Mark McGwire got a standing ovation at the Cardinals’ fan convention. In the wake of calling out McGwire and other juicers as liars, cheaters and phonies, Jack Clark was booed. As you can see, Cardinals fans check their brains at the door.

…I will add that: Jack Clark made the single gravest error in Cardinal fandom which is talk shit about another Cardinal (two, really, since he goes after Tony, too), something that is not ever ever done without grave unrest. See: La Russa basically has no comment on Ozzie Smith, and wisely so. See likewise: Ozzie is widely regarded as the villain of that situation, essentially because he was vocal in his criticism of the way Tony handled the end of Ozzie’s career, which to be fair Tony did sort of shit the shortstop bed there with Royce Clayton and maybe hadn’t by that point quite learned the fundamental rule in discussion, here. See finally, though: how Ozzie seems to have recently moved on from the subject, and wisely so.

UPDATE: The Post-Dispatch’s Bryan Burwell gives fans a stern talking to and receives a gabillion comments, many of them testy.

I’ve got a reading coming up in February, a guest blog post on Three Guys next week, and an essay this Spring in St. Louis Magazine. The coffee shop was all full (it’s always full) but I discovered that it’s okay to sit in the bar next door and write all day long. The question remains as to whether it’s a Greek, Canadian, or American bar.

Finally, please be advised that it actually is the real Graham Nash, as far as I can tell, commenting on the last post. I hope now his Google Alert goes off again so he comes to see how goddamned tickled I am at the reality of that, and read one final apology from me about my plastic surgery accusation, which was brash and presumptuous and but holy shit, man. Graham Nash!

1. At this point, Stevie Wonder is at least a minor deity. I can’t imagine a single religion that would argue.
2. John Legend is goddamned handsome and I will admit right now that I am jealous of his handsomeness. It’s fine. It’s okay. I’m okay with it.
3. Smokey Robinson would do well to take a cue from Stevie and wear sunglasses at all times.
4. Paul Simon is looking more and more like Jon Lovitz, or rather the animated version of Jon Lovitz from The Critic.
5. Paul Simon’s guitar fingernails, which are vaguely warlocky or wizardish and not at all the sort of thing a camera should zoom upon, truly and deeply freak me out.
6. The thing about his nails, I realize the more I think about it, is that they’re sort of yellow and gray, as if jaundiced, and how exactly do nails get this color? And why is he wearing a purple jacket?
7. Said Pat of Graham Nash during his and Crosby’s cameo with Paul Simon to sing “Here Comes the Sun” in a new and harmonized but definitely not impressive way: “He looks like Ted Danson on MDMA.” (Nailed it, Pat.)
8. Mr. Nash has also had way more plastic surgery than anyone who recorded “Long Time Gone” should ever have.
9. The alternative, however, which here registers as Mr. Simon’s small country’s worth of makeup caked onto his cartoon face, isn’t much better.
10. Art Garfunkel is looking more and more like the clown from the television mini-series of Stephen King’s IT.
11. Metallica’s introduction to themselves, following the set break following a rather embarrassing moment when Aretha Franklin snubbed the shit out of Annie Lennox, I suppose for wearing a t-shirt and silly hat (not to mention grin) onto Aretha’s stage: “We’re Metallica, and this is what we do.”
12. Re: Aretha, I wish, wish, wish Smokey would’ve gone with something else (“Tears of a Clown,” say) for his song with Stevie, which would have left “Tracks of My Tears” for the woman whose version, from the really great Soul ‘69 album, is far superior.
13. What Metallica does does not go particularly well with what Lou Reed does, which is wander about with eyes glazed and skin sagging (which is fine, actually, the one real solution to this “problem” of aging that Misters Nash and Simon get terribly wrong, because look these are old men after all, and so let the wrinkles be the ethical argument for why we should listen, the scars, the same weathering and evidence of use that so many boot and jacket and t-shirt companies have been faking for years) and try to sing “Sweet Jane” and kind of fail, and look confused enough that Pat and I get sort of sadly quiet there on his couch, and by this point my dog’s four eyes have burned almost halfway through my body, and it’s clear that she’s ready to go even if I’m not, and so let’s say we call it a night, huh Pat?

Is it significant that “lobster,” “fish,” and “chicken” are our culture’s words for both the animal and the meat, whereas most mammals seem to require euphemisms like “beef” and “pork” that help us separate the meat we eat from the living creature the meat once was? Is this evidence that some kind of deep unease about eating higher animals is endemic enough to show up in English usage, but that the unease diminishes as we move out of the mammalian order? (And is “lamb”/”lamb” the counterexample that sinks the whole theory, or are there special, biblico-historical reasons for that equivalence?)

Reading this essay now, contextualized by the issue’s recent Foerization and Natalie Portman’s resulting and fairly comical and completely insulting soapbox derby, is a bit like waking up from too long a sleep beneath too many blankets, wearing flannel pajamas (with cute little attached booties) and sweating terribly, then rolling out of bed into a tub of ice water. We miss you, Dave.

Here’s the video enjoy it please!

Conrow Joe from Edsel Denk on Vimeo.

Re: Dude Life, the always reliable Pretty Blog provides explanation here, but Ryan’s quote bears repeating:

The focus of Dude Life is just dudes who are into stuff, whatever that stuff may be. Primarily, it is skateboarding, babes, tacos, hot dogs, rock and roll, jobs without bosses, beers, road trips, art, and buddies.

Exactly, Ryan. That’s exactly right.

Here’s something: a recording from last week’s reading (mine) at the Parlor Reading Series, there in the Busch and pretzeled home of Green Lantern Press. Many thanks to all who came and heard me read for thirty minutes from my novel in progress, especially the skateboarders who don’t normally frequent readings. It was a rad night, totally and completely satisfying. The podcast itself can be found right stinking here.

And for those of you with eyes, here’s a video of the flashback section of the reading (that’s a Busch burp there at 0:33, if you’re curious).

Then on Sunday, November 15, I’ll join Patrick Somerville, Mary Hamilton, Lindsay Hunter and Laura Pearson for a special Knee Jerk collabo at the Orange Alert Reading Series. That’s 6:00 on a Sunday at The Whistler in Logan Square, surely the neighborhood’s favorite gently-lit music and cocktail venue.

And finally December 1 finds me reading from the novel in progress at The Green Lantern Gallery for their Parlor Reading Series. Which’ll be recorded and podcasted, but it’s a huge room so come if you can, come and bring all you can — friends, strangers, dolls…anything to fill up that room.

I’ve since lost the patience, though, and the Skyway eats through cupholder change. So now I pack only a Wii, and its blue light pulses steadily, begging for my attention. Then today I’m referred by friend playwright good man Scott Barsotti to this game here. That was forty-five minutes ago and I really need to eat. So far I peak at 13,077. I’m certain there’s something I’m not getting. Aside from language. Poor lady.

Nothing but wonderful things to say after returning from Austin. Many thanks to Odie and Maggie for hosting and providing Lone Star. And of course Amelia and Stacy at Five Things for providing one giant Lone Star and much laughter. Also to the Death Match for the chance to read “Terror, Not Terror” to a packed church and a celebrity judging panel. Here’s American Short Fiction’s take…

Though the Literary Death Match was held in a church, the crowd seemed open to violence from [ASF contributor] Amelia Gray, sexual innuendoes from Richard Russo, and detailed sexual fantasies from [ASF editorial advisory board member] Owen Egerton. However, tales of Maddox Jolie-Pitt’s decapitation crossed the line, eliciting a collective and judgmental ‘whoa’ from the audience.” —Stacey Swann, ASF contributing editor

Fine. That’s fine. Doubtless, Amelia Gray deserved the victory, for she slaughtered. Overall just a stellar experience on every level, and I’m pleased as shit to’ve met everyone I did. Thank you to those who attended panels, thanks to everyone on the panels. High fives to  Amanda Little (her book is surely required reading today), James McManus, and about a thousand others.

Austin. Man oh man oh man…

Then at 2:30 I will slay the shit out of Amelia*, Jeff Martin, and Owen Egerton at a TBF version of the world famous Opium Magazine Literary Death Match. The judging panel is Pulitzered there and back again, so it should be a doozy. And it’s in a church. Goodness.

Then finally later that night I’m stoked to close the day with Five Things, famous in Austin and beyond. Great folks there as well (who I won’t link to because I’m becoming tired), including White Person himself, Christian Lander.

Re: a costume, I’ll probably go as a slutty author. Slutty vampire nurse debut author Midwestern slut. Pirate.

*Not a chance. In fact, I will bleed.

It’s the suburban nightmare that keeps showing up in ambitious American movies as the banality of evil itself. The low ceilings, the schlocky décor are meant to be of a piece with the endless family bickering and emotional blackmail—satirically enhanced signs of mediocre, soul-punishing middle-class taste, Jewish division.

In the film, the suburban Home and Neighborhood setting is one of several. We also see the academic workplace, both classroom (with a two-story chalkboard) and office of Larry Gopnik. There is also a synagogue, along with a cheap hotel. There is a Hebrew school, offering a twin to Larry’s classroom and another academic office. There are also two brief lakefront scenes and there’s a swimming pool and perhaps others I can’t remember. All are stylized to a dramatic end and all succeed at highlighting, undermining…always conversing with story and characters. They are, as Denby grudgingly admits, “fascinating”.

But look again at the Denby quote, exemplary of his angry and exhausting piece of criticism, and find proof of a major hole in the eminent critic’s understanding of the Coen Brothers’ art.

This film is not a satire.

To be sure, darkness does indeed linger beneath the at once shiny and drab suburban exteriors. Yes, but of course there is darkness lurking within these settings, as in all. The neighborhood is in fact bland. There is an easily outrun bully. The furniture is ugly, or at least orange. There are fences and people pay attention to their lawns. There’s a dead deer with legs twined and midsection bloody on top of a car. But where is the “nightmare”? At what point exactly do the Coens disparage or mock these lawns and houses and sunlight? Might the decor instead serve to create a specific texture to this particular fictional world? Mightn’t the schlock be reasonable and true to even necessary to the film’s effect?

I posit that Denby’s flaw is is mistaking intent. I submit that the Coen brothers aren’t making fun of Jewish Minneapolis any more that they were Brainerd, MN.

More Denby:

Philip Roth’s collection of stories “Goodbye, Columbus,” which tore into the timidity and prohibitions of middle-class American Jewish life, came out in 1959, when Ethan Coen was two and Joel five. The Coens’ laughter is not exactly fresh. Dozens of popular comics in the past half century have worked in the same satiric vein.

That is to say, because of the “distant, dry, and shrivelling” humor Denby prescribes to Coens, they have been preempted by these artists who came long before. While wondering whether we truly need to be reminded of the filmakers’ respected age during a particular moment in history (how old were they when…Mauno Koivisto was elected President of Finland?), we should save some energy to consider whether period films should instead tear into today’s timidity and prohibitions, or any other period’s beside their own. Or perhaps it’s that the Coens shouldn’t write comedy about Jews because Roth already did. Perhaps Denby would rather they instead write like Michael Chabon. It’s difficult to say what he’d rather because of course that is not a critic’s job.

Instead he reminds us that Roth’s early work was often satirical. Indeed, the very damned smart author might easily have created someone like Chad Feldheimer. But the chasm between between early Roth and current Coens is as gaping as that between early and contemporary Roths. Now Roth’s characters, like all major Coens characters, take shape through pastiche rather than parody. They are collections of flaws and obsessions extended to extreme ends. The hyper-extension of certain psychological ticks, as with similarly extended Coen brother settings (the sprawling corporate offices replete with fat chuckling man, the bowling alleys, the small-time gas stations that don’t sell any funny shaped balloons, unless round is funny), are exacted with curiosity and appreciation. And, most importantly, pathos.

So Denby gets it vigorously wrong and writes off as “arbitrary” a narrative as challenging and experimental as any major release this year (this side of Denmark). Far easier, I suppose, than working to understand what the artists in question might have been trying.

Confused.

There on a summer afternoon research mission, I found myself confused re: of whom to be wary. The gate says one thing, the window another…these bricks and white accents and I think just take a picture and figure it out later.