Posts from — July 2003

My friend Leigh and I were walking around the neighborhood this weekend. We were walking towards a corner near Western. A man carrying a bucket was approaching the same corner; even from several feet away you could hear him muttering to himself. I’d seen him around before, but I couldn’t remember whether he was good crazy or bad. I slowed down just a little so that we wouldn’t cross paths at the intersection.

Leigh could see what I was doing. “It’s okay,” she said. “I see him all the time. He just washes windows and talks to himself.” I’m glad Leigh knows stuff like this, because, really, how else am I going to know? And that’s when we got the idea: Neighborhood Eccentric Trading Cards. I doubt we’ll ever make them, but they sure would be useful.

I had just joined a team of deep-sea ocean divers. Queen Latifah was on the team, although it’s entirely possible that Queen Latifah was not an actual deep-sea diver per se but was just cast to play one in my dream. None of us had any kind of scuba or diving gear. We wore coveralls like mechanics. We were going to the bottom of the ocean. There was some debate over whether it would be too cold down there. “Nah,” said Queen Latifah. “Britney Spears could walk around in a thong down there.” Why Britney Spears? I wondered. Like there was some rule that if you were going to invoke the image of someone walking around in a thong there had to be someone “hot” involved.

In order to get to the bottom of the ocean you had to climb into something that was an awful lot like a very, very long play tunnel set up vertically, and somehow this made you sink through the water really efficiently. After awhile I stopped holding on to the sides and just coasted down. Then I was by myself at the bottom of the ocean, which wasn’t very watery at all. I walked around and wondered how the hell I was going to get back up. I decided to kind of fudge that part. I mean, I knew it was a dream.

Oh my God: also THERE IS A GIGANTIC BALL OF STRING in the book Homer Price. I just remembered.

Somehow I had no idea that Robert McCloskey was still alive until I heard he’d passed away yesterday. People are going to be going on and on about how Make Way For Ducklings is such a classic. Whatever. The book that really rules is Homer Price.

I never could get over the doughnut machine. Whenever I picked up the book I couldn’t help it: I’d pick it up, and even though I’d read it God knows how many times before, I’d stare at the cover and my mind would get caught in the cogs of the doughnut machine–you know, just accidentally, like a shirt sleeve–and before I knew it I’d be sucked back in to reading fucking Homer Price. But I loved that book. I appreciated seeing the word “doughnuts” in print, because of course the best doughnuts were the ones that had the dough in them. Also, I didn’t know doughnuts were fried in oil until I read Homer Price, and I didn’t know what crew cuts were until I saw one on Homer. I learned a lot from Homer Price. But mostly I read for the doughnuts.

And just try and tell me this isn’t the best jacket copy ever.