Another Great Idea

Has there ever been a HAMLET in which Claudius and the ghost were played by the same actor? Wow, that would be something. It's 4:18 AM.

Morbid

This "post" will include subject matter that some people may find morbid and upsetting! But at least what I have to say is of no interest. So, I was rewatching SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL on McNeil's recommendation. I believe he commented on its fresh approach to... hell, I don't know. He liked the car chase. I still didn't think much of it, though this time I was taken with Lauren Bacall's unusual performance... mostly unbridled rage in a series of striking outfits. But! That's not what I wanted to talk about. This is the morbid part, and it deals with the subject of suicide. I'm sorry. It occurred to me that what SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL, THREE ON A COUCH, and VERTIGO have in common - aside from people taking on false identities, initially for monetary gain of one kind or another - is the insincere threat of suicide by drowning as a means of kindling romantic attachment. Now, at least when Kim Novak does it, it's purely in the service of crime. There's a motivation I can understand! When Jerry Lewis does it, it's just to get some sympathy. I guess the first time Tony Curtis does it... is he still in the evil scheming stage? It's hard to remember, because he threatens suicide twice! Hmm. And whatever his motivation, the message seems to be that it's a pretty reliable and morally inconsequential way to get a gal's attention. Yes, I'm coming closer to the trouble. Kim Novak is punished (hmm, just like Tony Curtis, she "attempts" suicide first by drowning and then by flinging herself from a great height) by being accidentally (?) forced to accomplish in reality what she only pretended to attempt. Jerry Lewis and Tony Curtis, by contrast, are rewarded. Hmm! Sorry for the VERTIGO spoilers, but come on. I'm sorry for everything, really.

Clint's Bit

We were watching TRUE CRIME last night, and Clint Eastwood mangles his cigarette by getting it caught in his lighter, an action I have previously associated more with Jerry Lewis, as described in excruciating detail in my book CIGARETTE LIGHTER. I go on about it for pages! Very symbolic, I suggest. Boy, doesn't that sound like a great book? Anyhow, I definitely would have included Clint's bit in the book, had I taken note of it during 2014, when I was writing the damn book.

Wise

A memory came to me. I was sitting in an almost empty lounge at an Elvis-themed hotel mainly known, perhaps, for its onetime outbreak of Legionnaire's Disease, drinking Maker's Mark or Buffalo Trace and waiting for a catfish sandwich to arrive. When it did arrive I could tell at once - and I say this with little fear of committing libel - that it bore only the slightest familial relation to catfish, if any. Meanwhile, on the television over the bar, one of the STAR WARS prequels blared on a basic cable station, complete with commercial breaks. At the time, I had such thoughts as "Why am I here? What have I done with my life? What is the point of everything? How did I get into such a fix? Why do bad things happen to good people? Is there a different way to live? If I could do it all over again, would I? Where could I be instead of here? Am I a bad person? If there is a God, why did he allow this to happen?" Now, however, in our current circumstance - and the following observation will hardly be unique - I think back on it in every detail with tender fondness as a glimpse of heavenly glory to which I wish I could return. Also! As long as I have you here, I am in the process of blurbing a novel, which contains a character "wise as an owl," in the protagonist's words. I do not think the future existence of the book has yet been publicly acknowledged, so it is not my place to provide the details. I do stick this reminder here just for myself, like a Post-It note, so that I will not forget to add the book to my list of books with owls in them, when the time is right. Maybe those will be better days!

Humor

They all said McNeil was crazy! Well, me. I said it. I said McNeil was crazy when he claimed that every 1960s movie features a desk with an obelisk on it. But today I watched ONE MORE TIME, which is a 1960s movie for all practical purposes, and, as you can see from this photo I took of the television screen, it had a desk with an obelisk on it. Now, there is no Jerry Lewis scholar I trust and admire more than Chris Fujiwara, but upon the conclusion of this repeat viewing, I must say that I have come to take exception to his description of ONE MORE TIME as "lacking in humor." For example, there is an old butler who is very slow, and as the old butler slowly totters across the room with a silver platter, Sammy Davis Jr.'s moustache and sideburns turn gray, and he (Sammy Davis Jr., transformed by his interminable wait) mutters to himself in a feeble, distracted manner indicating great age. Later, in an unrelated incident, he sneezes all the icing off a cake! A second sneeze issues forth with such force that an entire roomful of people is toppled to the floor.

Dreamy

McNeil sends word of a dream he had about Dean Martin (and it's not the first time!): "The family and I were on a trip to the mountains and staying in a cabin, and Dino was there, complaining that he had to do all the fishing. He was throwing a rod and reel in the trunk complaining to me about it. And I was like, you know, I don't want to stand in a cold stream all morning. And there was a long fluorescent light bulb in the trunk and I was afraid he was going to make me eat it." Hey! As long as I have you here, I should tell you something that happened to me yesterday, though I hesitate, as the details are too crass to relate. I resorted to my GREEN'S DICTIONARY OF SLANG, for research, and, although it was not what I was seeking, I happened to find an owl in a volume where I would have never expected to find an owl: Volume 3, P-Z. The phrase in question was "shoot the owl," and I will never tell you the meaning, as it exceeds the prudish bailiwick of the "blog." In conclusion, if you keep up with all the exciting developments happening at the "blog," you are going to go crazy about this last item! Remember the obelisks that McNeil saw in the 60s beach movie DON'T MAKE WAVES? Of course you do. Well, Dr. Theresa and I have been watching the TV show AGENTS OF SHIELD, and yesterday, I had to stop everything! Stop everything! And take a photo of the TV screen (see below), because there, in the background, accompanied by the usual green reflection on our TV screen, which cannot be remedied, I detected, however fleetingly, what appeared to be THE EXACT SAME OBELISKS FROM DON'T MAKE WAVES. I'm having the evidence sent to the lab for analysis.

The Smirking Farmer

I guess it was two days ago when I happened to see a TV commercial for lactose-free milk. There was a farmer standing in a field, next to a few cows, and he said (I may be paraphrasing, but only slightly) "Some folks say lactose-free milk isn't real milk. Well, then, I guess these" (indicating the cows) "must be really big dogs." The farmer said it with evident sarcasm. Was it an example of the rhetorical use of irony? I'm never sure. In any case, obviously, the cows weren't dogs, nor was the farmer sincerely claiming that the cows were dogs... but! The lingering impression bestowed on the viewer was that the milk being adverstised just might come from dogs. I am sorry to say it. But the blame lies with the advertising agency, I truly believe, and not with me.

Unusual Specimen

By now you are thoroughly familiar with McNeil's tireless quest to prove that every 1960s movie features a desk with obelisks on it. I willingly oversimplify his theory for my own cruel amusement! Just yesterday he sent an example from what he called "DMW." I was like, "What the hell is DMW?" Then I did other things for an hour. Suddenly the answer came to me! So I scampered up the stairs as fleet as any faun to email McNeil never mind! But it was too late. He had already jeeringly dispatched the answer... DON'T MAKE WAVES... to which he appended a blasphemous remark aimed at my belittlement. If you "click" on the above frame to enlarge it, you will find to your pleasure an extremely unusual specimen of obelisk, you may be sure! And once again, for reasons unknown, the obelisk is part of a matching set, a curious subcategory in our... I'm sorry, I just fell asleep.

Blow Up the Obelisks

Maybe if you "click" on the photo above, it will enlarge, so that you can carefully examine the twin obelisks on the office desk. Why are they exactly alike? Does it have something to do with Jerry Lewis's fascination with doubles? For yes, you are correct, this is a frame from DON'T RAISE THE BRIDGE, LOWER THE RIVER. Now, I don't know if you can blow up the image, even though I have been doing this for a long, long time. In fact, as you will recall, our TV exploded in April 2016, and that same day I lay down in bed and thought, "What's it all about, anyway? I should stop 'blogging.'" And so I did. But I recently vowed to "blog" again for the duration of our national crisis, in the hopes of cheering you up. And by "you," I mean my friend McNeil, and the two other people who have claimed that they read this "blog." McNeil sent the frame above as more evidence of his theory that there are obelisks on desks in all 1960s movies. Now, I mention the history of the "blog" because since 2010, I have "blogged" less often every year... UNTIL NOW! Yes, given my new mandate of spreading worldwide joy (see above) this "post" is #28 of the year 2020, whereas I "blogged" only 27 times in all of 2019. In conclusion, I asked McNeil whether the sprinklers were going off in DON'T RAISE THE BRIDGE, LOWER THE RIVER, as I could not otherwise account for the wild gestures displayed by the figure on the couch... and when I "blew up" the image, I thought I detected streaks of liquid descending from the upper part of the frame. McNeil confirmed my suspicions, adding that Jerry Lewis was hiding in a closet, lighting matches in order to make the sprinklers go off, a hilarious bit of tomfoolery I could not recall, though McNeil and I watched the film together in 2007. Dear God! Now, there is an entire part of my cigarette lighter book about the common filmic trope of lighting a cigarette lighter in order to set off the sprinklers in a building, and whether or not such an action would actually cause the desired effect, but as Jerry is using matches, I would not have been obliged to include this related example in the book. I hope that answers all of your questions. I am starting to remember why I stopped "blogging."

Why Indeed

I guess you've been wondering what McNeil has been doing during the pandemic. Mostly watching 60s movies. He writes of the set dressing, "I've seen what looks like an obelisk on almost every desk in almost every office. Why?" That's a great question, McNeil! The only evidence he provides is the single frame above ("behind Natalie Wood's head," he helpfully appends), but I trust him.

Twelve Superb Horses

For some reason I am reading six books at a time during the pandemic. In the past, I guess I've read two books at a time, but mostly one book at a time. I am reading slowly... so slowly that maybe I have actually stopped reading at least two of the books I think I am reading, without knowing it. But none of this means that I have stopped noticing when books have owls in them, which is constantly. For example, I just learned from LAKOTA AMERICA by Pekka Hämäläinen that Red Cloud "paid twelve superb horses for the right to marry his first wife, Pretty Owl."

Potato Patch Dilemma

You very well know that I have an inexplicable compulsion to maintain a list of every book I read that has an owl in it. What you may not be AS aware of is that Megan Abbott just sent me an early birthday present... a collection of NANCY comic strips by Olivia Jaimes. I am delighted to tell you that in one of the strips, Nancy attempts to ward off a groundhog from her potato patch by means of one of those plastic owls we run into from time to time as we enjoy our literature.

Important New Project

You know, in these crazy times of isolation we need something to keep our brains working. So, I was watching CACTUS FLOWER and - no offense to this gentleman (above, left) - I thought the actor playing Goldie Hawn's neighbor simply wasn't of the caliber of the rest of the cast. Even the smallest parts were filled by great character actors like Vito Scotti. So I set myself the task of figuring out who should have played Goldie Hawn's neighbor. My thoughts went immediately, as they do, to Jim Hutton, but he's about five years too old, and way too tall. Next, Rip Torn entered my mind... an unusual choice, you will say, but I recalled him as Bob Hope's romantic rival in CRITIC'S CHOICE. He's even older than Jim Hutton, though! And they're both sadly deceased, which is beside the point. Well, I've got McNeil, Jimmy, Bill, Megan, and Ace working on this. I'll let you know what happens.

The Two Things

If you know anything about me, you know that 1) Megan Abbott and I have read about 60 celebrity biographies together and 2) years ago I wrote a book about cigarette lighters, and occasionally I learn something about a cigarette lighter that would have fit neatly into that book, but it's too late, and anyway, the world is ending. So! I just read that during the original run of Stephen Sondheim's COMPANY, Elaine Stritch had a cigarette lighter onstage filled with booze, just in case she needed a snort. I don't know how big this cigarette lighter was, or, indeed, if its existence was anything more than a rumor, or how one might inconspicuously drink from a cigarette lighter onstage.

Wonderland of Weeds

I guess it was two months ago I was sitting around the house wondering what the hell a weed is, exactly. Then I remembered (two months ago) that I have a whole book about weeds. I could see it across the room from me at the very moment I asked the question out loud to Dr. Theresa: "What is a weed, anyway?" I think she had mentioned something about pulling weeds. Then I said, "Never mind! I have a whole book about weeds! I'll see if that book will tell me what a weed is." So anyway, I thought about it for two months and this morning I finally made the effort to pull that book off the shelf - WEEDS OF THE SOUTH by Charles T. Bryson and Michael S. DeFelice, with photographs by Arlyn W. Evans - and I opened to the introduction, and I'll be damned if it didn't say "Any plant can be a weed in one situation and unobtrusive or even desirable in another." WHAT! Are you trying to blow my mind, Charles T. Bryson and Michael S. DeFelice? Because mission accomplished! Are you telling me some dude could look at a full-grown pumpkin and say "Yep, that's a weed," and you'd be cool with it? Okay! I believe you. I flipped through a couple of pages, and the "toxic properties" of each weed, if any, are listed, and damned if I didn't come across two weeds in a row that can cause depression! And then I thought about Arlyn W. Evans, lovingly photographing each weed and breathing in its toxic properties.

Symbolic!

In THE LOVE PARADE, Maurice Chevalier marries the queen of a country and then he gets sad because he doesn't have anything to do. So anyway, the queen takes out a cigarette and Maurice Chevalier leaps up to fetch a lighter. He tries several times, but the lighter doesn't work. Then he begins to beam with joy! He declares that he has found a purpose in life, yes, he is going to fix this lighter. Anyway, there was a whole part of my cigarette lighter book about how lighters that don't work are symbolic. Symbolic! Right again, Pendarvis. You know, my cigarette lighter book came out four years ago, and I don't care about cigarette lighters anymore, and I don't care about my cigarette lighter book anymore, but these are crazy times.

My Job

My job for the DUNE book club (not to be confused with the Doomed Book Club) is to count up to the epigraph where we're going to stop each week. You see, the author of DUNE did not see fit to number his chapters! Each chapter does start with an epigraph, so, for example, this week we're going to stop at the epigraph that begins "There is no escape." Let it be said that I've never once counted the correct number of epigraphs in all my tenure as the official epigraph counter of the DUNE book club. I flip a page too hastily and miss an epigraph, or something distracts me, or something. This time I forgot how many epigraphs I had counted because as I rapidly made my way, an owl caught my eye! You are by now well aware of my conviction that every book has an owl in it, and my compulsion to record the evidence. Not only did the owl in DUNE catch my eye, but in that split second as I raced past the page, the number of epigraphs I had already counted lost to me forever, I recognized that the owl in DUNE comes from a Biblical owl quotation we have discussed on this "blog" before!

Hot News From Providence

I'm sure you remember my friend Judge. She used to tell me how surprisingly big softballs are in Chicago! Maybe she moved to Rhode Island! I'm basing that on the title of her email. You know, back when I used to "blog," she would send me snapshots that captured the very vibrancy of life itself. And she's back at it! Just take a look. Here is an image, intriguing even in ordinary circumstances, that can be read in a number ways in our strange modern times, about which I offer no further comment at this juncture.

Cigarettes and Monocles

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

Strange and Unwitnessed Circumstances

I'm reading the novel DUNE with Kate and Hanna. Sometimes Adam chimes in about DUNE because he read it years ago. He thinks it's funny there's a character named Duncan Idaho. Anyway, today he idly remarked, "Idaho probably means something." I decided to check! And that's when I found out this amazing story I read about on two different general-interest websites so now I'm an expert. It seems as if some guy wandered into a meeting where they were trying to name Idaho. He wasn't even supposed to be there! He pretended to be a delegate from someplace or another. (I am telling this story very loosely. Please do not cite it in any of your accurate historical dissertations.) He was like, "I've got a great name: Idaho! It's a real word and it actually means something cool." And everybody was like, "Whoa! Idaho! I like the sound of it! Who is this guy? I love this guy! Get over here, you!" Then later it turned out the guy was just full of beans. He had totally made up the name Idaho! He said was inspired by a little girl named Ida. But nobody knows for sure. Anyway, you don't believe me? Take a look at the wikipedia page of the guy who claimed to have made up the name Idaho ("click" here). There, now I've looked at three different webpages. What a day! So while I was reading his wikipedia entry I thought, "Holy mackerel! I think I saw a whole movie about this guy starring Vincent Price!" (See above.) But I was wrong. Our guy, George M. Willing, was just a conman pal of the conman played by Vincent Price. I'm not even sure they bothered to make him a character in the movie. Mr. Willing died of "strange and unwitnessed circumstances," the newspapers said.

Speakeasy

As you may not recall, I have a compulsion to list every book I read that has an owl in it, which is pretty much every book I ever read, because all throughout history people have never figured out how to stop themselves from putting owls in books. Anyway, in this new Stephen King book there is a speakeasy called the Black Owl, which is a cool name for a speakeasy, way to go, Stephen King!

Where Were You

No doubt you remember exactly where you were that day in 2014 when McNeil and I watched the Jerry Lewis movie THE BIG MOUTH and noticed that Jerry and his leading lady wore nearly identical outfits in every scene. Well! Mark your calendars, because last night I was watching THREE ON A COUCH, and in Jerry and Janet Leigh's first scene together, their jackets appear to be made from closely related bolts of cloth. I leapt up and took a photo of my TV screen! Pardon the greenish reflections in Janet and Jerry's hair - the fault of a reflection on this end, not the frankly sumptuous color design of THREE ON A COUCH. Postscript! My friend Juan Martinez, author of the top-notch short story collection BEST WORST AMERICAN, tells me the pattern on the jackets is a Prince of Wales check, AKA Glen Plaid. Write it down!

Slightly Late

There is a whole section of my book about cigarette lighters in which I yammer on and on about how easily a lighter is passed from owner to owner, whether through theft or absent-mindedness. An interesting illustration occurs in the movie SLIGHTLY SCARLET, when Arlene Dahl nearly makes off with John Payne's cigarette lighter. She says she'll give it back later, but he doesn't go for that line. He wants his lighter back pronto! So he holds out his hand and she impishly burns it with the lighter! Well, he said he wanted it! Anyway, that should be in my cigarette lighter book, but it was published four years ago; also, nothing matters anymore.

The Educated French Poodle

Yesterday on twitter I found out about this website ("click" here) where you can read old movie magazines. Idly typing the name of Doris Day, the first person I thought of for some reason, into the search bar, I came across this photo, the caption of which begins, "Smudgie, the educated French poodle, begs prettily for a peppermint stick." Every word choice in that caption was so interesting. I was like, that's one anonymous magazine intern who could really slap together a thought-provoking caption! Stories just spin out of it.

Sparkle

Madcap, dizzying whirlwind of a day, by which I mean I received an email from McNeil, who inquired therein, "Did you once have an idea that put Shakespeare and Bob Hope on an island? Does that ring a bell?" It did not ring a bell! In fact, I had no idea what McNeil was talking about, and replied as much. McNeil responded: "I think they were on an island talking about each other's plays/films. I remember you sent it to me - this is when we were unemployed - and I can't remember what I suggested...putting them on separate islands? But that doesn't make any sense." Nor did it make sense to me, the recipient of the email and supposed author of this demented notion. I asked, searching my mind and finding nothing, was it a play? Were Bob Hope and Shakespeare in heaven? McNeil replied, "I'm pretty sure it was a short story and they were trying to make each other's stuff 'better'. Hahaha. That sounds funny now that I'm all jacked up on caffeine." When I again insisted I had never written such a thing, McNeil agreed that perhaps I had not. I began to think he was gaslighting me! "I could have dreamed it," he wrote. But he couldn't leave it there. He tracked down emails from a long-defunct account of mine, and produced documentary evidence that in 2005, I declared that he and I should watch every Bob Hope movie and read every Shakespeare play and have phone conversations about the process, which we would transcribe and publish. I think I was trying to invent the podcast, though I believe the podcast had, without my knowledge, already been invented at the time. Anyway, it depressed me to hear how little my ideas have changed... I have a column running right NOW for which I just talk into a digital recorder and transcribe my own words. When I noted as much with some chagrin, McNeil wrote back, "A diamond will always sparkle!!!!" with the four encouraging exclamation points you see before you. In actual fact, as it turned out, it was MCNEIL who wrote, "I've got it!" He then described, in that 2005 exchange, an elaborate framing device for an epistolary novel in which we both crash-landed in the South Pacific on adjacent islands, too treacherous to travel between, but with currents that made it possible for us to write each other messages in bottles about Shakespeare and Bob Hope. Thus was one mystery solved, while other mysteries, perhaps, presented themselves.

Footnote

Email from McNeil. He sent me an idea he had for a movie, and ended, on another subject, "Also, you have not blogged in a long time. Let's get on it." Maybe he hasn't heard I don't "blog" anymore... though to be fair, I have gone around telling everyone I'm "blogging" again in our time of national crisis. Anyway, I'm reading a book called THE LOST ART OF SCRIPTURE by Karen Armstrong. Now I'm on the part about ancient China! And I read this: "a choir of blind musicians sang an ode." There was a footnote appended to this phrase, and I was glad, because I was wondering about those blind musicians! "Why are the musicians blind?" I wondered. So I checked out the footnote. Here is the entire content of the footnote: "In ancient China, musicians were usually blind." That's it! And, well, I thought, "That's a frustrating footnote!" I felt the content of the footnote betrayed the promise of the footnote as as a medium. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized why it was there. You might read the passage and assume, as I did, that blind musicians were required for the particular ode under discussion. No, the footnote explains, they were blind just because if you hired a musician in ancient China, you were likely to get a blind musician. Huh! As long as I am here, I should tell you that I just saw Tom Selleck selling reverse mortgages on TV. He said that my retirement plan is "kind of wobbly, like this three-legged stool." Then he wobbled the stool he was sitting on and looked upset. "I've got a better idea!" he said. I changed channels. But as I flipped from channel to channel, I started to wonder if the plot of the commercial would pay off. I knew that Tom Selleck had a great way to augment my retirement plan, but I wondered if he would slip a coaster under the short leg of the stool or something. I prayed I wasn't too late to find out! I turned back just in time. Tom Selleck sat down with a grunt of pleasure in a velvet easy chair. "Now this isn't a three-legged stool," he said. "It's a reverse mortgage chair." Ha ha! That's what he called it. A "reverse mortgage chair." I am no doubt slightly paraphrasing some of the commercial copy, but not that part.

Enjoyable Captions

I got a book of Donald Judd interviews that Square Books delivered to me in our strange modern times! What I really like are the captions. I've already tweeted about this and nobody cared, so I thought I would "blog" about it, in which case at least I know in advance that no one will care. The captions are like "Hot-rolled steel and turquoise pebble acrylic sheets." The captions are like "Brown enamel on hot-rolled steel." They are like "Clear anodized aluminum and green acrylic sheets"... "Perforated 12-gauge cold-rolled steel"... "Brass and blue lacquer on galvanized iron"... "Maroon enamel on recto and cadmium red light oil on verso of wire-enforced glass"... !

McNeilileaks

Welcome once again to McNeilileaks, where I leak the contents of my friend McNeil's emails. From the inbox this morning: "I wonder if there's a way to make 'powdered meat'? I bet you could sell a lot of it in this market. No need to freeze or refrigerate it. Also, as I was watching I WAKE UP SCREAMING, there is a scene where [Victor] Mature goes to see the caretaker of a cemetery. I wonder if they still have those somewhere...What a job!!!"

It Only Hurts When I Cry

Well, I happened to scroll past TCM last night, where the film BEACH BLANKET BINGO was playing... there was this woman (pictured) singing "It Only Hurts When I Cry" while she was roasting some wienies in the fireplace, and I stood there and counted the wienies (lying on a napkin on the bricks, bottom right). I am pretty sure there were at least 20 wienies in the scene, including a couple you can't see because I grabbed this screenshot from a faded pan-and-scan version on youtube this morning, giving you little idea of the garish vitality of the original wienies as presented in Technicolor, or whatever process they used on BEACH BLANKET BINGO. It really did look like an awful lot of wienies, but it was a big party and, honestly, there may not have been enough wienies to go around.

Golf Buddy

So I was watching CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM the other night, and one of Larry David's golf buddies reminded me of something. I was like, "Hey! Isn't that the standup comedian who sat in the car so we never met him? We were having dinner with Rhonda Shear and her manager more than twenty years ago, and her manager wrote the authorized biography of Harry Ritz, which no one would publish, even though it was authorized, and her boyfriend at the time, who is this guy I am seeing on CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM right now, sat and waited in the car while Rhonda Shear and her manager ate dinner with us?" That's what I was like. So I emailed Ward McCarthy, who was the other person in this story, and asked him if I were crazy. He wrote back, "That is pretty much how I remember the story. However, I thought Bobby Slayton was driving the car around and around the block because they couldn't find (or didn't want to pay for) parking. Or maybe I just made that up when telling the story later to make the guy seem even sadder." This is just the kind of wayward memory I used to "blog" about. Now, I don't "blog" anymore, but... I don't know. The evidence would suggest otherwise, maybe.

Mr. Frazzlebottom

I saw a tiny bit of THE GUNFIGHTER on TCM last night. Some no-good punk is trying to rile up Gregory Peck, so he calls him "Mr. Frazzlebottom." He calls him "Mr. Frazzlebottom" about ten times in quick succession. "Say, Mr. Frazzlebottom, can I buy you a drink?" And so on. Ten times, I bet! "What's the matter, Mr. Frazzlebottom, you feeling okay?" I paraphrase. It truly is irritating, this kid is onto something. Now, I don't "blog" anymore, so I don't know why I'm typing this. Now that I don't "blog" anymore, I generally just email this type of thing straight to McNeil.

Too Late

"If Philosophy aims at some good to man it comes too late in the day for that... It is not till the twilight comes that the owl of Athena begins its flight." So Oscar Wilde jotted in his Commonplace Book as a young man, as I learn from Richard Ellmann's biography of Wilde, because every book has an owl in it.

McNeilileaks

It has been a while, as I don't "blog" anymore, but we just got in some "McNeilileaks," which is where I leak the private contents of McNeil's email. McNeil sent along the above comic book cover, commenting, "I'm not sure why I think it's hilarious. Adam's pose?" As for me, I think it's the line, "You're holding up the war," which sounds like the title of a 60s comedy. YOU'RE HOLDING UP THE WAR, if it existed, would star Robert Morse, Ernie Kovacs, Tony Curtis, and Paula Prentiss, or so I decided last night as I lay in bed unable to sleep.

Infinite Truck Drivers

On a recent visit home, Mom started singing a song I had never heard before, which went, in Mom's version, "Bring me another cup of coffee/ It is the best in the land/ Bring me another cup of coffee/ For I am a truck driving man." So! It was quite a coincidence when I recently acquired a trove of songs by Bakersfield musicians, one of which was called "Truck Drivin' Man." It was just the song I heard my mother singing, except she had some of the chorus wrong. It actually goes, "Pour me another cup of coffee/ It is the best in the land/ I'll put a nickel in the jukebox/ And play the 'Truck Drivin' Man.'" Now! In a seeming paradox, the narrator of the song appears to be playing on a jukebox the very song to which we are listening, but that song could not exist to be played on the jukebox until the singer (as distinct from the narrator, who identifies as an actual truck driver, not a professional singer of truck driving songs) had recorded it. The singer, then, is projecting a future in which his own recording is not only possible, but essential. A leap of faith! Yet that is not the most interesting aspect. More than an advertisement for itself, this song is an endless universe willing itself into existence. I mean! Are we meant to think that the narrator of the song is listening to the same song that WE know as "Truck Drivin' Man"? If so, he must be listening to a second narrator, who, within THAT song, is listening to the song "Truck Drivin' Man" on another jukebox, in which yet another narrator in turn is listening to the song "Truck Drivin' Man" on yet another jukebox, and so on, into all of eternity. I don't "blog" anymore, but some thoughts have nowhere else to go.

Capering About Spreading Tension

Speaking of books with owls in them, Jeanine Basinger, in her book on the movie musical, summarizes one Danny Kaye number: "He barks like a dog, crows like a rooster, hoots like an owl, and mews like a kitten." She doesn't mean it in a good way. Danny Kaye seems to irritate her greatly. For perspective, she describes his presence in another movie as "capering about spreading tension."

Happy New Year

Though I have a compulsion to tell you every time I read a book with an owl in it, I hope I have made it completely clear that I don't have to tell you EVERY time a single book has an owl in it. Like, if there's an owl on page 14 and then another owl on page 63, I only have to tell you about the first owl. So get off my back! BUT! This book DUCKS, NEWBURYPORT has had at least FIVE more owls in it since the last time we spoke of it, which seems worth mentioning. Now, you may ask yourself why it is taking me so long to read DUCKS, NEWBURYPORT, to which I respond that it is none of your damn business, but for one thing, it is too large to take on an airplane, according to my strict rules, and I was on lots of airplanes in 2019, some I didn't even bother to tell you about. For another thing, Megan and I are fully committed to our unceasing diet of books about celebrities, so leave us alone.

Even the Warts

In today's New York Times, Gary Larson says "I think it’s possible to keep refining something until you’ve managed to kill it. Even the warts probably play a role." I mention it here for reasons you can discern if you "click" here, which I have no doubt you won't. As long as I am here (I don't "blog" anymore) I should mention watching HELLZAPOPPIN' (pictured) for the first time. Somebody asks for a light and Olsen or Johnson (I never figured out which was which - I'm going to ask Phil!) wheels out a giant cigarette lighter about five feet tall. As you know, I wrote a book about cigarette lighters a long time ago, and it used to be the case that I would encounter a cigarette lighter that should have gone in the book, but it was too late. And I used to feel bad, so I made a list. I don't feel bad anymore, but when you see a five-foot-tall cigarette lighter, you realize it should have gone into your book. And finally, this has nothing to do with books that have owls in them, another subject with which I am obsessed, but I was watching ONE HOUR WITH YOU and Jeanette MacDonald makes an unusual request of Maurice Chevalier: "Darling, look like an owl." Her request goes unfulfilled, I am sad to report, and Maurice Chevalier does not even attempt to look like an owl. In fact, he refuses! I kept waiting for the subject to come up again. It never did. :(

Glass

Back when I used to "blog," I kept sort of a running list of phrases I'd come across in the newspaper or somewhere that gave me some sort of creative insight, or so I kidded myself. One time I even typed them all up and handed them out to my thrilled grad students, back when I was "teaching." So I don't "blog" anymore, but I just ran across a new one of those phrases in the New York Times, and I don't know where else to put it, because I can't find that list anywhere. Philip Glass said,"If I am remembered for anything, it might be for the piano music, because people can play it." What does that mean? Why is it interesting to me? Well, it's none of your beeswax, really. I don't even think you exist!

Loosely

You know a few things about me. 1. I don't "blog" anymore. 2. For many years now, I have been in a club with Megan Abbott, in which we read what might loosely be called "books about celebrities." 3. I believe that every book has an owl in it. 4. Even though I don't "blog" anymore (see #1 above) I have a compulsion to tell you every time I read a book with an owl in it (see #3 above). Well! I had made it all the way to the final chapter of this book we are reading about the making of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and I started to panic, like, "There might not be an owl in this book!" Then, just as the book was coming to a close, I came upon this distressing sentence: "Taking it all in, Clarke blinked owlishly behind his glasses several times and burst into tears."

The Story of Five by Five

You know, Dr. Theresa and I are rewatching the series BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, and there is a character named Faith (pictured, above) who appears in Season 3 and goes around saying that she or her situation is "five by five," meaning fine or good. Dr. Theresa and I asked each other whether we had ever heard anyone say that outside of Faith on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. Was it a common bit of slang? Anyway, we forgot about it, because who cares? So in Season 4, somebody actually says (I'll paraphrase), "Hey, what was up with Faith? She always went around saying 'five by five,' what the hell does that mean?" So it seemed that the characters on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, aside from Faith, were just as unfamiliar with the term as we, the home viewers, were. "What's so great about being five by five?" I asked Dr. Theresa. "If I were five by five, I'd be a square little man." We paused the show and I went upstairs to consult my famed three-volume GREEN'S DICTIONARY OF SLANG. Sure enough, the primary meaning of five by five, dating back from the 1940s, was "a short, fat person," as I had correctly surmised. There was, however, a secondary listing for a hyphenated five-by-five, which aligned with Faith's usage. Strangely, the only text cited was the Stephen King novel DREAMCATCHER (2001). I had always assumed - and maybe I'm wrong - that the editor of GREEN'S DICTIONARY OF SLANG, Mr. Green, took pains to find the earliest possible textual reference to any given piece of slang. However! Season 3 of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER takes place in 1999, two years prior to the King novel, as I know because Buffy and her friends are in the graduating class of 1999. Could it be that Stephen King watched BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER? I would almost bet on it! Did he crib the phrase "five-by-five" from Faith herself? Who can say? All we can say with certainty is that by showing a preference for the printed word, GREEN'S DICTIONARY OF SLANG has definitely overlooked earlier examples of slang usage in other forms of popular culture. But! Wouldn't it be the case that either way, "five-by-five," or any vernacular phrase, would have been tossed about by the general population before ending up in the works of either Whedon or King? Nevertheless, we cannot overlook the possibility that BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER created "five-by-five" out of whole cloth and Stephen King merely lifted it, leading GREEN'S DICTIONARY OF SLANG to inaccurately present it as a legitimate entry. I have no proof of this whatsoever, and, in fact, remain certain that I am entirely wrong. Anyway, I don't "blog" anymore, because who cares? But this is where I have traditionally recorded the details of my fraught relationship with the implacable GREEN'S DICTIONARY OF SLANG. [PS: If you look on the "internet," everybody wants to tell you that five-by-five comes from a term for measuring the clarity of a radio signal. But the wikipedia page on "signal strength and readability reports" tells me that "no reliable source has been found documenting this format." But everybody on the "internet" has decided to believe it now, because who cares? PPS: Though I have double-checked neither movie, the "internet" says that "five-by-five," in the Faith sense, previously appeared in BLACKBOARD JUNGLE and ALIENS. If so, it is still peculiarly rare in cultural presentation.]

Safe Owl

Well, I went to Square Books the other day... I could almost tell you what day it was if I thought about it... I don't get out of the house much anymore... wait, I can do it the lazy way. I have the receipt right here, stuck in the back of the book. You'll be fascinated to know that it was on the 20th day of September that I walked into Square Books and said, "Hey, Slade, do y'all have that book by Lucy Ellmann, where it's one sentence that's a thousand pages long? I want that!" (It was not an accurate description of DUCKS, NEWBURYPORT. I read the prologue, which is about a page and a half of sentences of non-startling lengths. But then we get into what seems like a pretty long selection of phrases without terminal punctuation, all right! I'm only on page five. And on page five, given my compulsion, I must alert you to the fact that there is an owl, specifically, a brand called Safe Owl. I am not sure if the Safe Owl brand, which is listed by Ellman among a lot of other brands of many sorts of products, refers to this spice brand (above) I found on the "internet," as it listed among a number of more current brands (unless they still make Safe Owl spices). I believe that "Safe Owl" is a charming but timid name for a line of spices. Thank you for your time. [Appended on October 7, as I don't "blog" anymore: There are more owls later in the book, as the narrator discusses ways to prevent owls from eating purple martin babies.]

Lucky Peridot

Well, I got back from a trip to California a few days ago or more and I didn't even bother to tell you because I don't "blog" anymore and also nobody "blogs" anymore, and I don't care about you anymore, but I felt kind of bad because I took my famous jotting book with me and jotted down notes, hundreds and hundreds of them, to tell you the truth, and I'm going to do something with them somewhere, but not here. But I did go to the racetrack with Pen and put down some money on a horse called Lucky Peridot, because I worked on STEVEN UNIVERSE: THE MOVIE, and, as you know, Peridot (above, right) is a character from the world of Steven Universe. Anyway, that horse won through excellent maneuvering in in the last minutes of a wild race, so I just want to tell you kids that it's a great way to pick horses and to follow your dreams. On the plane going there I read Bill Boyle's magnificent, ambitious, kaleidoscopic, and stirring CITY OF MARGINS and I never wanted it to end. I often hurried away from somewhere semi-glittering to get back to my dingy hotel room to see what was up with the people in Bill's book. Look for it under his writer name, William Boyle. I call him Bill! On the way back home I read Lee Durkee's THE LAST TAXI DRIVER. I was sitting in the airport, trying not to laugh out loud like crazy, and I was shaking really hard and wondering whether my silent shaking with tears rolling down my face was more disturbing than the raucous laughter I had imagined. Let me emphasize that everything in the book is not funny. It's not all laughs! It encompasses life. But the line that started me shaking was "Like many idiots Tony was fond of giving advice."

Midflight

Tonight is the 40th anniversary party for Square Books, so it is highly appropriate that even though I do not "blog" anymore, a chance occurrence yesterday, related to that august institution previously named, brings me here to confirm, by compulsive necessity, my controversial theory that every book has an owl in it. So it happened that Bill Boyle and Megan Abbott and I were crowding up the landing on the stairs at Square Books, huddled as we were over a volume that Megan had plucked from a display for our delectation. "I am in this book, telling the story of a ghostly encounter," Megan said, or words to that effect. Naturally, Bill and I were startled and delighted! "Quickly, quickly, let us move in all haste up the stairs, retaining this book in our possession for further study," I exclaimed. My cheerful plan was accepted by all. For you see, I had spied Richard Howorth entering his benevolent domain, and I did not wish for him to glance upward and conceive of me as a person who would in any manner impede the traffic that wends its merry way up and down the hallowed stairs of Square Books, the establishment of which we celebrate, yea, this very eve. Megan, Bill, and I settled ourselves, therefore, in the conveniently situated coffee section of the shop and in just such a spot it was confirmed, as might well be expected, that indeed Megan, a person of notable honesty already, was telling the truth, as is her wont. Yes, yes, there she was, appearing as a character in someone else's book! And on the same page, "a spooky owl in midflight." (See also.)

Gee Your Owl Smells Terrific

As you know (ha ha! sure you do) I don't "blog" anymore. But I remain psychically compelled to "blog" every time I read a book with an owl in it, because I keep a big, long list of every book I read with an owl in it. So I was reading a Clarice Lispector book called AGUA VIVA, and what sentence should I run across but "It would never occur to me to have an owl, though I have painted them in caves"? And I thought, gee, that sounds familiar. (Parenthetically, the title of this "post" derives from the fact that I was originally going to call it "Gee Your Owl Seems Familiar," which reminded me of a shampoo of my youth called "Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific.") So I searched the "blog" and sure enough, I found ANOTHER Clarice Lispector book in which she claims "it would never occur to me to keep an owl" (note the subtle variation in the verb, which may be nothing more than a matter of translation). I wondered... did she have the same thought twice? If so, despite her protestations, it seems that very often it occurred to her to keep an owl, or at least that the possibility of having or keeping an owl was not out of the range of her imagination. In fact, one could argue that it ALWAYS occurred to her to have an owl or to keep an owl, to such an extent that she eventually had to make a decisive decision against it. Now, was AGUA VIVA simply quoted in the other book, or perhaps the other way around? Did one contain fragments of the other? Well! As you know (sure you do!) we bought a house not long ago and I threw the books onto the shelves in a willy-nilly order, as quickly as I could get them out of the boxes. And I don't feel like nosing around until I find the other book, just for the sake of comparing the two passages and drawing the sort of the ignorant conclusion that is my specialty. In parting, I will note that a wet washcloth was accidentally deposited on top of AGUA VIVA, and, as it is a thin book, it has been water-damaged through and through. Ironically? (Because of the title!) And it still hasn't dried out! Life is a constant adventure.

Faithful Apple

"Remember the apple tree from the blog?" writes McNeil. "Well, I had to cut it down. It was half dead and the squirrels were using it to get into the attic." I don't "blog" anymore, as you well know, but I had to come back this one last time to say goodbye to the faithful old apple tree from the "blog." Please enjoy this old photo of the blossoms on the old apple tree in the gentler times of old.

He Said Captain

I don't "blog" anymore but sometimes I have something in my head and nowhere else to put it. For example, I finally watched THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, which I put off for a long time, because who wants to watch a movie about unpleasant people? And last night or the night before, I thought, well, haven't I watched lots of movies about unpleasant people? And also, maybe isn't everyone unpleasant now? And at one point Leonardo DiCaprio tells his sales team he is giving them "the tools to be Captain Ahab." And someone on the sales team says, "Captain who?" What Leonardo DiCaprio means is that he is going to help his sales team target "whales," by which, in turn, he means potential customers with a lot of money. Now! I have a column on the website POPULA, in which I read MOBY-DICK and talk about each chapter into a digital recorder, transcribing the dubious results in weekly installments. And certainly, under ordinary circumstances, "Leo's" riff on Captain Ahab would have gone into one of my "columns," as I do generously call them. But, having completed my reading of the novel on July 4th, and subsequently turning in my final dispatches, I knew that this passing allusion to MOBY-DICK in popular culture would remain forever unremarked upon, at least by me, unlike the time Elvis picked up his mic stand and brandished it like a harpoon during his famous 1968 comeback special, and said, "Captain Ahab!" I saw it with my own eyes when I was staying at that Elvis-themed hotel one time, and I do believe the sighting made it into a yet-to-appear edition of the so-called column about which I continue to yammer. "Captain who?" reminds me of the song Dr. Theresa and I used to sing quite a bit early in our courtship for reasons that fade from memory as time goes on: "He said captain/ I said what/ he said captain/ I said what/ He said captain/ I said whatcha want?" I know the title of that song is "Wot," not "What," but I can't bring myself to type it that way lyrically, though I seemingly harbor no similar misgivings about "whatcha." Anyway, when you think about it, it is funny to give someone the tools to be Captain Ahab.

I Checked My Pants

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

It's Not an Eagle

It's very true that I don't "blog" anymore, but I felt obliged to mention that it's not an eagle that Tashtego nails to the mast, as I so erroneously reported yesterday on our nation's birthday. It's a sea-hawk. I cannot account, except perhaps by means of some twisted patriotic inclination, or general deterioration, how my brain turned it into an eagle within the matter of mere seconds after I closed the book and before I disseminated the inaccurate imagery.

Strike Me

Well, I was thinking about a Fourth of July some years ago when I was reading about werewolves, and a Third of July some years later when I was STILL reading about werewolves, and I just now finished reading MOBY-DICK, which is not about werewolves, but does strike me (the reading of it) as a patriotic act in ways that reading about werewolves does not, especially seeing as how Tashtego NAILS A FRICKING LIVE EAGLE TO THE MAST as the ship goes down, which really says the Fourth of July to me, especially this year. Yes, I'm going to put the fish label on this "post" because Ishmael insists that whales are fish. I know what I'm doing!

Hunch

As you very well know, I don't "blog" anymore, but I do have a sick need to record every time I read a book with an owl in it, because it seems to me that every book has an owl in it. As you also know, equally well, Megan Abbott and I have a little club, its membership dwindled to two, in which we read a literally endless parade of celebrity biographies. Right now we're reading a new one about Mel Brooks, in which we meet Sid Caesar's first agent, "a hunched, owlish man," according to the author.

Endless, Faint Soughing

Hey! In HUNGER by Knut Hamsun, which I read on the airplane at the suggestion of Katelyn from Square Books, our narrator is trying to sleep in the woods, but is distracted by "the eternal song of wind and weather... I listened so long to this endless, faint soughing that it began to confuse me; it could only be the symphonies coming from the whirling worlds above me..." Such thoughts begin to make him nervous, so, to cheer himself up, he says aloud, "The hell it is! It is the night owls of Canaan hooting!" Now, I don't know what the night owls of Canaan are, or why they would cheer you up any more than, say, the symphonies coming from the whirling worlds above you, which sound pretty nice when you put it that way, but I DO know that I keep a list of every book I read that has an owl in it.