In “Slim’s Talkin’ Blues,” Slim—or Em, or Mack—
McElderry says he ends up in a wax museum with
a pair of evil shades on, and a sign around his neck,
saying. “Beloved American Folk Poet.” Larry McMurtry
is writing three memoirs, Books, Literary Life, and
A Summing Up. NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND:
A POST-MASTERPIECE NOVEL, THE ABOVE-GROUND
REVIEW, AN ONLINE JOURNAL (OLJ): WRITING THE GREAT
AMERICAN NOVEL ON THE WORLDWIDE WEB, and SCRIB,
in which he realizes it isn’t fiction, or a memoir, or poetry, it’s just
daily typewriting. Whatever that is.
It’s just writing. He isn’t a man of
anything. You can’t sum it up,
it keeps unraveling. Flaps,
like a worn-out blind.
Unrolls, like a scrolling cursor.
Blinks. Don’t blink. You’ll miss it.
Satire is improvisational, like jazz.
It’s Lord Buckley, riffing.