Cigarettes and Monocles

As you know, I don't "blog" anymore, except in times of worldwide emergency, which seemingly will be all the time now, and also there is nothing else to do anymore. So Megan and I are reading a bio of Ernst Lubitsch, which led me to watch Lubitsch's early silent film I WOULDN'T WANT TO BE A MAN, in which our protagonist must disguise herself as a man in order to smoke cigarettes publicly. This sort of backs up a thesis I put forth in my cigarette lighter book, about how before World War I, cigarettes were generally considered "feminine," whereas after World War I they had become "masculine." Or maybe it doesn't. And maybe that's not even what I said. I know I have a copy of that book somewhere. Oh well. I believe that in the same slim volume I also went off on the subject of monocles for some reason (I know why, but it's boring)... including the brief craze for wearing monocles with plain, non-magnifying glass in them just for the hell of it. Anyway, she does that in the movie, too! So I could have had a big time with I WOULDN'T WANT TO BE A MAN in my cigarette lighter book if only life had worked out differently.

I Checked My Pants

I won't lie to you: last time I went to the Emmys my tuxedo pants kept falling down. I'm not good with those tuxedo waistband adjusters, as I assume they are called. So this year I decided to buy some suspenders. Upon a close examination of my order, I realized I had purchased "button suspenders," which require suspender buttons to be sewn into the pants. "Oh no!" I exclaimed. "Am I going to have to sew buttons into my pants?" Reader, I just went to the bedroom closet and checked, and I am happy to inform you that my tuxedo pants already have buttons sewn inside for just such an occasion. I thought about "tweeting" this, but imagine what an insufferable "tweet" that would be. So, even though I do not "blog" anymore, I placed it here, where no one will ever see it.

Shimmering Follicles, Velvet Pancakes

Megan Abbott reports of her copy of our current Doomed Book Club selection, "whenever you lift the book, turn a page, or look at it with a squinty eye, crumbling paper follicles shimmer off it, into your hands." The Hollywood producer who really exists has the same hardcover edition, "follicles and all," the cover of which he says "depicts a Fritz Lang-esque metro landscape with skyscraper against an orange sky. Chilling." Incidentally, he breakfasted this morning on "red and blue velvet pancakes." RED AND BLUE VELVET PANCAKES! That's how they do it in Hollywood, baby. The cover illustration of my mass-market paperback shows Vic Norman in his suspenders, with cigarette and black tousled hair, working hard on writing an ad in his private train compartment, despite a woman in a silk robe fiddling with the radio and trying to scooch up next to him.

Big Foghorn Leghorn News

I guess the news here in Mississippi is that our governor, Foghorn Leghorn, has decided not to run for president. His only qualification was that he once enabled me to get a taco. That was his whole platform, I think. He was going to run on that. I am sorry he is not running because I had some bets going about whether he would magically lose his phony-baloney thumbs-tucked-under-the-suspenders road-company Boss-Hogg molasses accent overnight. I said he would! Mom thought otherwise. Think of all the money I would have been able to take from Mom! Am I getting "political"? Sorry!

Larry's Fave Suspenders

Q: Who gave Larry King his favorite pair of suspenders? A: Janet Jackson, of course! No, I'm not a psychic or some other kind of famous genius! It's on the twitter.

Whorton's Father's Belt

Remember those trick questions they used to give you in middle school? Well, this "post" has a trick title! For you see, Whorton's father does not wear a belt. Writes Whorton, "[My father] is trying to convince me to wear suspenders. He puts on his suspenders and then he is like, 'It is such a good feeling to be able to breathe, and know my pants are not going to fall down!'" This has been the latest in our series of reflections on belts and aging. I intend to nominate this series for a Peabody Award.

Epistle From a Wet Blanket

Hi, everybody! I felt bad leaving you in the "lurch"! So before I go to the symposium to speak on my panel, here is one last dispatch for the "road," this one courtesy of Jeff McNeil, who drives a truck for a large U.S. delivery service. Jeff reports: 5pm: I stop off at this place that's like a Mail Boxes Etc, but they have a name that sounds like a sandwich shop so nobody ever goes in there so, consequently, there's hardly ever anything for me to pick up - which is great! I walk in and ask them about the plane crash. (this is the day the plane crashed into the apt building in NYC) The father and son who work the joint just look at me. -- You guys should get a TV or radio in here or something. -- Then we wouldn't get any work done. I thought they were joking. I've never seen them get off their stools. -- I'm serious. Was that a terrorist plane? Can't you look it up on the internet? -- Well, I'm on the Post Office site right now. -- But did you sign a contract to be on there forever? Can't you open a new window? The son looked at his dad and screwed his face up. The dad shrugged. -- So you don't know anything about the plane crash? -- Somebody said something about it when they came in earlier. The dad said. -- Yeah? Like what? -- Just that a plane hit a building. -- Wow. Okay. So do you have anything for me today? -- Nope. Not today. -- Alright. Well, thanks for all the great information. Ha ha ha. They smiled. I adjusted my suspenders with a snap and left. I'm the only driver at this particular delivery company allowed to wear suspenders because of my accident - which happened on the job - and it's part of the 'reasonable accommodation' clause my lawyer got me as part of my compensation package. They're special suspenders that hold my hips in place, since the accident left me without hip joints. Without the suspenders my hips swivel more freely than Big E's and it freaks people out. NEXT STOP: a distribution warehouse for a large grocery store chain. It's just me and the security guard and a couple of employees passing through on their way out once in a while. First thing I notice is a big pile of boxes and letters, and all of them need labels. I hate that. The security guard comes over. Tells me how tired she is. I tell her that's not a good trait in a security guard. She says she wants to retire. She wants to win the lottery so she won't have to work anymore, or at least get a job at an elementary school in SC, which would be the same thing. I said, uh-huh. Then she walks over to her desk and comes back with a paper in her hand. -- Look at this. -- What? -- Just look at it. My water bill. $195.00. -- That sounds kinda high. -- About $175.00 too high! The toilet was running all month. All month the toilet was running. Can you believe it? -- You didn't hear it? -- We weren't there. We bought the house and then left and didn't go back with our stuff for another month and when we walked in the toilet was running full blast. She walked back to her desk despondent as all get out. -- Now I'll have to go out and buy a bunch of lottery tickets just to try to pay it. Then she started telling me about how she spent $25.00 on scratch-offs and one of them paid $10.00. She called that 'winning'. I loaded up the packages after that and left. Hey, it ain't Rome or Hollywood, but it's America, and it's real, and it's on my route until I get fired. POSTSCRIPT FROM THE "BLOGMASTER": According to Jeff, he explained to the woman that she hadn't really won anything, mathematically speaking, and she called him a "wet blanket."