Highly Anticipated Year-End List

The 10 most thrilling excitements from 2021. 10. Square Books introduces a new bookmark. 9. Confirmation that Spanish moss is related to the pineapple. 8. A list of 24 dog names discovered in Ovid. 7. I read about a man whose hat popped off his head in fright. 6. Dr. Theresa and I have a good laugh about 18th-century preacher Jonathan Edwards (pictured). 5. Dr. Theresa and I share an appreciation of Vera Farmiga. 4. A Proustian chicken wing. 3. Wild turkeys by the side of the road. 2. I have chicken-and-oyster gumbo from a restaurant where I've been eating for over 50 years. 1. Kate Tsang constructs a double cheeseburger out of two single cheeseburgers. Thanks to everyone who worked together to make these amazing achievements a reality. See you next year!

For Reasons Left Unspecified

Well, I visited my parents. One thing I did was order chicken and oyster gumbo from the Lighthouse, a restaurant where I have been eating for over 50 years. When I got home, I texted John T. Edge that he should try the chicken and oyster gumbo next time he is in Bayou La Batre, to which I added a "ha ha," indicating in a humorous manner that it is unlikely for such an opportunity to arise. John T. Edge replied that he had already eaten some chicken and oyster gumbo at the Lighthouse, which should not have surprised me, and it didn't, although, according to Mom, they don't even have the chicken and oyster gumbo all the time, you have to take your chances! Another thing I did during my visit was finish that Robert Calasso book, from which I learned that Demeter had a lover named Mekon, whom she turned into a poppy for reasons left unspecified by the author. Now, it just so happened that I was in the midst of a correspondence with Jon Langford of the band the Mekons, for unrelated reasons, and I considered telling him this exciting news, but then I realized he has probably heard it all before. Much like the Lighthouse restaurant, the Mekons have been around for a while. And though (I believe) they were named for some rascally space aliens in a comic strip called DAN DARE, I feel certain that many before me have given them all the information they will ever want or need about Demeter and her boyfriend Mekon the poppy. PS, much like GILMORE GIRLS, to which I incorrectly affixed a definite article for years, I am sure there is, accurately, no "the" in Mekons, but somehow I can't type it without adding the "the." PPS The search engine informs me that I have never before mentioned gumbo on this "blog," which I find remarkable and saddening. I hesitate to append the "blog labels" "soup" or "stew" to the current "post," as I consider gumbo to be its own thing entirely, but now I have to append the labels "soup" and "stew" because I have gone and mentioned soup and stew. This is why I don't "blog" anymore.

"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.

Santa's Face

I'm cooking a goose for Christmas. Believe it or not we don't really have any goose-cooking supplies around here. So I went out today. First I stopped by The End of All Music to see Bill Boyle, whom you can usually find behind the counter on a Sunday. I saw that the new arrivals bin was stocked with interesting things and Bill said that many of them were the abandoned records of a mutual friend (should I reveal his name? It's probably nobody's beeswax!) who's moving out of town. Speaking of none of your beeswax, I had an email from my old pal Abby Greenbaum, full of juicy music biz gossip about big-name country stars. But I can't tell you any of it! I can only give you some of the last part of the email: "The next day I hung out at Santa's Pub and, in honor of Christmas, did tarot readings for my roadie friends. Have you ever been to Santa's Pub? It is a triple wide trailer in South Nashville that is also a bar. Beers cost $2, and Santa's face is painted on the outside." But back to the goose! I was grousing to Bill that I really shouldn't buy any LPs because I had to spend my money on goose supplies, and Bill insisted on buying my stack of records for me. (Pictured above, one of them.) How often do you walk into a place and the guy working there buys your stuff for you? Talk about Christmas cheer! Speaking of which, I couldn't find any cooking twine at the grocery store so this guy who works there walked back behind the mysterious doors of the meat department and came back with a length of cooking twine for me. "Just stick that in your pocket," he said. Dang! I forgot to tell you that after I saw Bill I stopped for a bite to eat at Big Bad Breakfast, where, to my alarm, the Food Network had set up and was shooting something. I sat at the counter, not too far from an intensely glowing young couple they were interviewing. ("Random customers, I don't think they're from here," my server told me.) The Food Network had forced these clean-cut sweethearts to order a Pylon apiece. Now, these trim and fresh-faced matinee idols looked as if they'd barely be able to finish half a Pylon between them. Have I told you about the Pylon? It's named for the Faulkner novel, natch. It's a waffle with lots of stuff on top. Slaw and chopped-up hot dogs and chili and oyster crackers and hot peppers and I can't remember what all. Mustard, for instance. The Pylon cures your hangover. Now, this rosy-cheeked ingenue and her all-American beau have never had a hangover in their tender lives, I avow. But they cautiously approached their Pylons in the spirit of good sportsmanship. The funny part was that the interviewer would ask them things like, "Why do you think this place is named 'Big Bad Breakfast'?" "I don't know," was their reasonable answer. (It is named for Larry Brown's book BIG BAD LOVE, but how are they supposed to know that?) "What do you think is the origin of the Pylon?" asked the interviewer. "I don't know," the young woman said.

A True Story of Gettin' Fancy With a Chalkboard

We had some oysters at Snackbar last night and I noticed the old chalkboard over the oyster bar was offering a selection from "Isle Dauphine, AL." And I asked my server if that wasn't just plain old regular Dauphin Island, right next door to where I grew up. And yes was the answer. Don't get fancy with me, chalkboard! So we got some Dauphin Island oysters and they actually tasted familiar to me - I was like, "I know you, oysters!" - unless I was fooling myself, as I usually am.

Melted Fezzes

Well! Megan and Dan came to town and we went out and had a ball. Bill Boyle appeared on the scene and we drove out to Water Valley to a place called the Crawdad Hole. Somehow Megan knew about it. Dr. Theresa and I had never heard of it. As Dan pointed out, a restaurant has to have a well-placed sense of confidence to put "Hole" in its name. It was great! Great enough for "hole." I'm kind of sorry to tell you about it, because they only serve food until they run out of whatever is fresh that day, and I don't want you to eat it before I get there next time. We had so much stuff spread over the checkered oilcloth (was it checkered? It should have been!) - crab legs and sausages and corn on the cob and Mississippi tamales - that's a famous thing, if you didn't know! - and oysters, both sweetly raw and succulently grilled, all superb, and all washed down with a pitcher of ice-cold beer that went perfectly with the food. No crawfish because they were out. Megan said they told her it wasn't crawfish season. But we didn't even miss the crawfish. Then we were supposed to meet Ace at a "secret bar" but we went to the "secret bar" and it wasn't a "secret bar," it was the shabby back room you have to walk through to use the toilet at a local pizza restaurant of small repute. So we were like, "THIS IS ACE'S SECRET BAR?" But the story hasn't ended. MORE LATER. Because we had made a basic mistake about the "secret bar" and it wasn't Ace's fault! Now I'm going to start looking at whatever I jotted down last night on scraps of paper in my wallet and on bar napkins. As I recall, some of it might be bawdy and shocking! You know I don't like to "go there." Blame the liquor and high spirits of rekindled camaraderie. The first note I see just says, "Remember the Night." I'm like, hmm, this isn't as scintillating as I recalled. Was I just telling myself to remember the night? Then it occurred to me. It's the name of a Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck movie that Megan thinks Dr. Theresa and I would like. A nice sentiment, but a disappointment in the realm of fevered inspirations scrawled on tattered scraps from bars. Muttering, we left the (temporary) debacle of "secret bar" and went up to City Grocery. There we encountered Randy Yates, owner of Ajax, who was talking about his former fez collection. That seemed bar-napkin worthy. I wrote down what happened to Randy's fez collection: "I lived in such a [crappy] house all my fezzes melted." That didn't seem like a sentence I had heard before. Oh yes, I have noted here on the back of a postal receipt that Bill Boyle claimed, "If you were stranded on a desert island, all you'd need was Guinness and breast milk." I told you you'd be scandalized! Ace came to CG and took us back to the secret bar. We had lost Megan and Dan by now, but Angela had appeared, a delightful and special treat! And the bar really was different all of a sudden. It was darker and there was a fancy man to make Bill Boyle take off his baseball cap! When we sat down, the server asked if we'd like a complimentary shot, and unless I am crazy, the shots were being offered in empty shotgun shell casings. You know, the way they do in a secret bar. Bill was the only one who drank one and - still miffed about his forcefully doffed baseball cap - said, "That was terrible!" But he said it in a gruffly charming way that made even the server laugh. And when they brought out ice water, they offered to put drops of rosewater in it. Which we accepted! Now, rosewater was popular in Cairo, Egypt, when Dr. Theresa was growing up there, but I believe in the U.S. I have witnessed only her little brother Hesham (he's a full grown man, not a "little brother"!) spiking anything with it. Bill had gotten himself into a rare mood I enjoy seeing him in on those spare occasions when it happens - a touch of lovable surliness that comes over him with just the right amount of fluid help. Surliness isn't the right word. Sweet irascibility? Acting the wiseacre? I don't know any good words. Anyway, he didn't seem to care much for the rosewater. He said - and I was afraid this didn't even show up on the napkin! It was so dark and the server gave me a pen that wrote in PALE ORANGE INK, and I couldn't tell whether words were falling upon the napkin at all - "They're serving us old lady sweat and we're drinking it like we got nothing better to do." Then he said, "It's like you're licking your grandmother's armpit." And then I THINK he said (I didn't write it down) "Don't get me wrong, I'd lick my grandmother's armpit, she's a great lady!" But I may have made that part up. I'm afraid I haven't done justice to the secret bar, which was very pleasant and conducive to much convivial talk and served excellent grilled cheese sandwiches.

Fun Facts From Real Life

Tonight Dr. Theresa and I ate some oysters harvested from a place called "Alligator Harbor," which sounded gross to me. I don't even know why. Not the place itself! I'm sure the place itself is nice. It sounds nice! The surrounding area. I'm sure it's pleasant. I can almost picture it, postcard style. Alligator Harbor! I guess what I didn't like was the thought of some oysters that have been lying around in alligator poop...? Is that the image that came unbidden to my mind? Dear Lord, it is all my own fault, forgive me. We have often, and without a care in the world, eaten oysters harvested from a place called "Murder Point." This "post" used to be a lot tighter. Alligator Harbor/Murder Point/Ha ha ha. I came back in and "fixed" it. I felt that I needed to distinguish the almost certainly lovely locale of Alligator Harbor from the slimy oysters I imagined, for no good reason, coming out of the filthy waters (the waters, by the way, are surely not filthy!) surrounding Alligator Harbor (which were, in fact, the actual oysters from Alligator Harbor, I mean, fine and delicious). Maybe I'll just come back to this "post" and make it a little longer every day and that's all I'll do until somebody stops me.

Different Worlds!

One thing that Megan Abbott and I found out on my recent trip to NYC is that we have vastly different cultural ideas about what a "prairie oyster" is.

Clink

And now it comes to pass that I must tell you how I went to New York City for the Peabody Awards ceremony and all the marvels and wonders that the Good Lord did cause me to witness there. I know the first thing you want to know is "WHAT DID YOU READ ON THE AIRPLANE?" Calm down! Thanks to my precious book of jottings, I can tell you everything. 1. That cursed book about the Middle Ages got me thinking about THE DECAMERON. Wouldn't you know that Bill Boyle, knowing of my keen interest, purchased me a nice chunky mass-market paperback - perfect for airplanes - that promised "the complete text of this ravishingly rich and robust work." So I started reading THE DECAMERON and the guy starts right off about how people are dying like goats in the street. But he's quick to reassure us that he has to get that part out of the way so the fun stuff can start! 2. I turned down a Biscoff offered to me by a flight attendant! The world's greatest cookie. All part of my ongoing effort to button my suit for the Peabody Awards. 3. Met Megan Abbott at the Temple Bar, a great bar of the darkest kind, where I had the most refreshing gimlet of my young life. I mean, it was a dark bar. Megan took pics of our drinks and gee just look how dark they are.

Having sworn off hooch for two weeks (part of the aforementioned jacket buttoning resolution) I was ready for some gimlets. Kent Osborne showed up! And soon enough, Pendleton Ward! A fellow there in the Temple Bar pooh-poohed the artistry of BARRY LYNDON and I cursed him succinctly! That's not like me. OR IS IT? Pen drew several pictures of me on coasters and gave them to Megan. They were much like the religious icons of yore, immortalizing my various stages of peacefulness and cursing. In one of them I have my arm around Kent and I believe I am saying of him, "This guy is the king of love." I'll show you that one. The others are hilarious and I will keep digital copies of them for my own enjoyment and, perhaps, edification, but I shall never show them in public, festooned as they are with the vilest profanities. 4. We went to the hotel, where Pen taught Megan to rhumba! There is a vine of it happening if you would care to "click" here to see it. 5. Then Pen taught me to rhumba (as he had once promised to do). He had to remind me not to lead. He warned me before he dipped me. Today I don't remember how to rhumba. 6. On the bathroom wallpaper in the hotel room: whimsical black-and-white line drawings of wry cartoon birds. Closer inspection revealed that a previous guest had taken a pencil and decorated random birds here and there with graphic bits of anatomy I shan't shock you by naming.

7. Now here's the part about the Peabody Awards. I wore a tie pin that Megan had given me the night before at the Temple Bar. This picture was supposed to show off the tie pin for Megan (that's why I'm pointing) but you can't see it. It's in the shape of a cigarette lighter! 8. Before we left for the Peabodys, Pen's mom gave all of us really nice pens! Because her son's name is Pen, as she explained, and also because of our professions. Very thoughtful! 9. Now look. Here is the gang who went up onstage to get the Peabody Award for ADVENTURE TIME.

You can see that we are all dudes. I feel very lucky to have been invited, but I am also sorry for whatever quirk of timing or fate or scheduling or process that means you don't see any of the women here who are so integral to giving ADVENTURE TIME its voice. The show wouldn't be the same without Seo Kim (last night's episode was a perfect example!) or Rebecca Sugar or Natasha Allegri or Ako Castuera or Ashly Burch or Elizabeth Ito, and I could name many, many other women, past and present contributors to the show, who put their personal stamp on it and just as easily could have been up there with Pen and Adam and Kent. Not taking away at all from the immense talent of the guys you see assembled above. In fact there are infinite combos of women AND men absent from that picture who would be just as appropriate to share that stage with Adam and Pen and Kent (three people who should be in ANY picture celebrating the show). Once again, I feel really lucky that it happened to work out that I could attend. But I'm getting ahead of myself chronologically; don't you want to hear about the delicious pigs in blankets they had at the pre-Peabody reception? The server called them "cocktail franks." 9b. Speaking of bad chronology, and speaking of Natasha, she tweeted this last night: "bury me with my husband hugging me." That reminded me of the "Classics Illustrated" comic book of THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, which I probably haven't thought of in at least 40 years. So I dug up the final panel, and boy what an impression it must have made on me, because it's just the way I remember it:

To which, when I tweeted it back at her, Natasha responded: "so romantic!!! so romantic that i can't think of a good bone joke!" And that's just one reason I love Natasha. 10. Fred Armisen hosted the show. Remember when I met him before he was famous and he was just some non-famous guy having a sour day? 11. We stood backstage behind Amy Schumer and her gang, who were to receive their award just before us. Tina Fey was there! Kent pointed her out to me but I could only see a vague figure gracefully flitting in the dark.

12. Steven Soderbergh was at the table next to ours! I told him how much Dr. Theresa and I love THE LIMEY and he said, "That's not something I hear very often." Ha ha ha! Here's a shot from Dr. Theresa's very favorite scene in THE LIMEY. 13. And at another adjacent table sat Ray McKinnon.

You remember him from beating up George Clooney in O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU! I met him at the Ajax Diner here in Oxford, Mississippi, a couple of years ago, so I was able to strike up a little conversation about some mutual friends of ours. Sadly, I didn't get a chance to introduce him to Tom Herpich, who is a huge fan of Mr. McKinnon's TV show RECTIFY. I missed my window on that! Boy did I feel guilty. For a good portion of the "after party" I chased Mr. McKinnon around like the prince going after Cinderella, but I never found him. I really wanted to introduce him to Tom. I apologized to Tom perhaps to a point at which I should have begun apologizing for apologizing, which I may have also done. 14. Ray McKinnon wasn't the only Peabody recipient I knew from home. Isn't that weird? Tina Antolini was there to pick up an award for a radio show she works on. And I've had drinks with her at City Grocery Bar! Oxford is weird. 15. The Adventure Time folks rode to the show in a stretch limo that had tiny lights on the ceiling that kept changing color. I said, "I want the inside of my coffin lid to look like this." And Pen's mom said, "That's the sixth joke you've made about death!" 15b. Somewhat related: I guess after I went to bed on that previous night, the night before the Peabodys, a few people stayed in the hotel bar and Pen decided with some passion that we should all dress as English peas for the Peabody ceremony. These would be, then, our "pea bodies." And according to Kent, it came close to happening, if only a quick enough delivery had been possible. Look at the casual morbidity of this tweeted report:

"ADAM!! We're all gonna die in 30 years! ORDER THE PEAPOD SUITS!" - Pendleton Ward

— Patrick McHale (@Patrick_McHale) May 31, 2015

16. I talked to Amy Schumer at the Peabody "after party." I was curious about the dynamic in an interview I'd seen her do with Jerry Seinfeld. I think I kind of put down Jerry Seinfeld...? For being "old-fashioned"? Ha ha! I don't know what I was talking about. Why was I trying to subtly badmouth Jerry Seinfeld? What did he ever do to me except try to make my life a little nicer? Amy Schumer told me that he's like her best friend now, pretty much, so I was like, "Okay!" I kept clinking her glass with mine, like giving her a toast, every time I told her how great she was. Ha ha ha! What a jerk. I just kept habitually clinking her glass each time I made another expression of genuine if hackneyed praise. I suddenly realized I had clinked her glass about half a dozen times and I apologized. She was nice and said, "No, I like it."

17. Okay! So after you go onstage, you're led to a "press area" and you miss most of the rest of the show. (We've completely abandoned chronology now, who cares?) When I finally got back to the audience area, my chair was gone! The ADVENTURE TIME table had one less chair. So I went and sat on the other side of the room with the people from the show Radiolab. I have to say they were the nicest, sweetest bunch of people at the Peabodys! Everybody loved talking to them. They love ADVENTURE TIME and Pen feels just the same way about their show. I have a lot of happy memories of riding around in a car with my brother and my nephews and all of us just enjoying Radiolab. So, anyway, those people are just as nice as you might think. They let me sit at their table a long time! 18. I have to say this about the Peabody Awards: the people who win them are doing serious work! This one guy came out and introduced his friend who shared the stage with him. The Chinese authorities had tried to take her bodily organs! Just take them! I mean, what can you say? And here she is. It's a miracle she's alive. And there was another winner who showed a clip of a beautiful child singing a song about freedom, and as she's singing, a bomb suddenly destroys the street she's standing on. Just right at that moment! It was one of the most powerful and visceral things I've ever seen and it was an introductory clip at an awards show. And I want to say this about Pen: he watched all of those documentaries in their entirety to prepare for the show. Pen is a man with great perspective. He cares about the world and that's one thing that makes his work so personal and good. 19. Pat McHale was part of the ADVENTURE TIME contingent, so I got to meet him for the first time and he was a treat to be around. I talked about how much I loved his casting of Jack Jones as a crooning frog in his masterpiece OVER THE GARDEN WALL and after saying a lot of nice things about Jack Jones, he began to analyze Rudy Vallee's singing technique.

You can't know, as an old man who works with young people all the time, what a tonic it was to my poor heart to hear a fresh-faced youngster such as Pat McHale rhapsodize about Rudy Vallee. IT JUST DOESN'T HAPPEN IN MY LINE OF WORK. Then Pat said that his grandmother had been a dancer at Radio City Music Hall! He said she had a problem with Frank Sinatra... something about how he handled a microphone. 20. Now I'm going to type about how I ate a lot of good vegetables. Ha ha ha! Vegetables! Too bad for you. I went to a place that had great fresh seasonal vegetables. Tom Herpich brought us there. And pleased were one and all by his felicitous choice. Lunch with Kent and Pat and Adam and Tom. Kent was talking about the films of Eric Schaeffer, which he finds morally, emotionally and aesthetically repugnant.

I hope I am not misrepresenting Kent's opinion! Blame me, not Kent. Let's say that I am not sufficiently describing Kent's complex attitude. Anyway, Kent was describing a particularly pornographic obsession that haunts Mr. Schaeffer's oeuvre and I said, "Hey, Kent, there are some little kids at that table over there!" and Kent said, "They have to learn about Eric Schaeffer sometime." Ha ha! Kent's witty implication was that the very idea of Eric Schaeffer was the offensive part of the conversation, you see. The next day my old friend Ward McCarthy suggested the very same place for lunch and I was only too happy to go back. I was excited! Like, "I will try different vegetables this time!" Vegetables! 21. I had eaten so many vegetables that I felt no guilt whatsoever about the mountain of fried clams I consumed that evening at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station. Clams are something we just don't have in the South... or shouldn't. I recall a time that Caroline Young and I had clams in a seedy dive in Atlanta, GA, with unspeakable results. BUT! I am getting both ahead of and behind my story. It's not a story, is it? 22. Megan and I went to MOMA and saw Martin Scorsese's collection of movie posters, which were on display. Here's one for THE KILLERS, the Don Siegel version, and I am standing under Lee Marvin's legs, I guess.

But you can't see the guy so there is some possibility that I am standing under Ronald Reagan's legs. They could be Clu Gulager's leg's too. I would rank the possibilities like this: first, Lee Marvin, second Clu Gulager. There is really very little chance that I am standing under Ronald Reagan's legs. Honestly, they are abstract legs and could belong to any "killer." 23. We went up to the Yoko Ono exhibit, which I found to be a barrel of fun! I just loved it. I can't speak for Megan. She would go around a corner and come back and command me, "Don't go around that corner, Jack!" Later, telling Dan about our day, she described whatever was around that corner as "very gynecological." She was looking out for me! Well, Megan I both saw the movie of the waddling butt that just waddles along and I guess we averted our eyes from it most of the time. It doesn't do anything but waddle along, we got the gist. I believe Megan read the placard next to it, in which the waddling was described as "a sexless march," if I am remembering what Megan read aloud correctly. But I found Yoko Ono's art to be fresh and fun. Once again, I cannot speak for Megan. 24. But I was disappointed that Yoko's apple was in pristine shape. There's an apple on a pedestal and (I think) it's just supposed to stay there until it rots. I have to say, that is one hale apple she has there! In sadly perfect condition. 25. As we were leaving the exhibit, we had a chance to participate in the "bag performance." There were two "facilitators" there and no line. Megan urged me to do it. But the bare feet of the facilitators seemed ominous and then Megan and I read the plaque and discovered that we were expected to take off all our clothes and get in a bag together and, I don't know, stumble around. We didn't. 26. Speaking of facilitators, Megan took me to St. Patrick's cathedral to show off its beauty. She said the lines on Ash Wednesday had been crazy! But once you got inside it was very efficient, with 25 ash stations, and 25 priests - facilitators, I call them - just throwing that ash on you in frenzied handfuls (from what I imagined were large buckets); sounded like to me they had a real penitence factory going there.

27. After dinner at the Oyster Bar, Megan and Dan and I went to the famous 21 Club for a nightcap. I remembered from reading (as much as could of) that Errol Flynn autobiography that something big happened to Errol Flynn at the 21 Club... either an unexpected moment of graciousness from a kind friend or stranger at his lowest point of abjection or maybe he beat up some guys there, or maybe both! 28. So the mural in the men's room at the 21 Club is hard to understand. It shows a guy peeing into a goldfish bowl. I'm pretty sure! From an impressive distance. And the goldfish is surprised and for some reason a lady's skirt is flying up. Also in surprise? And as long as we are talking about restrooms, let's go back to the Oyster Bar, in which Megan snapped this shot of a sofa in the Ladies' Room:

29. Megan's nightcap conversation at the 21 Club! She said that she's a direct descendant of Mary, Queen of Scots! Probably the least surprising news I've ever heard. Then she said, "You know, Frances Farmer never got a lobotomy." I'm pretty sure that came out of nowhere. "After she went on a binge," said Megan, "she said to the arresting officer, 'Hasn't anyone ever broken your heart?'" Then Megan asked us rhetorically, "Doesn't that just kill you?" And it did! It killed us.

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.

TV Paraphrase

Here is a picture taken from a TV screen of Bill Boyle and Derrick Harriell on last night's Anthony Bourdain TV program. And here, below, I attack some oysters while everybody else is like hey, are we going to get any of those oysters? And the answer is no, not if I can help it. Speaking of shamelessness, when Bill and Jimmy were interviewing me a while back I said something comparing writers who are jealous and competitive to a couple of Beckett characters arguing over a piece of dirt (see HOW IT IS) so on the TV program when the same subject came up I was able to whip out a paraphrase of my earlier observation as a seemingly spontaneous aperçu but it wasn't, it wasn't a spontaneous aperçu, I am sorry for my lack of a spontaneous aperçu.

"Blog"trospective 13: When Megan Lived Here

Well, it really happened. Megan Abbott moved back to New York. Now what are we supposed to do? Besides vomit and weep I mean. I guess we will attempt to cope by constructing a "blog"trospective of everything Megan did while she lived here (this is not everything Megan did while she lived here): almost made John Currence break his neck---appeared on Anthony Bourdain's television program---appreciated Marlene Dietrich's talent for playing the musical saw---arrived at the record store just as David was putting up the new sign---attended a party where a little girl did that thing where you rapidly stab a knife between your splayed fingers---brought up Sigmund Freud a lot---by example, had me drinking negronis for a spell---called BUFFALO '66 "a child's fantasy" (not in a bad way!)---compared me to Cathy in WUTHERING HEIGHTS---considered a dance called "the mumbly peg"---contemplated the travails of Lucille Ball as a woman in Hollywood---declared intent to be meaningless---defined wildness---discussed Philip Roth a lot---displayed a cheery and tasteful novelty item---drank moonshine (twice... that I know of!)---during a visit by Kent Osborne she witnessed Kent eating chicken wings, which failed to be noted at the time---emailed me about Hank Worden---emailed me about orgone boxes---endured rude scoffing at a ghost story she repeated---expressed a correct opinion about THE GLASS KEY that I undermined with ignorant hyperbole---found a lone pom-pom (this happened more than once)---got scared by a creepy tree---guaranteed weeping---had her first belt of rye---heard Ace's master spoiler for the entire Travis McGee series---helped Dr. Theresa and me avoid trick-or-treaters---hosted a Jerry Lewis double feature---likened something to Poe---loaned me a pen---looked up "querulous" in her dictionary---meeting time at the bar was 4:02---met me at a bar after I improvised some iambic pentameter---participated in an ecstatic roar---pined for some oysters---planned to watch an Elizabeth Taylor movie---pointed a gun at me---professed a generalized affection for wax museums---read Claudia Roth Pierpont's book about Philip Roth---read my tarot cards via cell phone---received a visit from her parents---reminded me of an anecdote about Billy Wilder---researched "friendship clubs"---said something about Mary Steenburgen's accordion---sent me a picture of Bob Hope and Doris Day and Santa---sent me Dick Shawn's obituary---shared her knowledge about an illustrator who drew women with "impossibly long feet"---spent the last warm evening of the year on the balcony of the City Grocery Bar---spoiled a bat attack---started reading the new John Wayne bio---strolled past Robert Mitchum's house from HOME FROM THE HILL---studied the racy cover of UNCLE GOOD'S WEEK-END PARTY, a novel by Faulkner's brother---told a story I misheard about a Depression-era Shirley Temple cream pitcher (and she actually gave us a Depression-era Shirley Temple cream pitcher last night as a goodbye present)---took a picture of a bubble house---took a walk with me while I was wearing a hat (and bedroom slippers, not pictured)---used the old-fashioned term "smoker" to refer to a gathering of rowdy males (she was talking about Bill and Jimmy and me)---visited Elvis's birthplace---visited Faulkner's house with Laraine Newman---was followed on twitter by the manufacturers of a gross-sounding vodka---was harassed by an inflated Batman---was supposed to be on a panel with Adrienne Barbeau (the panel happened but Barbeau canceled)---watched a Norman Mailer movie---watched BARRY LYNDON with Kent Osborne---we possibly left some dvds at her apartment---went to a hobo festival---wondered about tight pants---wowed 'em at "Noir at the Bar."

Bevy

I am happy to be guest-editing the June issue of GRAVY, the magazine of the Southern Foodways Alliance. The theme is "food and crime" and you can expect contributions from a bevy of "blog" "faves": Abigail Greenbaum! Bill Boyle! Ace Atkins! Laura Lippman! Chris Offutt! Natasha Allegri! Jason Polan! Michael Kupperman! Kelly Hogan! McNeil! Also in June, after a long dry spell, short stories I wrote will appear in two magazines: "An Oyster Named Dan" in LUCKY PEACH and "Pinkeye" in PLEIADES. June! June is going to be big and filled with gravy.

Samuel Johnson Is All Right

Samuel Johnson used to make special trips to buy oysters for his cat. So he's all right. Once he said in front of his cat that he had liked some of his former cats better, but thought the cat looked "out of countenance" at this news, so hastened to add, "but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed." Ha ha!

Big Arboreal Rice Rat

You know I have a book about weeds and a book about seahorses and an "ethnobotanical dictionary" and a waterlogged set of BUTLER'S LIVES OF THE SAINTS and elsewhere on the "internet" I have written about my love of reference books so it is no surprise to you that I picked up MAMMALS OF THE WORLD: A CHECKLIST and ALABAMA WILDLIFE VOLUME TWO: IMPERILED AQUATIC MOLLUSKS AND FISHES at Off Square Books the other day, but my purchase afforded much amusement for those gathered, including Lisa Howorth, who was moved to take a picture of it (above - see also). Only Melissa Ginsburg, who was there, truly "got" why these books are so interesting, although one other person said (unconvincingly), by way of compensatory sympathy, "I do want to know what's going on with that anteater and that skunk," referring to the cover of MAMMALS OF THE WORLD: A CHECKLIST. MAMMALS OF THE WORLD: A CHECKLIST is a checklist of the mammals of the world. That's all it is! Page after page. No illustrations. Font, font, font, closely packed. There are even little boxes next to the names of the mammals so you can check them off right there in the book when you see them! "And it tells you where to go," Melissa observed. Sure enough, I now know that I might have to go to Peru to see a "big arboreal rice rat." As for the book about imperiled mollusks, I am sorry the mollusks are imperiled but they have great names, presented in all caps and illustrated by beautiful color photographs. Just now I opened the book at random and found ORANGEFOOT PIMPLEBACK and DELICATE SPIKE and PINK MUCKET. (See also.) And oh yeah a while back I thought it would be a great idea if I had some unwieldy facsimile editions of HOLINSHED'S CHRONICLES - from which Shakespeare got a bunch of his ideas - but I could only get hold of volume three and volume six. Still, volume three has the reign of Henry VI in it, so recently, when I was reading about Henry VI elsewhere, I thought: "At last! A use for HOLINSHED'S CHRONICLES! I bet there's some hot stuff in there!" There is not. (See also.) But volume six says that Irish people are "religious, franke, amorous, irefull, sufferable of infinit paines, verie glorious, manie sorcerers, excellent horssemen... Their infants, they of meaner sort, are neither swadled nor lapped in linen, but folded vp starke naked in a blanket till they can go... otemeale and butter they cram togither... they let their cowes bloud, which growne to a gellie, they bake and ouerspread with butter, and so eate it in lumps." Whoa I got carried away typing there.

Most Important Meal

Later tonight the annual Halloween film festival will continue with GREMLINS 2. In the meantime, we've watched the Frank Langella version of DRACULA. Having just read the book, I found myself becoming one of those annoying people who says, "That's not in the novel!" and "THAT'S not in the novel!" And really not much of the novel was in the movie. But honestly, no Dracula movie really represents what's in the novel. The novel is a lot better than any Dracula movie I've seen, though I sure hate to be a guy who says things like that. The Langella DRACULA was enjoyable. It did bring out the native sauciness of Dr. Theresa, who kept saying things like, "Jonathan is kind of a ****" and "Her dad is a *****!" One thing that especially got under her skin was the way Donald Pleasance responded to tragedy by eating breakfast. I had to tell her that that IS in the novel: the characters are constantly eating a hearty breakfast to fortify themselves for a battle against Dracula. "Well, it is the most important meal of the day," said Dr. Theresa with notable sarcasm. I have never before seen this version, but when Megan Abbott was in town, she and Dr. Theresa discussed their shared childhood trauma of watching Frank Langella as Dracula climb down a wall toward his victim. See, now, that IS in the novel, the wall-climbing, I mean, but in a different context (OH, WHO CARES? WOULD YOU LISTEN TO ME?). In fact, last night at the party at Faulkner's house (at which, I forgot to tell you, they served raw oysters from my hometown), I saw Lee Durkee, who said that DRACULA is one of the few books he has ever read - maybe the only one - that truly scared him. The image he brought up in particular was, as I think he put it, Dracula "spider-walking down the castle wall." Lee thought that my mentioning certain sentences from DRACULA on the "blog" was a way of making fun of the novel, but not at all. I found it incredibly scary, too. My sister is reading it now and she is also scared. We're all scared. He's scary.

Good Morning Oysters

Hey, ask me why I had raw oysters for breakfast. That's right! Time once more for the Southern Foodways Symposium, the best party in town - this or any other town! I'm finally going to "give a talk" or something again, after five long, anxious years of waiting, so that means I get to hang out and eat all the crazy things they feed you. Like, at the book signing tonight, there will be, among other things, according to the schedule, "Bacon-Wrapped Watermelon Pickles with Fried Rutabaga Spoonbread." All right! Goodbye forever!

Doomed Book Club Update

My friend the Hollywood producer who really exists is in town, so we were able to have an in-person meeting of part of the Doomed Book Club. So far the most exciting part of STUNTMAN! for me is when Hal Needham sees a salad for the first time. It blows his mind! He is 23 and just out of the army. "Do I eat it, throw it on the floor, or just look at it stupidly?" he wonders. Eventually the waitress comes and takes it away. So far that salad is the only thing in the book that has gotten him down, including a parachute that never opens. But don't worry! Within a chapter, Hal Needham is having a T-bone, some oysters, and a salad with blue cheese with TV western star Richard Boone (pictured). "For a country boy, you catch on fast," Richard Boone observes. I was poking around in the index, as is my wont, and I came across this intriguing entry: "Kellogg's Corn Flakes, 155-57." That seems to be a lot of space to spend on corn flakes in your autobiography! I haven't peeked, so I don't know what's up with the corn flakes. Stay tuned. My friend ended our meeting by singing this song ("click" here) from the animated version of THE HOBBIT starring the voice talent of Orson Bean. I don't know why he did that, but I'm glad he did.

Quickfire Currence

We were happy to see John Currence on TOP CHEF MASTERS tonight, once again viewed at City Grocery Bar. John WON the "quickfire challenge" with his chicken meatball and a mighty cheer arose. AND he cooked one of the top three best dishes for the final challenge. So a great night for John! Christina Hendricks (pictured) from MAD MEN loved his oysters Rockefeller, calling them "warm and comforting" (I think! It was loud in City Grocery Bar). Another chef on the show, Suvir Saran, cooked at Snackbar once as the guest chef, and Dr. Theresa and I enjoyed his peanut-themed feast at that time. That was thanks to the Southern Foodways Symposium, the best symposium ever, even better than Plato's symposium. What else? Yeah, the dishes the chefs cooked for the main challenge were supposed to be rarities from the 1960s (in keeping with the MAD MEN theme) but ALMOST ALL OF THEM (deviled eggs, ambrosia, bread pudding, etc.) are things we eat in Mississippi EVERY DAY, which is pretty hilarious. (The others were all things that Caroline and Dr. Theresa and I used to eat at crazy time-machine French restaurants in odd corners of Atlanta.)

McNeil at the Beach

McNeil sends greetings via "text message": "oysters in po boy only half-fried, human hair in crab cake, flounder tasteless. Beach beautiful, however."