No One Tells Me Anything

I just saw a commercial indicating, or so I thought, that there are purple M&Ms. I felt very upset because no one tells me anything. Then I looked it up and I guess you can't find a purple M&M in the bag. She is just a fanciful mascot for promotional purposes. I know this will be a "zombie" "link" one day, but on the M&M "web" site you can examine her workout routine and the advice she would give her teenage self. That's right, this M&M was once a teenager. I would have expected their life cycle to last three years at most. Oh, this really takes me back! The Hawaiian Punch FAQ upon which I doted once is just a "zombie" "link" now. Thank God, then, that I had the foresight to quote it: "Punchy has been revamped with contemporary fashion and music to appeal to modern consumers. He still has the punch! ... The long-time spokesman for Hawaiian Punch was given a more contemporary look that appeals to teens." That's my favorite kind of writing, which may clue you in about why most of my novels remain unpublished.

Not Cool, Medea!

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

Blank Spots

Well, you knew I would read GILGAMESH eventually, because you know just about everything, don't you? You're a real smart guy, huh? Looks like we got us a college fella. Yes, I was reading GILGAMESH and Enkidu was putting a curse on Shamhat... don't worry! He takes it all back a couple of pages later. Anyway, he's like "Owls will roost in your"... and that's it! What of hers will owls roost in? We just don't know! Much like Humpty Dumpty, GILGAMESH hasn't been put back together again. There are lots of missing pieces. In this translation, by Sophus Helle, there are blank spots on the page where the missing pieces would go. Later in the same stanza, for example, it's blank spot, blank spot, blank spot, "purple" blank spot, blank spot, blank spot, blank spot, blank spot, "sullied thighs" blank spot, blank spot, "thighs sullied" blank spot, blank spot. So what's going on there? We may never know how those thighs got sullied or what was purple. Luckily, as Sophus Helle mentions in his introduction (which also includes not one but TWO Star Trek allusions [see also]), they are finding new pieces of GILGAMESH all the time. There's even a "website" ("click" here) where all the latest bits and pieces of GILGAMESH can be tinkered with at your leisure. Speaking of poetry, I read a New York Times obituary of the French poet Jacques Roubaud, which quoted him as saying "an Oulipian author is a rat who himself builds the maze from which he sets out to escape." And it's really funny (is it, though?), because Dr. Theresa and I were talking about something similar yesterday as we drove back from Memphis, where we had celebrated the New Year. Dr. Theresa was saying that she sometimes saw the act of writing as consisting of nothing but problem-solving, and I was like, "Yeah, it's interesting, because you're solving the problems but you're also creating the problems." And we talked about that for a while. Look, it's a long drive! Not that long. Anyway, so I'd say Jacques Roubaud's aphorism applies to all writers. Or people! And no, I never heard of Jacques Roubaud before reading his obituary. I get most of my knowledge from obituaries. I'm not a big smart guy like you, smart guy.

The Last of the Old Comic Books

You know the story. How Tom Franklin brought me a stack of old comic books in the hospital, and even more stacks of even more old comic books when I got home. And how I began to purchase old comic books for my very own self until I amassed quite a pile. How I found it so soothing to read myself to sleep with old comic books... then... something changed in our interesting modern times, or perhaps something cracked in my warped little soul, and I found that I was permanently out of the mood to read old comic books. I've been slowly finishing the few remaining old comic books in my possession. There are two left. One of them, coincidentally, is about Deathlok, the first superhero I ever mentioned on this "blog"... in the "blog's" very first "post"! That exclamation point was forced rather than felt. I just don't care anymore. Anyway, in the old comic book I was grudgingly reading last night out of a sense of duty, there was a guy named Jack O'Lantern, but get this. He was wearing, like, a purple sack on his head. What does that have to do with jack-o'-lanterns? I don't know and now I never will, having given up old comic books forever. But that's not the point. The point is that Jack O'Lantern goes "GOOD WORK, OWL WOMAN." And then you see this character who I guess is Owl Woman standing over there. I don't know who she is, either. She didn't look too much like an owl from the little I saw of her. Now I'm going to ask you to open your mind to some groovy concepts. So, as you will recall, when I really read comic books, back when I was a kid... that is, when I went and bought what were then NEW comic books from Schambeau's grocery store or Red's Drugs in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, I would have thought of this Jack O'Lantern (with a purple sack on his head!) thing as being a weird, amazing COMIC BOOK FROM THE FUTURE! Because it came out in 1988, when I hadn't seen a comic book in at least 12 years. Yes, I stupidly thought those days were behind me. So it's an "old comic book" now but in another way it was... oh, hell, who cares? You get it. I would say I have wasted enough of your time but we both know I haven't wasted nearly enough of it.

The Latest St. John Chrysostom News

Now, I am sure you recall 2016 as the year when I was reading a book with St. John Chrysostom in it, but it was too big to take on the airplane, so I brought a smaller book on the airplane, and to my surprise, it ALSO had St. John Chrysostom in it! Okay, stay with me. Now cast your mind back to mere days ago, when I took NIGHTWOOD on an airplane, but didn't finish reading it, even though it is short, because of all the things to distract me on the airplane. Well, yesterday, I continued NIGHTWOOD, and a character asks, "Am I the golden-mouthed St. John Chrysostom, the Greek who said it with the other cheek?" He goes on to answer himself, and bear in mind, these are not my words, but those of Djuna Barnes, writing in 1936: "No, I'm a fart in a gale of wind, an humble violet under a cow pad." Take it up with Djuna Barnes! She died in 1982 and is beyond caring whether or not you like fart jokes. You know, as I continued to read, and got deeper, I began to realize - again to my surprise! I get surprised so much! - of whom the rhythm and flow of the words in this book remind me... Barry Hannah! I almost didn't "post" any of this because I knew no one would care but then I decided to "post" it because I knew no one would care.

Safe Owl

Well, I went to Square Books the other day... I could almost tell you what day it was if I thought about it... I don't get out of the house much anymore... wait, I can do it the lazy way. I have the receipt right here, stuck in the back of the book. You'll be fascinated to know that it was on the 20th day of September that I walked into Square Books and said, "Hey, Slade, do y'all have that book by Lucy Ellmann, where it's one sentence that's a thousand pages long? I want that!" (It was not an accurate description of DUCKS, NEWBURYPORT. I read the prologue, which is about a page and a half of sentences of non-startling lengths. But then we get into what seems like a pretty long selection of phrases without terminal punctuation, all right! I'm only on page five. And on page five, given my compulsion, I must alert you to the fact that there is an owl, specifically, a brand called Safe Owl. I am not sure if the Safe Owl brand, which is listed by Ellman among a lot of other brands of many sorts of products, refers to this spice brand (above) I found on the "internet," as it listed among a number of more current brands (unless they still make Safe Owl spices). I believe that "Safe Owl" is a charming but timid name for a line of spices. Thank you for your time. [Appended on October 7, as I don't "blog" anymore: There are more owls later in the book, as the narrator discusses ways to prevent owls from eating purple martin babies.]

Karl Malden Wouldn't Sit Anywhere Else

When I go on a trip I still take my famous jotting book but I hardly jot in it anymore because I don't "blog" anymore, rendering the very act of jotting questionable. And besides, as Adam Muto rightly admonished me last time I won an Emmy (this is my subtle way of telling you that I just came back from Los Angeles with another one!) I should look up and experience the world directly rather than jotting about it while it's right there in my face. In fact, if you "click" on that previous "link" you will see a photo of me with my jotting book open and ready for jotting backstage in the immediate aftermath of the awards presentation two years ago. I'm the problem with America! But you know, I'm glad I brought the jotting book because I AM required to "blog" whenever I read a book with an owl in it, and on this trip there appeared in my path THREE books with owls in them. I couldn't believe it. It was a bonanza! Let's get right to them! Well, first I stopped by Square Books for something to read on the airplane, as I like to do. And I was drawn again to the Travis McGee novels of John D. MacDonald, though I never enjoy them the way I'm supposed to. But now I guess they say "airplane" to me because of some sick compulsion. I picked up this one called DARKER THAN AMBER and I was like, "This seems familiar." Because they all seem familiar. And the titles are interchangeable. So I put it back on the shelf and went home empty-handed. And I sat there and thought, why do I know that title? And I poked around on the "blog" and saw that my friend McNeil had mentioned DARKER THAN AMBER as being particularly sexist. But as far as I could tell from my own "blog" I hadn't read it, and perversely I decided to get it and see if McNeil was right. And McNeil was right! In fact, I would argue that Travis McGee goes beyond (?) mere misogyny into a psychotic fear of sex. Now, of course, we can't confuse the author with his creation, but I would argue that McGee is presented as an aspirational character. "Jake leaned back on his heels and stared up at me, like a man admiring a tall building," is a typically modest self-description by our narrator. And now please forgive me but I'm going to quote just a smidgen of the misogyny so you won't think I'm exaggerating. You have been warned. Here we find catalogued McGee's disapproval of women who have had too many boyfriends: "she suffers a sea change wherein her juices alter from honey to acid, her eyes change to glass, her heart becomes a stone, and her mouth a windy cave from whence, with each moisturous gasping, comes a tiny stink of death." What! What kind of writing do you call that? Moisturous! Moisturous? It has a certain purple tone that KNOWS it has a tone (A CERTAIN PURPLE TONE sounds like the title of a Travis McGee novel)... hmm... a tone approaching parody, but wanting it both ways... what is called in the business "kidding on the square," as I was once informed by Rob Schneider. Ha ha! But "tiny stink of death"? That's one of the grossest phrases I've come across. And later McGee refers to a woman's mouth as a "round horror-hole," okay? A ROUND HORROR-HOLE. Wow, I'm forgetting the owl. Weren't we talking about owls? McGee says that the eye of a corpse is "like a cheap glass eye in a stuffed owl." And you know what color that eye is? "Darker than amber," that's what color. So I was lying in bed reading this in the hotel room and Dr. Theresa was lying there too reading her own book - what a picture of contentment I am sure we made! - and she said, "Hey! This has an owl in it!" The owl in her book, she said, flew right into an inn and caused much consternation and dialogue. So! I finished Travis McGee and started a book of Sam Shepard short stories I had picked up at Skylight during one of our jaunts across the city. And in the very first story, some owls settle into a eucalyptus tree. So anyway that is a lot of owls in a lot of books for one trip. Speaking of Skylight Books! I ran into the actor Steve Little there, forced a copy of my most recent story collection on him (they had a couple of copies) and kind of harassed him until he fled the store. This is an accurate depiction of events. And speaking of Sam Shepard! So, T-Bone Burnett was one of the presenters at the Creative Arts Emmys, and I was determined to meet him at the ball following the show. And I did! Megan Abbott and I had been reading Sam Shepard's ROLLING THUNDER LOGBOOK, in which T-Bone Burnett appears, leading me to make the following brilliant remark to the distinguished musical icon of whom I have been a lifelong fan: "I saw a picture of you dressed up like a wizard!" (See above.) I'm getting everything out of order.

Let me check my jotting book and see which of my sparse jottings I've left out. Oh, went back to Dan Tana's and got the same booth. I was like, "Hey, I liked that booth when I was here before, can we have it?" And the maître d' was like, sure! "Karl Malden wouldn't sit anywhere else," he informed us. So here we are sitting where Karl Malden would be sitting were he still among the living. But he can't do a thing about it now! Photo by my brother. Well, I'm flipping through these pages and I hardly jotted anything, it turns out. I'm not sorry. On the plane ride to Los Angeles I was sufficiently convinced that my Biscoff cookie bore the face of a holy saint to request that Dr. Theresa take a photo of it, which she gamely did.

A Movie With a Book In It With an Owl In It

So I was watching DOCUMENTEUR by Agnes Varda and the mother and son start talking about a book they read about an owl who makes tea out of his own tears, and he has a list of sad things he thinks about to make himself cry enough to make a pot of tea. Despite some halfhearted "googling" I have not determined whether this is a real book or an invention of Agnes Varda, so I regret to inform you that I cannot at this time put it on my big long list of books with owls in them... however, I can say that - while being charming in its own right - this owl crying into his teapot business puts me in mind of one of the least pleasant subplots of the Thomas Harris novel HANNIBAL, which I bought at the Atlanta airport and read on an airplane back in 1999, yet to this day I remain astonished by the number of typos I recall. Never, to my recollection, have I run across a professionally published novel containing so many typos. You know I like everything! Yet somehow that book made me feel so bad - some flaw within myself, no doubt! - that I purposely left it behind in a San Francisco hotel room, an act for which I still feel remorse, what a horrible surprise for somebody. (I left some Bukowski novel - was it POST OFFICE? - in a New Orleans hotel room for similar reasons but I guess I don't feel so evil about that.) As long as you are here I should tell you that Ace Atkins and I finally went back to Costco yesterday. I saw "a fourteen-pound tub of violet decorative cake icing," as I put it on twitter. Although! In reality I saw several fourteen-pound tubs of cake icing, some orange, some green, some pink. I don't know why "violet" struck me so particularly. I did wonder - as I remarked to Ace on the way back - why there is only one color per tub. That seems like a rip-off! I think they should go in there and arrange it in three stripes, like Neapolitan ice cream. Though no doubt you get a good price on a fourteen-pound tub of cake icing, so who am I to argue?

Fly As Ever

Here's a photo from Kent's party. Look at all these geniuses. There's Adam in the foreground, as well he should be. And the back of Lyle Partridge's head is deep in conversation with Rebecca Sugar. And then I thought that was the back of Aleks Sennwald's head but Kent says that is the back of Tom Herpich's head! In fact, Kent pointed out, Aleks is visible way back there in the background, in another room, or another plane, ethereal and floating in a violet-blue (?) light. I just assumed she was a ghost! Oh, but continuing along toward the poster on the back wall we see Jesse Balmer and why there's none other than Seo Kim herself, thoughtfully musing! Meanwhile Jesse Moynihan leans against the other wall, as fly as ever in his downy sweater. I also see an elbow and a pocket flap and the back of another head. I'm not "blogging" anymore, but come on, you have to let me get the rest of this ADVENTURE TIME stuff off my chest. You don't want me to bottle it up inside, do you? DO YOU?

Old Paperbacks

Met Bill Boyle and Ace for coffee last night. Afterward, Ace and I walked back to his office on the square. Ace had to pick up some things for a plane trip he's making today, and he mused aloud, glancing over his bookshelves, about what he should read on the plane. Maybe John D. MacDonald, he was thinking. I jokingly suggested I COULD GO ON SINGING, MacDonald's novelization of a Judy Garland movie. Ace has it! He has every single John D. MacDonald book, as you can confirm via this interview ("click" here) I did with him a while back. Ace picked up one and fretted over bringing a "vintage paperback" on an airplane, which reminded me that I had been considering just such a thing. (Ha ha ha! Are you still reading this? I don't care.) I need to figure out something to read on an airplane pretty soon. All the things I'm reading now are big, heavy, bulky monsters that no one would enjoy carrying through an airport in today's complicated times: THE BOOK OF MAGIC, OSWALD'S TALE, and I'm finally back into THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY, come on! Get real! Get with it! So, someone... I think it was Kent Osborne... recently told me he (or she) was reading Vonnegut again. Was it Kent? [It wasn't. - ed.] I'm embarrassed to say I can't remember (see also). That - combined with the sighting of a colorful row of spines along a shelf at Square Books: slick new(ish) Vonnegut paperbacks - made me remember a neat little cardboard box I had requested and received for Christmas when I was about 13, a cardboard box of five mass-market Kurt Vonnegut paperbacks.

Here, I found a picture of one on the "internet." I have a deep feeling that this could be the most boring "post" I've ever written and yet I feel no compulsion whatsoever to stop. For example, here's something funny I remember about this cardboard box of Kurt Vonnegut books. It used to have WELCOME TO THE MONKEY HOUSE in it but I removed it and hid it somewhere in shame or fear and, with some effort, squeezed my older and somewhat fatter copy of Vonnegut's PLAYER PIANO into its place (to avoid uncomfortable questions, I suppose). Why? I have the vague notion that something offended or terrified me about WELCOME TO THE MONKEY HOUSE! Whereas I spent a lot of time casting the movie of PLAYER PIANO that I was going to make when I grew up. All I remember is that Peter Sellers was in it. Wait, I'm almost to the point. I remembered that although I've had this cardboard box for around 40 years (see also), there are two books in there I've never read! What a crummy way to treat such a nice Christmas gift. What an ingrate! So I thought I might read my 40-year-old paperback of THE SIRENS OF TITAN on my upcoming airplane ride. I like everything about this edition (above)! Look at the purple pulpy (purply?) cover! Look at this dude in the loincloth and the (I assume) sirens in question. I like the price of 1.95 on the cover! I like that the edges of the pages are green-blue. I'll show you:

Are the pages of current mass-market paperbacks still edged in blue or red or gold? Once again I'm reminded that I'm just not observant enough to be a "writer." So THE SIRENS OF TITAN looked pristine!

And I opened it up and the first eight pages fell out. But I don't think that's going to stop me. Crack it open in the middle and you can see that most of the glue holding the book together has dissolved. I still feel okay.

Do You Remember Mabel

McNeil sent the above movie still, accompanied by the following note: "of all the times I have watched THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, I don't think I have ever noticed this famous guy standing in front of Buddy when he enters The Purple Pit." Ha ha, I like McNeil wanton use of the term "famous guy." I recognized the gentleman in question as the hapless telephone company employee (?) from TV's ALICE. OR DID I? I thought for years that this same fellow (Marvin Kaplan, above) played Jeff Goldblum's sinister flunky in DEEP COVER. I was impressed by his versatility and boldness! But while it was Marvin Kaplan in ALICE, it wasn't him in DEEP COVER. It was this guy, Sydney Lassick (below).

So I guess Marvin Kaplan didn't have any versatility and boldness after all. As you will see, however (perhaps with the aid of a magnifying glass), both Kaplan and Lassick are wearing jauntily patterned newsboy caps in their official imdb photos, as if to continue confounding me from beyond the grave (though one of them is still alive).

Later, McNeil appended a "boring interview" with Kaplan to his original message. Excerpts: "MARVIN KAPLAN: My favorite whom I met, but never worked with was Mikhail Rasumny. Remember Mr. Rasumny? INTERVIEWER: No. MARVIN KAPLAN: You don't?... MARVIN KAPLAN: Do you remember Mabel? INTERVIEWER: No. ... MARVIN KAPLAN: They were all top people. Irene Tedrow. Remember Irene? INTERVIEWER (silence): No. ... MARVIN KAPLAN: Remember Ruthie? INTERVIEWER (silence): No. You're stumping me."

Color Accuracy

Look! I took this picture of Kent and Ashly. I told 'em they looked like a Hal Hartley movie. I'm not sure that's accurate. But whatever they look like, they look great, don't they? This was snapped between the Creative Arts Emmys and the Creative Arts Ball. That's right, we went to the Emmys! The Creative Arts Emmys. They're just like regular Emmys. They are regular Emmys! They're Emmys! But more creative. And sure enough I brought my jotting book that I always fill with my special jottings just for you. In fact, Adam Muto had to keep reminding me, "Put your book away," because I was jotting backstage after we WON Emmys and people were trying to interview us and take nice pictures of us and give us our Emmys and I was dazed and jotting.

Here, for example, we find me hugging a giant Emmy statue with my jotting book in my hand - the famous jotting book you've probably been waiting your whole life to see! - moments after winning an Emmy. HOW DID WE GET HERE? We must begin a couple of days before the Creative Arts Emmys, on Dr. Theresa's birthday! 1. We were in a nice restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee. The next table received an unordered caprese salad, which caused a minor kerfuffle! I said, "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold." So we started quoting poetry at each other. Dr. Theresa said she likes "Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking" and I said, "Death, death, death, death," which I believe is a quotation from it (?) and Dr. Theresa said, "Uh, it's my birthday." 2. The next morning I had to leave Dr. Theresa behind! She drove back to Oxford and went to work while I climbed aboard an airplane, where I watched that recent biopic about Brian Wilson. There is a scene where he is on an airplane yelling, "I don't want to die! I don't want to die!" That was a funny thing to show on an airplane. 3. I kept thinking, "Brian Wilson IS James Baxter!" Meaning the ADVENTURE TIME character James Baxter the Horse, not James Baxter the beloved animator for whom James Baxter the Horse is named.

"Can we get a horse in here?" is one thing that Brian Wilson said during the "making of PET SOUNDS" montage. 4. Dramatically, my pen cap dropped to the floor and rolled away, beyond all reach! I could no longer put that pen in the pocket of my nice pants without some danger. THIS MIGHT SERIOUSLY CURTAIL MY JOTTING! As you will see from the unreadable verbosity of what follows, such was not the case. 5. But as I was thusly fretting, I lost the whole pen, which rolled under the feet of a possibly mean old man behind me on the plane. I opened up the window shade and saw brown mountains and brown land, some dry river beds, some roads, I think, cut into the land. I thought, "There it is, the Old West!" I brooded sentimentally about the people who used to cross it the hard way. "Every Valley Shall Be Exalted" was shuffling through on the iPod and I thought, looking at the land, "Handel had the seeds of the future in him!" Ha ha! What a lunatic! I mean me, not Handel.

But anyway, it sounded like Handel knew that he was writing a great number to listen to while you're looking out the window of an airplane. 6. Safely at the hotel bar I sat next to a bigwig from Technicolor. Technicolor! I didn't know it was a business anymore. "I calibrated this TV because I couldn't stand it," he said, meaning the TV over the bar. I asked what movie he liked best, ignoring plot and direction and everything else but color. He said, "You mean COLOR ACCURACY." I don't think that's what I meant! I may have meant the opposite. But it turns out all he cares about is color accuracy. Before this guy looks at a piece of film or video to make the colors accurate, he sits in a dark, empty room for an hour staring at nothing! That's how he starts his job every day! To get his eyes properly adjusted, I think. "It's not meditation!" he said with some urgency, as if afraid I would think he was some kind of meditating person. It's a practical aspect of his job - that's what he meant. 7. Now let's go to the Emmys. IF WE CAN. I was sitting around Kent's place sipping some iced tea when he casually said, "Did you bring the tickets?" AND GUESS WHAT. I HAD FORGOTTEN THE TICKETS. I had to rush back to the hotel! What a caper! When I returned to Kent's place,

Ashly was already there to meet us. Like most of your more glamorous Emmy types, we arrived by Uber. We saw Anthony Bourdain on the red carpet. He said I looked nice! Which I only mention because I was worried about my red pants. WHY DID I BUY RED PANTS, I kept worrying. I was NOT worried about my jacket, which John T. Edge so graciously loaned me for the occasion. Well, I was worried about buttoning it. 8. While we were standing in the lobby waiting for the ceremony to start, I got to talk to Rebecca Sugar! This was an especial thrill for me. I admire her work so much, and she left A.T. to work on STEVEN UNIVERSE just before I arrived on the show, I think. I had taken note of what she was doing and saw the magnificent scope of what the job could be. Before, we had met only once in passing on the street in front of the Cartoon Network building.

It was so much fun and fascinating to get to hear her talk about her songwriting process, just for one thing. 9. Okay, so Mel Brooks presented the first award. I think Kent was the one in the whole crowd who leapt quickest to his feet and instigated the well-deserved standing ovation. 10. Kent went to the lobby to get a beer. You can get a beer during the Creative Arts Emmys! They're no squares! So Matt Weiner, creator of MAD MEN, was coming into the auditorium as Kent was leaving. So Kent said, "Hi!" and Matt Weiner said, "Hi!" Later, Ashly saw Kathryn Hahn in the women's restroom! She was really nice! Little did I know that later, at the ball, I would foist myself (psychologically speaking) upon both Beau Bridges ("Here's all I want to say to you: FABULOUS BAKER BOYS." Ha ha, what an idiot I am) and Key from Key and Peele!

11. So in between the awards and the ball, Rob Sorcher, the CCO of Cartoon Network, invited everyone to fancy bar nearby. We had a lot to celebrate. Not only did ADVENTURE TIME win best animated short-form series (here I am unintentionally photobombing Adam as he makes his acceptance speech), but Pat McHale's OVER THE GARDEN WALL won best LONG-form series! Here you can see a "candid shot" of Pat in the background as he stares into his drink and contemplates the fleeting nature of happiness at the fancy bar:

Yeah, I know most of these pictures feature me, but this is my "blog," I mean, gee. I hate you! Leave me alone! 12. My notes get really jumbled around this point. Should I jump ahead, as they indicate, and talk about when Pat McHale gently jostled me, causing me to spill wine on my white shirt? Pat dropped to his knees in unnecessary apology, with such flair and dexterity that he resembled James Brown at the end of a performance! 13. BUT! first we must get to the ball. That was tricky! No one seemed to know how to get there. There was a strange line between buildings, almost a maze, and Matt Weiner was at the head of it, walking fast. He was like the Pied Piper! Harry Crane (pictured) from the show was walking beside him, looking just like Harry Crane.

I still felt anger at him for his bad doings! Matt Weiner was leading everyone down dead alleys and around false corners. I was walking at some distance behind, side by side with Tom Herpich, who won TWO Emmys that night! One for individual achievement on A.T. (his marvelous solo episode "Walnuts and Rain")

and one for his work on OVER THE GARDEN WALL. (I should mention that the episode that won us the best series Emmy was Kent's solo episode "Jake the Brick.") So Tom had Emmys in both hands, and my Emmy kept banging into his as we walked along - LIFE IS HARD! - until I had the bright idea of switching hands (though I kept unconsciously switching back). Then I offered to carry one of Tom's Emmys for a while. Because they're heavy! He gladly accepted. BUT THEN I saw that our CCO (who greenlit MAD MEN back in the day as well as greenlighting ADVENTURE TIME - this guy has a greenlighting thumb, I tell ya!) was striding alongside Matt Weiner, at the front of the line, having a chat. So I chucked Tom's Emmy back at him like a lout and raced to the front of the line for my big chance to... WAIT! WHAT AM I DOING? I forgot to tell you what it's like to "win an Emmy." 14. So. It really is completely surprising, just like they say. Kent kept telling me, "After Mickey Mouse beats us we'll go have a drink." And we all thought that! And I didn't even think I cared. But I started caring! The whole thing is such a blur that when somebody asked me the next day who presented our award, I couldn't remember. Adam said he felt much the same way. Neil Degrasse Tyson was onstage, in retrospect, and it all happened so fast I didn't even realize he was announcing our award. In fact, I was softly muttering something blasé about Neil Degrasse Tyson's persona to Kent just before - WHILE? - it happened. 15. I saw the CCO gesticulating urgently as I waddled slowly up the aisle. He was giving me those "hurry up" gestures. When you get onstage you're just confused. You can't hear anything. I couldn't hear what Adam was saying to the world. 16. After you win an Emmy you look around for somebody to tell you what to do. Nobody really does. Somebody with a microphone asks questions. They take your picture. I foolishly knelt on one brittle knee in the front row with Kent and then I couldn't get up. I put my hands on Kent's shoulders to help steady myself as I rose and I nearly crushed Kent into the ground. It was a terrible spectacle of oldness. Then you go into a room and meet these two women behind a table, just like the volunteers at your polling station on Election Day! They make you find your name on a piece of paper and sign it. That's so you can get your Emmy. By now I understood that I was actually going to get one, the actual statue, but I still couldn't understand that it was happening. Then you have to carry it around all night! At the ball, I'd pick it up whenever I left the table. I didn't want to lose it. And I was weirdly attached to "my" Emmy, the one I had happened to choose from the random array. (The plaque with your name on it comes later, they tell me.) A stranger came up to me and said, "There are two kinds of people here tonight, the people who carry their Emmys around with them and..." It was obvious she was giving me a stern chiding for being that crass sort of person whom she had first mentioned. But I didn't want to lose it! The Emmy, I mean. 17. Although I must admit that Kent and I very purposefully took our Emmys with us when we went to see Pamela Adlon at her table. We thought they would get us closer to her! Like we wouldn't seem like maniacs! All this, even though Kent has voice-directed her for ADVENTURE TIME in the past. Still we were enthralled and nervous!

The woman who took this picture couldn't figure out how to work the camera. I said, "You say you're in the television industry?" which was supposed to be cute and lighthearted, but I think it came out more sarcastic than I intended! She repeated it after she took the picture. "I was trying to be funny," I stammered. It is probably best not to "try to be funny" at the LOUIE table. "You were funny," Pamela Adlon said, patting my arm and being nice. The woman who took the picture is the casting director for LOUIE, so you know how good she is. After the picture-taking we talked to her for a while about that, especially the little girl who so dazzlingly plays Louie's younger daughter, and how she came to find her and how she had known she was right for the role and why it's so tough picking the right child actor. And of course I brought up the time they tried to get Jerry Lewis for the part David Lynch ended up playing. 18. Then Kent and I went to gawk at Anthony Bourdain, whom I know a little bit. We discussed his role in ARCHER. He said he'd love it if his character came back and I kept rudely reminding him that he fell out of an airplane.

"But you didn't see me hit the ground!" said Anthony Bourdain. 19. At the ball I thought it was kind of funny that they were playing Billy Joel muzak. And then I thought it was even funnier when I figured out that the Billy Joel muzak was being played by a live string orchestra! By the end of the night, there was live dance music, and when we were "leaving" we ended up dancing for five or six or seven songs instead, Kent and Ashly and Tom and me.

Who knew Tom could dance? He can really dance! Why is that surprising? Well, as Seo Kim said the next day, when I astonished her with my tales of Tom's dancing abilities, Tom "never moves." Adam confirmed Tom's economy of motion. "Saving it up," Tom said (concisely!) when confronted. Well, he certainly puts it to good use when the time comes! I don't know who the eerie faceless figure in the background of this photo (above) is. Maybe it's Slenderman! 20. Oh! Painstakingly analyzing a vine of our dancing frame by frame, I find this evidence of Pat McHale's wine crimes.

21. The next day I went to have brunch with my brother and nephews. My brother made me bring my Emmy with me to show the boys. When you leave the Emmys they give you this thing like - as my brother and I both independently said, and what is wrong with us? - a baby coffin to put it in. It was hard to carry. "Wah, wah, wah, my Emmy is heavy," my brother rightly mocked me. At brunch we talked about how you make a homunculus and debated my brother's preposterous claim that "most purple food is bitter." "Grapes!" I kept yelling at him. "Grapes!" 22. Then came the great bag hunt, my brother's Ahabian quest to find a canvas bag into which my Emmy coffin would fit. He said it would be easier for me to take it to the airport that way, and he proved to be right. He drove us all over the place in his search for the right bag. The right bag indeed proved elusive! Though not entirely. Sometimes we went in; sometimes my nephews and I waited in the car while my brother went in. Once he left us in a dark parking garage and we all sang (without accompaniment; car and radio were turned off and the windows were rolled down) the Roy Orbison song "In Dreams." As creepy as it was for us, we only imagined later the probable terror of the other poor people in that parking garage, listening to us trying to sing Roy Orbison's song about that "candy-colored clown" who comes into your room late at night. 23. The next day I went to the office and had lunch with Seo Kim and Sam Alden. Somebody at the table next to us was explaining to his coworkers that the only reason people die is that the sun poisons them, otherwise we would all be immortal. This led to an interesting discussion after they left, and maybe one day I'll type it up, I have all the jottings right here, and they are pretty good - like about how big lobsters can get (really big!) - but man, I'm tired! 24. Writer's meeting with Adam and Ashly! We got sidetracked watching David Lynch clips on the enormous TV in the conference room, focusing on Lynch's obsession with lip-synching...

a total coincidence having nothing to do with singing "In Dreams" in the car with my nephews! In fact, it all started because something reminded Adam of James from TWIN PEAKS. In what might have been the hugest coincidence of all, I thought I saw Dean Stockwell at the airport on my way back home! But it wasn't Dean Stockwell, so it wasn't any kind of coincidence, and I guess I shouldn't have even mentioned it just now. But I did. This "Dean Stockwell" I saw turned out to be an actor named Peter Brown. I've never heard of him (or seen him in anything, as far as I can tell), but I could tell he was an actor. And the "internet" says he is one year younger than Dean Stockwell. I was so close! And his wife was excited that I recognized him, and she was so happy and sweet-natured I didn't have the heart to correct her. 25. I'm leaving out a lot of stuff, believe it or not. I guess the eager archivists of the future will have to devote their lives to studying the quaint runes of my little jotting book to find out what else Seo and Sam and I talked about at lunch. 26. Oh yeah, sorry, I started "building up suspense" about a "Matt Weiner story" all the way back in #13, above. But there isn't one! Joke's on you! No one is still reading this. Joke's on me! Well, there is a story, but I don't meet Matt Weiner in it. I'll tell you later. I won't tell you later.

Catamount Update

"You know, there's a college football team named the Catamounts. Western Carolina University," writes McNeil. McNeil would have us believe there's a WESTERN Carolina! I hastily misread that as "West Virginia," so when I first searched for an image, I discovered that there is a catamount team in West Virginia as well, and this catamount isn't trying so hard to be "cool":

And finally, below we find the Western Carolina mascot at what a press release refers to as his "birthday party," which was attended by some other mascots ("some of his closest mascot friends" says the press release). One of these mascots is named "Ted E. Tourist." He represents a team called the Tourists! Which seems like a bad name for a team. But what bothers me most of all is this bobcat's weird - which is to say, normal - hands (also, is he wearing RINGS on his middle fingers?):

Sea Minotaur

Hey everybody I'm reading a large book about the Middle Ages! It's called THE MIDDLE AGES. Let's see how far I get! So far I've made it to page 26. Here are three disconnected phrases I have enjoyed: 1. "(the 'Silver Codex,' thus called because it was written in silver ink on purple-stained vellum)" 2. "This historian also knew the legend that claimed that King Merovech was conceived by a minotaur who had risen from the sea" 3. "the former a long-serving general, and the latter a eunuch."

What Not to Read on International Women's Day

Happy International Women's Day! It occurs to me that a Travis McGee novel is not quite the thing to read on International Women's Day. If you "click" on this "link" and scroll down to the part where I am reading Travis McGee in a bubble bath - ha ha! Gross! I know you won't - you will note Travis McGee's general attitude. Here, I'll quote myself and save you the trouble: "Travis McGee likes to explain life to the ladies. He likes to tell women what's what. 'Baby, nothing is easy... real people walk around in the foggy, foggy dew.' Okay, Travis McGee! That little speech runs about a page... By page 142 two women have literally purred at him - PURRED AT HIM, NOT METAPHORICALLY - because he's so awesome at giving them a squeeze if you know what I mean. Maybe one woman specifically purring in gratitude for his manliness every 71 pages isn't too many, I don't know, what do you think, don't tell me, I don't care." Okay! And in the book I'm reading now, Travis McGee is eating in a diner and a women's bowling team comes in and makes him feel dirty with their salacious gaze! "Brown-faced stranger, with shoulders big enough to interest them." Ha ha ha! That's Travis McGee, describing himself! Describing how irresistible he must be to the women's bowling team.

Literary Matters

I guess it has been almost exactly three years since we have had any "Literary Matters" and do you know why? Because everybody hates them! Literary matters are the worst. But somehow I have two. 1) I am still getting a lot of enjoyment from this book THE LORE AND LANGUAGE OF SCHOOLCHILDREN: "At present rude gestures seem to be in a state of flux, the following being currently regarded as the most offensive: 1. The first and second fingers, extended and slightly parted, are jerked upwards, the back of the hand facing outwards. 2. The nose is pressed upward with the thumb, and the tongue put out. 3. Ears are twisted, or thumbs placed in ear-holes and fingers fluttered, a gesticulation known as 'elephant ears'. 4. The nose is held while an imaginary lavatory chain is pulled. 5. Air is forced through the pursed lips to make a juicy noise known as a 'raspberry'." (Pictured, friend of the "blog" Sally Timms making rude gesture #1, accompanied by smirking friend of the "blog" Jon Langford.) 2) Remember when Ace Atkins revealed a spoiler that ruined EVERY SINGLE TRAVIS MCGEE NOVEL FOR ME? I am going to tell it to you now, so BEWARE! (Oh, wait, I already told you this.) Ace told me, "The woman always dies." So anyhow I was going to go eat a cheeseburger down at Handy Andy's and I didn't have anything to read so I stopped by Square Books and got a Travis McGee paperback called A PURPLE PLACE FOR DYING. That sounds like a weird place for dying! So this woman wants to hire Travis McGee and he's thinking about it and she gets killed a few pages into Chapter One, while he's still standing there thinking about whether or not he's going to take the job! That must be some kind of a record, even for Travis McGee.

The Pills Kick In

1. There is no bar at the Tupelo Airport. There is a War Museum, which I skipped. The flight was delayed: some outfit called Silver Airways. They discontinue service to Atlanta in a few days, so I was crossing my fingers that their heart was still in it a little. It wasn't, I think. 2. Lots of posters about history on the walls of the Tupelo Airport. One poster recounted a Chickasaw legend about the naming of Alabama. It involved some Native Americans strolling around tossing a stick in the air. I'd only ever heard it from my dad before. It's a pretty good story! I had recently incorporated it into a short story in my supposedly forthcoming collection MOVIE STARS (2016). And there it is on a poster at the Tupelo airport. And so begins my traditional jotting in my precious little notebook, recording my eventful travels for grateful future generations. 3. Dr. Theresa had flown Silver Airways before and assured me that John T. Edge - a world traveler! - uses it all the time. I saw him at a party and when I brought it up, seeking comfort, he didn't seem quite so sure about Dr. Theresa's characterization of his travel habits. Was he bemused, even? Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls flew Silver Airways when she came to Oxford recently. Only upon my return did Dr. Theresa happen to mention that Ms. Ray compared her experience to the John Lithgow section of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE. 4. Well, what with the delayed flight, these pills are kicking in too early. I feel like Elaine Dundy somehow. 5. I must give props to the old-fashioned office-style water cooler in the Silver Airways waiting room, with its exceptionally cold and bracing water. 6. I can tell you what I plan to read on the plane if it ever gets here: THE DRINKING DEN by Zola. Expectation of owls in it is low. It's a gritty human drama of the streets of Paris... laundresses, blacksmiths, roofers. When will they have the chance to hear an owl? Some bird imagery when two blacksmiths are showing off their skills for a laundress: "they were like two great red cockerels strutting around in front of a little white hen. What would they think of next? Sometimes, the heart really does have a strange way of declaring its feelings." The shy blacksmith shows the laundress some rivet-making machines. He's ashamed at the precision of the machine-made rivets compared to his own. The laundress objects: "'See what I mean?' she yelled passionately. 'They are TOO well made. I prefer yours. There, at least, you can feel the hand of an artist.'" I liked that part. 7. I resisted THE DRINKING DEN at first - squalid in the name of so-called "realism" and a little prurient it seemed to me, but I really got caught up in the story. Zola lets something nice happen just for the pleasure of pulling the rug from under these poor so-and-sos. It's cruel, but it keeps you turning pages with sickly, burning hope. 8. The loudspeakers of Silver Airways - why isn't their logo the Silver Surfer? - made a cryptic announcement that our pilot was "in the air" and headed our way. But from where? Across the street? Pills wearing off. The iPod is on shuffle. Harry Partch is singing about monkeys. I have various superstitions and rituals involving the iPod I shan't go into here. 9. A young woman is taking up an entire row of these vinyl waiting room seats. She's sprawled out on her stomach. Her face is pressed flat against the very spot where strangers' butts go. Ah, youth! Impervious youth. 10. The tiny plane landed and it had a slogan printed on the side: "BUILDING BLOCKS." I don't know what that meant, but it didn't strike me as a reassuring thing to stencil on the side of an airplane; I felt the airplane should demonstrate a surer sense of already having been put together properly. The engines were painted fuchsia, a bold choice! I decided to ignore that Blackalicious was performing "It's Going Down" on my iPod as I settled into my seat. 11. Late! A missed connection in Atlanta. Sitting at an airport piano bar reading THE DRINKING DEN (among other things, a catalogue of downfalls instigated by demon liquor) while drinking rye and listening to a lookalike of actor Mike Starr (pictured, the real Mike Starr, I mean) tinkling out a syrupy version of my favorite Chi-Lites song.

I was just happy to be on the ground for a few minutes and about how nice the Delta guy had been about getting me a good seat on the next plane out, so when the bridge came up I belted, "Whhhyyyyyyy Oh Why! Did she leave and go away?" as everyone pretended to ignore me. 12. (One day I'll go back and fill in all the jottings I left out from our punk rock trip to NYC. Like the great steaks Dr. Theresa and I had at LaGuardia! You have to cut them with a plastic knife for security reasons. "But you could kill somebody with this fork," said Dr. Theresa, jabbing to demonstrate. "Shh!" I said. But it was a real fork and she had a point.) 13. Savannah at last! Elizabeth picked me up at the hotel and treated me to a fancy dinner. When we left the restaurant, her car had been towed! She refused to take the cab with me, insisting that she lived "a couple of blocks away." So I couldn't get her on the phone for the rest of the night and spent a troubled evening fearing unspeakable calamity. 14. I finally talked to Elizabeth at eight the next morning as I ate my $36 room-service oatmeal, and she was alive! 15. I spoke to a "humor class" and then the writer Lee Griffith drove me to lunch. Quite unexpectedly we spotted Elizabeth walking down a sidewalk like a glamorous spy in sunglasses. OR WAS IT HER? We turned around and drove back to find out. But she HAD VANISHED! We spotted her headed down a different street. We circled the block to catch up with her. GONE AGAIN! This went on for a while until I insisted she was driving the car behind us. By this time Lee was convinced I had been hallucinating everything. But it was Elizabeth! Her car had not even been towed. She had parked it a block away from her house and forgotten. 16. At one point I needed a tissue and Lee gave me A REAL CLOTH HANDKERCHIEF. TO KEEP! 17. Yes, I got up in front of a packed auditorium of hundreds of young innocent college students and rambled about Jerry Lewis. I remember some of what I said. 18. I praised Jerry's DIY and punk spirit in making THE BELLBOY, though I think I forgot to tell them the title of the movie. 18. When demonstrating Dean Martin's approach to art, the opposite of Jerry's, yet equally valid (no matter what that one guy whom I'll never ever forgive said in that one grad class that time), I eased into a brief, unplanned Dean Martin impersonation. It was really more like Perry Como, but they'll never know that. 19. I drew a line from Jerry to John Waters to Andy Kaufman to Tim and Eric to argue against the importance of "laughing" at comedy. 20. I argued for the influence of THE LADIES MAN on MOONRISE KINGDOM. They applauded at the mention of the latter title because (I think) I had finally mentioned something they had heard of. 21. I encouraged them to emulate Jerry Lewis, who cut his education short when he smashed his high school principal in the face for making an anti-Semitic remark. 22. The Q&A session. Nearly all the Qs were about ADVENTURE TIME. I managed to finesse some of the answers so that they came back to Jerry. I summoned the hubris, for example, to compare Kent Osborne and myself to Dean and Jerry while pontificating on the importance of serendipitous friendships to the development of unanticipated new forms of artistic expression. 23. One kid asked about the influence of Charlie Chaplin on Jerry Lewis, God bless him! God bless that wonderful little bastard. 24. I was very pleased to stay for an hour after the lecture as a long line of young people wanted to talk about ADVENTURE TIME some more. 25. Dinner at a lovely restaurant with a view of riverboats chugging by. The waiter said something about "assorted heirloom carrots" but it sounded like "sordid heirloom carrots" ha ha! Good times. 26. HERE IS SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED! It turned out that Beth Concepcion, the Dean of Liberal Arts, with whom we were having dinner, USED TO DATE BARRY MILLS! That's right, "Barry B." of "blog" "fame"! "The only ghost story I was ever a part of involved Barry Mills," she said. To which I replied, "Was it the old sea captain?" To which she cried, "Yes!" I knew all about the ghost in Barry's old house. But SHE had heard the relentless footsteps of the mysterious old salt himself! 27. It must have been about this time that I splashed seafood broth all over the lapels of my purplish jacket, and that's okay. Like the "magic jacket" before it, it may be up for retirement. Oh, purplish jacket, you are too much for this sad world! 28. Elizabeth and I had a nightcap at the hotel bar, where they were trying to sell an oil painting of a lion for $30,500.

Here I am pretending to kiss it for reasons that seemed amusing and even sensible at the time. 29. Let's skip straight to the tiny airplane that would take me from Atlanta to Tupelo. "For weight and balance purposes, we need all of you to sit in rows 9-12, no matter what your ticket says," announced the flight attendant. Weight and balance purposes! I don't want to hear about your weight and balance purposes when the airplane is about to take off. One guy just kept sitting there in row 7 and he was really freaking me out! Didn't he care about the weight and balance purposes? 30. A fellow passenger - she in awesome zebra-print pants and elaborately tooled boots - volunteered that she liked my jacket! Broth-spattered as it was. 31. I fell asleep on the runway and was awakened by the distinct feeling of someone vigorously shaking my shoulder. No one was there, of course. "Well, this is a good sign," I reckoned. 32. I have to get on just seven more freaking airplanes in the next few weeks. 33. We got off the ground. The airplane started pitching around and making ghost noises, like, Woooooo! Wooooooo! Zebra Pants moved up next to a nice guy she had met. She was across the aisle from me now. This guy was a trucker who was set to haul a load to Kansas when he landed. I said to Z.P., "This plane is making ghost noises!" She said, "I'M SCARED!" And then she said, "You can reach over and grab my hand if you want." I declined. 34. But I noticed that by the end of the flight she was holding hands with the trucker. Aw! Their names were Veronica and Ray. Safe travels! 35. I don't want to be too hard on Silver Airways. Back on the ground in Tupelo a worker raced across the tarmac toward me, clutching the paperback of THE DRINKING DEN I had accidentally left behind on the plane.

The Poop of Mighty Eagles

My "internet" pal Jessica Easto, who used to go by an anonymous code name on this "blog" for reasons I doubt either of us can recall, tweeted about a recent correction in the New York Times. Here is a "link," also provided by Jessica, to that correction, which apologizes for misrepresenting the "poop" of eagles and ospreys as purple. "They eat fish, and their poop is white." So gravely states the New York Times with regret for its previous error. The comma makes it elegant somehow. See also.

Hit a Cigarette

Megan Abbott sent me a "link" to an article about Stephen Crane, and it made his novel THE THIRD VIOLET sound pretty appealing. I didn't think I'd ever heard of it, even, but it turns out I have a copy around here, so I started reading it. It's like a really good episode of GIRLS! It's all about artists trying to make it in NYC - they're always trading wisecracks and smoking cigarettes and playing the guitar "despondently" and there's one young woman nicknamed Splutter, so there are lots of good lines like, "Sit down, Splutter, and hit a cigarette." Hit a cigarette! I like that a lot. The slang is great. They constantly call each other "chumps," which always struck me as a kind of '30s insult, but Megan confirmed that it goes back to the late 19th century, when the book came out. So Stephen Crane was right on top of things! In fact, one guy says, "Splutter was in last night. Looking out of sight." And he means "out of sight" in the way we associate with the 1960s or '70s. Once again, Megan confirmed that this was up-to-date slang in the late 19th century. Who knew? Stephen Crane, that's who! Even the old, forgotten slang (by me at least) sounds fresh and new, like when Splutter insults the guys by calling them a bunch of "dubs." I like it. Let's bring it back. Some of Splutter's friends are named Purple and Wrinkles and Grief.