"Snake Frenzy"

Just read a chapter entitled "SNAKE FRENZY" in this Joyce Carol Oates book. The delightful quotation marks are Oates's. Yes sir, I guess this book has everything, including "snake frenzies."

Ornithologist Love Interest

Last night I watched that movie where John Belushi learns to care about bald eagles: CONTINENTAL DIVIDE. I saw it in the theater when it came out in 1981 and boy was I disappointed. A restrained Belushi is required to say things like this to Blair Brown as his ornithologist love interest: "Why ornithology?" That is a line that John Belushi has to say. There are lots of scenes of him wearing a plaid shirt and a hat and jotting down his musings on a yellow legal pad, and that image, at least, must have been appealing to the teenage me, because I felt some sort of unidentifiable pang when I saw it last night. Is that when I started wearing hats? If so, then CONTINENTAL DIVIDE has that atrocity to answer for as well! (Flipping through an old photo album I see McNeil and myself in the mountains of North Carolina probably in the early 80s and I am wearing a fishing hat - "Just like the one Jack Lemmon wore in THE ODD COUPLE!" I certainly exclaimed at the time, and I almost got Dr. Theresa to take the photo to her office and "scan" it so I could "post" it here but the thought of all that effort was just so depressing, everything was so depressing.) The humor in CONTINENTAL DIVIDE, when it occasionally happens, is along the lines of the Hope and Crosby ROAD movies: city-dweller Belushi confronted by bears or a mountain lion. But then the mountain lion mauls him a little! Which would not have happened to Hope or Crosby. In fact, the mountain lion would have talked. That would have been funny. Even the one-liners were more Hope-like than anything else. After a mishap, Blair Brown says, "Are you all right?" and Belushi replies (I think), "Yeah, it's just my body." It was amazingly old-fashioned. Once, just once, Belushi deploys his eyebrows in the manner we all desired in 1981. But that wasn't enough for us! Written by Lawrence Kasdan and directed by Michael Apted and does that deserve one of these: (!)? I don't know. Does anything deserve a (!)? Doesn't everything just deserve a "..."? The structure of the film is very weird, with a bafflingly truncated second act and why am I typing this?

Glass Owl

I just came to a chapter called THE GLASS OWL in this Joyce Carol Oates book. And there was another owl, too, yesterday, I guess, about which I neglected to inform you, because don't you think I have better things to do with my time than compulsively inform you (whoever "you" are - I suspect "you" are me!) whenever I read about an owl in a book? Because I don't. Indeed it is my life's work. I wonder what this chapter - THE GLASS OWL - will be about! A glass owl?

A Owl

Hey yeah but I was out of town so I couldn't tell you when I found out that the book I'm reading has an owl in it, or "a owl," I should say, because that's the awkward way the narrator puts it. No, wait, the narrator is quoting a diarist who is quoting someone else (Grover Cleveland's wife!) who is quoting Woodrow Wilson's daughter (!) who - spoiler alert - sees an apparition floating outside her bedroom window at night 'SALEM'S LOT style, its eyes "huge as a owl's." The Jersey Devil just made an appearance, too. Joyce Carol Oates! THE ACCURSED. This book has everything, including the Jersey Devil. Oh, you don't know about the Jersey Devil? I'm sure he has a wikipedia page. "... reputedly a seven-foot predator bird/reptile with a long neck and a long, very sharp beak and sharp talons. Historically, the Jersey Devil is said to be the thirteenth child of a witch named Mother Leeds," explains the narrator of THE ACCURSED. But in case you don't believe Joyce Carol Oates, here's the wikipedia page. Pictured, Grover Cleveland's wife, the former Frances Folsom.

Much Jollity

All right dang it I googled it for you and one thing I found out was "There must have [been] much jollity when the king appeared at one of the tournaments in 1348 dressed in an ingenious bird costume." Yes, if you are the king in 1348 and you are wearing a bird costume, you just know that everybody is like, "Wow, king! Great job! You look great! That sure is an ingenious bird costume! Please don't cut off my head." I also found out that he wore the motto "It is as it is" on a green velvet jacket. Pretty snazzy! And those are the things I found out.

Hey Hey Swan Jacket

Hey Edward III wore another jacket with another motto on it: "Hey, hey, the white swan, by God's soul I am thy man." What does that mean? Well, I'll tell you. I have no idea. Why don't you google it and leave me alone? Why do I always have to do everything around here?

The Giant Hole in Bob Hope's Roof

Megan Abbott sent me an article about the pending sale of Bob Hope's crazy futuristic house. Naturally I passed the "link" (you should really "click" it and see the wonders) to McNeil. McNeil responded: "I wonder how many golf jokes he made that involved that giant hole in his roof? We should dress up real fancy, fly out there with a big metal suitcase and ask to see 'the property what was Mr. Bob Hope's.' That way we could climb the big f****** rock in his living room." I have some other stuff I want to "blog" about too so why shouldn't I cram it all into this "post," because who cares? I loved the most recent ADVENTURE TIME episode and I'm very proud and happy to be associated with a show that can be summarized like this (spoiler alert!) on the "internet": "Remorseful, Xergiok removed his eyes again and walked into a lake, where he met a lonely mermaid and started a relationship with her." The episode, entitled "The Great Birdman," was written and storyboarded by Jesse Moynihan and Ako Castuera. Jesse wrote something about it on his "blog." Pictured, we see Xergiok, foreground, having a flashback to the old days when he used to enjoy spanking his fellow goblins. To conclude, I just read about King Edward III in FOUNDATION by Peter Ackroyd. He had a jacket with the slogan "It Is As It Is" woven into it. This was in like 1327! So I want to say that Edward III invented the ironic t-shirt. He didn't, but I want to say it.

Confused but Solemn

I have been meaning to clear this up! While Peter Ackroyd's statement that "he remained a staunch royalist for the rest of his life" seems to suggest that Samuel Johnson believed Queen Anne's touch when he was three years old cured him of scrofula, Boswell says otherwise: "The touch, however, was without any effect." There's also this detail, which I like: "Being asked if he could remember Queen Anne, 'He had (he said) a confused, but somehow a sort of solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds, and a long black hood.'"

McNeil's Encounter with a Young Clerk

McNeil asked a young clerk where to find the Spirograph. "He pretended he had heard of it, stared off into space with eyes full of wonder before I just told him I'd keep looking...for happiness!!! Anyway, I ended up picking up a Magna Doodle, which is a flimsy piece of plastic covering some metal shavings somebody swept off the floor of a machine shop," writes a disgruntled McNeil.

McNeil's Sleepytime Korner

Already we're screwing up in our efforts to scientifically log all of McNeil's naps, any dreams occurring during them, and disorienting effects in the aftermath. In the previous "post" it was falsely claimed that McNeil did not nap yesterday. In fact, upon reexamination of the source material, prompted by McNeil himself in an urgent, profanity-laced missive, we see that it was the day BEFORE yesterday during which McNeil did not get a chance to nap. His nap yesterday commenced at 5:15 PM and concluded at 6:40 PM when his wife awakened him. McNeil, exhibiting signs of disorientation, thought it was 6:40 in the morning!

McNeil's Living Nightmare

Report from McNeil! "Watching All in the Family last night (Season 1, disc 3, ep. 2) when Meathead mentioned that Archie was 47! There was an uncomfortable silence in the living room, let me tell you... I headed to the IMDB and confirmed my worst fears. I am older than Archie Bunker in Season 1. I live in a nightmare." As you know, we are keeping track of McNeil's napping schedule. He didn't even have time for a nap yesterday! Jimmy, however, reports that he fell asleep during a French movie and missed his shift at The End of All Music.

Wow St. David

Wow man this set of BUTLER'S LIVES OF THE SAINTS I have is even more waterlogged than I remembered! And it smells weirder, I bet, than Kelly Hogan's copy of THE HUCKSTERS. There is deadly stuff growing on the volume containing St. David. Yet that shan't stop me from keeping my promise to look up stuff about St. David for you on St. David's Day: "he obliged all his monks to assiduous manual labor in the spirit of penance: he allowed them no use of cattle to ease them at their work in tilling the ground." Sounds like a fun guy! "St. Kentigern saw his soul borne up by angels into heaven." So that's cool.

Black Marble

It is St. David's Day and by coincidence I am reading a little about the brave people of Wales right now in FOUNDATION by Peter Ackroyd. In this part, Edward I wants to take over Wales. He claims kinship with King Arthur, the problem being that Arthur is often considered Welsh, and "It was rumored that he was not dead, only resting, and that he would come again to destroy the enemies of the Welsh." So anyway Edward dug up a couple of people he said were Arthur and Guinevere. "The corpses of Arthur and Guinevere, if such they were, were wrapped in silk by Edward and his queen before being placed in a tomb of black marble. Their skulls were retained for public display. They were definitely dead." Hey, I don't know anything about St. David. Later today I promise to look him up in my waterlogged set of BUTLER'S LIVES OF THE SAINTS and I'll tell you all about him!

McNeil's Sleepytime Korner

Email from McNeil: "Nowhere on the internet can I find a site where an adult chronicles his nap schedule (much less the quality of the nap or if there was a dream or not - and whether or not there was disorientation upon awakening [which is a fascinating experience in itself])." With that we inaugurate the "blog's" newest regular feature.

Sneak Peek at a Leek Tweak

I thought it would be funny to "tweet" only about leeks today - it wasn't - the conceit being that I am inordinately proud of my ability to thoroughly wash a leek (I am). Example: one of the "trending topics" on "twitter" was #AskNickHoult (pictured) so I "tweeted" "Do you have a particular method for washing leeks? #AskNickHoult" Uproarious! So then I went to class and handed out a midterm exam and while the students were thus engaged I took out my copy of the LIFE OF JOHNSON, with which I have been able to spend very little time, and discovered that one of the first things in it concerns Samuel Johnson's father: "A young woman of Leek, in Staffordshire, while he served his apprenticeship there, conceived a violent passion for him... and she actually exhibited one of the very rare instances of dying for love." So that was sad. A happier coincidence: while searching for items to "retweet" about leeks (for example, a news report about some chimpanzees being fed leeks to cure their colds!) I learned that tomorrow is St. David's Day, celebrated in Wales with leeks and daffodils! I remember Jon Langford telling me about St. David's Day last time he was in Oxford. I believe, based on the evidence of this very "blog," he may have even arrived here on St. David's Day! There were daffodils blooming all around and it reminded him of his native land.

Smoke It

February is almost over and I almost forgot to thank Dr. Theresa and Laura Lippman for inspiring my column in this month's BELIEVER magazine. But this tweet from a stranger (embedded below) reminded me! My column contains two new characters: Rye-Head and Baby Mystique. Rye-Head came from reading the OZ books (recommended by Laura Lippman) while drinking rye (also probably recommended, or at least approved in retrospect, by Laura Lippman). He's a combo of Jack Pumpkinhead, the Glass Cat and rye. In an unrelated incident, just before the column was due, Dr. Theresa shouted the striking phrase "baby mystique" at the television for some reason, and that's where the character Baby Mystique came from. (I have used a lot of things Dr. Theresa shouted at the television in my writing, including "Shut up, ugly" and "Fatty's gonna get it.") And now somebody has used "Baby Mystique" as a hashtag, the way the kids love to do on the twitter with their twitterings. I was trying to explain to Dr. Theresa that she had inspired a hashtag, but she doesn't know what a hashtag is, which is just one of the things I love about Dr. Theresa. I said, "Do you know what a hashtag is?" And she said, "No, do you smoke it?" It looks like this: #BabyMystique. Look!

The February issue of @believermag is so full of awesome stuff. Currently chuckling at @jackpendarvis' Musin's & Thinkin's. #BabyMystique

— Tracy Woodley (@TracyWoodley) February 26, 2013

So Serious!

I keep getting on and off of facebook because who cares? But look! Here's something from there: "blog" buddy Kelly Hogan (photo by Rick Holcomb) back when she was in The Rock*A*Teens, one of my five fave bands of all time. Did I ever tell you about them? Well, I wrote about them once for the New York Times, so shut up.

Jerry Takes the Heat

So I hear from my friend Ward that he lost his family Oscar pool to HIS DOG. One of Ward's kids put dog food on various pieces of paper representing Oscar nominees, and the dog chose with more accuracy. Ward also reminds me that Robert Shaw (pictured) co-hosted the Oscars in 1976 for some reason. Things were crazy back then! We were all insane and nobody knew what was going on. That reminded me of the Jerry Lewis bio where I read about Jerry hosting the Oscars. The broadcast ended 20 minutes early! The producers asked Jerry to stretch. He tried lots of different things and it went on and on. "Before long he'd picked up a trumpet and started to play off-key. NBC finally broke in with some archive material - a sports film about competitive pistol shooting." An Oscar show that ended early, what do you know. The timing mistake was the producer's fault but the press blamed Jerry, "referring to him as 'an egg-laying comedian' and deriding his 'ghastly evening shirt.'" Or as Jerry says in this video that Ward found for me, "I took all the heat."

Beans Are My New Thing

My sister picked the correct winner of the best supporting actor prize, the first award of the evening. It didn't look good for me! But then I came back spectacularly with "best animated short." I picked one called "Paperman," about which I knew nothing, because it sounded like the title of something that would win an award. And I was right! Receiving this welcome news, I called my sister on the phone immediately and screamed "IN YOUR FACE!" But then she turned the tables on me AGAIN with best animated feature. Oh boy! We were in for it! A real roller coaster ride in our annual Oscar-guessing contest. Folks, you're not going to believe this, but we TIED for the second year in a row, 15-15. My little sister is a worthy foe! Most importantly, I discovered that for the second year in a row I was eating beans while watching the Oscars. I didn't plan it. IT JUST HAPPENED. That is going to be my new thing.

Talking Gorilla Martini

You've got to hand it to the Man Who Likes KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS: he always knows which movie frame to grab to illustrate one of his "posts." (You can check out his whole "blog" there on my sidebar of "links.") Here we see the talking gorilla from CONGO contemplating a martini. Now, there is nothing not to love about that. BONUS FUN FACT! Dr. Theresa and I saw CONGO on the big screen in Edinburgh. You know, instead of exploring a historic castle or something.

Even Their Virtues Were Being Burned Away

Glum chat with my sister about the Oscars. Neither of us is feeling it. How will I crush and utterly defeat my little sister in our annual Oscar prediction battle under these pitiful circumstances? I never really enjoy the Oscars. I can't go to your "Oscar party." Watching the Oscars is something that should be done alone, a shameful duty, like pooping. Even Dr. Theresa, who PROMISED to stick by me "for better and for worse" goes in the other room at some (early) point. She usually ends up watching a Steven Seagal movie (for example) while I continue torturing myself. Sensible, I call her! Pre-Oscar depression is a serious disease that afflicts millions of idiots each year. But this is the first year in memory I almost don't feel like watching the Oscars at all, not even out of dull habit. Can I blame the Family Guy, who is hosting the show? I kind of want to. But then again, I don't "like" to see Billy Crystal scampering around and capering about and pulling funny faces like a sad old fool either. When I'm watching the Oscars I'm cringing all the time and looking away in keen embarrassment as they do their little skits and weep openly. I feel sorry for those millionaires! So am I anticipating the frustration I expect to feel when the Family Guy thinks he is making me cringe on purpose? And yet at heart he is nothing but a Billy Crystal. AND HE KNOWS IT! Maybe that's what bugs me: that he thinks "knowing it" makes it better. Is that what he thinks? I have no insights into the workings of his mind. Okay, I do feel pretty safe in saying that he secretly thinks things like this all the time while he looks in the mirror: "At heart I am just an old-fashioned song-and-dance man!" or some equally horrific thought. And maybe he will turn out to be the greatest Oscars host ever. Hmm. That puts me in mind of the revelation that concludes Flannery O'Connor's story "Revelation": Mrs. Turpin sees "a vast swinging bridge" leading to heaven "through a field of living fire," with "battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs" on it. And behind them, some respectable people are going to heaven too, "Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away." I think what Flannery O'Connor was trying to say is that the worst Oscar host ever and the best Oscar host ever WILL BE IDENTICAL. So is it the repressive desublimation getting me down? Do I want a host who is sincerely bad instead of "ironically" bad? Should I speak to a psychiatrist? Where am I?

Glorious Haunch

Got an email from good old Burke telling me I should read Boswell's LIFE OF JOHNSON, which is something I have been meaning to do for, you know, decades. And it's funny, because I was thinking of Samuel Johnson anyway. I recently read (in FOUNDATION by Peter Ackroyd, the same place where I learned about Harold Harefoot) that Queen Anne touched Samuel Johnson when he was a tiny tot and cured him of the scrofula (see also) and he "remained a staunch royalist for the rest of his life." But I have always been bewildered by the array of available editions of the Boswell, and weirdly guilty at the thought of reading an abridgment. In his email, Burke recommended an "abridged Penguin Classics edition that [is] a nice length" and when I stopped by Square Books today, that's just what they had in stock and I took it as a sign. (Burke also said that the LIFE OF JOHNSON reminds him of MASTERS OF ATLANTIS [!].) Just thumbing through the introduction I came across a list of things that Boswell left out. For example, "an occasion when Johnson ate so much of 'a glorious haunch of venison' that it was feared 'he would have died of downright eating, and had not a surgeon been got to administer to him without delay a glister he must have died.'" So I was all like, "What's a glister?" But my WEBSTER'S NEW TWENTIETH CENTURY DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, UNABRIDGED, SECOND EDITION from 1974, usually so good with archaic terms, had only the definition I already knew, the sparkly one. With a little of my expert "googling," however, I found that it must be an alternate spelling of "clyster"... an old word for enema. I'm sorry! I didn't know the "blog" was going to go in that direction (again!) when I started this "post"! I didn't even know what a clyster was when I started this "post"! Well now I've ruined everything.

Overlords and Whatnot

McNeil sent me one of those nine-minute youtube videos he loves to send me, where a hooded figure talks about "our criminal overlords" and how "everything we believe is a great big lie" but then this particular guy says something surprising: "I shut up and keep it to myself." People are intrigued by his silence! So then they beg him to tell them about our criminal overlords and whatnot, he says. I made it almost three minutes in. (See also. And also.)

King Harold Harefoot

I have just been reading about an 11th-century king of England named Harold Harefoot. King Harold Harefoot! He is not a storybook character, HE WAS REAL. King Harold Harefoot.

Tainted Love Tuesdays

I just happened to notice that the Lifetime Movie Network is running something called "Tainted Love Tuesdays." Tainted Love Tuesdays! Tainted Love Tuesdays.

Pop

We watched DUNE. A monster shoots planets out of its butt! There are people called "Fremen," which is not pronounced "Freemen" as you might expect, but sounds more like "Frimmin," a word Jerry Lewis might say. In fact I fantasized that when we met the Frimmin, Jerry Lewis might be playing their king. You know I have always wanted David Lynch to put Jerry in a movie. Yes, I imagined Jerry going around saying, "I'm king of the FRIMMin!" (See also.) It didn't happen. I guess my favorite part was when - spoiler alert! (do I really need to give you a spoiler alert for a movie from 1984 [see also]?) - this weird little kid gets to defeat the bad guy at the end. She uses a pointy silver finger gadget (seen here) to pop him like a balloon, which he greatly resembles. It's exhilarating, a big goof, and the kid actor seems to be having a blast!

Pith Helmet

I was looking through the New York Times archives for articles about Charles Portis and I came across the snippy, dismissive review they printed when MASTERS OF ATLANTIS came out. And I thought, "What sort of person could dislike MASTERS OF ATLANTIS so much?" So I "googled" this reviewer up and found his "web" site on which he models a pith helmet, and offers "magical tours" of Egypt, and says that "contemporary cosmology" owes much to tarot, and presents an "open letter" to an archaeology magazine that has dared to question the existence of Atlantis (!), and provides hints of some overarching "lost civilization theory," and refers to "the upcoming Age of Aquarius," and you know how when you start "googling" something, "google" will automatically try to finish typing the search term for you? Well, "google" primarily associates the reviewer with Joe Rogan, the comedian and actor who, as we have previously learned from the "internet," has "adventures" in "invisible realms." So what I am saying is that the New York Times got a character from MASTERS OF ATLANTIS to review MASTERS OF ATLANTIS, which must have seemed like a cute idea, but come on, New York Times.

Traipsing Through the Forest at Night

Hey my brother-in-law David has informed me about a new kind of owl! Well, I am sure the owl has been around awhile, but people have just noticed it and put it on a big list of owls somewhere. According to the article, an ornithologist discovered the owl "while traipsing through the forest at night," which seems like a curious way to put it. But that's what it says! I am reminded of the first sentence of Padgett Powell's novel MRS. HOLLINGSWORTH'S MEN: "Mrs. Hollingsworth likes to traipse." Hey speaking of sentences and big lists of owls you know I have to tell you whenever a book has an owl in it, and now that I am rereading TRUE GRIT for class, I see this: "They had ridden the 'hoot-owl trail' and tasted the fruits of evil and now justice had caught up with them to demand payment." Portis's narrator, Mattie Ross, tends to put her quotation marks around what she considers vernacular phrases, but I am not familiar with the "hoot-owl trail," though its meaning seems clear enough.

13!

Hey you know whenever I am having a video conference with the guys from ADVENTURE TIME and one of my cats jumps on my lap Kent will take a photo of it and I will have to show it to you! Kent says this cat (Pan by name) looks like one of the aliens from ATTACK THE BLOCK. So then later today I had class with my grad students at City Grocery Bar. We were discussing the last half of the Charles Schulz bio we read and someone (McKay by name) noted that TODAY is the thirteenth anniversary of Charles Schulz's death on FEBRUARY THIRTEENTH 2013! We raised a glass to "Sparky."

With Creamed Cabbage Thou Must Fill My Crown

Hey don't you want to hear about the old cookbook I was reading because I was trying to remember the word "gremolata"? (It didn't help.) Naturally I wandered over to gelatin. According to this cookbook, "Jellied Ginger Ale Cubes" make a terrific salad garnish! This cookbook also tells you how to have a party for Washington's birthday. "Fill tiny blue and silver tri-cornered hats with red gumdrops and set these at each plate." For Lincoln's birthday serve "buttered steamed rice," plum pie, and the majestic (I assume) "Crown of Frankfurters"! Ingredients: 20 frankfurters and 2 cups cooked sauerkraut. That's all! Although you can "Fill crown with stuffing, creamed cabbage, creamed cauliflower or Potato Balls instead of sauerkraut." Ha ha, Potato Balls, the capital letters make it funny. This is the CULINARY ARTS INSTITUTE ENCYCLOPEDIC COOKBOOK: DELUXE EDITION from 1976, "newly revised," though it was first published in 1948, and reads that way. I also found one of my brother's old report cards folded up (hidden?) inside!

"Blog"trospective 10: Gelatin

So I just read three books with Jell-O in them: so what? It would be dumb to make a "blog"trospective called "Books with Jell-O in Them" just because our big, lush "blog"trospective about books with owls in them is so enormously popular and all anyone ever talks about ever all the time. Once I read three books in a row with Pernod in them, and that went nowhere. But by opening up the field a little, there may be enough material here for a true "blog"trospective worthy of ranking alongside the rest of them, which nobody cares about. For example, my WEBSTER'S NEW TWENTIETH CENTURY DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, UNABRIDGED, SECOND EDITION from 1974 lists "jellies made with gelatine" (they add the extra e 'cuz they're fancy!) as the second-greatest definition of "gelatin." So anyway, enjoy this "blog"trospective about gelatin and shut up. agarita bush; fruits of make jelly---attracts bigfoot---bags of arrive---Canadian sitcom inspires forum on---Castuera, Ako; talking about jellyfish with---certainty of the jelly factory, the---color of rubies in the setting sun, the---congealing veins, my---contributes to Dr. Theresa's love of toast---cow's blood as---cruddy bloud---Currence, John, takes a culinary blowtorch to some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches---dandy in aspic, a---drinking wine from Jell-O glasses---elves made of---EnerGel---enough for 10,000 pieces of toast---fails to redeem book---Farmer's Daughter Salty Dog Marmalade---fig preserves---freed from---ham hock and red pepper jelly on toast---Hope, Bob; rewards mistress with the gift of jam---in GIDGET---in Martha Washington cake---in PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT---in two Philip Roth novels---in works of Lucia Berlin---jam on pancakes---jellied ginger ale cubes---jellyfish in the works of Virginia Woolf and Thomas Mann---jelly-like substances in the works of Osamu Dazai and Walt Whitman---Kerouac uses "jello" as a verb---Lord Grimthorpe's last words invoke---Lucky Charms marshmallows contain gelatin made with pork---Martin, Dean; relationship of song stylings to---McNeil receives a free lemon jelly donut---Mickey Mouse stares at his reflection in some Jell-O---Mrs. Abington's better than Mrs. Thrale's---oils up your joints---picking up Jell-O cubes with fingers---plovers' eggs set like large opals in aspic jelly---poisoned---possibly immortal jellyfish---proponent of aspic given a diamond by the Tsar---puts one in mind of a character name from ANIMAL HOUSE---quivering in a spoon---red pepper jelly---robot standing in aspic---salamander eggs resemble---some varieties of might possibly on occasion be classified as "sweetmeats"---SpongeBob gets jelly from jellyfish---tartness of---tearful separation from---terrible flying bags of---used as a metaphor by George Kennedy---water the color of "lime jello"---Welles, Orson; has eyes like side-orders of---woman made of, a.

Hairball

Near the end of VISIONS OF GERARD, Jack Kerouac refers to the earth as "this hairball" - wow! That's pretty world-weary. Even more world-weary than when Jerry Lewis called the world a "big round put-on" - and especially interesting considering how often Kerouac wrote about his cats. Or maybe not. I can no longer tell what's interesting.

Quivering and Undelivered

I knew you'd want me to tell you if there were any other descriptions of green Jell-O in THE DOG OF THE SOUTH by Charles Portis: "The doctor was still holding the green jello in his spoon, quivering and undelivered." That's at the top of the page. At the bottom of the same page: "I was heavy and sodden with jello." And you know, it occurs to me in the last "post" I also said I was reading VISIONS OF GERARD "for fun." That's a weird thing to say! Because the subject matter of VISIONS OF GERARD is among the gloomiest imaginable. What I meant was that I am rereading THE DOG OF THE SOUTH for class and VISIONS OF GERARD on my own time, but obviously THE DOG OF THE SOUTH is a lot more actual fun. It is all the fun.

Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis

Welcome once more to "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis." It has been almost four years. Sorry! Before we get to bookmarks I want to say that THE DOG OF THE SOUTH by Charles Portis has green Jell-O in it, just like GIDGET: "lime jello - transparent, no bits of fruit in suspension - and peanut-butter cookies with corrugations on top where a fork had been lightly pressed into them. That was our lunch." And I might add that VISIONS OF GERARD by Jack Kerouac, which I am reading for fun, uses "jello" as a VERB. A big coincidence! So Portis and Kerouac make a common noun (or verb) out of it, while only Frederick Kohner, author of GIDGET, bothers to correctly pay tribute to the brand name. Who cares? THE DOG OF THE SOUTH makes me laugh on every single page, instances of which I have been keeping selfishly from you. But perversely I WILL tell you that it has an owl in it - a metaphorical owl again. The narrator describes himself: "my small pointed teeth and my small owl beak and my small gray eyes, mere slits but prodigies of light-gathering and resolving power." And finally, the bookmark: I grabbed by coincidence my glossy photo of M. Emmet Walsh, who not only has a name like that of a Portis character - he LOOKS like a Portis character: specifically Dr. Reo Symes from THE DOG OF THE SOUTH, who, speaking of things that make me laugh, says this in the passage I just read, "The kind of people I know don't have barbecues, Mama. They stand up alone at night in small rooms and eat cold weenies." But I noticed for the first time there is something confrontational about the glare of M. Emmet Walsh, which I see each time I open the book. So a glossy picture of M. Emmett Walsh makes a weird bookmark! That's my advice. This has been "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis."

Return of the Schnapps Owl

"I bet you was drunk as a hoot-owl at 15, 14 - You're not the man I married but dammit the reason for that is because you were puttin' up a front when I married you, crook." So VISIONS OF GERARD by Jack Kerouac goes on our definitive and unnecessary list of books with owls in them, not a literal owl, but sometimes it's not a literal owl, get over it. And once again the owl is drunk, as in (maybe) the phrase "sore as a boiled owl" I was puzzling over not too long ago. I am not sure where the association of owls with drunkenness comes from, nor am I energetic enough to find out, but I do suddenly recall learning from Sara Gran of a true-life police report about an owl drunk on schnapps. Anecdotal evidence at best! I have not seen the statistics.

Embarrassment of the Hat Dog

Yes, uh-huh, why not, let's continue our examination of the Olsen twins music video of which I was subjected to repeat viewings on a huge wall of monitors as I stood in a line at a Las Vegas check-in counter in 1994. First, we'll review what we have learned so far. 1) I described the video from painful memory. 2) I found the actual video on the "internet," and learned that my memory had failed me in several respects. For example, the dog was not wearing a Sherlock Holmes hat. And now I receive an email from my friend Ward, who was in that line with me in 1994. Ward writes: "It's so weird. I thought your earlier description of the video was dead on, especially about the dog. In my mind he was wearing not only a Sherlock Holmes hat, but also a cape and I could've sworn he had a big pipe in his mouth, too. When they finally do have the hat on the dog near the end of the video it's so pathetic. You can tell the director probably told the wardrobe person to get a Sherlock Holmes hat, but they couldn't find one so they just cut up a couple of cheap black caps and sewed them together. You can tell the dog is completely embarrassed." (See also.) So in conclusion, the dog WAS wearing a makeshift Sherlock Holmes hat after all, something I failed to notice in my reexamination, or maybe I didn't make it to the end of the video. I hope this clears everything up. And now goodbye forever.

My Heartfelt Apologies to the Olsen Twins

I found the video that was repeated over and over and over and over as Ward and I waited in a long, slow line to check into the MGM Grand in 1994. Please "click" here to see it. Turns out my memory is not so good. Allow me to correct some misstatements from the previous "post": 1) At no point (I think) do the Olsen twins employ "huge magnifying glasses," though one of them looks through a microscope. 2) The dog in the video is a beagle, not a bloodhound as I erroneously reported. 3) Said beagle is not wearing a Sherlock Holmes hat. He IS, however, doing double takes in the exact manner I indicated. But this is not the time to pat myself on the back. 4) The Olsen twins are proclaiming themselves to be "Super duper snoopers," NOT "Super DOOPER pooper TROOPERS." I hedged my bets on that one a little bit by calling it a paraphrase, but there is no excuse for such misrepresentation. 5) The piece does not employ the traditional rhythms of the march, as I may have implied. Still, I haven't seen it since 1994, so I think it did a formidable job of burning itself into my brain. Nevertheless, the "blog" regrets the errors. I hope it is not impolite to wonder how the bass player felt when he was required to lay down such a funky line at about 11 seconds in.

Foster Brooks Robot Gives My Life Meaning

I am sure you recall the robot version of Foster Brooks and how justifiably proud I was to be the first person ever to present a photograph of the Foster Brooks robot on the "internet." Well, my friend Ward McCarthy has found someone's home movies of the MGM Grand Hotel from 1995, and about halfway in you will get a big sample of the Foster Brooks robot, who is even more disturbing than I recalled, with his one rubbery dead hand and his other hand fitfully twitching at the punch lines of his off-color remarks. He is not to be confused with the Frank Morgan robot (!) who appears earlier in the clip. Ward and I stayed in the MGM Grand in 1994 when we were covering the Elvis Impersonator Convention, so this clip brings back a lot of memories - awful, awful memories. For example, see that huge wall of video screens behind the check-in counter? When Ward and I were standing in line interminably, they kept repeating a music video of the Olsen twins (at the time still tiny children) dancing around with huge magnifying glasses, pretending to be detectives, and there were lots of shots of a bloodhound in a Sherlock Holmes hat (or so I recall) doing editorially enhanced double takes and the lyrics of the song were something like "Super DOOPER pooper TROOPERS!" I paraphrase. But the rhythms of their hellish march went on and on forever, kind of like this "post." Because I will now state that the youtube video of the Foster Brooks robot was "posted" in late 2009, and therefore I am STILL the champion of presenting photographic evidence of the Foster Brooks robot earlier than anyone else on the "internet." In conclusion, I noted on the youtube sidebar of "related videos" that there was a clip of Foster Brooks performing at the dedication of Gerald Ford's presidential library - say what! His whole act was pretending to be drunk, and even without Mrs. Ford's well-publicized alcoholism, and her heroic efforts at raising awareness and helping people with substance abuse problems, Foster Brooks seems like a weird choice for ANYBODY's presidential library dedication. I watched about 20 seconds of it, just enough to confirm that he's pretending to be drunk. Yep.

Spoiler Alert

Just caught the end of the Orson Welles movie THE STRANGER on TCM. Every time I see that ending I think about how apparently there was a guy in that town who said, "Hey, you know what our clock needs? A huge, sharp sword that could kill a guy!"

Smallest of the Big Daddies

Eavesdroppin'! Tonight at Snackbar I heard a guy say, "My grandfather was Big Daddy, my father was Big Daddy, and because I fit the bill I'm going to be Big Daddy... Daddy's the smallest of the Big Daddies." (See also.)

They Came to Burgle Carnegie Hall

They were showing a movie called THEY CAME TO ROB LAS VEGAS on TCM last night and I was tickled because it made me think of my favorite fake movie title from THE SIMPSONS, which also furnishes the title of this "post." But I got into THEY CAME TO ROB LAS VEGAS 30 minutes late because first I had to watch George Saunders on THE COLBERT REPORT. So when I switched over to THEY CAME TO ROB LAS VEGAS, some dude was saying to Elke Sommer, "Honey, there's nothing harder to get into than another man's robe," and it was said with such dull authority that it depressed me, one of those lines that only wants to sound like it means something but it maybe probably doesn't mean anything and it doesn't care. It would rather sound tough than be tough. Right away the movie seemed too solemn and proud of itself, or proud of its supposed hipness, or something, and I didn't watch the rest, no, you couldn't even call it repressive desublimation, whatever was going on there. There was a sour feeling. What's wrong with me? I'm basing all this on one line, I didn't give THEY CAME TO ROB LAS VEGAS a fair shake! Last time I saw George Saunders, less than a week ago, he recommended Kerouac's VISIONS OF GERARD, which by coincidence I had just recently purchased at Square Books, so I'm reading it now and here's a fragment I enjoyed: "people may count themselves higher than pigs, and walk proudly down country roads; geniuses may look out of windows and count themselves higher than louts..." (He's on the side of the pigs and louts.) Also "teaching" ON THE ROAD and I forgot that near the end they have a big party in a castle! "and Charity creeping around upstairs in her nightgown with a flashlight."

You Didn't Ask

Hey Lois Wilson was "considered the first Miss Alabama"! According to wikipedia!

Dix Fans

I was watching a movie called LOVIN' THE LADIES on TCM today. Ha! LOVIN' THE LADIES. It's the dropped "G" that really makes it. It starred Lois Wilson (pictured) and Richard Dix. I don't get this Richard Dix. Sorry, Richard Dix fans. I was describing him to Megan Abbott in terms of Harry Langdon and she knew what I was talking about because she's Megan Abbott. "A less infantile Harry Langdon," I may have said. Richard Dix got the job done, don't get me wrong. He was the hero and all. But he just seemed so... pale to me. With a big blank face like a pie. Oh, Richard Dix! I guess everybody used to love you. It's my fault, Richard Dix!

Frasier, Briefly

Welcome once again to "Frasier, Briefly," always keeping you up-to-date on the ever-changing world of FRASIER. So you know they show a million episodes of FRASIER every night and last night I was scrolling through the capsule descriptions of the episodes that were scheduled and one said, "Niles considers parenthood after helping Martin and Frasier deliver a baby," but at first glance I thought it said "priesthood" - oh ha ha ha gee what fun.

Milk For Burt

Dr. Theresa always says that when the moustache is absent you know it's going to be a serious Burt Reynolds movie. And such was the case with HUSTLE, though Burt's first line is a misleadingly innocuous and wholesome request for a glass of milk. But HUSTLE was rough stuff! Eddie Albert - Oliver Douglas of GREEN ACRES fame - plays a sleazy, murderous lawyer (though I do want his yachting outfit, seen above), but the casting gets weirder than that. Includes Fred Willard, old-timey comic (and mortal enemy of Robert Goulet's son-in-law) Jack Carter, and (spoiler alert) in a last-minute surprise of the downer kind for which the 1970s are famous (though you can guess it from the beginning, as we did, from the way Burt stares longingly at the picture calendar of Rome on his dirty office wall - "He's never getting to Rome!" Dr. Theresa and I both cried simultaneously), the guy who played Freddie Krueger, typecast already, typecast before the fact, the eternally typecast Freddie Krueger, ladies and gentlemen. Incorporates some of the weirder visual effects of SUPERDAD while anticipating Paul Schrader's HARDCORE. A possible inspiration for the Robin Williams episode of the TV series HOMICIDE. I guess I am saying if you like SUPERDAD, HARDCORE, and HOMICIDE, check out HUSTLE! That's a blurb. Chock full of MOBY-DICK allusions!

Busted Up Bicycles and Stuff

I started my graduate class by showing some of the Martin Scorsese movie NEW YORK, NEW YORK, which I believe I described to the kids as as his "much-reviled musical" - is that accurate? Anyway, it put me in the mood to see Francis Ford Coppola's "much-reviled musical" ONE FROM THE HEART (pictured). That's one I'm pretty sure I've seen before but can't remember. So I open the dvd and there's Francis Ford Coppola in the liner notes, writing about the influence of Jerry Lewis on the making of the film. Right away I saw the obvious debt to Lewis's film THE LADIES MAN in the sound design, lighting, and sets, though Coppola wasn't that specific. I will say that near the end Frederic Forrest is comically electrocuted and his hair stands straight up. Immediately thereafter he steps into a bucket and stumbles around. All of this may be Coppola's way of saying, "Thanks, Jerry!" though nobody in a million years ever considered Frederic Forrest the heir to Jerry's crown, nobody but Francis Ford Coppola, I guess. Oh, and near the beginning of the movie, Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle sing a song in which they tell each other "I'm tired of picking up after you" - it's a real contribution to the "scuffed-up furniture inventory genre" of songwriting, the existence of which I recently proved ("This railroad apartment is held together by glue," I think Waits sings). Later, Tom Waits sings a whole different song about busted up old bicycles lying around in the rain, of course, but I don't think I can count that - I'm a purist! Hey there's something else I can't remember watching, but I think I did. I was walking down the corridor outside the English Dept. when I saw some free VHS tapes discarded. One was a Harold Pinter play directed by Robert Altman and starring John Travolta (!). The cover looked weirdly familiar, and I think I rented it at the strange Phar-Mor drugstore in Mobile, Alabama, so often an object of our contemplation here. So I picked it up and one day I'll tell you about it and won't you be excited. Now I am thinking of the time I talked to Francis Ford Coppola outside a restaurant in San Francisco on the day of the feast of Saint Francis, 1999, but I'm suddenly realizing maybe it was just some guy with a beard. I did get a monk to bless the cats, though! It didn't entirely work.

Poop Vigilante

I am sorry to mention poop again so soon, but how can I resist when I see the gnomic cabaret critic Stephen Holden using the word "poop" - in its scatological sense - in today's New York Times? Naturally - naturally! - I decided to do a search of the Times to see how often the word has appeared. Over 6,000 hits! Of course, sometimes it has another meaning, such as in a review of a restaurant called the Poop Deck, which is a terrible name for a restaurant if you want my advice. (See also.) But here is a sentence from the first search result to pop up: "I was calm as Ms. Nunose explained all of this while applying the poop powder, prepared and flown in from Japan." Ms. Nunose! Applying poop powder! In the New York Times! Headlines which follow closely on the first page of New York Times search results ("sorted by relevance" - ha ha, relevance!) are "A Mystery Vigilante Paints Dog Waste" and "Poop Is Funny, But It's Fatal."

Good One

Hey I just thought of something, when Lady Macbeth said "I heard the owl scream," Macbeth should have replied, "We owl scream for ice cream" ha ha ha oh that's rich, that would have been a good one, you're welcome, Shakespeare. But I just looked on google and there were already 575 matches for "we owl scream for ice cream," so now I'm just sad.

Crickets 'n' Corn Dogs

I watched a thing about Macbeth on PBS, yes I did, shut up, and Lady Macbeth was like "I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry" so I guess Macbeth is a book with an owl in it. Also last night I saw the great George Saunders eat a corn dog, yes I did, shut up, it was a lot nicer than hearing an owl scream, in fact it was adorable. Hey, as long as I've got you here, I'll tell you how Larry took me to his orchestra rehearsal tonight, so I was the only audience member in the huge auditorium and an opera singer walked out and started belting the hits to the nosebleed seats! So I was just sitting there all by myself and it seemed rude not to clap because I felt she was singing right at me - she was really selling it, man! - but I just sat there real quiet digging the weirdness because of course you can't interrupt the rehearsal by clapping. And then I went to pick up some falafel for Dr. Theresa, who lived all over the Middle East for many years, but her fave falafel is from Petra, right here in Oxford, MS, just across the street from the James Food Center. While I was waiting for the falafel, some guy asked if he could sit with me! So I said, "I guess." So he sat down and told me why George W. Bush was a better president than Albert Einstein would have been. So I was like, "Cool." He was just some dude. Oh yeah, and yesterday I was giving a little lecture about Jack Kerouac and a student suddenly stood up and said "I can't take it anymore!" and left - "it" being me, I guess, this whole package you've got right here. All right, I think that's everything.

McNeil's Movie Korner

Welcome once again to McNeil's Movie Korner. "Have you been watching Torpedo Run today? It's suspenseful, but it doesn't make any sense. That's McNeil's Korner," writes McNeil.

Goal Oriented Protagonist

You know, McNeil and I were talking a while back about how nobody talks like Dean Moriarty, at least the way Jack Kerouac portrays him in ON THE ROAD - nobody talks like the characters in ON THE ROAD. But Leslie and I were walking to campus today and we talked about dinosaurs and globes and Nietzsche and Marx and abandoned malls and I suddenly thought, Leslie talks just like Dean Moriarty, she is the only one. Later I confirmed it with Dr. Theresa, who said, of Leslie, "We were talking about dinosaurs too." Leslie came over later and leafed through a Rothko book and started explaining why Rothko was like John Coltrane and then we took her to Snackbar where she said the devil was the "goal-oriented protagonist" of THE EXORCIST. The funny thing is that I ran into Lee Durkee in the library earlier today and he, too, brought up THE EXORCIST. Scary! Anyway, at Snackbar, Leslie ate tripe. Because that's what Leslie does. That's her thing, man. Leslie! We'll miss you. Be careful going back to Iowa City, okay.

Green Jell-O

Here is a sentence I like from the novel GIDGET: "For a moment nothing was heard but the thoughtful intake of green Jell-O." There are reasons why "green," for example, is such a good word choice right there, but I'm going to save that for my grad students so they'll feel like they're getting their money's worth.

British Cat Biologist

So in today's New York Times there is a story about a cat who walked 200 miles. The article quotes Roger Tabor, whom it calls a "British cat biologist." We have mentioned Roger Tabor on the "blog" before, never suspecting that he is a British cat biologist! Okay, maybe suspecting. Also quoted, a guy named Jackson Galaxy, whom the the New York Times keeps calling "Mr. Galaxy" in their cute New York Times way. Mr. Galaxy!

Leslie

Leslie is visiting. This morning over breakfast she said, "Everything is already extinct. It's just waiting for its killer." Leslie! She's hardboiled.

The Great Thing

The great thing about the theme song to the movie BEAT GIRL is that whenever it comes on my iPod, as it just did, I remember the entire movie BEAT GIRL. In this blurry frame from BEAT GIRL you can see, directly behind Beat Girl, Oliver Reed as "Plaid Shirt." He wears a plaid shirt and his character's name is Plaid Shirt. (See also.)