Chamblee54

PG knew he would need to write this. It was raining cats and dogs outside. The world was stumbling into war. The excuses were wearing out. Four more stories had been read in Pretty Monsters. It was time to sit down and write.
Magic For Beginners is the story of Jeremy Mars. He lives with his weirdo parents in Plantagenet VT. If you google Plantagenet VT, you learn that no such place exists. The story begins with the news that Jeremy’s mom has inherited a phone booth, and a wedding chapel, in Las Vegas NV.
First, they have to get away from Gordon Strangle Mars, Jeremy’s dad. He writes fantasy stories about giant spiders. “Jeremy … settles down with the remote control on one of his father’s pet couches: oversized and reupholstered in an orange-juice-colored corduroy that makes it appear as if the couch has just escaped from a maximum security prison for criminally insane furniture. This couch looks as if its hobby is devouring interior decorators. Jeremy’s father is a horror writer, so no one should be surprised if some of the couches he reupholsters are hideous and eldritch.”
Eldritch “strange or unnatural especially in a way that inspires fear : weird, eerie” Most people don’t use the word eldritch. Nor do they know the difference between golem,“an artificial human being in Hebrew folklore endowed with life,” and gollum, “a stoorish hobbit in tolkien stories.”
Golem and gollum turn up in plot twists from The Library, a tv show. Jeremy, and his friends, watch it fanatically. “In the previous episode of The Library, masked piratemagicians said they would sell Prince Wing a cure for the spell which infested Faithful Margaret’s hair with miniature, wicked, fire-breathing golems.”
“The George Washington statue stepped down off his plinth and fought her tooth and nail. … The statue of George Washington bit Fox’s pinky finger right off, just like Gollum biting Frodo’s finger off on the top of Mount Doom. But of course, once the statue tasted Fox’s magical blood, it fell in love with Fox. It would be her ally from now on.” Fox is a Library character, who may, or may not be dead. Likewise, Fox may be one of Jeremy’s pals, living in a Nevada phone booth. Magic for Beginners, like the rest of Pretty Monsters, can be confusing.
Mr. and Mrs. Mars need to take a break from each other. Mrs. Mars, and Jeremy, go to Nevada to take over the wedding chapel. “He never sees anyone who looks like a Forbidden Book, although he sees a transvestite go into the women’s restroom at a rest stop in Indiana.”
“Left,” he tells his mother. “Go left here. Look out for the vampires on the crosswalk.” … Four times his mother let him drive the van: once in Utah, twice in South Dakota, once in Pennsylvania. The van smells like old burger wrappers and fake fur, and it doesn’t help that Jeremy’s gotten used to the smell.” Eventually, they get to the wedding chapel, “HELL’S BELLS.”
“Good evening, Madam. Young man,” a man says and Jeremy looks up and up and up. The man at the door has to lower his head to look out. His hands are large as toaster ovens. He looks like he’s wearing Chihuahua coffins on his feet. Two realistic-looking bolts stick out on either side of his head. He wears green pancake makeup and glittery green eye shadow, and his lashes are as long and thick and green as AstroTurf.”
“We weren’t expecting you so soon.” “We should have called ahead,” Jeremy’s mother says. “I’m so sorry.” “Great costume,” Jeremy says. The Frankenstein curls his lip in a somber way. “Thank you,” he says. “Call me Miss Thing, please.”
Meanwhile, back in Georgia, PG is in the waiting room of an eye clinic. His friend “P” is having cataract surgery, and this is the follow up visit. “P” was having blurry vision, and PG was worried. The follow up appointment usually takes one hour. “P” has been behind the double doors for one hour and forty five minutes. Finally, “P” emerges. He has been in the billing department, disputing a charge.
The first three stories took a while to read. PG normally reads while warming up the vehicle, or eating dinner. It takes a while to finish anything. This changed on December 18. The computer crashed, and had to go in the shop. Suddenly, reading a dead tree book became an important diversion. PG quickly finished three stories.
The Faery Handbag begins in a Boston thrift store. Genevieve is with her pals Natasha and Natalie, and her boyfriend Jake. Genevieve is looking for the Faery handbag. “The faery handbag: It’s huge and black and kind of hairy. … Faeries live inside it. I know what that sounds like, but it’s true.”
The handbag belonged to Zofia Swink, Genevieve’s grandmother. “At the funeral, my mother said, half laughing and half crying, that her mother was the world’s best liar. … Zofia never looked like a grandmother. She had long black hair which she wore in little braided spiky towers and plaits. She had large blue eyes. She was taller than my father. She looked like a spy or ballerina or a lady pirate or a rock star. … Zofia and I played Scrabble all the time. Zofia always won, even though her English wasn’t all that great, because we’d decided that she was allowed to use Baldeziwurleki vocabulary. Baldeziwurlekistan is where Zofia was born, over two hundred years ago. That’s what Zofia said.”
“I called it the faery handbag because I put “faery” down on the Scrabble board once. Zofia said that you spelled it with an i not an e. She looked it up in the dictionary, and lost a turn. … “Your purse is made out of dog skin?” I said. “That’s disgusting!” “Little dear pet,” Zofia said, looking wistful, “dog is delicious. To Baldeziwurlekistanians, dog is a delicacy.” … “Zofia would fold up the Scrabble board and shrug at me and Jake. “I’m a wonderful liar,” she’d say. “I’m the best liar in the world. Promise me you won’t believe a single word.”
The handbag contained villages. If people went in, they came out twenty years later, and not aged one minute. One day, Zofia let the handbag out of her sight, and Jake went inside. That was the last time anyone saw Jake.
Part One, part three, part four, and part five of this series are now available. Quotes are from the .pdf. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the pictures in September 1941. The Gaynor family at dinner on their farm. Fairfield, Vermont