The Toastmaster Who Wasn't There

Now, how was Ace to know of my disenchantment, or whatever it is, with the idea of the Oscars? So he casually mentioned that he thought Conan O'Brien did a good job. "Well, we'll see about that!" I thought with churlish... I don't have a good noun to finish that sentence. The adjective churlish stopped my brain! So I scurried around on the "internet" like a little rat and watched a couple of minutes of Conan O'Brien doing his monologue. In my foul mood, I couldn't concentrate on his razor-sharp wit or whatever everybody thinks it is. All I noticed was how he amateurishly clapped his hands together every 10 seconds. He didn't know he was doing it! Such was my interpretation. His body was out of his control! And so on. Such was the content of my bitter thoughts. So I used email, the old person's medium, to craft a sentence only a 200-year-old man could appreciate: "All I’m saying is you wouldn’t see Bob Hope clapping his hands together every 10 seconds like the toastmaster at the Kiwanis Club." Ace responded that the Kiwanis make excellent pancake breakfasts and have programs to help children in need. So I really felt like a jerk after that. After some thought, I realized what a few of my problems were, and I encapsulated them thusly: "Once I was in a play and someone videotaped it, and when I watched the videotape I was horrified to see that I was involuntarily and unconsciously clapping my hands together every 10 seconds for no discernible reason. Conan's only real crime was reminding me of my own many failures! Also, I picked the Kiwanis Club at random, assuming they were a generic men's fraternal organization such as Fred Flintstone used to belong to. I didn't know anything about them! I should have turned the merciless spotlight on myself, not on the innocent members of the Kiwanis Club! I don't even know if they have toastmasters!" It was like when the guy in MULHOLLAND DR. (above) said "There is no band." That is, there was no toastmaster. Or to paraphrase Stanley Kubrick, I have always been the toastmaster. It's like in ANGEL HEART when... never mind. I don't want to spoil ANGEL HEART for you. I know you've been meaning to get around to it. Similar to the plot of that one Dan Duryea movie of which I can't recall the title. Wait! BLACK ANGEL. Why do they all have angel in the title? Let's forget it. Please join us tomorrow, when we start over with a clean slate, beginning with McNeil's revelation of some startling theological insights. I'm unemployed. PS The toastmaster I'm imagining wouldn't clap his hands together every 10 seconds anyway. He'd be gripping the podium in white-knuckled terror.

Don't Take Advice From an Owl

Easter is big! People love to go out and have a nice dinner the night before Easter, probably, and one such person is Ace Atkins, I guess. Look what he saw on the wall of a restaurant: some sort of dish towel with advice on it. If you ask me, an owl supposedly giving you advice (the theme of the dish towel in question) is just distracting you in preparation for an attack with its razor-sharp talons and bone-crushing beak. Also, some of this stuff isn't what I think an owl would say. Like, does an owl have friends? Not to mention which, some of it is not technically advice. I hate to be so critical of a dish towel.

No Coffee Movie

Woke up early and turned on TCM before coffee. Right away, before I could tell anything about the plot, the movie gave off an automatic Cold War paranoia vibe, one of my favorite flavors. And then - still without the benefit of coffee - I started noticing how the camera liked to rise over narrow pathways that bisected the screen, as one lone figure or another (a guard dog in a razor-wire enclosure, for example, or our Rat Pack-ish protagonist striding down the pier on the way to his houseboat - was it a houseboat? It should have been a houseboat) moved into the distance. A visual motif! It was a poor print, maybe, and people were sometimes bathed in a pale pink or green light that, decaffeinated as I was, I found mesmerizing. It was like the light in Jerry Lewis's THREE ON A COUCH, except nothing in Jerry is ever washed-out or faded. Pinks and greens were anomalous in a film made up mostly of men in gray sweaters, gray tweed jackets, or gray suits (only one woman in the cast while I was watching) sitting around on cream-colored furniture. Many times the palette verged on black-and-white, with a blue bowl or some reddish-brown tiles or such providing the only variety. At one point a scientist said something like, "Yes, we found an ugly but fitting name for this virus... we call it........ THE SATAN BUG." The way he said it (however he said it), the title of the movie could have only been THE SATAN BUG and indeed that is what it turned out to be. (I hadn't even thought to check, because the great thing was that I was barely awake and didn't care if the movie was "good" or not and I still don't know if it was "good" or not and I'm okay.) The hero wasn't really Rat Pack-ish, probably, except in his personal life. On the job, he became a deadpan Jason Bourne type, I guess. I don't know. I was just looking at the movie and not thinking about plot or characters. For extra credit, contrast the lab scene above, in which colors are almost monastically isolated, with the vibrant, explosive opening of Lewis's THE NUTTY PROFESSOR. At the left of the frame, a guy in a gray suit, standing under a sickly green light, just like I said. (See also.)

A Bitterant

We went to Walmart. Dr. Theresa gave me an assignment, which was to pick up one thing then go to the magazine and book section so she could find me. The thing I picked up is called "Ultra Duster - Industrial Strength." On the receipt it appears as "CANNED AIR," which I like. The front of the can proclaims that it is good for "Offices - Factories - Automobiles." But on the side of the can, in much smaller print, is a long list of other things you can dust with the Ultra Duster. The list starts with "Computers * Keyboards * Sewing Machines" and includes "Electric Razors" and "Guns." But then they run out of room on the side of the can, so the side of the can directs you to a "web" site with more examples of things you can dust with the Ultra Duster. The can also says, "Contains a bitterant to help discourage inhalant abuse." A bitterant! I am pretty sure I did not know that word before. So I waited for Dr. Theresa in the book and magazine aisle, leafing through Diane Keaton's autobiography. I only had time to read that she was on the TV show MANNIX when she was young, and that Mannix was really nice to her because she was nervous, and I guess she still keeps in touch with him! She writes that he is 86 and "going strong" (that's how she puts it, I believe) and still married to his wife Mary Lou. DVDs were next to the books and magazines and an employee was just PUNCHING and SLAMMING DVDs into a display one at a time with mighty and violent and punishing force, as if there were nothing so disgusting as a DVD. Like SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! Then a shrieking alarm went off somewhere in the store and just kept going. A guy was pushing a shopping cart and talking to himself but he probably had his reasons.

Nuts

I was at Off Square Books. That's where the used books are! And I came across a secondhand copy of Elaine Dundy's book about Elvis Presley and his mother. Yes, in case you didn't know, witty, worldly, sophisticated Elaine Dundy - novelist of comedies of manners set on the Left Bank of Paris and in swinging London, whose work has probably been described by some critic as "a soufflé laced with arsenic" or "a champagne cocktail with a razor blade in it" or, I don't know, some other thing a critic might say involving light food and a weapon - also wrote a book about Elvis Presley and his mother. And I was standing there thinking, you know, gosh, do I really need this? So I opened it up and it begins, BEGINS I said, with a detailed description of the origin of Captain Marvel's sidekick Captain Marvel, Jr. So at one point Captain Marvel has flown with severely injured Freddy Freeman (soon to be - SPOILER ALERT! - Captain Marvel, Jr.) to a hospital, but is denied entry by what Dundy calls "an officious hospital attendant." Dundy continues: "Responding with a simple 'Nuts,' Captain Marvel walks through a wall and into an operating room where he curtly orders a surprised doctor to 'get to work' on the young boy." So my question was answered. Yes, I really need this.

Psychic Smoothie

I woke up at 2:30 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep so I got up and turned on the TV. Can you guess what I saw? No, not the Ninja Blender, but that was a good guess! I saw an infomercial for another blender, the one endorsed by Montel Williams and first brought to our attention by the NBIL. A woman said, "A regular blender can't chop through lettuce and apples!" A man said, "I could put a brick in here!" But he didn't. That would have been neat. Then the announcer said something like, "Coming up, Sylvia Browne makes psychic predictions and reveals her favorite smoothie!" And I was like, "Huh. That name is familiar to me." I think Sylvia Browne had a bunch of books on that list over at the behemoth, the one on which a customer placed my book YOUR BODY IS CHANGING as one of her favorite works about "spirituality and health." The one thing behemoths are known for is razor-sharp accuracy! Then I changed the channel and watched a great deal of CAPRICORN ONE. An astronaut on the run! From shadowy forces! He hides in a cave and eats a snake! Elliott Gould portrays a wisecracking reporter who just stumbled on the biggest story of his life! Karen Black is another wisecracking reporter. A guy who played a wisecracking reporter on the TV show LOU GRANT does not play a wisecracking reporter. He plays a low-level NASA employee who gets in over his head! Sam Waterston is another astronaut - a wisecracking one! He even makes wisecracks in the face of deadly danger. Also starring O.J. Simpson. When I was 15, I considered CAPRICORN ONE the highest of all artistic achievements.

The Barber's Little Joke

One of my undergrads turned in - as a supplement to her final paper - a couple of pages photocopied from the New York Herald of 1913. The headline pertinent to the class was "St. Louis Woman With Perfect Foot Wears a No. 2 1-2 Shoe" (don't ask) but what really got my attention was a brief, unrelated story printed in its entirety in the corner of that same page. I will type it up for you now. Please enjoy, bearing in mind that I have never learned to do "paragraph breaks" on the "blog," which accounts for any confusion you may experience: "FACES DEATH IN HANDS OF BARBER - Customer Causes the Arrest of Razor Wielder Thought To Be Insane or Affected by Drugs. - CHICAGO, Ill., Monday.- John Holm, a newspaper man, had one of the closest shaves of his life to-day. He was shaved by Perry E. Hall, a barber, who constantly discussed the ease with which he might cut Holm's throat. Holm, believing the man either insane or affected by drugs, jested with him until the shaving process was ended and then caused his arrest. 'It's a fine day,' Hall remarked as he lathered Holm. 'Yes,' answered Holm. 'And it's a fine edge I have on my razor to-day,' Hall said. He rested the razor on Holm's neck, and then remarked:- 'I could cut your throat without any trouble.' When the shave was finished Holm got a policeman. The barber will be in court to-morrow." The end. Now, do you think it's possible that the barber was making a joke and the newspaperman didn't have a sense of humor? That's it for the barber. But my student included a page from a few days later in 1913, the pertinent story being "With Tiny Feet in No. 1 AA Shoes New York Woman Defies St. Louis." Once again, my real interest lies elsewhere. The headline in the adjoining column screams "CHURCH TO TEACH HYGIENE OF SEX." But best of all is a story I wish I could read, though the bottom of the photocopy leaves off with just the headline and subhead... on second thought, maybe that's enough: ATHENS "RUBE" GIVES UP CONTEST WITH CITY WITS - Casey, Giant Farmer, Calls All Bets Off When He Is Placed on His Head and His Last Coins Are Shaken from His Pockets." The New York Herald from 1913 is my new favorite newspaper!

Watch Out! For Adorability, That Is!

We take a brief break from our ongoing groundhog coverage to bring you this news from the world of monkeys, one of our other favorite subjects. As you may recall, I have long been an advocate of just lazily "clicking" around from "link" to "link" until you find what you were looking for all your life. As far as I can tell, this may be the best thing about the "internet." So I was over on therumpus.net when I "clicked" on a "link" that led me to another "link" and so on and so forth until I came face to face with this monkey adorably brandishing the most cunning little straight razor. You will note that the cover featuring said monkey is for a book by Robert Walser, a writer whose brilliance I have extolled on this very "blog." Another coincidence is this: Theresa and I once watched and much enjoyed a George A. Romero horror movie called MONKEY SHINES, which features just such a little fellow wielding a similar instrument with a dexterity that perhaps should not surprise us. Monkeys are dexterous!

The Case of the Questionable Basilisk

"I'm wondering about the holiday unicorn," writes my brother-in-law. Not the NBIL. Another one. I guess we'll call him the OBIL, for old brother-in-law (as opposed to the N for "new" in the NBIL's designation) or other brother-in-law. There is a third brother-in-law to take into consideration, but I'm just one man! So for now, we'll call this brother in law the OBIL. To begin again, the OBIL writes, "I'm wondering about the holiday unicorn. The one with the questionable basilisk. The 'basilisk' wears a mean-looking spur. So mean in fact methinks it a razor that they make gamecocks wear. That and I think this 'basilisk' is addressing a multitude as stylized by tilted little ovals, which explains the fearful look of the main unicorn as it has stage fright. The 'basilisk' is talking with his hands, too. It could mean he doesn't know what he's talking about, he's of [here the OBIL makes a reference to his own Egyptian background... Fascinating! - Dr. Freud] origin, or he's performing a magic trick. Then there's the mysterious other unicorn. I believe him to be a bodyguard as denoted by his threatening posture, horn pointed at the crowd and all." We repeat the unicorn picture in question for your convenience. What do YOU see in the unicorn picture? Send your answers to "Unicorn" c/o "Writer" Oxford, MS 38655. Our team of unicorn iconography experts will psychoanalyze you up real good!