Shall We Play a Game?

Do you remember when "what is the worst recipe" was still a question subject to debate? No longer! The worst recipe is from a cookbook called Joys of Hawaiian Cooking and it goes like this:

CLAM CAKES

1 can minced clams with liquid
pancake mix

Mix enough pancake mix with clams and juice to make a batter. Add water or skim milk if liquid in the can is slight. A beaten egg may be added if desired. Cook as you would for pancakes.

It seems like such an obvious combination, in retrospect! Now, I will soon be leaving for Key West to celebrate my 5th wedding anniversary. (I plan to visit the Hemingway house and have my body rubbed by dozens of polydactyl cats!) If, when I return in one week, I open my comments box and see that a sufficient number of people--say, twenty-five--have expressed a desire to see this dish devoured by my own personal face, I promise to do so and then present you with a photo montage of the event. If double that number of people appear, I promise to pour myself a champagne glass full of raw clam cake batter and drink it while wearing nothing but an Achewood apron and humming the Marseillaise. DO YOUR WORST, my readers--I know there are only five of you!

Do You Know What It Means to Be One-of-a-Kind?

If you were a kid in the 80s, you may remember a series of books called The Ready-Set-Grow Series. You know, the ones with the back covers that featured a group of children painting a fence. Because...Tom Sawyer? And kids? These books were, for the most part, creepily written and execrably illustrated. My favorite growing up was You're Either One or the Other: A Children's Book about Human Sexuality. Let me put it this way: if the illustrator has this much difficulty drawing clothed crotches, imagine how much difficulty he has drawing unclothed ones.

...... ............ ............
When I finally saw a true penis, I was unprepared. Anyway, I picked up a copy of You're One-of-a-Kind at the Magical Flea Market Bookstall for ten cents, and it turned out to be a treasure, because the previous child owner of the book had actually written in it. His name is totally Damian, you guys.


This, we are to understand, is Damian's body:


And this is his head:


As this picture makes clear, his style is so, so fine. He favors a t-shirt transformed by daring scissors into a more irresistible version of itself; belly button masterfully bared, he strides forth to meet the world. Now, there are a few things you should know about Damian. He enjoys hambgers,


and he dislikes chess. (I must confess I saw that coming.) As for animals, he loves "rabbit":


and he dislikes "cat." This is hardly surprising. "Cat" is a domestic animal, fated to live within four walls, but "rabbit" roams the world, borne ever aloft by a car that is also a ghost. He is riding, perhaps, to Damian's rescue, for Damian is a prisoner in his own home.


You can take away his freedom, but you can never take away his freedom to laugh. Damian loves to laugh. And what makes him laugh the most are jokes.

Please blow that picture up and bask in the glory of Damian's laughter-hole. Now, allow me to return to the matter of his style. Take a long look at the mysterious "6" emerging from his neck, apparent also in the drawing of his head. It took me a moment to realize what this "6" was supposed to represent, and when I finally understood I gasped aloud. Pity poor Damian, who at nine years old could not draw a credible pair of eyes, but whose rat-tail was so integral to his sense of self that no portrait was complete without it.

The year was 1979, which means that Damian is currently 38 years old. So respectable! He's probably your boss right now. Or your dad.

I Urge You to Subscribe

I entered a contest today, which I hardly ever do because I am poor. I'll never win this one, though, because as I sat staring in despair at my boring cover letter I felt compelled to cross out Sincerely yours and write Extremely warm next to it. Extremely warm! I haven't laughed so much in days. It is self-sabotage, maybe, much like the huge drawing of naked Abraham Lincoln I enclosed with my last Paris Review submission, to remind a certain Dan Chiasson of our bitter fake enmity. I am not kidding, that submission was returned in four days tops. My deepest apologies, Paris Review, but it turns out that sending submissions is boring. When I finally launch my own magazine, I will require people to include two animal drawings on every submission: an animal having sex with the title and an animal giving birth to the last line. I will call it Articulated Animal Bones and I'll probably just go ahead and publish every submission I get.

TOO BAD

Yesterday, in the course of a philosophical discussion with my brother, I attempted to describe Steven Seagal's sleek and famous ponytail: It looks like he killed a seal by forcing his head through it. I thought that was very fine, but it effectively ended the conversation. Oh I'm sorry, piggy, did you choke on the pearl I just ejected?