Loose Leaf Notes

1. I honestly didn’t get the joke when Academy Award host Neil Patrick Harris went on stage in his underwear, until I read the next day that it was a reference to Birdman, the movie that won best picture this year and opened with a scene of Michael Keaton in his underwear.

2. This weekend was filled with going to a wedding, watching the Academy Awards and reading Tom Robbins’s new memoir Tibetan Peach Pie.

3. For a while in 2007 my writer’s byline was “I like pie.”

4. If you google “Tom Robbins and Oscars” only Tim Robbins comes up, except for one entry in which Tom Robbins’ name appears with Oscar Wilde. I think of him as the Hunter Thomas of novel writing, only more cheerful.

5. The Academy Awards are to movies what the Super Bowl is to sports.  I’ve never been to a Super Bowl party, but I attended my first Oscar party this year. Although there were only four of us, there was beer and chips, and halftime performances.

6. I was relieved that Lady Ga Ga didn’t wear a meat dress, or something else that weird, when she performed The Sound of Music songs at the Oscars. Even though on the red carpet her gown was paired with what looked like red dishwashing gloves, she looked beautiful during her performance (and who knew she could sing like that?).  The gown she performed in was described as “swan lake-esque,” but I thought it looked more wedding cake-ish and, knowing her, I kept wondering what was under it, half expecting a dwarf to jump out any moment.  

7. Speaking of gowns, THESE really validate my description of flowers as flirts in petal skirts.

8. Now that’s an odd ball dress (the black one to the right).

9. On the drive over to our friend’s house to watch the Oscars, Joe and I listened to George Lakoff on PBS’s New Dimensions.  Lakoff, who is a renowned linguist and expert on the framing of political discourse, spoke about how facts aren’t believed by some people unless the are framed in a context. “If you hear the word waiter, you’ve got a restaurant, you’ve got a menu, a dish a check.  If you hear the word waiter, you don’t expect a herd of elephants.”  “Oh, that’s why I like Tom Robbins,” I said to Joe. “His writing has waiters and herds of elephants together in the same sentence.”

10. Robbins first novel, Another Roadside Attraction, was about a mummified corpse of Jesus that was stolen from the Vatican and put on display in a roadside zoo.  It was largely dismissed by the critics, with one review saying that the book wasn’t a novel at all but, rather, “a lot of record album titles strung together as prose.” But Robbins maintains that writing about the Day Glo‘60s was to alter the novel form itself.  “It became clear to me that I must construct Another Roadside Attraction in short bursts, modeled perhaps on Zen koans, on Abstract Expressionist brush strokes, and on little flashes of illumination one experiences under the influence of certain sacraments.”

11. “I’m always astonished when readers suggest that I must write my novels while high on pot or (God forbid) LSD.  Apparently, there are people who confuse the powers of imagination with the effects of intoxication. Not on word of my oeuvre, not on, has been written while in an artificially altered state. Unlike many authors, I don’t even drink coffee when I write.  No coffee, no cola, no cigarettes.  There was a time when I smoke big Havana cigars while writing, not for the nicotine (I didn’t inhale) but as an anchor, something to hold on to, I told myself, to keep from falling over the edge of the earth. Eventually, I began to wonder what it would be like to take that first fall. So one day I threw out the cigars and just let go. Falling, I must say, has been exhilarating – though I may change my mind when I hit bottom.”   – Tom Robbins Tibetan Peach Pie

12. My great-grandfather’s name was Oscar. He came from Sweden, which is why I was surprised to learn that the name is of Irish (of which I am almost 40%) origin.  And then I read this on Wikipedia: The name may be derived from two elements in Irish: the first, os, means “deer”; the second element, cara, means “friend.” The name is borne by a character in Irish mythology—Oscar, grandson of Fionn Mac Cumhail. The name was popularized in the 18th century by James Macpherson, creator of ‘Ossianic poetry.’ Today the name is associated with Scandinavia because Napoleon was an admirer of Macpherson’s work and gave the name to his godson, Joseph Bernadotte, who later became Oscar I, King of Sweden. Consequently, at the time many Swedes were named Oscar.

13.  “There are only two mantras… yum and yuk. Mine is yum.” – Tom Robbins

___________Thirteen Thursday