A Most Unpleasant Owl

As you know, I tell you every time I read a book with an owl in it. Why? I guess because I've been doing it for more than 10 years and there is no way to stop. Now, the moment I picked up a book by Salvador Dali, I felt a 98% certainty it would have an owl in it. But little could I have known it would be an owl of such a thoroughly unpleasant mien. This owl was a vision of Dali's, I guess we could say. It appeared on people's heads. It was, if I recall correctly, a kind of hallucinated figurine, and on the owl's own head was... how I can say this? Some poop. Poop adorned the head of the owl. Poop of a particular... no, I shan't continue. What am I, the author of Till Eulenspiegel? Ha ha, you guys know what I'm talking about.

Invisible Obelisk

I don't "blog" anymore, but by no means did I want you to think that McNeil has stopped looking for obelisks. He sent me the above photo (seemingly from a television show called UFO) and requested a glowing orb to put on his desk. He also told me to "note the obelisk." Friends, I looked all over and didn't see the obelisk! I communicated my alarm to McNeil! I concluded - too hastily - that the thing resembling a crystal ball was the "glowing orb," not the white circle, which, as I examined it, looked so flat and artificial that I decided McNeil has placed it there through computer wizardry, in order to mark the obelisk in question. I furthermore concluded, on the basis of zero evidence, that McNeil had meant to draw a red circle (or suchlike) around the obelisk but had, instead, made an opaque white circle by mistake. Confronted with my theory, McNeil was appalled. The flat white circle was indeed the object of McNeil's admiration, a supposed "glowing orb" original to the work as televised. The obelisk, he said, was on the left front corner of the desk (from the POV of someone sitting behind it). Then I saw it! And if you look, you can see it too. Maybe you have already seen it with your fresh young eyes that are not yet old and weak like mine. In conclusion, I mentioned to McNeil that the white dot looked like something that may have been placed there by censors to cover a large hole in the seat of the man's pants. Yes, McNeil replied facetiously, that would explain the slide whistle sound effect when the man turned around. And now you know why I don't "blog" anymore.

Corn Bath Danger

Megan and I are reading the autobiography of Salvador Dali, in which a young Dali decides to take a bath in a bushel of raw corn. We talked about that a lot, and I was put in mind of the film WITNESS, which features death by corn. I think it's corn. Anyway, someone is suffocated in a silo. Megan and I discussed the dangers of grain storage, which are serious and numerous. Megan dug around (as she does) and eventually sent me this article ("click" here), which I admired for the way it really gets across the temptation of a good corn bath before plunging into the terrifying downside, and also for the name of one of its interviewees, Bodie Blissett, who was buried up to his neck in corn.

Famously Complicated Feelings

From that Olga Tokarczuk book: "There are dogs on leads, monkeys in chains, much-loved parrots in silver-plated cages." Now, when you have that many monkeys and that many dogs, it seems inevitable that one of the monkeys will ride one of the dogs. Does Tokarczuk make such an interaction explicit? I regret to say she does not. Or perhaps "regret" is the wrong word, given the "blog's" famously complicated feelings about monkeys riding dogs.

Today Is Easter

You know very well I don't "blog" anymore, but today is Easter. That's not why I'm "blogging." But something happened that is a little too long to explain in a tweet. God knows I tried. Anyway, I started self-publishing a novel called SOUR BLUEBERRIES on the "internet." The events of SOUR BLUEBERRIES take place between December 20, 2019 and November 3, 2020. We all know what happened around that time in real life. Now, I didn't know what all was going to happen when I first started writing the novel! So, as I had given titles to every chapter, I decided to arrange the novel alphabetically according to title, rather than chronologically, to... to make a point about... to... I can't remember. So! I started publishing on February 14, 2022, not because it was Valentine's Day, but because I had recently become unemployed, and I thought asking people to pay for my new serialized alphabetical novel would be a good way to make some extra money (I was wrong). So! Are you still with me? By sheer coincidence (or was it predestination?), having arranged my chapters from Aaron Neville to Zyrtec, and having been, furthermore, in the habit of publishing one or two a day, it so happened that today, on the very holiday of Easter itself, we came to a chapter entitled "Christ." All right. That's it.

Big Teraphim News

Well, Maud Newton came to town! Here's a photo of us, why not? I got Maud to sign a copy of her new book ANCESTOR TROUBLE. So, I was reading about the Biblical story of Rachel and the teraphim in Maud's book, and then I picked up THE BOOKS OF JACOB by Olga Tokarczuk, which I am still reading, and I immediately came to a passage about Rachel and the teraphim! Does it mean something? I say Rachel and the teraphim is the big new trend to look out for in 2022.

Unconscionable

I hate to tell you, but the book I'm reading now has an owl in it. The book is all about the making of MIDNIGHT COWBOY. A NYC boutique called The Owl and the Pussycat is given the scantest possible attention as part of a long list of boutique names. That's how the owls are these days. They just sneak into the books through the back door. The owls aren't even trying anymore. It's unconscionable.

A Secret

As I am sure you must have guessed, Megan Abbott and I have been reading a dual autobiography of Ron and Clint Howard. Fairly late in the book, the story "An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge" gets a shout-out. Now, does this means that the Ron/Clint Howard autobiography is a book with an owl in it? By my extremely lax standards, yes. But I will tell you people a secret. This time, I almost didn't bother to mention it. I came very close to sweeping this information under the rug! It was almost as if I could no longer remember why I chose to keep a meticulous record of every time I read a book with an owl in it.

The Satisfying Commas

Well, well. I see I have something in common with Nobel prizewinner Olga Tokarczuk: I wrote a novel called SWEET BANANAS, and she mentions bananas in THE BOOKS OF JACOB. Her phrase is "myrrh, oranges, bananas." I stared at it for a long time. Three words that go well together. Some credit may go to her translator Jennifer Croft, for all I know. The satisfying commas, for example.

I Wouldn't Even Mention It

Did you know I am serializing a novel on the "internet"? "Click" here if you don't believe me! You'll feel pretty dumb then! It's called SOUR BLUEBERRIES. It's sort of a companion piece to my previous limited-edition novel SWEET BANANAS, which is made of actual physical substances, and of which there are still a precious few copies left if you ACT NOW. I wouldn't even mention it, but as I was "posting" this morning, I noticed that there is an owl in today's installment (Part 10) of SOUR BLUEBERRIES. And you know what that means. Who are you?

Dramatic Moment

At a dramatic moment in her autobiography, June Havoc describes herself as being "owl-eyed and frightened." If you know me at all, which you don't, you know why I am compelled to tell you this (see previous "hyperlink"). But it's not much, is it? So as long as I am here, it has been too long since I was upset by a TV commercial. I've seen one recently in which Charlie the Tuna, the mascot of Starkist brand tuna products, boasts of having branched out into the chicken business. He announces a chicken product which has, quote, "the look and texture" of his tuna. Often have I pondered, listening to Charlie the Tuna's pitch, how it is a selling point.

I Watched the Hot Dog Being Built

I read a sentence I liked (see above) and emailed about it seperately to three friends: Megan, Sarah, and McNeil. Therefore I feel I have already written about it extensively and, as I no longer "blog" anymore, it hardly seems worth the effort to create "new content." As a result, I have chosen to cut-and-paste one of the emails below, the one I wrote to Sarah, to be precise, as it seemed to contain the most thrilling moments representing the richness of human experience. Here, then, is the email I composed to Sarah: "So, remember how, just six days ago, in the Sherman Oaks area, I told you an intriguing story of how Pen advised me 'Don't look!' when his dog pooped, but then we (you and I) looked out the window of your car and saw a large dog plainly pooping in our direction? You really made me laugh by comparing the experience to the movie SERENDIPITY. Ha ha ha! I'm still laughing. Anyway, so my friend Megan and I are in a book club of two where we read biographies and autobiographies of show biz types. Right now, we're on June Havoc, who performed in vaudeville as 'Dainty June.' You may remember her as a character in the biographical musical GYPSY, which was based on her family. None of this matters. Nor does it matter that her autobiography has a great first sentence: 'I watched the hot dog being built.' What matters is that the original (?) owner of the book was a Dane Blackburn, who dwelt at 211 E. 62nd Street in NYC. If found, he wished his book to be returned to him there [as indicated on the flyleaf]. Now here's the kicker! I looked at the address on Google Maps and they helpfully provide the name of the nearest restaurant. SERENDIPITY! Which is about something scribbled in the front of a book, right? The movie, I mean. And I think it's also named after that restaurant? You know, I've never seen the whole thing. I have attached photographic evidence for your examination." This concludes the email to Sarah. As an amazing postscript, to which Megan, Sarah, and McNeil have all been alerted, Eleanor Roosevelt lived at 211 E. 62nd Street from 1953-1958, as evidenced by this real estate video ("click" here). The book, however, came out in 1959, so my copy most likely did not pass through Mrs. Roosevelt's hands. In conclusion, though I brought my jotting book to Los Angeles, I will not be sharing my jottings on this occasion. That being said, I did have hot dogs with Elizabeth Ito, my brother, and Lee Durkee at a place out in Eagle Rock, which bears mentioning given the subject of Havoc's opening remarks.

Pancake Research

I found reason to recall a long-ago exchange in the "writers' room," when someone mentioned putting syrup on pancakes, whereupon Hanna, calling in from Sweden, said, with a degree of alarm, something like, "What kind of syrup would you put on pancakes?" Adam replied, "Breakfast syrup." Hanna said, and this may be a direct quote, "Breakfast syrup? You guys are crazy." We asked what goes on pancakes in Sweden and Hanna said, "Jam." Now, we all had to admit that sounded great! But it was clear that syrup in Sweden is different than what we call syrup in the USA. All of this came back to me as I contemplated the molasses sandwiches in Ingmar Bergman's film FANNY AND ALEXANDER. After recording my thoughts on the film below, I dispatched an urgent query to Hanna, asking what the translator might have been getting at. Hanna concluded that the children were most likely enjoying some treacle (AKA golden syrup) on bread, a cheaper substitute for honey on bread. Now, the grandmother in FANNY AND ALEXANDER seemed as if she would be able to afford all the honey a child could ever eat, but that is none of my beeswax. Ha ha. Hanna told me there is nothing like molasses in Sweden, although both she and I may have been conflating molasses and syrup, as I know from visiting dozens of websites that are all too eager to explain in excruciating detail the myriad important differences between molasses and syrup, which I perversely refuse to commit to memory, despite all my feigned interest in the subject.

The Body Finder

It is my duty to inform you that Megan Abbott and I continue apace with what might seem, to an outside observer, our increasingly bizarre book club. For example, now we are reading the memoir of a playwright, all about the time he wrote a doomed (?) play for Mary Martin and Carol Channing. I bring it up because the author includes himself in a group of "eight serious-looking, owl-eyed men." As you know, I am compelled by unknown forces to make a note whenever I read a book with an owl in it. In my struggle to make the current iteration entertaining, I might mention that this is the first time an author has referred to himself as owl-eyed, in my experience. "Owl-eyed," from my understanding of the term, does not come across as a compliment. It is generally applied to other people. I have done no research by which to validate anything I have just said. I will add, just to put a cherry on top, that during his boyhood, the author was known by the unsettling nickname "the body finder," because he found five dead bodies. Those bodies, I believe, were found on five separate occasions, and by accident, as the author shoehorns into a parenthetical. Now, he does specify that he was a teenager when he kept finding bodies. I'm not great at math, but I think that means he found a body on average once every year and four months or so. I'll bet he started getting nervous every time the new year rolled around! We'll never know, because he mentions his body finding abilities so blithely that Megan missed it entirely until I brought it up.

Sandwich and Alexander

As you know, I have given up "blogging" entirely. However, something has occurred which requires immediate comment. You no doubt recall with a bittersweet admixture of reverence and nostalgia the time I noticed the importance of sandwiches to Bergman's SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE. Having recently rewatched the same director's FANNY AND ALEXANDER, I was stunned to discover that it features even more sandwiches than SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE. The exciting prospect of studying the entire Bergman oeuvre from the perspective of sandwiches presents itself. In FANNY AND ALEXANDER, an unusually lenient wife orders up "two cheese sandwiches" for herself and her happy, adulterous husband. Soon, the eponymous children are offered "a molasses sandwich," which the subtitles have in the singular. I will have to learn Swedish for a more complete examination. Moments later, for example, the children are asked to put down the "sandwiches," plural. One may imagine that half of a molasses sandwich is enough for any child. Perhaps the single molasses sandwich was divided in two, becoming, for all practical purposes, two sandwiches. While "half a sandwich" is a traditional unit of sandwich measurement, it is not difficult to picture two halves of the same sandwich, being consumed by two separate people, as "sandwiches." A mystery! I am put in mind of the J.J. Special, a favorite order from Manuel's Tavern in Atlanta. It was a patty melt of sorts, divided into four sections, each held together by a fancy toothpick. At some point, the J.J. Special was changed, and it came to the table cut in half, appallingly like any ordinary sandwich. It took a long time to get used to the new configuration. I should also mention that the J.J. Special might have been the name of the entire order (which came with onion rings AND fries), and not merely the name of the sandwich (see Dr. Frankenstein and his monster). We may further examine two sandwiches of unspecified ingredients in FANNY AND ALEXANDER. The cruel and austere bishop asks for "a sandwich and a glass of milk," while the happy adulterer is promised "a beer and a sandwich" to be served in bed by his indulgent wife. Can it be that a sandwich is the one food that pairs well with either milk or beer? I have put no thought into the question. But surely we may draw many conclusions from the beverage choices of these two very different characters. In conclusion, sandwiches for the happy adulterous Swedish man form somewhat of a framing device in FANNY AND ALEXANDER, as they appear near the beginning and near the end of the film. One might say, then, that the film itself is a sandwich.

A Fairly Accurate Prediction

I woke up late this morning and turned over and looked at a bookshelf near the bed. My eye was drawn to THE CANTOS of Ezra Pound. I lay there thinking, huh, I never read that, and I'm getting old, and I'll probably never read it. I guess that's what got me out of bed. I went over and picked up the book and looked at it, thinking some more about how I'm old and will never read it. "Well, let's see what you've got for me today," I said aloud, and opened to random page, and saw a line about "the bearded owl making catcalls." Now we're getting to the part of the story you're going to tell your children about one day. I thought, well, well, well, have I ever "blogged" about Ezra Pound? And it turned out I did so in 2013, having read the first four or five cantos, and predicting with 100% confidence that there was an owl in this book somewhere, and further predicting (less accurately) that I would never know, because (back to being accurate again) I would never finish reading the book.

Highly Anticipated Year-End List

The 10 most thrilling excitements from 2021. 10. Square Books introduces a new bookmark. 9. Confirmation that Spanish moss is related to the pineapple. 8. A list of 24 dog names discovered in Ovid. 7. I read about a man whose hat popped off his head in fright. 6. Dr. Theresa and I have a good laugh about 18th-century preacher Jonathan Edwards (pictured). 5. Dr. Theresa and I share an appreciation of Vera Farmiga. 4. A Proustian chicken wing. 3. Wild turkeys by the side of the road. 2. I have chicken-and-oyster gumbo from a restaurant where I've been eating for over 50 years. 1. Kate Tsang constructs a double cheeseburger out of two single cheeseburgers. Thanks to everyone who worked together to make these amazing achievements a reality. See you next year!

It Seems Obvious

I also enjoyed Levrero's defense of superstition: "Unlike with jealousy, which is another part of myself that I abhor, I respect and try to pay attention to my superstition when it makes itself known. Although I very much doubt that not doing so could offend some higher being, it seems obvious that it would offend some lower being, which lives inside me and with which I'm obliged to coexist."

I Couldn't Shut Up

As you know, I stopped "blogging" many years ago. For a while there, I would read a book with an owl in it and add it to my list, and that was the final vestige of my "blogging." But then I started getting inspired by phrases all the time. For example, I read the following in THE LUMINOUS NOVEL by Mario Levrero: "It's worthwhile reaching boredom, the rock bottom of boredom, because that's where the right impulses begin." I would like to take this opportunity to add that the narrator - who is indistinguishable from the author - reads a bunch of Little Lulu comic books at one point. You remember back when I was "blogging"! I couldn't shut up about Little Lulu, could I?

Resonance

I read a really interesting book review in the New York Times today. The author, an anthropologist, was attacked by a bear. The indigenous people with whom she was working at the time had already nicknamed her "She-Bear." The anthropologist, I mean, not the bear! So, as the reviewer notes, the terrible and harrowing encounter might seem like a coincidence. Here I quote the review: "But 'absurdity' and 'coincidence' are categories that cease to be useful to her. 'There is only resonance,' she writes." Well! You know how I like to collect phrases that make me feel a certain way, whatever that is. To dismiss absurdity and coincidence as useless concepts I find delightful. And "There is only resonance!" Come on! (Exclamation point mine, obviously.) You know, as I look back, it is apparent that I find a lot of these quotations in the New York Times. I should probably diversify my reading. No offense to the New York Times, but who wants their soul shaped by it exclusively?