Suddenly something like a verbal explosion occurred. I think that what I had to say had built to such a level within me that it couldn’t be contained, there could be no more hemming, no more hawing, no more beating around the bush. It wanted out, and out it came, in a rushing burst: “Guppa, you should see what Marvin’s mother makes—they’re little trees with trunks twisted out of wire and wire branches that grow out from the trunks, and on the ends of the branches she hangs little bits and pieces of metal in lots of different shapes and some of them are even colored, and they whirl around in the slightest little bit of wind because they’re so well balanced, and these little whirling bits of metal coruscate as they whirl—you know, catch the light—and they look just great even though they don’t do anything, or I should say don’t do anything more than catch the light, which turns out to be something pretty important, because I figured out that if you’re going to win on ‘Fantastic Contraptions’ you have to have little bits of stuff like Mrs. Jones’s windflowers—that’s what she calls them, windflowers—just whirring and turning and catching the light, because people really like useless coruscations, although you’d have to say that they’re not really useless because they do have a use—although I’m not sure whether their use is a less important or a more important use than the kind of use that we would usually think of as useful—but anyway it turns out, at least it seems to me, that little whirling bits like windflowers make the people in the audience laugh, and Flo and Freddie use them to make jokes about, which turns out to be pretty important, because when you get right down to it I think jokes are what Flo and Freddie’s show is really all about, because they could have a show called ‘Flo and Freddie’s Amazing Chickens’ and it wouldn’t matter because the chickens would just be there as an excuse for Flo and Freddie to make jokes and tell stories about Flo’s crazy uncles, so what I think would be a really good idea would be for you to get together with Mrs. Jones and have her make some really big windflowers to hold the trash can lids up instead of those posts that you have now, which are really just pieces of scrap wood, after all, and not even painted, and I think you’d have to admit that they don’t look too good, but instead of those old posts you’d have really colorful tree trunks with windflowers on most of the branches except for one on each trunk that the trash can lid would hang from, but the people in the audience would hardly see it with all those bright flashing windflowers, even though it would still be doing its job, of course, and those windflowers might just be the key to success because something I’m starting to understand is that appearances count for a lot, as you’ve told me so often yourself about selling Studebakers, and as Porky says about the restaurant, ‘It’s got to have character, and if it’s got character it doesn’t really need anything else—in fact, the food doesn’t even have to be any good,’ so what do you say?”
While I was speaking, my whole body seemed to be working along with my mouth at the task of convincing Guppa that this was the thing to do. My hands gesticulated in a wild way, unrelated, as far as I could tell, to the substance of what I was saying, but eager to join in, and out of my control. Frequently they flew into my hair and tugged, flipped, and frazzled it, so that by the time I’d finished I resembled Quanto the Minimum after one of his dizzying flights.
Guppa was amazed. I think my presentation must have been so amazing that he couldn’t have said anything but what he did, which was, “Well, okay, sure, why not?”
[to be continued]
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies, Herb ’n’ Lorna, and Reservations Recommended.
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document) and at Encyclopedia.com.
Share this post