Dr. Frank's What's-it

Doors of Mirth and Mystery

Stephen Pollard discovers (a) that there's a Norwich Peace Council (Canaries Rule OK); and (b) Melanie Griffith's official website.

(a) probably wouldn't make me giggle quite so much if I hadn't spent quite so much time in Norwich, but since I have, it does.

And (b) may be the single greatest thing I've ever seen on the internet. Be sure to check out Door #2 ("Intimacy", a.k.a. "In 2 Me C") for A Glimpse into Melanie's Life. And Door #1 (i.e., The Magic Door.)

Stephen says it's "beyond parody." Come on man, you say that like it's a negative thing.

My judgment may be a little off, though, I admit. I've been up for like a zillion hours. And it's been Starbuck's/bar/Starbuck's/bar/Starbuck's/bar over and over since around 6 am in downtown Phila. I'm half asleep, but also twitching wildly. It's a wonder they haven't thrown me out yet. (The guy at the next table assures me there aren't actually any bugs crawling all over my arms, and I don't need to keep swatting at them. Hey, for some reason he just moved to a different table. Suit yourself, sir; more for me.) I've got two hours more to go till I can show up at the club. Four or five hours after that, I'll be playing, which is kind of hard to imagine at this point. Ain't life grand?

"Music"

Well, I'm just about off to Philadelphia.

Here's a recap of those solo shows. All are with me, Phranc, Ian Brennan, Lysa Flores and others:

Wednesday, April 28..............PHILADELPHIA North Star
8-11 PM
$8

Thursday, April 29.......WASHINGTON, DC Velvet Lounge
9PM-Midnight
915 U Street NW (202) 462-3213
www.velvetloungedc.com
21 and over
$10

Friday, April 30....................... PROVIDENCE, RI AS220 (matinee)
9PM-MIDNIGHT
11 Empire (401) 831-9327 www.as220.org
all-ages
$8

Saturday, May 1........................BOSTON All Asia Cafe
6-10 PM
344 Mass Ave., Cambridge (617) 661-0993
all-ages
$10
followed by John Waters at MIDNIGHT.

Sunday, May 2.......................NEW YORK Living Room
8PM-1AM
84 Stanton (212) 533-7237 www.livingroomny.com
all-ages

The New York show had been described as FREE, but it looks as though they may be charging a cover as it happens. Sorry about that.

One drawback of wearing spandex is that it does nothing to hide one's obesity

If you're like me (and there's no reason to suppose many of you are to any great degree) you will find that this will, somewhat mysteriously, cheer you up just a bit.

Cheating at Library Roulette

From Richard Bennett's blog, I happened on this book exercise, which has generated a pretty good chain of randomness (just click back through all the vias):

* Grab the nearest book.
* Open the book to page 23.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

Okay, I'm game.

The first book I grabbed was Beautiful Losers, an arguably ill-advised novel by Leonard Cohen, from 1966. p. 23, sentence five:

I don't want to fuck a pig.

Glad you cleared that up, Leonard.

That just isn't up to the standard of the hifalutin sentences this formula has randomly "generated" from the libraries of the previous participants.

I know it's cheating, but I have to try again. Eyes closed. Next book. D'oh! It happens to be The Disappearing Professor: A Lesson in Terror for Rock's First Family (#15 in the Partridge Family Mysteries.) I have a bad feeling about this. p. 23, sentence five:

There's only room in the theater for the really talented.

Less vulgar, certainly. And rather dubious.

Damn, this is a bit like playing slots in Reno. I'm rapidly losing my meager supply of lit-snob credits, but I can't stop. One more, just one more. Next book along: okay, this looks more promising. p. 23, sentence five:

He set out between two and three in a gloomy frame of mind; he knew too well what spending the afternoon with honest manly boys meant.

From Arthur Machen's Hill of Dreams. Not bad. But not great, either.

A quick one, then I'm moving to another machine. p. 23, sentence five:

I preached blood and murder to those women day and night, and - by God! - they would let me wheel their perambulators.

That would be G. K. Chesterton, The Man who was Thursday.

That's pretty cool and off the wall, and all, but maybe the next one will be better. Uh oh:

A cricothyroidotomy is an opening in the trachea between the thyroid cartilage and the cricoid cartilage that permits air to pass directly from the outside into the trachea without passing through the upper air passages.

From the next book along, The US Army Survival Manual. Maybe I should have stuck with the Leonard Cohen...

I think I need to go into the other room where we keep the fancy books. Be back in a sec.

One second later:

Well, we do keep the fancy books out there, but it seems we also keep The Mad Scientists' Club by Bertrand R. Brinley, published by Scholastic Book Services, which yields only this fascinating line: "But Homer Snodgrass shook his head."

That was the first book at the end of the first little bookshelf. Right next to it, though, were a couple that may well yield something more, or less, impressive. Longfellow's Hyperion, and Levinas's Totality and Infinity.

Let's check out p. 23, sentence five of the Longfellow:

Thou blessed babe!

Now that's more like it.

Look, never let it be said that I don't know when to hold 'em, fold 'em, etc. I'm just going to leave it there, walk away and not risk breaking out the Levinas. Because you never know what you'll get.