The Missing Tooth #10
GLOOM, A Very Murray Christmas, and Parentheses (ranked)
Merry Christmas!
Two newsletters in as many weeks. What a treat!
This week I explore the one Magic Club no one wants to be kicked out of, my Christmas tradition, and every parentheses ranked from best to worst.
Plus a poem from Fleur Adcock I can’t believe I haven’t shared sooner and the books I’m currently reading (but probably won’t finish.)
All best,
N.
PS I love comments and feedback please keep keep them coming.
A Very Murray Christmas
Every Christmas I sit down and watch Sophia Coppola’s 2015 Christmas special, A Very Murray Christmas, alone. This isn’t by choice, I just can’t convince anyone else to watch it with me.
And, to be honest, I can’t blame them.
The film—wrapped around a paper plot involving Bill Murray snowed in at the historic New York hotel The Carlyle—is rambling collection of Christmas carols and cute, but ultimately meaningless, cameos from a series of Coppola’s fellow Nepo babies: Jason Schwartzman, Maya Rudolph, Jenny Lewis, Rashida Jones, Miley Cyrus, and George Clooney.
As the snow rages outside, the cast huddles together in Bemelmans Bar sipping Brandy and singing until Murray passes out, leading to and extended dream sequence involved Miley Cyrus, George Clooney, and a disturbing cover of Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin.
So why watch it? Is it just a pointless tradition? I watch it every year because I watch it every year?
Perhaps, but I also enjoy the songs. Even when the actors aren’t singers and their voices crack—like Chris Rock’s in Do You Hear What I Hear—it adds to the festive charm. It’s more of a sing-along than a musical. (Although I can’t forgive the bowdlerising of Fairy tale of New York. Just sing the damn words Murray.)
The setting helps. I’ve long dreamed of visiting The Carlyle, sitting at Bemelmans, surrounded by the hand-drawn murals of Ludwig Bemelmans, the author Madeline and the bar’s namesake, and listening to the piano player.
I’d loved to climb the stairs of the old building, searching for the hidden passage than JFK supposedly snuck Marilyn Monroe in on the night. I even watched the documentary, Always at The Carlyle, to get a peak into the establishment.
Perhaps I watch A Very Murray Christmas, because it feels like Christmas: people coming together on a day when the world outside has stopped, to sing, eat, and be messy.
GLOOM
Have you ever heard of the Global League of Magicians and Mentalists?
GLOMM is the largest magic organisation in the world with members including David Copperfield, Penn & Teller and Neil Patrick Harris.
The club’s size isn’t due to it’s popularity—most magicians don’t even know that they’re members—but rather because every magician in the world is automatically made a member so long as they follow two simple rules:
1. Don't be a total jerk.
2. Don't be convicted of a sex crime.
GLOOM was founded by an anonymous magician known only as The Jerx.
The Jerx is an underground figure in magic whose blog features extraordinary insight into the world of magic. And a lot of dick jokes.
In 2017, he designed a study to determine, scientifically, the fairest looking way to force a volunteer to choose a particular card. (For the magicians reading, it’s the Cross Cut Force.)
So when he decided to publish his first book, it became one of the most coveted books in magic, with collectors paying hundreds of dollars for a copy.
And with that success, came the bootleggers. He explains on the blog:
…I was bummed about the idea of releasing an expensive magic book and then having bootleg copies floating around. As I've mentioned before, I wasn't bummed for my sake. I would have very few to sell after publication regardless. But I had been in that position where I'd purchased a pricey magic book and then some dude tells me he found a pdf copy online and it kind of sucks.
So what’s an unidentified underground magician to do?
If you’re The Jerx, you get revenge in the most creatively spiteful way possible.
He created a magician’s club that bans only two groups
a) people who pirated his book.
b) convicted sex offenders.
If you want to be a jerk and get your name on that list too, knock yourself out. It will be great company to be in if anyone ever googles your name. By the way, it's not two different lists, it's just one list of banned members with no designation as to why they were banned.
The only banned member I’ve ever met is Frank Popovich, the only criminal on the list not convicted of a sex crime.
Frank is a native American magician from Big Bear Lake in California. He hand-carves beautiful shells for perform the shell game with. While the classic scam usually involves finding a pea under one of three walnut shells, Frank carved his shells to look like scarab beetles and turtle shells.
I visited Frank in Big Bear Lake a decade ago. While I was in his shop—a trading store that sold Native American crafts to tourist—a man came into to argue with Frank about some personal gripe.
A few months later, I read that Frank had shot and killed the man in the car park. He’s currently serving a life sentence for first degree murder.
I’m yet to find a non-criminal on GLOOM’S list of banned members, so there’s a chance GLOMM that could be nothing more than an elaborate bluff and an excuse to name and shame the worst people our industry has to offer.
But I’m sure as hell not going to pirate his books any time soon.
Parentheses Ranked
1. —parenthetical em-dashes—
Thanks to Emily Dickinson, it’s almost impossible to misuse these bad boys. Just claim poetic license and move on. God tier.
2. ,parenthetical commas,
They’re almost invisible to the naked eye and, as such, are vastly underrated.
3. (round brackets)
I read these like a Shakespearean aside, as if the writer is talking only to me in a stage whisper.
4. [square brackets]
Square brackets are like that friend you have with autism who interrupts sentences to correct you on a minor factual error or to tell you the dates things happened.
5. {curly braces}
I’m not a mathematician so I’m only going to use them to make emoticon moustaches but still, look at these little guys!
6. - spaced en-dashes -
Bridget loves these impotent rods and calls my beloved em-dashes “old fashioned”. It nearly destroyed out marriage.
6. ⟦Scott Brackets⟧
Don’t gets ideas above your station Scott. These are just quotation marks for math nerds and linguistics tragics.
7. «Guillmets»
If I’m using Guillmets it means I’m either using Mail Merge or speaking French. And no one wants that.
8. <Angle Brackets>
See above but for coding. Gross.
9. *Asterixis*
Using asterixis to denote an action *sighs* is not only lazy writing, it makes me think you’re trying to sext. Stop it.
For a Five-Year-Old
A snail is climbing up the window-sill
into your room, after a night of rain.
You call me in to see, and I explain
that it would be unkind to leave it there:
it might crawl to the floor; we must take care
that no one squashes it. You understand,
and carry it outside, with careful hand,
to eat a daffodil.
I see, then, that a kind of faith prevails:
your gentleness is moulded still by words
from me, who have trapped mice and shot wild birds,
from me, who drowned your kittens, who betrayed
your closest relatives, and who purveyed
the harshest kind of truth to many another.
But that is how things are: I am your mother,
and we are kind to snails.
What I’m Reading
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride By Cary Elwes and Joe Layden
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood