"Blog" Mail "Bag": All Squirrel Edition!

Did you know that John T. Edge is in Kazakhstan? Well, neither did I! But today's "Blog" Mail "Bag" reveals all! Blair Hobbs sends along this photo snapped by John T. of a weird Kazakhstan squirrel. Actually, it is a NORMAL Kazakhstan squirrel! Our squirrels of Mississippi would appear strange to the people of Kazakhstan! THINK ABOUT IT! And guess what? By complete coincidence, in the same batch of email, Lee Durkee sent me a "link" to a conspiracy theorist who claims to see a squirrel-like creature in the most recent photos from the surface of Mars. A Martian squirrel "THEY" don't want you to know about! I do not present you with the "link" here because it comes from the forbidden part of the "internet," that "bourn from which no traveler returns" oh ha ha ha oh gee but I hate myself gee whiz. I did send the "link" directly to McNeil, naturally, and he claimed to see more squirrels than the conspiracy theorist did. That's not true. He said there were lots of other "rocks that look like squirrels" in the picture. So he was really saying that all the conspiracy theorist had spied was a dumb old squirrel-shaped rock. But it's a better story if McNeil believes that Mars is crawling with squirrels. PS THE LAST TIME WE MENTIONED MARS ON THE "BLOG" IS ALSO THE LAST TIME WE MENTIONED SQUIRRELS ON THE "BLOG." "CLICK" HERE IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME! FOOLS! DO SOMETHING BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!

Mismatched Animal Trend

Not long ago in the New York Times we found out that Bob Hope and Katharine Hepburn acting together were like "a giraffe attempting to mate with a hedgehog." Today there is a review in the New York Times of a biography that is "like watching a moose try to describe a leopard." I detect a trend! I am going to keep an eye on it for you, don't you worry, don't you worry yourself about it at all, I am on the case, please just go about your daily business, I am keeping an eye on everything!

A Washy Draught Indeed

"Feeling without judgement is a washy draught indeed; but judgement untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition." I like everything Jane Eyre says! Especially "deglutition"! Speaking of bitterness, here I am sitting under a sign that says BITTER, yes, I am always sitting under a sign that says BITTER. In this case I am flanked by Bill Boyle and Ace Atkins, and hey, look, I have explained this over and over: now that I am off facebook, here is where you will find the vomitous dregs of my facebookian self-regard. I can't even feel sorry for it. I have no feelings left! Lest anyone misinterpret the conjunction of title and photo, never would I suggest that the City Grocery Bar sells washy draughts if I am understanding any of those words correctly, which almost certainly I am not.

Nice Try

"Lord Ingram... seems to have more length of limb than vivacity of blood or vigour of brain." Ha ha ha! Jane Eyre calls 'em like she sees 'em! I guess that's why I love her! What else can I tell you? The novel - like the John Wayne movie EL DORADO and at least one translation of THE IDIOT - contains the word "charivari." I still haven't come across the expected owl, though "the widest-winged condor on the Andes" makes a metaphorical appearance. Nice try, but not good enough, Jayne Eyre! Also, it's getting pretty crazy now. Still not WUTHERING HEIGHTS crazy, but kind of crazy. SPOILER! If you are my sister, don't read this next part. One dude says, "She sucked the blood: she said she'd drain my heart," and he ain't kidding! Pictured, the climactic scene from JANE EYRE. Not really! It's from the live-action Disney film CONDORMAN. My deepest apologies to Jane Eyre and everyone else, everybody in the world.

Brink

I like Jane Eyre's reflection on her relationship with Mr. Rochester: "I knew the pleasure of vexing him and soothing him by turns; it was one I chiefly delighted in, and a sure instinct always prevented me from going too far: beyond the verge of provocation I never ventured; on the extreme brink I liked well to try my skill."

Professional Bob Balaban Lookalike

I just accidentally read a short story from my first book and it was okay! My first book is the only one of my books I really like. You should get that one if you want one. But if you don't read any of them you will be just fine and continue to live a productive life. So no pressure! Anyway, one of the characters in the story was a professional Bob Balaban lookalike, and I thought, ha ha ha. As Lee Durkee and I were discussing the other day, you really forget what's in your books after you finish writing them. And Tom Franklin said something similar last time I saw him. So I was pleasantly surprised when I thought, ha ha ha. The story has my favorite last sentence I have written: "I was just thinking about that monkey."

Pantalooned Fops!

As has been pointed out here before, that Margalit Fox can really throw down an obituary. Today we have "pantalooned fops and gin-soaked playwrights" in the first sentence! Can it be a coincidence that this obituary has a "large snowy owl" in it?

Skull Time

Lots of skull-shaped items were up for sale on the Gem Shopping Network at four this morning.

Thanks

First I want to thank Lee Durkee, a real trouper. He spoke to my noon class yesterday and then he had to stick around with me for three hours before speaking to my four o'clock class. Above and beyond! We occupied ourselves in various ways. We had Arnold Palmers at Ajax, for example, and sipped them very, very, very slowly as the minutes ticked by. The young woman with all the parking tickets was working and refused to let us pay! So thanks to her too. I also took Lee to the mysterious part of the library and revealed unto him its glories. I guess my favorite thing he said was to my four o'clock class, when he suddenly - and truthfully! - declared, "GREEN ACRES was magic realism." I didn't have the heart to tell him that, like Craig Ferguson, not one of those kids has any idea what GREEN ACRES is. Tragically! (On the other hand, the New York Times doesn't understand GREEN ACRES any better than my students do, as I have most forcefully demonstrated here.) I am pretty sure I mumbled something about magic realism to the students at some point earlier this semester, at least. This morning Lee sent me a video of John Dee's magic mirror. "Click" here to see it. And look, I must thank Sarah, who made this doll (pictured above) for me. I have lost all contact with Sarah since leaving facebook, so if anyone who knows Sarah sees this, tell her I said thanks! It was handed to me by a third party, the doll was, just the other day, gratis, out of nowhere, without warning. The way I remember it, I was at a reading by Melissa Ginsburg and Ann Fisher-Wirth at the Powerhouse, some months ago, and Sarah was there and asked me what my spirit animal was and I said probably orangutan and here you see the happy result. I have something else Sarah made, a candy-striped pole festooned with plush red squids, for which I paid cold cash money after spying it displayed as part of her undergraduate senior Honors thesis project. And you know, I like to brandish it. I was at a Christmas party last year where all the kids (and none of the adults) were wearing devil hats, so I wheedled my way into a spare devil hat, only, in the most Freudian way possible, the horns on my devil hat refused to stand up, which should have taught me a lesson about hubris or something, but sometimes I like to put on the drooping devil hat and brandish the squid stick (as I call it, no, in my mind I capitalize it, The Squid Stick) and feel like some kind of wizard, I guess (see John Dee, above). Photo below by Blair Hobbs.

Philanthropy of a Millionaire

Hey remember the "secret doomed project" I promised to tell you about sometime? Well, I went to New York City to interview Jerry Lewis. Jerry Lewis called me at home to set it up! But I wasn't home so I had to CALL HIM BACK. I have a scrap of paper RIGHT HERE upon which Dr. Theresa wrote down Jerry Lewis's HOME PHONE NUMBER. I have not abused it! I have only used it once. So I went to New York. But then, on the night before our interview, Mr. Lewis collapsed just prior to going onstage to present an award to Tom Cruise. He was rushed to the hospital! So the interview was called off and I wrote an article about almost interviewing Jerry Lewis instead. The published article was illustrated by none other than Tony Millionaire! He drew me sitting under an enormous portrait of Jerry Lewis, looking worried, my precious little notebook on the bar beside me. A masterpiece! Who knew that I would turn out to be the most popular male model of the early 21st century? Mr. Millionaire very kindly sent me the original drawing in the mail and I just took a picture of it with my picture-taking camera that takes pictures and here it is. So soon enough Jerry was fine and our interview was relocated to Nashville, where Jerry's musical version of THE NUTTY PROFESSOR was in previews. But then Marvin Hamlisch, the composer of the show's music, passed away, and things were thrown into turmoil once again so now I have almost interviewed Jerry Lewis twice and I have talked to him on the phone twice yet I feel so empty inside.

Justin Bieber's Owl Tattoo

I feel I need to tell you I just read in the New York Times that Justin Bieber has an owl tattoo.

A Boiled Owl

And now I would like to say a few feverishly anticipated words about THE IRON PETTICOAT. Aw, it wasn't so bad! Or maybe that's the whiskey talking. Bob Hope and Katharine Hepburn started drinking whiskey early in the movie and I am highly suggestible. First Robert Osborne came on and introduced it. He said that nobody has seen this movie in 40 years, because when the rights reverted to Bob Hope, he locked it up tight. I guess Bob was ashamed of it! Ben Hecht wrote the screenplay, but Bob decided to have his gag writers punch it up Bob Hope style, which made Ben Hecht furious. There was lots of trouble. But I must say that anything I laughed at in the movie bore the distinct mark of having been added by Bob Hope's gag writers. The movie starts with a score that indicates we are about to watch the curtain rise on a turbulent opera. It's heavy! Like Wagner trying to evoke a stormy seascape or something. Katharine Hepburn's Russian accent is somewhere between German and Dracula, with some French thrown in and something else... Spanish? She rolls her r's really expansively. But the minute Bob comes onscreen the energy and pep are palpable. He just breezes in and starts tossing off one-liners, walking in that supremely graceful way of his. He's so relaxed that during a scene with his commanding officer he just swivels back and forth on a chair casually, like a little kid, like he's thinking of something else. I was proud to notice an actual Russian (I think), a guy I recognized - decades younger here! - from Woody Allen's own Russian epic, LOVE AND DEATH. He plays a martial arts expert in THE IRON PETTICOAT. This Russian (I guess) and Bob have a funny fight scene, during which Bob unforgivably breaks character to make a Bing Crosby joke. So that's another Woody Allen/Bob Hope connection, which we collect here. The politics of the film is standard Cold War stuff, except that a porcine anti-communist senator from Alabama is portrayed as a dumb boob. Very early in the movie, Katharine Hepburn is said to be "as sore as a boiled owl," an expression I have heard before, maybe in other old movies, but I still don't get it, not really, a boiled owl, sore, why? What's that? In conclusion, what's the big deal? Who cares? Who cares about anything? Goodbye forever.

Huh

Hey what if I told you I was thinking about not doing the "Blog" Advent Calendar this year? You would probably be like, "Huh?"

Levels

Speaking of owls, I should mention that the most recent episode of ADVENTURE TIME featured an owl wearing a t-shirt that said OWL on it - so many levels! Many of my students are ADVENTURE TIME fans, and after class the other day a couple of them were saying that the episode in question made them think of "Children of the Corn," which we read earlier this semester, yes, that's right, we read "Children of the Corn" earlier this semester, shut up, leave me alone, you can't fire me, I quit.

Twitter

If I were really back on twitter I would tell you that right now I am eating a salad and watching a special Valentine's Day episode of WHAT I LIKE ABOUT YOU.

Spoony

I was delighted while reading JANE EYRE to discover that Mr. Rochester refers to himself as a "spoony" - a word with which I was previously unacquainted: "I began the process of ruining myself in the received style, like any other spoony... I had - as I deserved to have - the fate of all other spoonies." Still, I cannot help but recall what Philip Marlowe's friend Terry Lennox said about the gimlet: that it "beats the martini hollow." And likewise I must say that so far - so far! - WUTHERING HEIGHTS certainly beats JANE EYRE hollow. Not that it's a competition! (See also.)

Cat Twins!

Hey look a week or so ago during one of my "video conferences" with the good folks at ADVENTURE TIME one of our cats jumped in my lap so naturally I had to pick up the cat and show the cat to the people in Los Angeles so they could see the cat and besides this is the cat who looks exactly like Kent Osborne's cat! So you can see why I had to show everybody the cat because everybody needed to see the cat. Cat! Photo by Kent Osborne.

Solitary Ways

Hey I am reading JANE EYRE now. Hey there are no owls in it yet. But there is "a North-of-England spirit, called a 'Gytrash'; which, in the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways." (See also.)

McNeil's Movie Korner

Welcome once again to "McNeil's Movie Korner"! Emailed McNeil to tell him the seldom-seen THE IRON PETTICOAT is coming on TCM tomorrow night. He replied that he doesn't have access to TCM right now, and has been reduced to watching EIGHT ON THE LAM on the "streaming video" they have nowadays. "I love it when Bob slips on the banana peel!" McNeil reports of the latter film. "Bob also has a 25 year old love interest! And, not coincidentally, the film is a Bob Hope Enterprise," he concludes. You know, I seem to recall that when Kelly Hogan was sick a couple of months ago, she watched EIGHT ON THE LAM to help her feel better. I'll try to confirm and get back to you with the tantalizing results of my in-depth investigation! Why am I so excited about THE IRON PETTICOAT? Dave Kehr, who is usually so pro-Bob, had nothing nice to say about it. He said that watching Katharine Hepburn and Bob Hope act together was like watching "a giraffe attempting to mate with a hedgehog." Hey, maybe that's why I'm excited! So long from "McNeil's Movie Korner."

Orange Velvet Head

In today's New York Times we find "stabs of sapphire, bags of rubies... the orange velvet head of a bear decapitated, poor thing."

Real Dead Owl

"... down fell a brown horned owl about the size and heft of a decapitated head..." So RIDES OF THE MIDWAY has a real for sure owl in it.

Sky Rabbit

"... I thought it was an owl trapped in there making all these spooked-out noises just like a ghost..." Rereading RIDES OF THE MIDWAY by Lee Durkee for my scary story class. And even though "it wasn't an owl at all" I am going to call RIDES OF THE MIDWAY a book with an owl in it, and put it on our big list of books with owls in them. Anyway, out at the fair a hypnotist makes a woman swoop "low over the stage... scour[ing] the earth for mice and rabbits." Now that doesn't mean she's an owl - it's not specified - but I'm saying she's an owl, because that's what owls do, they scour the earth. Hey did I ever tell you about the time Barry B. was driving all the way to New York City from Atlanta without stopping and we saw a rabbit fall out of the sky? Dr. Theresa and Caroline, who were dozing in the back of the van, didn't believe us. They said things like, "Oh sure, and I just saw a pig hitchhiking. He was standing on his hind legs and wearing a tie." But we know the truth. Hey as long as I've got you here why don't I tell you about a book WITHOUT an owl in it? Oh who am I kidding, it's five volumes, I'm sure there's an owl in it somewhere. Last night I was thumbing through THE ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH POPULAR BALLADS collected by Francis James Child and I came across one called "Child Owlet" and an owlet is a baby owl, right? Right? But it's just some guy's name, this guy's name is Child Owlet, and not even I can count him as an owl. He's torn apart by horses for a crime he didn't commit, if you must know.

Fine Art Dude

How often have I tried to express to Dr. Theresa the mesmerizing quality of the people who try to sell you jewelry on television. But she had to come across an example of TV salesmanship on her own to truly understand the value of this unappreciated form of entertainment. She saw this dude selling "fine art." He was a fat guy in a brown suit and whenever he sat down he spread his legs really far apart. (Nothing against fat guys! I am a fat guy myself!) Dr. Theresa called me in and we watched the fat guy sell fine art together. The fine art salesman smacked his gum loudly (Nicorette, convincingly theorized Dr. Theresa) as he sold his fine art, and drank Mountain Dew. His Mountain Dew cans were littered among the fine art he was selling. I have presented here an actual example of the actual work that was up for grabs. He kept up a patter of non sequiturs, but they weren't charming like Tracey's from the Gem Shopping Network. This guy seemed volatile. He kept returning to his problems with someone called Jennifer. He said, for example, that she had the mark of the devil on her scalp! Scalp, he said. Jennifer turned out to be his wife. He said something about "bigfoot pulling a gun." Disappointingly, "Bigfoot" turned out to be the nickname of a guy on the crew. He said, "Don't stab yourself, Chappell." (His name was Chappell and he constantly referred to himself in the third person.) He said, "Don't stab yourself, Chappell, or they'll know you're crazy. I'm not crazy!"

Censorious Pink Zag

I didn't tell you about how Elizabeth saw "people wearing pink and red and black together. zig zaggy stripes" at the racetrack because it sounded censorious and sometimes I like to walk around in my black velvet jacket and pink shirt like some kind of big shot but I confessed and she says it's okay but she probably just feels sorry for me.

Tiny and Cutely

Elizabeth spent Thanksgiving at the racetrack, natch. Her horse came in second and Elizabeth got interviewed by the local news. She files this report: "lots of horrible hats made with hot glue guns and old gum... the jockeys were so tiny and cutely dressed."

The Channel That Shows Grape Ape

Spent Thanksgiving the usual way - took a pain pill and watched a little GRAPE APE on the channel that shows GRAPE APE. (See also.) The pain pill didn't help. I mean, it helped the pain but it didn't help Grape Ape. You remember Grape Ape. He had an okay vocabulary but mostly just said his own name a lot for no reason, as seen here. But I bet you didn't remember that his friend was an anthropomorphic dog (see also) who I believe was intended to come off as some kind of hipster. They just drove around aimlessly. So really it was like ON THE ROAD or the Bill Bixby version of the Hulk. And everybody they met was a regular human, yes, that hipster dog was the only human-size talking dog around. He talked like maybe he hung around in jazz clubs or something. I bet he was lonely. On the other channel was Kenneth Branagh's strenuous attempt at a musical comedy but Grape Ape was probably worse though when you think of the relative effort that went into them maybe it's a draw. Hey it's none of my beeswax really we're all just trying to have a good time.

The Oral Surgeon's Memory

Somebody pulled two of my teeth today! Fortunately, he was a qualified professional. As he put me under, he was telling me a memory of being a kid in a Vicksburg, Mississippi, hotel room where B.B. King was watching an episode of WONDER WOMAN on TV. "So it must have been the 70s," he said. Sounds like a hallucination, but I confirmed it when I woke up with two teeth missing. Just in time for Thanksgiving. Now I am eating mashed sweet potatoes and thinking about what I learned.

Hackman's Eggs

But the main thing I want to say about FRENCH CONNECTION II is that Gene Hackman was eating hardboiled eggs at the bar (or were they pickled? they didn't look pickled) and I was thinking hardboiled eggs should make a comeback as bar food or maybe they never went away I have no idea but when I was watching Gene Hackman all I was thinking was boy I wish I were at a bar eating hardboiled eggs like Gene Hackman.

Back in Shape

Okay now I am going to tell you some more things Dr. Theresa said while watching Gene Hackman in FRENCH CONNECTION II. When he was chasing on foot after a streetcar, she said, "He's back in shape!" Because earlier in the movie the bad guys - spoiler alert, but you can't possibly care, can you? - kidnapped him and hooked him on the dope (see Dr. Theresa's previous comment, "Oh, they're shooting him full of junk") and he had to get over his love of the dope and get back in shape and get his groove back. Then at the end of the movie she said, "That's the 1970s for ya!"

The Goods

And now I would like to tell you some of the things Dr. Theresa said while we were watching FRENCH CONNECTION II just now. She said, "I hope nothing happens to the well-meaning bartender" and "Oh, they're shooting him full of junk." And when an old lady stole a strung-out Gene Hackman's watch, she said, "Granny's got the goods" and when a French cop tore up a doctor's report she said, "This never happened, see?" And later she said, "You're toast, granny." I said one thing. There was a bad guy who looked like the Mentalist from the TV show THE MENTALIST, and when he crashed through the windshield of a truck I said, "So much for the Mentalist." What else? Well, Dr. Theresa broke a casserole dish and cut her fingers and there was blood everywhere like a horror movie.

I Also Like the Ghostly Nubs

"Why did the toasted marshmallow taste like fish?" This koan, arguably in iambic pentameter, from a restaurant review by Pete Wells, is my favorite sentence in today's New York Times. Wells's review ("click" here) contains many other piquant phrases, such as "ghostly nubs."

William Henry Harrison

Hey it was warm on Friday and I went out in short sleeves then later in the evening it was cooler and I never put on a jacket and I got sick - not McNeil sick, but pretty sick. Is that how getting sick works? Isn't that what happened to William Henry Harrison? Look it up! But at 2 or 3 in the morning, not yet knowing I was sick, I found myself awake and I turned on TCM and something called BURN, WITCH, BURN was coming on and I heard Dr. Theresa stirring around so I said, "Get up! There's something called BURN, WITCH, BURN coming on!" So Dr. Theresa said, "Pause it!" Dr. Theresa said, "What if I make coffee and eggs and tortillas and we watch BURN, WITCH, BURN? We can sleep all day tomorrow if we want!" All of that sounded like the best idea ever. BURN, WITCH, BURN is all about college professors using witchcraft to get tenure! I think there were some sly allusions to Shirley Jackson. And then a giant stone eagle comes to life and chases a dude down the halls of academia. But afterwards I was exhausted. That's not what coffee is supposed to do! Turns out I was sick with a virus all weekend and even had to miss class on Monday and gee I always give my students such a hard time when they don't drag themselves to class and I guess I should have learned a valuable lesson about what a jerk I am but I didn't, no, I'm still a jerk.

How Kitty Got Her Brains Back

I am happy to say that somewhere between the denouement of THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ, in which the pink brains of the Glass Cat are removed, and GLINDA OF OZ, which L. Frank Baum wrote on his deathbed, the Glass Cat apparently gets her pink brains back. Now, if wikipedia is telling me true, there are seven OZ books between THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ and GLINDA OF OZ, so that means I have to read just seven more OZ books at the MOST to find out how and why the Glass Cat got back her pink brains, unless Baum just forgot, he was on his deathbed after all, so am I, a man almost 50 years of age, going to read seven more OZ books anyway? I can't say I won't.

The Jottery

Hey I just opened up my precious little notebook that contains all my precious little jottings and I saw a partial quotation I must have liked, and indeed do like: "achievement unblemished by reward." - N.J. But I don't remember writing it down or who N.J. is! I'll investigate. Maybe. If I'm not too tired. Right above it, I have printed as a question, "We're all going to die one day?" Yeah, I don't know where I was or what I was doing when I jotted that. Jotting!

Not Surprisingly, Nixon

Would you be interested and thrilled if I told you that I thought of another connection between Norman Mailer and Nixon? No? Who cares? The way I remembered it, Godard asked Nixon to play King Lear before he asked Norman Mailer. Turns out I have no idea what I'm talking about. But when I looked it up in the Godard bio I have, I found out that Godard DID offer Nixon half a million dollars to appear in one scene with Mailer. "Not surprisingly, Nixon did not respond," writes Richard Brody. I also learned that Lee Marvin agreed to play King Lear and then backed out. Lee Marvin as King Lear! I know you don't care but I am going to sit here and think about it. Well, what if I told you that there are several disorienting references to "Romney" in Mailer's book, only he's talking about Romney's dad? Still nothing? Okay. Well, I guess I have been going around for decades with a knowing air, misleadingly asking people, "Hey, did you know Godard offered Nixon the part of King Lear?" Hey, GLINDA OF OZ is weird. There's "a shelf of books that were written in blood" - shades of Lovecraft! - and Dorothy has lines of dialogue like, "No, I'd rather die quickly." (!)

Uttering Dismal Grunts

All right! More on the pig from GLINDA OF OZ: "Just then a pig came running into the room, uttering dismal grunts. It was made of solid gold, with joints at the bends of the legs and in the neck and jaws. The Golden Pig's eyes were rubies, and its teeth were polished ivory." All right that's my kind of pig all right. Except for the ivory, ivory's not cool man.

Misty Soubrette Reappraisal

Hey speaking of Nixon wasn't I just speaking of Nixon? I happened to grab up Norman Mailer's nonfiction book MIAMI AND THE SIEGE OF CHICAGO and I just got to the part where Mailer spies Nixon's daughters: "Tricia, gentle, bemused, a misty look to her face... Julie... healthy, genial, a perfect soubrette for a family comedy on television... a man who could produce daughters like that could not be all bad. The remote possibility of some reappraisal of Richard Nixon was now forced to enter the works." Loyal "blog" readers will of course immediately recall their loyal "blog" reading from early 2007 and the controversial words of one James Whorton, Jr.

Four Cans of Brains

Here is my favorite statement so far in GLINDA OF OZ: "My poor wife had four cans of brains and became a remarkable witch, but alas! that was before those terrible enemies, the Skeezers, transformed her into a Golden Pig."

Frightful Music Gentlemen

In the book I was telling you about, Thomas Adès has some interesting things to say about Franck, a composer to whom I have never given a second thought, or a first thought. Adès calls Franck's only symphony "a very pregnant piece. It's wildly unfashionable now." Naturally I turned to the reliably stilted yet poignant schadenfreude of those kooky old volumes: MILTON CROSS' ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC. I was not disappointed! "Midway in his rehearsal [the conductor, Colonne] stopped the orchestra and turned to the composer to ask, 'Does it please you?' Franck replied that he was very pleased indeed. Colonne then turned back to the orchestra men and added, 'It's all frightful music, gentlemen, but we'll go on anyway.'" And: "Most of those who knew him regarded him as a quaint man who always wore an overcoat too large for him, over trousers that were invariably too short." The encyclopedia tells of how Franck worked on a piece for ten years then invited all the greatest members of the musical establishment of Paris to hear him play it and only two people showed up. "His first major public success as a composer did not come until he was sixty-eight years old (the last year of his life)." On the other hand, Debussy is quoted on the subject of Franck's soul, which he proclaimed "so good that neither contradictory circumstances nor the wickedness of others could ever make him feel bitter."

Famous Fish Pix

Hey yeah but look here, Pendleton Ward, creator of ADVENTURE TIME, drew me again, this time with the fish that Rachel and SKIN MAG the human literary magazine gave me when they moved to Mexico to express their love, only guess what, they moved to China instead! That's what somebody told me at City Grocery Bar the other night. I have lost touch with them completely and cannot tell them about this artistic sketch of their former pet. I am always spending long portions of valuable professional video-conferencing time talking about the fish, yes, that's right, I am doing some work for ADVENTURE TIME, why was I trying to keep that a secret? Maybe I kind of thought it was supposed to be a secret. Don't ask me. Anyway, it can't be a secret, can it? With this picture of the fish and me out there? I could and should and will take this opportunity to make sure you understand that Pendleton Ward is NOT the "Mr. Ward" to whom I often refer on the "blog." I have never met Pendleton Ward in actual person. My old friend, the "blog's" "Mr. Ward," has the FIRST name Ward, not the last name Ward. I don't even recall why I started to call my friend Ward "Mr. Ward" on the "blog." Was it to protect his identity? That was stupid.

Jazz Ghost

You know what Frank Kermode said about Shakespeare: "To be able to devote one’s life to art without forgetting that art is frivolous is a tremendous achievement of personal character." And what about when John Ashbery said that poetry is good because of its impracticality? Plus how can we forget the Maine antiques dealer who said, "I think I’m more and more attracted to things that aren’t worth anything"? Let me add a composer I really like, Thomas Adès, who says in a book of interviews, "I have to make gratuitous things... which the philosophers can't explain." He says a lot of other aphoristic things, too! He's very aphoristic. I'd tell you more except I am teaching this book to my grad students next semester and I want to leave some surprises for them. Well, he says some things about Mahler I don't agree with at all, but he does praise Mahler when Mahler "embraces and celebrates the futility of his life and his music." I can get behind that! And then he says (still about Mahler) "good for him. Grand failures are preferable to sneaky successes, aren't they?" And that makes me think of something I have said on the "blog." I can't tell you more! We're reading DRACULA and WUTHERING HEIGHTS in my grad class too. And GLINDA OF OZ, which I haven't yet read, but I'm getting behind Laura Lippman's interpretation, so I am sure it will be a success. I was going to make them read THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ but the ending depressed me too much. (Spoilers here, nearly a century old, but still.) The Glass Cat with awesome brains like pink marbles is forced to exchange them for transparent brains. She becomes "humble" - ugh! - and boring, which in the world of the book is supposed to be a good thing. We all know it's not so. Well, I mean it's good to be humble, of course, but you don't have to be boring about it, and DO try to stop people from switching out your brains on a whim if at all possible. I am quite disturbed, also, by the political system of Oz. Magic is outlawed! You might think my ideas to be conservative. Am I against government regulation? Well, I guess so in this case! Only a certain few government-licensed employees of the state are allowed to practice magic in Oz. If magic spells are the guns of Oz, then Ozma has repealed the second amendment. On the other hand, if you think of magic as free speech (that's probably more like it - I guess!), then I am a true liberal, and Ozma is a censor. The Patchwork Girl never did become "terrifyingly amoral" in my opinion, as Lippman promised. The closest she came was saying that she would gladly "kill a dozen useless butterflies" to help her friend. That was scary! But I guess "punk rock" is the best definition of her in my book. Finally, I should tell you that our annual Halloween film festival ended with a movie called TORMENTED, all about a jazz pianist practicing for Carnegie Hall (!) who accidentally (sort of, not really) lets his girlfriend ("Wow! Look at that brassiere!" exclaimed Dr. Theresa) fall off a lighthouse and then she's dead and a ghost! I particularly loved the scheming beatnik in TORMENTED and kept wondering where I had seen him before. Turns out that many years later he was the bartender ghost in THE SHINING! I learned that from imdb.

Jack Jones Won't Let Us

"Will it ever be different that you and I will stop dreaming those big visions that keep us so human?" That's the beginning of some nutty liner notes on a Jack Jones LP I bought at The End of All Music a few weeks ago. Also: "Then, her knees that are too fat as they jump out of a mini skirt and the bulge of tummy that hangs over his swimming shorts don't mean a thing... That's what the Jones boy is saying, and he says it so it will run around in your ears if you hear it in the Go-Go that never stops being a sound pit or at a cocktail party where some creep is serenading you and over in the corner Sir John Galahad is arguing the propulsion strength of dry fuel and he won't look at you and your eyes have burnt a hole through his beguiling head... you want to climb those mountains and hills and find the stars and hold the hands, and kiss the lips, and light the cigarettes and have those babies... Just silly humans like you and me with big hearts and dreamy dreams. We will not stop: Jack Jones won't let us." Now, first of all, isn't it kind of ominous that Jack Jones won't let us stop? And next I will tell you that the liner notes turn out to be authored and signed by Father Norman J. O'Connor, and here I add a parenthetical exclamation point: (!).

Gargoyle Hugs

When we were walking up the dark path to Faulkner's house the other night, something made a noise behind a tree and then it popped out to scare us and it was none other than Bill Griffith, the man who runs Faulkner's house. He's a big horror movie fan - he used to watch them regularly with Barry Hannah, the gorier the better - and he told us he had just seen EQUINOX and liked it. So naturally it shot right to the top of our Halloween film festival list. We watched it, and I don't want to tell you anything about it! I want you to watch it for yourself. Even the dvd menu screen had too many spoilers for my taste. So just close your eyes and get a friend or loved one to select "Play Movie" for you! We also watched DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE and a 1972 made-for-TV movie called GARGOYLES, all about a young woman in various halter tops and her sometimes shirtless dad, who fight reptilian winged demons. In one scene, two of the "gargoyles" hug! And then, as they break their embrace (pictured) and one gargoyle moves away, the other gargoyle swats the first gargoyle affectionately on the rump! Dr. Theresa and I had to rewind that scene to make sure we really saw it and yes we really did, we really truly did. I realize that we started the whole festival this year with two other made-for-TV movies from 1972. Why were TV movies so weird in 1972? I am going to blame Nixon. Nothing we have seen so far during the annual Halloween film festival is nearly as scary as this creature named Jack Pumpkinhead I came across while reading THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ. First of all, he lives in a giant pumpkin, even though his own head is a pumpkin, which would be like us living in a giant human head (see also)! He serves pumpkin pie to his guests, so that's horrific. And his head is constantly rotting! So he is always out in the pumpkin patch, carving a new head for himself. Oh dear Lord.

Best Stuffing

It is almost as if L. Frank Baum heard my objections to his narrow view of ragtime FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE. He has a character say, "I've just composed a tune called 'The Speckled Alligator.' It's in patch-time, which is much superior to rag-time." He plays it on a harmonica and Baum editorializes: "It wasn't a very bad tune, nor a very good one." I like it when the Glass Cat disdainfully draws a distinction between herself and "the meat cats." If you are in college and starting a band, may I respectfully suggest that you name yourselves "The Meat Cats"? The Scarecrow falls hard for the Patchwork Girl and says she has "the best stuffing there is going," which struck me as a pretty hardboiled turn of phrase, so is it any wonder that Laura Lippman got me to read THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ? She also recommended THE OTHER, the other [THE OTHER, the other, ha! - ed.] thing I'm reading now, so really Laura Lippman is dictating all my reading, rather like Ozma, who appears to be the benevolent dictator of Oz if I am understanding the situation correctly and yes, I have some serious reservations about the political system of Oz.

Oatmeal Cat

"... and playfully they would tease her, Ada Katerina, be for us a bee, a flower, an owl." Gee sometimes I get so weary when I contemplate my lot in life: to be the man who keeps a big long list of every book with an owl in it, even though my careful cataloguing does serve to substantiate my magnificent literary theory that every book has an owl in it. But oh gee it is such lonely work. It's at times like these that I say to myself, "Come on, Pendarvis! The people are counting on you!" So THE OTHER by Thomas Tryon is a book with an owl in it. And a few pages after that there's something about an old lady feeding oatmeal to her cat.

Tell the World!

Dr. Theresa accidentally happened to catch a few moments of the apparently awful NBC remake of THE MUNSTERS that came on tonight, and boy was she sorry. She called me into the room to rewind it and show me a few minutes that particularly offended her. A little boy irrevocably zipped up in a bright yellow sleeping bag was trying to hop away from a beast who swatted him against a tree in a magnificent explosion of feathers. This, of course, is the most memorable moment in John Frankenheimer's mutant bear movie PROPHECY. It wasn't a homage, argued Dr. Theresa, because it was so obscure. It was a rip-off. "It wasn't THEIR brilliance," she said. She also said, "Tell the world!" Then we watched RED LIGHTS, our second Halloween film festival movie this year to feature Sigourney Weaver. "Hey," I said, "she was in GHOSTBUSTERS [not part of the Halloween film festival - ed.] and now she's PLAYING a ghost-buster. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Get it?" That's what I said. To which Dr. Theresa responded something like, "Yeah." It also starred the creepy guy from RED EYE. And, purely objectively, it was the movie in our festival that (so far) made us say "Aaaaah!" out loud the most, though it wasn't really an "Aaaaah!" kind of movie.

I Ate It

You know I'm a "teacher" and I have "office hours" at Square Books but today Richard Howorth spotted me and forcibly moved my "office hours" to City Grocery Bar for martinis. Well first we asked for gibsons but it turns out I ate all the cocktail onions last night. Who should show up but Chris Offutt, who wrote this week's episode of TREME? We talked about unicorns. Then John Currence came by and put a small cast-iron skillet in front of me and in that skillet was something to eat on a bed of collards and I ate it and it was good and John said, "That's fried cockscomb." (See also.)

I Hate Dignity

You know I'm reading THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ and I haven't yet found the terrifying amorality I was promised in the title character, although she is a tad anarchic, as evidenced by this illustration and her accompanying slogan (see also; I'd call her "punk rock" if the text didn't define ragtime as a "jerky jumble of sounds" - I'm kind of surprised that Baum missed the opportunity to have her love ragtime since she's made of rags; instead she calls it "extremely bad"). Her hair, I suppose, I find somewhat terrifying in each illustration, particularly here, the way the sparse strings dance and wave about, and the two visible teeth are unsettling, and the dreaded button eyes, natch, but I have to say so far I get where she's coming from, man. Like Frankenstein's monster - like all of us! - the Patchwork Girl didn't ask to be born.

Neon Monkey Dreams

You know I would never want to see a monkey riding a dog, though I love reading about monkeys riding dogs and writing about monkeys riding dogs. I'm a complicated person! (See also.) I am happy to say that my old buddies Anya and Elizabeth have an essay up ("click" here) on therumpus.net and it contains this quotation: "I was born in 1962. All my life it was my dream to own a monkey" and these sentences: "Three sheepdogs run out. On their backs bounce tiny monkeys in neon, fringed riding vests."

Afflictions of McNeil

Gee I didn't want to scare you but last time I talked to McNeil he was abed with pneumonia! He's better now, though the tone of today's email was despairing: "I ate lunch at Target." Hey remember when McNeil had the swine flu? And what about that big bruise on his arm? He's so delicate and frail! Or maybe, just maybe, he's the toughest of us all.

You Can See 'Em Work

"So they opened the door and entered the house, where a little light-brown donkey, dressed in a blue apron and a blue cap, was engaged in dusting the furniture with a blue cloth. On a shelf over the window sat a great blue owl with a blue sunbonnet on her head, blinking her big round eyes at the visitors." It should come as no surprise that THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ is a book with an owl in it. But I guess my favorite character is the Glass Cat, a cat made of glass, with these pink marbles, I suppose, in her glass head, and she's really proud of them because they're her brains, and she works this phrase into every conversation: "Have you noticed my pink brains? You can see 'em work."

Latest News From Oz

Today Ace Atkins and I were talking about William Bendix and Ace said, "What happened to William Bendix? Did he come to a tragic end?" We didn't know. But we parted agreeing that he seemed like the kind of guy who might have come to a tragic end. Here he is in an illustration for the American Meat Institute (not to be confused with the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council), proclaiming William Bendix "on the air for MEAT." What else happened today? Heard from Megan Abbott. She has been keeping an eye on all this Oz stuff on the "blog." Turns out she and her brother read all the OZ books "100 times." Megan elaborates: "my dad bought us an enormous roll of paper from the hardware (?) store and we drew a map of Oz, based on all the books, that covered the whole floor of my bedroom and included illustrations made with those fat markers that smelled like fruit. I'd kill for that map now! I wanted to walk right into it. Then we wrote the publisher and asked for more written by L. Frank Baum and not the 'other authors.' My parents, who helped us mail the letter, apparently didn't feel obliged to tell us he'd been dead for 60 years."

Ultimately Defeated by a Chicken

I just got an email from Laura Lippman about an OZ villain who turns people "into tschotchkes and is ultimately defeated by a chicken."

Brain Can Conspiracy

You know Laura Lippman has got me all fascinated like with these OZ books. And now Elizabeth writes in to inform me that she, like Laura, is a big fan. OZMA OF OZ is her favorite. As for Laura, I quote: "My favorite is probably the last one written by Baum, Glinda of Oz, which deals with a very petulant teen sorceress (sort of Kristen Stewart with magic powers) and a population of 'Flatheads,' who keep their brains in cans. Rich with conspiracies." Laura says that she "read every book in the L. Frank Baum series AND the 'sequels' written by Ruth Plumly Thompson, which were darker and not quite right." Intriguing! I see a lazy trip to wikipedia in my future. In a subsequent email, Laura just as intriguingly notes "the presence of strong girls and the absence of strong boys" in Baum's books. She can think of no more than three boys in them, one of whom (SPOILER ALERT) turns out to be a girl: OZMA! Now I know why Elizabeth likes that one so much. It's right up her alley.

Giant Horror Glasses

As you will no doubt be thrilled to hear, our annual Halloween Film Festival has continued with THE CABIN IN THE WOODS (a hint of Lovecraft there) and the awesome FROM BEYOND (a whole lot of Lovecraft). The leading lady of FROM BEYOND sports the enormous eyeglasses you may recall from 2009's Halloween film festival feature SWAMP THING. I have a vague recollection of renting FROM BEYOND many years ago at the Phar-Mor drugstore in Mobile, Alabama, with the amazing VHS selection. As I watched it tonight I suddenly had an epiphany about the connection between H.P. Lovecraft and Shirley Jackson. It's really obvious but I'm saving it for scary story class tomorrow.

Sick and Blunted, Y'all

I was reading ol' Stephen Holden in the New York Times today, he whose cabaret reviews have baffled and intrigued me with their tortured and ecstatic turns of phrase, whose movie reviews have oft been fraught with dubious cultural assumptions. Today he wrote, "For Ms. Huppert it is the latest in a long line of roles that require her to ooze an imperious hauteur, something she can probably do in her sleep." Though I appreciated what he was getting at (this photo makes a good case for it), I struggled with the phrase. It's my own problem, not Stephen Holden's! I don't like to think of anyone oozing anything in her sleep, especially imperious hauteur. Speaking of turns of phrase, Lee and Larry came over last night to watch Orson Welles's movie FALSTAFF (also known as CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT), and when John Gielgud (as Henry IV) said, "He was but as the cuckoo is in June, heard, not regarded; seen, but with such eyes as, sick and blunted with community, afford no extraordinary gaze," I thought, "Yeah! That's why I got off facebook." I used to think hobos were the original facebook, but there's Shakespeare writing about it so now I don't know what to think! I'm back on twitter, though. Who cares? EXACTLY!

Scary Buttons

There is something extra scary about the Patchwork Girl of Oz, which I did not notice when I saw that previous illustration of her. Perhaps I didn't examine it closely enough. But her EYES ARE BUTTONS! Do you hear what I'm saying? HER EYES ARE BUTTONS, people! I know because I picked up my own copy of THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ at Square Books today. Most horrible! More terrible, even, than Laura Lippman implied! Forget Freud's ideas about the uncanny. Just think of the lullaby quoted in Toni Morrison's great novel BELOVED, all about "Lady Button Eyes." So very soothing, yet shot through with terror. In my opinion! All right! Lady Button Eyes is coming! She's coming! Get some sleep!

Our Soup Story

Hey I was just thinking about how the day after Dr. Theresa and I watched X: THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES she brought home some soup from the Honey Bee Bakery and it was in a paper cup with an opaque white plastic lid on it and for some reason I said, "It looks good," and Dr. Theresa shot back, "Who are you, THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES?" oh gee we have lots of fun.

Head Strikes Again

Hey look Pendleton Ward, creator of ADVENTURE TIME - my nephews' favorite show! - drew my head. I don't think he'd mind me showing you because he put it out there in public on the twitter. Hey Kent told me to get back on twitter (he missed my live-tweetings of KING RALPH) so I did. Hey. (See also. And also.)

Future Shoes

Hey look it's what I look like during a futuristic "video conference." Terrifying! Those are Kent's shoes. What's it all about? I don't think I can tell you yet. Can I? I guess not. Up on the corner of that bookcase behind me you can see that can of industrial-strength "Ultra Duster" I told you about one time. Hey man I told you now that I'm off facebook this is where all my annoying facebook style photos go. You have only yourself to blame for looking.

Country Guy

Read a New York Times obituary about a guy who started his own country: "drama ensued when a group of Germans with plans to build a luxury casino on the platform tried to take control of Sealand while Mr. Bates and his wife were away. They held [his son] hostage for several days before Roy Bates stormed Sealand and retook it in a dramatic helicopter raid." I like the implied thought: "Hey, that guy and his wife went for groceries. Let's take over their country before they get back."