Good Answer

Watching this movie from 1931 on TCM. This possessive jerk asks Joan Crawford where she's been and she says, "I've been down at the railroad tracks drinking champagne!"

The Tidbits Keep Coming

As I continue to examine this introduction by Oliver Lawson Dick, I notice something curious: he likes to slip in a slur upon some particular group - women, the Irish - in a casual, matter-of-fact way. What makes it especially striking is that Mr. Dick is always reminding the reader that despite John Aubrey's forward-thinking ways, he was saddled by the prejudices of his time. So is this ironic, maybe? Oliver Lawson Dick seems unaware. Putting such regrettable lapses aside, the tidbits keep coming. You know how I enjoy my tidbits. What is a "blog" but a sad pile of tidbits? For example, there was a man named Arise Evans. What a name! He "had a fungous Nose... at the first coming of King Charles II into St. Jame's Park he kiss'd the King's Hand, and rubb'd his Nose with it; which disturb'd the King, but Cured him."

Fishes Are of the Elder House

I was hasty in my dismissal of this 1949 edition of John Aubrey's BRIEF LIVES. Its introduction, which I haven't finished reading, seems to be the best of all three editions I have. Man am I boring myself right now. So I can imagine how you feel! But I can't stop. The editor who suppressed those four lines about Sir Henry Lee put me off of the 1898 edition. The 1949 introduction, by Oliver Lawson Dick, has lots of good stuff about Aubrey's problems with money, love, and finishing a book (which he never did as far as I can tell). But it also makes a good case for Aubrey as "the first archeologist that England had produced" and a forerunner of Darwin by a couple hundred years: "That the World is much older, then is commonly supposed, any man may be induced to believe from the finding of Fossils so many Foot deep in the Earth" and "Fishes are of the elder House." He also made experiments "to cure diseases, etc. by Transfusion of Bloud out of one man into another." Lots of wild stories about the medicine of the time. A woman put a toad in her husband's soup to try to poison him, but instead it cured his disease. Oh well! Aubrey is curious about everything. He interviews an old man who recalls the first carrots in England, and an old woman who remembers the first cabbages. He laments the introduction of the tabby cat: "'I doe well remember,' he says crossly, 'that the common English Catt, was white with some blewish piednesse.'" Dick writes, "The most educated and sensitive men were onlookers at... dreadful spectacles: even the kindly Aubrey reports, 'I did see Mr. Chr. Love beheaded on Tower-hill in a delicate cleare day.'"

Have Fun

Here are some favorite lines from Bill Cunningham's narration of that second video: "Here is an elderly lady tenant. She was at one time a circus performer. She played her harmonica outside Carnegie Hall for money... And she would ride up and down inside, on my floor, on her unicycle, balancing the dog on her head." Then he just casually drops the fact that Marilyn Monroe used to come by his place and "try on hats and laugh and have fun."

Small Monster on Armadillo Car

In that Cesar Aira book I am reading, a man has just found the shell of a gigantic prehistoric armadillo and turned it into a car. And now a small, evil monster has climbed on top of the car.

Late to the Party

Everybody knows about Bill Cunningham, I suppose. I didn't know about him until a few months ago, when Abby and Elizabeth told me all about him. BEFORE THEY MOVED AWAY FOREVER! So I am going to tell you about him in case you are stupid like me. He works for the New York Times. He is an awesome old man who rides around on his bicycle taking pictures of people wearing clothes that he likes. These pictures are arranged into little montages you can watch on the New York Times "web" site. They are narrated by Mr. Cunningham. I have noticed that Mr. Cunningham likes to employ some variation on this sentence when he can: "New Yorkers don't just schlep around in cut-off blue jeans!" Here is another video, different from his usual, in which he talks wonderfully about his old apartment. I am not sure why I am so late to the party with Bill Cunningham. I guess it is similar to the way I used to skip the Sunday Styles section until my friend from Hubcap City explained what I was missing: a guy who dresses up like a carpet and asks people to stand on him. I continue to skip the Sunday Styles section, but I occasionally regret it. And now, you know, they seem to have a gossip columnist who describes Alec Baldwin removing the bones from a fish. But Bill Cunningham is several cuts above all this other stuff. He has class!

Sorry

Viper wine can't help but make me think of Anya, who has moved away. I am sure you remember the story of how Anya consumed a cobra in Vietnam. I forgot to tell you how they made an aperitif out of the cobra's heart. Aaaaah! I'm sorry I told you.

Never Mind

On second thought, I don't see how "The Campden Wonder" is "one of the most remarkable occurrences that hath happened in the memory of man." Obviously (as the "victim" reappeared), the confession of the terrified John Perry was false, and concocted to make him seem the least murderous of his family members. He sold out his mother and brother, a terrible thing, and it didn't even save his neck. That means either Mr. Harrison's crazy adventure (with a pirate ship and everything) really happened, or Mr. Harrison just ran away with the rent money he was carrying (leaving behind his slashed hat and other "evidence" of his murder), had a good time for a couple of years, and came back.

The Campden Wonder

A passing reference by Aubrey to "one of the most remarkable occurrences that hath happened in the memory of man" led me to this strange mystery called "The Campden Wonder." Three people (a mother and two sons) were executed for a murder (one of the sons confessed) and then the old man they were accused of murdering showed up a couple of years later, claiming to have been "abducted by three men dressed in white on horseback." All of this took place in the early 1660s. And here is a "web" site where somebody is STILL trying to solve the mystery and would like your help. Talk about a cold case! That same site has the old man's letter explaining his predicament. Here's an excerpt: "As I was returning home, in the narrow passage through the gorse bushes at Ebrington, I was met by a horseman who said 'Are you there?' I was afraid he was going to ride over me, so I hit his horse over the nose. At this he hit out at me with his sword several times and ran it into my side while I defended myself as best I could with my little cane."

Comfort Cooling

That portrait of Anne Vavasour is hanging at "The Worshipful Company of Armourers and Brasiers," which has been around since 1322, I guess. Not bad! And now you can hire out the premises for a banquet. "We even have a grand piano and comfort cooling," they note. You know what else they have? Sir Henry Lee's suit of armor! "Click" here to see it.

Vavasour!

It always comes back to Edward de Vere, doesn't it? Wikipedia informs me that he was Anne Vavasour's "first lover." They had a baby out of wedlock and were sent to the Tower of London to think about the consequences of their rash actions, I guess. She is sometimes credited - so proclaims wikipedia - with authoring a poem attributed to Edward de Vere: "Anne Vavasour's Echo." I hope HE didn't write it, because it contains many lines like "Oh heavens! who was the first that bred in me this fever? Vere." That would be kind of narcissistic. See, the gimmick is that she's yelling into a cave and the cave answers her questions with an echo of her last syllable.

Good Old Knight

Aubrey records a little poem about Sir Henry Lee's relationship with Mris. Anne Vavasour. It starts, "Here lies good old knight Sir Harry,/ Who loved well, but would not marry..." and then, in a footnote, the prudish editor indicates that "Four lines are suppressed."

Good Night Rats

I have lots of leftover bits from John Aubrey to give you: He describes Sir John Popham as "a huge, heavie, ugly man" ("I have seen his picture," he notes) and says that Sir John's son "lived like a hog." Sir Everard Digby (father of Venetia Digby's husband), on the other hand, was "the handsomest man in England... 'Twas his ill fate to suffer in the powder-plott. When his heart was pluct out by the executioner (who... cryed 'Here is the heart of a traytor!') it is credibly reported, he replied, 'Thou liest!'" Sir Henry Lee "was never maried, but kept woemen to read to him when he was a bed... But his dearest deare was Mris. Anne Vavasour." He had an effigy of Mistress Vavasour placed on his grave, and "some bishop did threaten to have this monument defaced." Poor Sir Charles Cavendish "was a little, weake, crooked man" who went around the world collecting rare mathematical texts, "which he intended to have printed... But he died of the scurvey" and his wife "sold the incomparable collection aforesaid by weight to the past-board makers for wast paper." Aubrey calls this "A good caution for those that have good MSS. to take care to see them printed in their life-times." Speaking of Venetia Digby, the reference to "viper-wine" in her chapter caused me to search out this old recipe for viper wine on the "internet." It has vipers in it. The "blogger" says that Venetia's husband wrote "the earliest collection of fermented drink recipes that we know... When his beloved wife Venetia died suddenly it was widely believed that he had accidentally poisoned her with the viper wine that he gave her to preserve her beauty." So that adds a few layers to Aubrey's account, and really, what was Aubrey but a "blogger"? But not everything is about John Aubrey. For example, today I found this picture of Jimmy Olsen being harassed by a beatnik. And then for some reason I read an article about scientists studying the dreams of rats. And so good night. Good night, little rats! (Jimmy Olsen panel via the Silver Age Comics "blog" - hours of fun!) PS: What do rats dream about? They dream about running in a circular maze, say scientists who put them in a circular maze, and they also dream about "standing still."

The Good Old Gentleman

Thomas Allen had "a great many mathematicall instruments and glasses in his chamber," which meant that "the vulgar did verily beleeve him to be a conjurer." Once, when he went on vacation, "he happened to leave his watch in the chamber windowe - (watches were then rarities) - The maydes came in to make the bed, and hearing a thing in a case cry Tick, Tick, Tick, presently concluded that that was his Devill, and took it by the string with the [tongs] and threw it out of the windowe into the mote... It so happened that the string hung on a sprig of an elder that grew out of the mote, and this confirmed them that 'twas the Devill. So the good old gentleman gott his watch again." John Aubrey's BRIEF LIVES.

Viper-Wine

I'm taking the other versions back to the library. It's clear that the 1898 edition of BRIEF LIVES is the way to go. It seems to transcribe meticulously almost every little scrap of Aubrey, marginalia and all. The editor, Andrew Clark, warns us: "Some things in Aubrey's writing offend not merely against our present canons of good taste, but against good morals. The conversation of the people among whom Aubrey moved, although they were gentry both in position and in education, was often vulgar, and occasionally foul, as judged by us." The story of Venetia Digby is not TOO racy. It does have a sad and morbid ending. "She was a most beautifull desireable creature... it seems her beauty could not lye hid. The young eagles had espied her, and she was sanguine and tractable, and of much suavity... Her face, a short ovall; dark-browne eie-browe, about which much sweetness, as also in the opening of her eie-lidds. The colour of her cheekes was just that of the damaske rose, which is neither too hott nor too pale... She dyed in her bed suddenly. Some suspected that she was poysoned. When her head was opened there was found but little braine, which her husband imputed to her drinking of viper-wine; but spiteful woemen would say 'twas a viper-husband who was jealous of her that she would steale a leape." Aubrey isn't as kind to poor Bess Broughton, though he says "She was a most exquisite beautie, as finely shaped as nature could frame; and had a delicate witt." It seems "Her father at length discovered her inclinations and locked her up in the turret of the house, but she getts downe by a rope; and away she gott to London, and did sett-up for her selfe... her price was very deare... At last she grew common and infamous and gott the pox, of which she died." Then he lists some various songs and jokes that people made about Bess Broughton and her pox.

"Blog" Mail "Bag"

Time once more to take a peek into the "blog" mail "bag." Lee Durkee writes in to take up for his beloved Edward de Vere (from the shadow of whose ancestral castle he writes). No way, says Lee, did Edward de Vere have that unfortunate accident in front of Queen Elizabeth. "John Aubrey was famous for getting things wrong," Lee says. Edward de Vere did, however, Lee admits, "set an entire village on fire while orchestrating a mock battle for [the Queen's] entertainment (he heroically helped douse the flames)." Does that count as heroic, though? If you started the fire to begin with? But I don't want to get into another Edward de Vere argument with Lee. Meanwhile my brother-in-law David writes in with an interesting real estate listing. If you scroll down all the pictures of the property, you will see that there is a skeleton in the basement!

Much Chicken

"Red-haired men never had any kindnesse for him." So writes James Aubrey about James Bovey, a businessman. Also: "In all his travells he was never robbed." And, "His dyet was always a fine diet: much chicken." Bovey shows up again in Aubrey's sketch of Richard Head: "his true name was Head (Mr. Bovey knew him)." About this Mr. Head: "He had been amongst the gipsies. He looked like a knave with his gogling eies. He could transforme himselfe into any shape." (Note: WHAT?) "Was at last a bookseller, or towards his later end."

A Great Upholder of Coffee

According to John Aubrey, Sir Henry Blount once made a bet with Colonel Betridge - "one of the handsomest men about the town," who always "bragged how much the woemen loved him" - that if they went together to a bordello, Colonel Betridge "without money, with his handsome person, and Sir Henry with a twenty-shilling piece on his bald [head], that the wenches should choose Sir Henry... and Sir H. won the wager... Drunkeness he much exclaimed against, but wenching he allowed. When Coffee first came in he was a great upholder of it." His favorite coffee house was called The Rainbowe. "He was heretofore a great Shammer... [saying for example] that at an Inne in St. Albans, the Innekeeper had made a Hogs-trough of a free-stone coffin, but the pigges after that grew leane, dancing and skipping, and would run upon the topps of the houses like goates. Two young Gents that heard Sir H. tell this sham so gravely, rode the next day to St. Albans to enquire... 'twas altogether false. The next night as soon as they allighted, they came to the Rainbowe and found Sir H., looked louringly on him, and told him they wondered he was not ashamed as to tell such stories, etc. Why, Gentlemen, sayd Sir H., have you been there to make such an enquiry? Yea, sayd they. Why truly, gentlemen, said Sir H. I heard you tell strange things that I knew to be false. I would not have gonne over the threshold of the dore to have found you out in a Lye, at which all the Company laught at the two young Gents... He is now neer or altogether 80 yeares, his Intellectuals good still; and body pretty strong. This last weeke of Sept. 1682, he was taken very ill at London, and his Feet swelled."

A Surfeit of Peaches

Just read a letter in which John Aubrey recounts becoming ill "of a surfeit of peaches."

Grossnesses!

I opened the 1949 edition of Aubrey's BRIEF LIVES at random and found one of those "grossnesses" that editor was talking about! WARNING! If you do not enjoy grossnesses, do not keep reading. The following employs scatological language! But it was written in the 17th century - what do you want from me? Aubrey says of Edward de Vere (pictured), "This Earl of Oxford, making of his low obeisance to Queen Elizabeth, happened to let a Fart, at which he was so abashed and ashamed that he went to Travell, 7 yeares." Wow! But wait, there's more. "On his returne the Queen welcomed him home, and sayd, My Lord, I had forgott the Fart." I'm probably the last to know about this. I have lots of questions, like, isn't seven years an overreaction? I mean, according to Mark Twain, Elizabethans were having similar stomach problems all the time. And: when de Vere finally got back, was the queen being nice by saying that or kind of yanking his chain?

Goodwife Faldo

You don't care what I checked out of the library today. Yet here we are. Intrigued by Lee Durkee's notes on John Aubrey's notes on John Dee, I checked out two versions of Aubrey's BRIEF LIVES. One is a two-volume set from 1898 and the other is a single volume put together in 1949. Then I picked up something from 1931 called THE SCANDAL AND CREDULITIES OF JOHN AUBREY, because how could I not? Sadly, it seems to be nothing but a whittled down version of the LIVES. The editor gives a very long introduction with some crazy turns of phrase ("The wry and knobbly spine of his days") and warnings of forthcoming sauciness ("Aubrey's grossnesses occur so frequently, and at such important points, that to suppress them is to destroy utterly the artistic value...") I haven't run across any grossnesses yet, but you will be the first to know. Aubrey talks to someone named goodwife Faldo whose mother took care of Dee "in his sicknesse." (This is from the 1898 edition.) Goodwife Faldo recalls that "The children dreaded him because he was accounted a conjurer." She lost a basket of clothes, if I am reading correctly, and John Dee recovered them, though it's unclear whether she's saying he did so by magic. After he died, "The children when they played in the church would runne to Dr. Dee's grave-stone."

The Faithful Robot

Somehow (but why?) I was surprised to come across a STAR WARS reference in the work of Cesar Aira. In THE SEAMSTRESS AND THE WIND he compares memory to "the hologram of the princess, in that movie, that the faithful robot carried in his circuits from galaxy to galaxy."

Morgan Freeman Got Out of His Car

I just saw Morgan Freeman getting out of his car. He was smiling pleasantly and waving at everyone who was staring at him in gape-mouthed wonder. Like me! We were driving down the street, just a block from home. I was like, "Roll your window down so I can yell hello!" And Dr. Theresa was like, "There's a cop right in front of us." What? Just because we had been at Snackbar drinking absinthe? And I was like, "The cop is waving at Morgan Freeman!"

The Bitter Washed Onto the Grass

Here are my favorite sentences from Arah Sneed's column about bitter milk: "Mother said it was always worse after a rain. I'm not sure why unless the bitter washed onto the grass."

Metabolic Derangement

Inspired by Arah Sneed, I looked up bitterweed in my reference book WEEDS OF THE SOUTH, and yes, that is a book I thought I needed to purchase at the time. So, common ragweed is sometimes called by the name "bitterweed," but I don't think that's what Arah Sneed has in mind, because she mentions "small yellow daisy shaped blossoms and fragile fern-looking leaves." That fits the description of something more properly (?) known as bitter sneezeweed, also called bitterweed, which causes "metabolic derangement" (!) and "tainted milk."

Bitter Milk

Got THE LAFA SHOPPER in the mail the other day. No column by John Arrechea, but there was a woman named Arah Sneed who made up for it. She wrote about the bitterweed, and how the cows used to eat it sometimes when she was a kid and the milk would turn bitter: "it was hard to drink bitter milk." But now she sees the bitterweed growing along the highway and thinks it's pretty. THE LAFA SHOPPER! Don't just toss it directly into the recycling bin the way I used to do.

Good Listening

That new crime anthology edited by Dr. Theresa contains one of her favorite stories, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor. Just today, on the twitter thing of Maud Newton, there was a "link" to this amazing audio of Ms. O'Connor reading from that very story.

Fake Jerry Lewis Midriff Alert

I always like to tell you when there is a Jerry Lewis reference in the New York Times. But don't be fooled! It is so easy to get your hopes up in this deceitful world. Today we read a report about Jerry Lewis being "struck in the midriff by [a] flying padlock early one morning in late July," which sounds exactly like something that would happen to Jerry Lewis. He is always being "struck in the midriff" by things in his movies! But this time the midriff in question belongs to some guy in Phoenix who just happens to be named Jerry Lewis. Phooey! But I am sorry he was struck in the midriff.

The Crime of Dr. Theresa

Hey, look at this book about crime! Dr. Theresa edited it. It's out now, so you can enjoy all the crime you want. So what does Dr. Theresa know about crime? Maybe you should refresh your memory with this interview!

Over Half Doomed

Not too long ago there was a rare in-person meeting of over half of the Doomed Book Club. From left: Ace Atkins, Megan Abbott, me, Scott Phillips. Man, that flash bulb really worked! Photo by Rod Wiethop.

New Vomit Label

I just added a new "vomit" label to the "blog." "Click" it to see how many times I've mentioned vomit! Wait, I also need to add a "proud" label.

Ace's Attachment

Ace Atkins sent me this picture for some reason.

Baby Bird Time

Remember when the baby birds were nesting on the balcony at Square Books? They're back! Well, they are probably different baby birds this time. Photo by Michael Bible.

More Pauly Shore Excitement

Dyna Moe saw Pauly Shore today too! Twitter seems to be on Pauly Shore alert. Tilda Swinton was supposedly in the neighborhood as well, reports Dyna Moe. What a combo! I hope they're doing a movie together. By the way, have you looked at Dyna Moe's Hipster Animals lately?

A Puddle

According to his twitter thing, Jason Polan saw Pauly Shore today! And he (Jason) was so startled that he stepped in a puddle. Jason also saw a guy wearing a belt with a cobra buckle (drawing here).

Mighty Good Man

Speaking of Lee Durkee and John Dee, Lee found this in his notes - John Aubrey's description of John Dee: "Dee had a very cleare rosie complexion... a long beard white as milke. A very handsome man... he was tall and slender. He wore a gowne like an artist's gowne, with hanging sleeves, and a slitt. A mighty good man he was."

John Dee Fan Club Report

"Was awesome. Especially when they dragged him screaming down to hell." So ran Lee Durkee's review of DOCTOR FAUSTUS at the Globe Theatre, a performance of which he attended yesterday. That was the condensed version, as presented in a facebook comment. Later, Lee followed up with a nice, long email, portions of which will be presented below. Dr. Faustus is thought by some scholars (one scholar?) to be Christopher Marlowe's negative portrait of Dr. John Dee, while Prospero represents Shakespeare putting a nicer gloss on him. Also Neoplatonism is involved, says Lee, but let's keep this rolling along. We don't have all day! All right! And now let's turn it over to Lee Durkee, reporting from England: "a blockbuster version of Faustus all stops pulled Hollywood style. It was great, though it wasn’t Elizabethan in any way; there were more actors on stage in the opening scene than existed in an entire old school troupe, but the play, essentially a series of slapstick vignettes inserted kinda jarringly into the stream of a dark narrative that’s not nearly as interesting... worked because it was prop-filled and bawdy [WARNING: one example of bawdiness follows below - ed.]... I was leaning against the runway tongue of the stage and half the time had to crane my head directly up to see the actors, and what I’ll always remember is that O in the sky above them. Shakespeare’s O, his Globe, which even in a theme park void of ghosts (the remains of the real Globe were discovered a quarter mile away while the new one was being constructed) was haunting, that view upward with clouds passing overhead an Elizabethan archetype... Props galore included giant dinosaur-boned birds, representing dragons, on which Mephistopheles and Faustus scoured the globe looking for trouble. Giant masks of Helen, of demons, behind which costume changes were made. Books opened into flames. A wench ran on stage with a Roman candle spurting fire from her crotch. [I warned you! - ed.] The three trap doors were in constant use, props and people appearing and vanishing, especially during the highlight of the play, the parade of the seven deadly sins. John Dee would have been proud of them... My legs held me up okay in the pit, though we all sat down during intermission... Fun to watch the people in the boxes the same way the nobility used to get ogled by the runts. There were a couple of moments when things went wrong and the actors had to improvise and bite back giggles, and in many ways these are always my favorite moments, the spell gets bubbleburst and replaced by a moment of intimacy between the actors and crowd filled with grins and shrugs. A floating castle helium balloon that was supposed to rise up out of the Globe and reproduce one of Faust’s spells instead floundered in a downdraft, was captured by an audience member, who then let it go a moment later; it drifted back onto the stage just as some regent was complimenting Faustus on his magical castle-in-the-sky illusion. The balloon seemed playful almost and finally Meph grabbed it and stalked off stage with it while Faustus laughed and the crowd laughed... Another great moment was when some king of evilness hit a tennis ball into the crowd, and the crowd member tossed it back, and the king broke out in laughter, as did the audience... afterwards I decided to follow the crowd across the walking bridge over the Thames, just like in the old days, and of couse I got lost and then ended up an hour later, still looking for the tube, finding The Shakespeare’s Head instead and popping in for a pint."

Oatmeal Tips

Welcome once more to "Oatmeal Tips." Over on his twitter thing, we see that Michael Kupperman quotes the imdb like so: "For some people, oatmeal starts the day off right - for Thora Birch, it launched a healthy career in front of the camera." Meanwhile, "Oatmeal Tips" has received a nice email from Jim Whorton! He was at a restaurant in China, staring in a puzzled way at a sign that said "oat soup." "It's porridge," a restaurant worker explained. These aren't really tips. "Oatmeal Tips" really used to be about the tips. It has degenerated.

It Wasn't a Dream

Don't you wish there were a movie called THE NAKED FACE? And what if it starred your favorite acting team? That's right: Roger Moore, Rod Steiger, and Art Carney! And like any movie starring Roger Moore, Rod Steiger, and Art Carney, our theoretical movie should have come out in 1985 - often known as "The Year of Roger Moore, Rod Steiger, and Art Carney." Dear friends, it's not a dream. It's real! I watched it last night when I couldn't sleep. Well, some of it. I should state right away that the title is misleading: Roger Moore's face is not naked at all. In fact, in many scenes he wears glasses as large as Louis Jordan's in SWAMP THING. Maybe they're the same glasses! And maybe my brain was a little hazy in the wee hours when I flipped on THE NAKED FACE, but I could swear it features an assassin who turns his wheelchair into a motorcycle, just like those Transformers all you kids love! Next there was a scene of Rod Steiger ranting and screaming the way he does sometimes. He was ACTING. He was a ranting, screaming police detective with his eyes popping out of his head, and his partner was Elliott Gould, which was a surprise. Elliott Gould just stood there against a wall in that laid-back, slightly slack-jawed way of his while Rod Steiger stomped around looking for any remaining bits of scenery to devour. I'll tell you one thing I learned last night: Roger Moore, Elliott Gould, and Rod Steiger went to very different acting schools. You should see them together. It's like watching three entirely different movies at once! What a bargain. So some other dudes are trying to kill Roger Moore and he runs into his little bedroom and props a chair under the doorknob! It seemed so quaint, and not at all like James Bond. The killers were thwarted by the doorknob, which they kept rattling in vain. Next Rod Steiger comes back to investigate and this time he decides to whisper. He's still very tense, but he just whispers everything for a change of pace. Like, "I really think my character would whisper everything in this scene." And the director was like, "Whatever you say, Rod Steiger." Then Rod Steiger goes to a diner with Elliott Gould and whispers some more but Elliott Gould gets on his nerves and all of a sudden he's screaming again. What a roller coaster ride! And all this time I'm thinking, "Must make it to Art Carney... Must make it to Art Carney..." He was third-billed in the capsule description after all. But friends, I didn't make it to Art Carney. It gradually seemed preferable to lie in bed staring at the ceiling and contemplating the terrible abyss, which is exactly what I did. The end.

Through the Galaxies and Back

Walked down to Off Square Books and, as promised, picked up the new issue of VANITY FAIR featuring James Wolcott's salute to Jerry Lewis. Good stuff, though much of it will be familiar to the seasoned Jerry fan. I'm not complaining! Gigot (!) and Emmett Kelly make an appearance, so who can ask for more? Wolcott has words of appreciation for Jerry's book DEAN & ME ("crackling" he calls it) and best of all there's this little nugget that Jerry once dropped on Mel Torme: "You have driven your theatrical prowess through the galaxies and back" (see also). An excellent insight: "When he isn't 'on,' he's the opposite of off; his presence intensifies with an increase of dark matter, transmitting scary-dad authority even when trussed up and immobile..."

PS

I put the "label" "candy" on that "post" because Brighton rock is candy. Just keeping you informed!

Owl Tweet

You know my owl theory. Well, Brian Z. tells me there is an owl in BRIGHTON ROCK. I read BRIGHTON ROCK many years ago, probably back when I was Brian Z.'s age, and do not remember the owl. Brian Z. used the "twitter" to tell me about the owl, and this is what the passage in question looks like when abbreviated for "twitter": "An owl cried w painful hunger swooping low over a filling station, into the headlights & out again, on furry& predatory wings"

Youthful Sandwiches of Yore

Late in the novel ANGELA SLOAN by James Whorton, Jr., a hippie is observed making sandwiches of margarine and sugar. This will of course put the attentive "blog" reader in mind of the butter and sugar sandwiches that Whorton enjoyed in his youth. Yet the author distances himself from the sandwiches, having his narrator state bluntly, "I have never seen this kind of sandwich before." Thus do we see the complicated way in which the author's life is represented in his work. But is it any of our business? Probably not!

No Glaze, No Sprinkles

I'll tell you something else both books (THE ADJUSTMENT and ANGELA SLOAN) have in them: donuts. In Scott Phillips's hardboiled world, the main character tells the diner waitress that he's taking the donut home to his pregnant wife... BUT THEN HE EATS IT IN THE CAR! And that is BY FAR the least awful thing he does in the book. Now here is Whorton's narrator, the eponymous Angela Sloan: "I like a plain cake donut, no glaze, no sprinkles. Other things went out of my head while I ate this donut. The outside was crisp and toasty with a tallowy aroma and hints of nutmeg. The yellow interior was soft and dense." You know, the "blog" revealed almost five years ago that Whorton enjoys a plain cake donut as much as his narrator does. That's a scoop!

Buttermilk

As different as they are, THE ADJUSTMENT by Scott Phillips and ANGELA SLOAN by James Whorton, Jr., both contain buttermilk.

Literary Matters

Time once again for "Literary Matters." Who needs them? Nobody! But here they are. 1) Though Burke has moved away he is still able to communicate through the medium of "email." He says that maybe his favorite line of dialogue in ON THE ROAD comes when a character is showing off his freshly amputated toe - or rather the spot where his toe used to be. He has left the hospital immediately after the operation, over the objections of the staff, of course, which he shrugs off: "What's a toe?" he says. 2) Here are a few lines from ANGELA SLOAN by James Whorton, Jr., which I started reading yesterday: "'Somebody left that chicken sitting out!' He said it in language that was spotted with profanities. I've omitted those." Pure Whorton! I am reminded of a passage from his novel FRANKLAND: "I drew close again to Dweena Price and smelled her hair. I will say no more about what happened next. I draw the curtain." 3) This is sort of the opposite of Scott Phillips's approach in THE ADJUSTMENT, which I just finished reading. Anything goes! Profane is a good word for that book. Depraved is another. It's a thrill ride with a maniac. Our protagonist thinks of doing certain things, tries to do other things, and actually does a bunch of things - each wilder and viler than the last. But he's so good at it! Phillips stays in his head and never winks or blinks. THE ADJUSTMENT has been - as Michael Kupperman once said of another book (THE NAME OF THE GAME IS DEATH by Dan J. Marlowe) - "boiled to a level that is hard." Phillips isn't kidding around. He tried to give his book the pulpy drugstore spinner title SUPPLY SARGE, but "The Man" wasn't having it, sadly. Reading THE ADJUSTMENT feels like a reckless pursuit. Sometimes you put it down for a second - but only a second, because you have to find out what happens next - and think, "Thank goodness reading a book can't kill me. OR CAN IT?" 4) Whorton and Phillips - one explicit, one implicit! Both approaches are valid and chock full of strange rewards. (Here is where the government would like me to remind you that Phillips and Whorton are my pals... but I bought their books with my own money and was in no way bribed or coddled by their presumably sleazy representatives.)

5) And I should mention Whorton's tender and somewhat melancholy style never lets you forget that his book is actually an adventure story with spies, featuring in a bit part (so far) that object of the "blog's" morbid curiosity G. Gordon Liddy! And the narrator is a plucky young girl, which will make some reviewer somewhere call it "HARRIET THE SPY with actual spies," hey, that's not bad. 6) Also, both books are funny. Getting back to Phillips for a second, he's a master of the bleak - maybe nihilistic! - humor that characterizes the hardboiled style. Sometimes people forget that part! 7) Dr. Theresa and I were staying in a hotel a couple of years ago when we heard, coming from somewhere we couldn't exactly place, the eerie tap-tap-tap of typewriter keys, a sound you just don't hear that much anymore. "Barton Fink must be staying here," Dr. Theresa joked. Later we told Jim Whorton about it - he was staying in the same hotel. "That was me," he said. With needless abashment, as I recall it! So maybe he is "hardboiled" in his own way, sitting in a lonesome hotel room typing away on a typewriter like a man out of time. And the book he was working on was ANGELA SLOAN. And now you know... THE REST OF THE STORY. This is Paul Harvey.......... GOOD DAY! 8) That would have made a good ending. But here's another thing: I have nothing against electronic readers, really, oh, I have sentimental things against them, and then there was all that trouble with the kindle and the soulless behemoth that time... but I was reading an article in the New York Times today where the reporter was trying out all sorts of e-readers plus an old-fashioned paperback to see what works best. He writes, "Both iPads offer an immersive reading experience. I found myself jumping back and forth between my book and the Web, looking up old facts and pictures of New York City. I also found myself being sucked into the wormhole of the Internet and a few games of Angry Birds." I know what he means by "immersive," but in a truer way he is describing an experience that is the opposite of immersive, isn't he? Then he tells us about his struggles with a paperback: "It took barely a paragraph for me to feel frustrated. I kept looking up things on my iPhone, and forgetting to earmark my page." And I thought: "Poor thing!" 9) Oh wait. While I've got you here. I've been trying to talk the Doomed Book Club into reading WANDERER, the autobiography of Sterling Hayden. So you can't have this first line for your autobiography because Sterling Hayden beat you to it: "The black pit of oblivion opens like a giant clamshell."

When Harrison Ford Is Crying

Do your research, Pendarvis! A quick glance at the "internet" informs me that Rachel McAdams IS famous for crying! Somehow I had no idea. For example, here is an article in which she is quoted as saying, "How can I not cry when Harrison Ford is crying?" How indeed, Rachel McAdams.

Don't Cry

An extraordinary number of people come to this "blog" via a "search" for "rachel mcadams crying." Wow! I don't get it. Is that a thing? Like, a "meme"? Is she famous for crying? Poor Rachel McAdams!

Recommendation Shelf Officially Saves Publishing

According to a headline I skimmed, the publishing industry is starting to do better - as predicted right here on the "blog." I think we all know that my recommendation shelf is behind the upswing, as the article probably makes clear. Recommendation shelf!

Hogan "Blogs"

Kelly Hogan is "blogging"! Did I realize this? Dig what she says about the Osmonds and you will never return here again. It will be nothing but Hogan for you from now on. In case you are not convinced, she says - with admiration! - of one of the Osmonds' songs, "It really sounds like a song a horse would write!"

Homestretch

W.C. Fields comes roaring into the homestretch to overtake Groucho Marx as the comedian most often invoked in ON THE ROAD. This promises to be a photo finish, folks!

Jerry's Velvet Slippers

My friend Chicken sends in this nice long interview with Jerry Lewis from GQ magazine. Included: a Martin Scorsese quotation about the French loving Jerry Lewis, and you know how I usually feel about that, but from him I'll take it. Say whatever you want, Martin Scorsese! Besides, he's using it to make a larger point about... oh, who cares? He's Martin Scorsese! Jerry is interviewed wearing "red velvet slippers embroidered with those iconic faces of Comedy and Tragedy." As we have seen, Jerry loves his velvet slippers. Like previous interviewers, Amy Wallace (who I believe wrote yesterday's New York Times article about the wah-wah pedal!) also notes how organized Jerry's candy dish is.

The Only Real Ice Cream

Sometimes I am so boring that I bore myself but that's what a "blog" is all about. I promised to tell you every time ice cream makes an appearance in ON THE ROAD and I guess we are both just stuck with it. "The cousin continued to drive us around and even bought us ice-cream pops." And "She apologized for the peach ice cream: 'It ain't nothing but cream and peaches froze up together.' Of course it was the only real ice cream I ever had in my whole life." I also forgot to tell you about a milkshake I think but maybe I decided that didn't count. You know, this book isn't really about ice cream and pie after all. Sure did seem we were headed that way in Chapter 3! But sometimes life is not the way it seems. The only other pie has been some "apple pies in the sky" that Dean mentions, but those are metaphorical.

Fave Sentence Time

Was it yesterday or the day before I found my favorite sentence in ON THE ROAD? "Come on, man, let's go mash somebody on the head and get his money."

What's In Today's New York Times?

Hi! Let's find out what's in today's New York Times. There is an interesting article in which Marilyn Monroe is considered as a singer. Speaking of singers, "Blog" Buddy Kelly Hogan is in today's New York Times. There's a feature named "Mixtape," I guess, in the "New York Times Magazine" section, where I guess some dude tells you what he would put on a mix tape, and this dude says Kelly Hogan, man, Kelly Hogan all the way. The song he picks is one we have "linked" to on the "blog" before. Plus he mentions Flat Duo Jets, who are also awesome. The singer and guitarist from that band, Dexter Romweber, played here in Oxford the other night with his sister Sara, who is a drummer. They were great! I never go out of the house, but for that I did. Check out the Dex Romweber Duo! I always like to tell you when there is a Jerry Lewis reference in the New York Times. Today's was a mere passing mention in a story about the invention of the wah-wah pedal. Oh! And I almost forgot Amy Lavere, who was playing bass but not singing at the Ajax Diner that time Joe Matt and Kent were in town. A lot of good dancing that night. Ms. Lavere is in the paper today too. Music ties everything together! And so I bid you farewell from the New York Times. I leave you now with the Dex Romweber Duo:

Kerouac Comedian Tally

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Yesterday I ran across the third and fourth Groucho Marx references, meaning that Groucho has now tied W.C. Fields as the top movie comedian in ON THE ROAD.

There's Always an Owl

"An owl hooted." Page 157 of ON THE ROAD. I won't lie to you. I've been wondering when the owl would show up. Not if but when. Because there's always an owl.

Road Movies

More comedians in ON THE ROAD: at least four mentions of W.C. Fields so far and two of Groucho Marx. The character Dean Moriarty is compared to both Fields and Marx. As we have seen, McNeil thinks of him more as Dean Martin ("Their names are almost the same," he remarked on the phone last night.) My friend Eugene referred to Fields as "the great surrealist poet" (Kerouac similarly - I guess - emphasizes his "saintly" qualities). Does somebody want to write a scholarly article about the influence of movie comedians on "literary" writers? George Saunders once told me about how Steve Martin had inspired some of his work. Barry Hannah felt the same way about Jonathan Winters and Richard Pryor. Movies are all over ON THE ROAD. I found it interesting that when the narrator talks about OF MICE AND MEN, it's the movie he means, not the Steinbeck novel as you might expect. Nature is described in terms of film: "the gray, dirty dawn, like the dawn when Joel McCrea met Veronica Lake in a diner..." I'm sure everybody knows this already, but I just now got around to reading ON THE ROAD for some reason, so I beg your pardon.

His Oddly Enduring Power

I see that James Wolcott has written a tribute to Jerry Lewis in the new issue of VANITY FAIR. I will have to get that and tell you all about it to the point of plagiarism. According to the table of contents on the "web" site, it's about Jerry's "oddly enduring power." All right!

The Influence of Bob Hope on American Literature

Of course we all remember how there is a Bob Hope reference in THE EXECUTIONER'S SONG. But is there a Bob Hope reference in ON THE ROAD? Almost! While our narrator Sal Paradise is visiting Hollywood, he sees Bob's frequent sidekick Jerry Colonna buying a Buick. "He was inside the vast plate-glass window, fingering his mustachio," reports Sal Paradise.

Fave Sentence

You know sometimes I will have a favorite sentence or two in a particular day's New York Times. Today it is "He enjoys relating the story of the eccentric Lord Grimthorpe, whose last words were reportedly, 'We are low on marmalade.'" For the whole article, and more tantalizing sentences, "click" here.

Kerouac Ice Cream Duty

It is clearly my duty now to notify you whenever Jack Kerouac mentions ice cream or pie in ON THE ROAD: "Here, realizing a dream of mine from infancy, I took the cover off the chocolate ice cream and stuck my hand in wrist deep and hauled me up a skewer of ice cream and licked at it."

This Is Novel

Stopped by Square Books yesterday and picked up a copy of ANGELA SLOAN, the brand new novel by James Whorton, Jr., to which I have been looking forward. I bet it's going to be great! There's an "author Q & A" at the back of the book, and the first thing he mentions is C-Span! That's Jim Whorton for you! I tried not to read too much of the Q & A because I want to be surprised. But I did skim over it. I notice that Whorton says Nixon hired people to shout "traitor" at Donald Sutherland! When asked what he wants people to learn from his book, he replies, "give an old man a break sometime." And the last thing he mentions is the interesting squirrel population in his neighborhood. All of this makes me miss Jim Whorton. Before I bought ANGELA SLOAN, I went upstairs and checked on my recommendation shelf. It has sold NINETEEN BOOKS so far, which is a world record for selling things. Recent titles to fly off the shelf include SMONK and CITRUS COUNTY, not that they needed any help. Say, that's a good tip for you recommendation shelf stockers: be like me and recommend stuff people want to buy anyway!

Correction

As Laura Lippman points out, that was a pickle op-ed, not a "pickle editorial" as I put it. "But I wish the NY Times would take an institutional stand on pickles," she adds.

I Must Have Pickles, He Said

Brief but interesting pickle editorial in the New York Times. Made me want to read more by the author, Jane Ziegelman. Did you know that pickles were once seen as corruptive by "the man," like cigarettes and whiskey? Remember that the next time "the man" tells you what to do! And now I want a "whole pickled cabbage." To stop innocent children from eating pickles, the New York City educational authorities fed them a proper breakfast of "creamed fish and apple sauce." Well, now I have reproduced almost the entire editorial. I'll leave you with this, from a concerned early 20th century sociologist: "One lad of 10 said that he always bought pickles with his three cents. ‘I must have pickles,’ he said."

Cover Your Brain

Abby also appears - by name! - as a character in my cat book that makes publishers' brains explode. It's a novel in the form of a self-help book. I'm sorry! Did that make your brain explode?

Dylan Pie Introduction

You know, Abby used to bake pies for Bob Dylan! I bet she's relieved to move to a new town where I can't introduce her that way to everybody all the time. Maybe that's why she moved. But come on! Pecan was his favorite.

Everybody Moved

On a happier note, Burke and Abby and Anya and Elizabeth all moved away on Sunday and Monday, to do awesome things. Quiet around here.

Friend and Neighbor

One of the links in that last post led to a mention of our friend Dean, who passed away not too many days ago. I didn't mention it here at the time because this format is so dumb and seems to trivialize everything. I hope I'm not doing that now. I'll be brief. I don't like to write here about anything truly important or personal if I can help it. But it didn't feel right, linking to a post with her name in it and not mentioning the sad event. When we first moved into the neighborhood, I got a big kick seeing Dean in her yard, working with her flowers. Faulkner's niece! It was a novelty and just made us feel we had made some good decisions and ended up somewhere special. As time went on, we got to know Dean and her husband Larry and they became our dear friends and good neighbors, so thoughtful and generous. We miss Dean a lot. You can read a nice tribute by our friend Wright.

Sacks!

Hey, remember when Mike Sacks was going to ask Martin Scorsese about my theory concerning a scene in THE KING OF COMEDY and its possible relationship to a scene in Vincent Minelli's THE CLOCK? That was almost exactly TWO YEARS AGO, and Mike Sacks has not forgotten. No word from Mr. Scorsese yet, but MIKE SACKS ASKED ROGER EBERT ABOUT IT in the course of an interview. That's dedication! Mike Sacks is the definition of a trouper. Here is a portion of Mr. Ebert's response: "Nothing gets into a Scorsese film by carelessness. I have no doubt he directed that shot very specifically. Few directors have ever equaled Scorsese's knowledge of the cinema, and so I also have no doubt he saw and noted the scene by Minnelli. I doubt, however, that he would ever introduce such a potential distraction simply as homage. My guess is, he noticed it, remembered it, and encountered a situation in one of his own films where it served one of his own purposes." A thoughtful answer, if inconclusive. Sacks! (Pictured, KING OF COMEDY's cardboard cut-outs of Vincent Minnelli's daughter with CLOCK star Judy Garland - COINCIDENCE? - and Jerry!)

Hialeah!

McNeil and I are driving down to the Hialeah Race Track this winter, unless we don't, because people in old movies talk about going there all the time. This trip will result in a novel that defines a generation, or a book-length work of gonzo nonfiction, or possibly up to four "blog" entries.

Olga San Juan

Saw Olga San Juan in a movie this morning and thought she was just great. I didn't know she existed! Here is a "web" site I found that is nothing but three pictures of her and that's the whole "web" site for some reason.

Kerouac Pie Calculation

"... apple pie and ice cream in a roadside stand... I ate another apple pie and ice cream... I knew it was nutritious and it was delicious, of course... I ate apple pie and ice cream - it was getting better as I got deeper into Iowa, the pie bigger, the ice cream richer... she made the sweetest cherry pie in Nebraska, and I had some with a mountainous scoop of ice cream on top." In Chapter 3 of ON THE ROAD, there is a serving of pie and ice cream every 2 1/2 pages!

The Role of Pie in American Literature

Man! Jack Kerouac sure does like apple pie and ice cream. ON THE ROAD does for apple pie and ice cream what MILDRED PIERCE did for chicken. She baked good pies, too, of course. I think a lot about that crabapple number she made to butter up Bert. But for me, in the end, Mildred Pierce is all about the chicken.

Point Your Hand Into an Empty Portion of the Sky

Thought I'd poke around on the "internet" for some information about Mr. Hodson, author of FAIRIES AT WORK AND PLAY. Within TWO "CLICKS" I found myself on the "web" site of the horrible behemoth, which, as you know, I despise, save for the beautifully entertaining customer comments. One such customer comment (on one of Mr. Hodson's books) mentioned - of all things - HOW TO CONTACT SPACE PEOPLE by Ted Owens, a recent and obscure object of "blog" curiosity. You can imagine my surprise! In fact, the prose style of the commenter and his (or her) "screen name" (which was drawn directly from the text of HOW TO CONTACT SPACE PEOPLE), made me wonder if the commenter might BE Ted Owens, the author of HOW TO CONTACT SPACE PEOPLE. So I looked up Mr. Owens on the wikipedia, but he died in 1987, so I guess not. OR IS HE SENDING "INTERNET" COMMENTS FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE? Probably! This anonymous person's review of a bigfoot book contained the following advice: "Go outside at night. Point your hand into an empty portion of sky. Paint with your mind's eye a picture of a Big Sasquatch in that portion of sky. Then wait a day or two." That's VERY similar to some advice handed out in HOW TO CONTACT SPACE PEOPLE. Don't do it!

Don't Brag

Last night I was at a party bragging shamelessly about the little piece of wire that holds my glasses together. Today it fell off and my glasses fell apart. It just goes to show you: don't brag about the little piece of wire that holds your glasses together. That's a stupid thing to brag about.

McNeil's Movie Korner

Welcome once again to the best place on the "internet" for movie analysis: "McNeil's Movie Korner." McNeil called recently to expound on the many similarities between the Frank Sinatra/Dean Martin movie MARRIAGE ON THE ROCKS and the Kerouac novel ON THE ROAD. "One of the guys is involved with a lot of women... they go to Mexico... one of them gets sick there and is left behind by his friend..." McNeil explained. In other startling news, the day before I bought SUPERGODS by Grant Morrison, McNeil emailed me about the Ann-Margret film THE SWINGER. What obscure movie should Grant Morrison bring up in his book but... THE SWINGER? And whom does he place in the same sentence? Kerouac! So it all comes together in a conspiracy of unimaginable proportions.