with all the sleeping under the stars. But there was nothing but a lot of mystical desert silence and the occasional braying of a lonesome mule (see also) to remind our heroes of the suffering of all living things. But finally! "Suddenly, at dusk, he came running back into the cottage drunk as a hoot owl" (see also). (Pictured, Dharma and Greg.)

Miss Merston

Yesterday I was listening to some music composed by the mystic (is that what you'd call him? a mystic?) G.I. Gurdjieff and I remembered running across something about him many years ago when I read Colin Wilson's mammoth book on the occult, titled - wait for it - THE OCCULT. So I took out that volume and opened to a gathering of Gurdjieff and his disciples, "a special occasion when Miss Merston served tea to everyone. Every time she bent over to hand someone a teacup, she farted gently, and said, 'Pardon me.'" And now, like Miss Merston, I must beg your pardon for making you read this.

Don't Punch a Mountain

I think I suggested that Jake should punch a mountain? In yesterday's ADVENTURE TIME meeting? And Pen said, "If you're looking at a mountain, you're not going to punch it." That struck me as wise, so I jotted it down. It was also a writing lesson, not as revelatory as the first writing lesson Pen taught me, which also involved punching ("click" here to learn), but a helpful one. What else about writing? Megan Abbott and I have been talking a lot about Philip Roth lately. I remembered that when I was still but a lad I found a sort of curdled and corroded yellow paperback of PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT for ten cents at one of the library book sales I loved so much. But I was too ashamed to take it out and read it publicly (the poorly treated paperback was even physically repulsive!), so I stuck it in a drawer and forgot it forever. So I have never read PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT of all things! So yesterday, on the way to meet Tom Franklin for one of our lunches, I stopped by Square Books for a fresh copy. Then I sat reading the first few pages while waiting for Tom to show up, and I was laughing so much! What really got me was the narrator describing his father's almost mystical case of constipation. Roth brings constipation into the realm of legend and myth! (For contrast see Mailer's approach in ANCIENT EVENINGS.) Finally, Lisa Howorth writes in to suggest that maybe they said something about eating "a banana whole" in DOCTOR FAUSTUS, not "banana hole," as we were certain we had heard. "They def ate a banana," Lisa wrote. I replied that maybe I should not watch Elizabethan plays drunk, though I'm sure the Elizabethans did.

RBG

Tonight's episode has aired (except in the Pacific Time Zone, but I don't think there are any spoilers here), so I thought someone might stumble across this "blog" while struggling to answer the vexing question, "Who is this jerk and how did he get to do a voice on ADVENTURE TIME?" I am that jerk and I will tell you. I started writing for the show way back in October of 2012. My old friend Kent Osborne, who is the "Head of Story" for ADVENTURE TIME, called out of the blue and asked if I wanted to give it a try. My first instinct was to say no! I didn't know how to write for cartoons. I knew Kent worked for the show, and I had watched and enjoyed a few episodes with my nephews, because it was their favorite show, but I didn't feel qualified. Kent said not to worry, it was just a two-week freelance job. So I said okay. I have hardly ever turned down a quick freelance job! I didn't know that those two weeks were secretly a kind of audition to see how I got along in the writers' room. I got along fine because everyone was nice as pie. And so the assignment turned into steady employment, for which I am grateful. It's the best job ever! I live in Mississippi. Three times a week I meet with my friends in Burbank by video. We just make up stories and talk about feelings and that's about it. Well, there is also a good deal of typing. One of the coolest parts of the experience for me was when my dad helped out with the "We Fixed a Truck" episode. For some reason I recall with special fondness and clarity a chat that Adam Muto and I had about Klarion the Witchboy and his mystical cat Teekl, two characters from Jack Kirby's comic book THE DEMON, not that it yielded anything for use in the show, nor was it meant to. But as often as not the germs of episodes are contained in such random digressions. Very occasionally I will travel to Los Angeles and go to the office in person. (And once Pen and Kent came to Mississippi.) I flew out to read my "Root Beer Guy" lines for tonight's episode. ADVENTURE TIME is recorded mostly like an old-time radio play, with a bunch of people standing in a booth together, stationed at separate microphones. But how did I get the part? Kent suggested I do it, that's all. I didn't think it would really happen. The name "Stephen King" was bounced around as another possibility, but he was never approached. I think Adam asked me during a conference, "Do you think you could do it?" And I answered with joking bravado, "I AM ROOT BEER GUY," paraphrasing Flaubert on the subject of Madame Bovary, ha ha ha, oh boy, what fun we're having now. I should emphasize that the idea for the Root Beer Guy story was all Pen's - that's Pendleton Ward, creator of the show - and brilliantly fleshed-out and brought to life by storyboard artist/writer Graham Falk. Incidentally, I met Owen King, one of the writer sons of Stephen King, at City Grocery Bar during the annual book conference we have in my town. You should come! Kent came to the book conference once! I almost said to Owen King, "I beat out your dad for a role!" But instead I didn't say anything. ("Click" here for another example of something I didn't say.) In the first place it wasn't strictly true, and in the second place it is usually best to keep your fat mouth shut. The only reason I even thought of it was because of how much Mr. King's voice resembled his father's. Now, how did Anne Heche end up playing "Cherry Cream Soda"? After we finished the outline I blurted (fairly inaccurately) that Cherry Cream Soda's part was something like Anne Heche's in DONNIE BRASCO. And Kent cried out, "Let's get Anne Heche!" Because he's kind of obsessed with her, I guess you'd say, though it is a harsh word with which to describe Kent's gentle fascination. And then they got her! And she did it. She was amazing! The genuine emotion with which she imbued her lines gave me no choice but to actually try. So I tried. And now you know as much as I do about life. How sad.

Smoke It

February is almost over and I almost forgot to thank Dr. Theresa and Laura Lippman for inspiring my column in this month's BELIEVER magazine. But this tweet from a stranger (embedded below) reminded me! My column contains two new characters: Rye-Head and Baby Mystique. Rye-Head came from reading the OZ books (recommended by Laura Lippman) while drinking rye (also probably recommended, or at least approved in retrospect, by Laura Lippman). He's a combo of Jack Pumpkinhead, the Glass Cat and rye. In an unrelated incident, just before the column was due, Dr. Theresa shouted the striking phrase "baby mystique" at the television for some reason, and that's where the character Baby Mystique came from. (I have used a lot of things Dr. Theresa shouted at the television in my writing, including "Shut up, ugly" and "Fatty's gonna get it.") And now somebody has used "Baby Mystique" as a hashtag, the way the kids love to do on the twitter with their twitterings. I was trying to explain to Dr. Theresa that she had inspired a hashtag, but she doesn't know what a hashtag is, which is just one of the things I love about Dr. Theresa. I said, "Do you know what a hashtag is?" And she said, "No, do you smoke it?" It looks like this: #BabyMystique. Look!

The February issue of @believermag is so full of awesome stuff. Currently chuckling at @jackpendarvis' Musin's & Thinkin's. #BabyMystique

— Tracy Woodley (@TracyWoodley) February 26, 2013

Babycat Lives!

Most of the graffiti on the wall of the men's room at the City Grocery Bar has been mercilessly crossed-out, drawn-over, and defiled. Rendered unrecognizable! What remains? Naught but the picture that Kent Osborne drew of his cat way back in March of 2011! Such is its mystical power. Here it is, unsullied. Photo taken this very night, by Bill Boyle.

Dazzling Kimono of Doom

I know you want to be kept informed about our annual Halloween film festival so I will tell you a few things about X: THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES. 1) Before the credits even start there is an eye attached to a stalk kind of wiggling around in a jar of pink fluid, and you will think of Samuel Beckett's novel THE UNNAMABLE. 2) Then the credits appear over a black-and-purple swirling hypno-wheel. Dr. Theresa approved. 3) Suddenly, about halfway through, I guess, it takes an unexpected turn in the general direction of NIGHTMARE ALLEY, with Don Rickles doing a good job as a shady carny seeking to exploit THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES! Don Rickles removes Ray Milland from his carnival-appropriate kimono of dazzling yellow silk and sets him up as a phony "healer." Matters of faith and determinism are addressed! 4) Speaking of which, it all ends on a mystical note, not unlike THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (if nowhere near that level), following its premise through to its cosmic conclusion. THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES sees through everything, he SEES INTO THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE, but I won't spoil it for you. 5) I forgot to mention a RAIN MAN-like side trip to Las Vegas. "This movie is all over the place," Dr. Theresa remarked at that point, but she didn't mean it in a bad way.