Computers Are Great

Say you're watching one of the Law & Order shows. And you think, "Hey, is that Vincent Spano?" With today's modern computers, the answer is at the touch of a button. Pretty soon you can say, "Probably not," or "Maybe," or "Hmm, I don't know. But at least I tried!" It's a great feeling, thanks to the modern computers we enjoy today.

That Reminds Me...

Here's a little bagatelle I composed that makes brief mention of Veronica Mars. You'll have to buy the back issue to read the whole thing. That's today's "blogging" tip: Support the arts!

Veronica Mars

Tonight on Veronica Mars, some dude stole Veronica's necklace and I was like, Oh no you didn't! And Veronica was like, You're gonna regret that, buddy. And in my brain I was thinking, I know that's right! Veronica Mars will crack the case!

The Nine "Blog"mandments

It's embarrassing, really, the number of requests we've received here in the Pendarvis Building about gathering all my "hints" and "tips" on "blogging" into one "post" for handy reference. I've had some truly heartrending communiques from young men and women who tell me how my "cutting edge" approach to "blogging" has changed their lives. I always tell them, "Heck. It's just plain old common sense." And that blows their minds! Here they are, then, by popular demand, with "links" provided to put them into their original perspective - in this matter I am a strict constructionist! - The Nine "Blog"mandments: 1. Simply "click" on a highlighted word or phrase to be sent to a "link." 2. The internet is full of information. Check it out. 3. Check your favorite "blog" often or you might miss something. 4. It's okay for friends to disagree! 5. Remember: Cyclopes is the plural of Cyclops. 6. Life is not always about "blogs"! 7. Ask yourself before "blogging": How would Webern "blog"? 8. Get some Webern! 9. Use the word "blog" to create new words containing the word "blog." Think of the Smurfs and you will know what to do.

Attention Persons of a Jaunty and Polished Demeanor

Now that Jeff McNeil has moved on from the "blog," he has more time for actual writing. He sent a wire to the "blog" a few days ago asking for some particular writing advice. I gave him my writing advice. McNeil then explained, via semaphore, that he wanted not MY advice, but that of the kind of person who reads my "blog." I suppose you know who you are! What McNeil wishes to ascertain, in short, is this: having printed out several copies of his novel, should he send the copies directly to publishers? Or would agents be more appropriate targets? Or should he, perhaps, send half the copies to publishers and half to agents? Well?

Orders From the Chief

Just talked to a nice person at my publisher. She's still upset about the "blog," because "most of it" is about comic books, and I'm alienating the American reading public! I told her that only 15 or so "posts" out of 65 or so had anything to do with comic books, but she contended that nontheless, just by mentioning comic books at all, I had "tainted" her "blogging" enjoyment - and, implicitly, the gossamer soul of our nation itself. Her final suggestion was that I get off the phone and make up something "funny" for the "blog." Time to put on my thinking cap!

Weblog

Just sitting here in my pajamas listening to some Webern, as I hear is all the "rage" for today's sassy young "bloggers." And I was thinking, how would Anton Webern go about this "blogging" business? My guess is that he would "blog" selectively! Look into his compositional techniques and I think you'll agree. I mean, look (illustration, left). That's a fairly naked page! I'm not sure about the meaning of those free-floating whole notes at the bottom, but I'm not as smart as I used to be. In any case, here's today's "blogging" tip: Always ask yourself: "How would Webern 'blog'?" If you like, you can put it in handy acronym form (HWWB?)! Bonus tip: Go out and get some Webern! You can listen to a whole symphony in about ten minutes... a must for today's busy "soccer mom."

Young Goodman Blog

I read "Young Goodman Brown" today, and it should go in our imaginary anthology, but the trouble is, it's already in so many REAL anthologies. Also, Hawthorne is really Theresa's territory. I remember a great paper she wrote, somehow entwining "Young Goodman Brown" with the Dean Martin movie KISS ME, STUPID. Speaking of which, those sad words "the 'blog' will be 'down' for a few days" are not far off... next week Theresa will be speaking about Hawthorne at the Literature/Film Association Annual Conference up in the Baltimore area, so that means more times of "blogless" reflection for all of us. Which brings us to today's "blogging" tip: Life is not always about "blogs"!

Bloglems

I'm okay, folks! I haven't "blogged" in a while because of "bloglems," which is a catchy word I just made up to desribe "problems" with a "blog." Anyway, I'm sorry to say you've missed out on quite a few musings. For example, at one point I had a song stuck in my head, and I tried to share that fact with the world, only to be defeated by "bloglems." The title of that absent "post": "There's a Song Stuck In My Head." Is it, as some brash souls in the Pendarvis Building have theorized, a loss akin to the missing plays of Sophocles? We must leave it to history to judge.

Philosophers Are Just Like You and Me!

Earlier tonight, Theresa and I ended up hanging out with philosophers. Real 100% bona fide philosophers. They're just like you and me! We had fun talking about all sorts of things - they were witty, cultured, and kind - but it was especially nice to sit back and listen to them cracking wise about their profession. These particular philosophers were hilarious on the subject of Heidegger's fat face, which one of them memorably described as looking like marzipan and liver. Someone else said, "It's like he's a prostitute with a heart of gold, and inside that heart of gold is a piece of sh_t." They sure had it in for Heidegger! And let's face it, he had it coming, I think you know what I'm talking about. Plotinus, on the other hand, sounded like a nice dude to go to the ballgame with, just as I had always expected. Then our new philosopher friends started in on some guy named Hama-mama (an approximation of the actual name, which I can't recall, but which DID sound like a noise that Jackie Gleason would make). Hama-mama is famous for "tearing Derrida a new one," according to one of the philosophers. "It had to be done," said another philosopher. "We all have to do it at some point, to prove we're men." Hama-mama is also kind of put out with democracy, if I'm recalling correctly. But when you see him in person you want to give him a big hug, apparently. That's what I hear! Hama-mama, physically, is an "endearing little creature," I believe someone said. He just hates the world. Hanging out with philosophers! Crazy.

Goober Says Hey

This nugget from reluctant "blog" participant Mark Childress, who always keeps a finger on the cultural pulse: Look who has his very own film festival! We don't mean to make sport... it's just surprising. This has been going on for ten years - TEN YEARS! - and we had no idea.

A Nice Turn of Phrase

We'll still hear from Jeff McNeil from time to time, it seems. In a quick call today, McNeil reported coming across some prose by Jerry Lewis, in which Mr. Lewis called Earth "the big round put-on." So world-weary! Do you need more evidence that Jerry Lewis is awesome?

McNeil Leaves "Blog" to Pursue Other Interests

The "blogging" world suffered a devastating loss today when Jeff McNeil received a digital video recorder. McNeil plans to retire from guest-blogging and devote himself full-time to recording old movies off of the satellite TV and watching them over and over. Experts speculate that given Mr. McNeil's viewing habits, he will be recording such films as UNDER THE YUM YUM TREE, starring Jack Lemmon, Dean Jones, and Paul Lynde, and BACHELOR FLAT, starring Terry-Thomas and Tuesday Weld. "The biggest loss," says Jack Pendarvis, "is Jeff's long planned dispatch from the Fun Factory. It's this place on his route. They service broken pinball machines, mechanical ponies and helicopters, and other novelty gadgets from department stores and arcades. From Jeff's past descriptions, I understand that there are mountains of eerie, unclaimed baby pictures in the Fun Factory. They seem to come from a defunct portrait studio. I'd love to find out more. But McNeil's gone. He was our inside man, and now he's gone." McNeil could not be reached for comment.

A Poignant Recollection

Mr. Jamie Allen, one of the editors of the quarterly "Duck & Herring Co. Pocket Field Guide," chimes in with Chapter 14 of our series on childhood superhero freakouts and their effect on modern literature. It may be remarked upon with some interest that the autumnal gloom and mystery of Mr. Allen's tale is rivaled only by that of another editor, Mr. Eli Horowitz. What is up with editors? Only time will tell. For now, we turn to the words of Mr. Allen: "There was one [comic book] that stands out in my mind for two reasons. It was a large one, given to me when I was sick, with this magificent cover showing Superman and Shazam facing off - in a fight to the death! The drawing was colorful and the muscles were ripped and I just couldn't understand how Superman and Shazam could fight each other, let alone to the death. This is one reason it stands out; I really liked Superman and could never see him losing any sort of fight, of course, but I also really liked Shazam because he didn't get the respect he deserved in the shadow of Superman, I felt. And so I immediately had a lot at stake in the fight between Superman and Shazam. I think I was using my storytelling brain for one of the first times, because I had all kinds of scenarios worked up before I even opened the thing. And then I opened the thing and it was, you know, the ol' comic book trick where the pictures are not color or even as well drawn. And the storyline just didn't live up to the hype inside my head. This is the second reason I remember this so well. I remember I would allow myself to be fooled by it again and again - I'd see the awesome cover of the comic book, and I'd think, Maybe I missed something? Maybe I wasn't as advanced in my reading the first time I read it? And I would open it again and the same thing - anti-climax." POSTSCRIPT FROM THE "BLOGMASTER": Mr. Allen may be forgiven, considering the rather traumatic circumstances, for forgetting that the character's name is Captain Marvel and "Shazam" merely the magic word he uses to achieve his transformation.

Franklin Speaks Out on Superhero Love

Cornered at this weekend's Southern Foodways Symposium, the eyes of a garrulous Tom Franklin filled with manly moisture as... Okay. Several points. Number one, we realize that we have implied some sort of cornering of Mr. Franklin's eyes, as if they might be cornered apart from Mr. Franklin's body, or face, and that we need to consult the old Strunk and White to see how this matter might best be addressed. Furthermore, we have no idea what garrulous means. We hope it's something nice. What we really mean to say is, How about it, folks? Can you believe we're already on Chapter 13 of our continuing examination of today's finest writers and the comic books they loved as tykes? On the occasion in question, Mr. Franklin recounted his innocent and youthful fascination with the love affair between Green Arrow and Black Canary, the commencement of which indeed stunned the old "blogmaster" himself, when he stumbled across it - if memory serves - in the back pages of an issue of ACTION COMICS. Mr. Franklin's bawdy speculation upon the marital habits of Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Girl, however, cannot be reproduced here, but will be offered by the publishing arm of the "blog" as a limited edition "chapbook" bound in plain brown paper.

Answers

I hope everyone had fun with the quiz! We certainly received a record number of telegrams here at the Pendarvis Building, so it seems to have struck a nerve in the heartland. The answers are as follows: 3, 6, 7, and 9 were from Ionesco; the remainder were from GREEN ACRES. Congratulations to everyone who guessed correctly! Unfortunately, we can only have one winner. Several "blog" fans pointed out that #9 actually occurred in Ionesco's novel THE HERMIT, rather than one of his plays, as the rules indicated. Kudos! An extra point for all of you! But ONLY Harriet McKeon's whippersnappers at Theodore Christian School noticed the trick "HERMIT" question AND the similarity between Ionesco's play THE BALD SOPRANO (Question #7) and the episode of GREEN ACRES in which Lisa forgets Oliver but remembers Hank Kimball (Alvy Moore, pictured). With that in mind, we congratulate Mrs. McKeon and the entire fifth-grade class... or as we now call them, our "littlest interns"! You should have already received three dozen sacks of mail previously delivered to the Pendarvis Building, anonymous letters which for various reasons must be sorted according to subject matter and turned over to the proper authorities. Have fun!

Chicken Blog

Hey, in my most recent "blog" entry, when I mentioned "chicken bog," I should have added, "Not to be confused with 'chicken blog!'" That would have been funny.

The Amazing Oyster Coincidence and Other Stories

The Southern Foodways Symposium never ends. That's just one of the great things about the Southern Foodways Symposium. For example, last night, when we got home from the Symposium, we called Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly to thank them for the wonderful stay in their guesthouse. Tom and Beth Ann were on their way to eat a roasted pig by a campfire in somebody's yard. It was kind of a final hurrah for the Symposium, which had officially "ended" that morning. When Theresa and I were on our way home, we stopped for gas somewhere in Alabama and a man and woman got out of their truck and started talking to us about the Symposium! See, it never ends. The man was Tommy Ward of the 13 Mile Oyster Company, who had provided the incredible, beautiful raw oysters we had eaten the night before. And tonight we're cooking a recipe for "Chicken Bog" that we got from the Lee Brothers cookbook. See? It never ends! I met Ted Lee after my panel. Then we saw the brothers later at the mass book signing. Man, that was some book signing. Everybody was eating, even though it was right before the huge oyster supper. Eating and signing and buying books and eating and reading and eating. They had West Indies salad (I just learned this weekend that people who aren't from the Gulf Coast don't know what that is!), sparkling wine and peanut brittle with bacon in it! BEFORE supper! Yes, there was lots of pork with which to reckon. The lunch on Friday included a lemongrass-roasted pork po-boy with crawfish - yes, crawfish! - mashed into condiment form. I'm sure that over the next several days I'll have lots more to say about all the nice people we met and the fine food. Everybody should go to this thing!

Jeff McNeil Is Not a Raving Lunatic

Jeff McNeil formatted his recent contribution to the "blog" quite properly and with astonishing deftness and verve. It is the fault of the "blogmaster" alone that it appeared to contain no paragraph breaks. The "blogmaster," it must now be confessed, does not know how to "do" paragraphs on the "internet." The keen observer will note that not a single of this "blog's" many entries is broken into paragraphs. This was not, alas, a decision brought about by artsiness and daring, but evidence of a particular brand of incompetence for which there is no remedy. We deeply regret any damage to Mr. McNeil's reputation as a stylist. On the bright side, those of you with a printer and some scissors can have loads of fun trying to rearrange the piece into its correct layout. Another "fun project" from your friends in the Pendarvis Building!

Epistle From a Wet Blanket

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