J.D. Howdencracker Salutes You, Fellow American

Sex: A User’s Guide
By Stephen Arnott
301 pp. Delta Trade Paperbacks. $6.95

How To Succeed in Sex Without Really Trying: A Nonconsensual Review
By J.D. Howdencracker

I begin this week’s review with a story, dear reader, detailing the harrowing circumstances leading to my acquaintance with the forthcoming reading material. I am defiant in this task, beckoning my would-be detractors to note the ways in which their plan to mock and berate me has been triumphantly turned on it’s head. To avoid any undue suspense, allow me to detail my introduction to Sex: A User’s Guide, by Stephen Arnott, which I will then proceed to review, thereby providing my weekly public service without any further delay.

I was working one of my thrice-weekly shifts at the law library of the Gifted and Talented middle school on a humid Thursday. I distinctly remember the sensual, perspiratory balm coating my hands as I shelved in Tort, recall the distinct lubrication of the hour there in the dingy corner; I was merry, and caught myself pursing my lips in a near-whistle here and there. As I wheeled the cart back into the paging area, I was surprised to notice something lodged in my timesheet cubby colored an extremely hot shade of pink. It was small, approximately 6 x 6 inches, and conspicuously placed on top of some research materials I’d gathered for a number of civil lawsuits involving the “jokes” found in Bazooka bubblegum (of which I have yet to bring before the court). I dug it out, and voila! There it was, this shameless little guide to coitus, daringly inserted into this gentleman’s cubby! It was then, as I held the thing between my thumb and forefinger, unsure of what to do next, that one of the student workers, a precocious eighth grade mute named Spike, wheeled her cart into the room and glanced up in my direction. Her face was unreadable, but somewhere beneath the cake flour and tribal scarring I saw a glimmer of amusement, making me suspect the worst of my silent friend. It would become clear later, after tossing the book into a trashcan, only to have it reappear one early morning amidst a pile of glass beneath my living room window, brick attached, that Spike’s amusement was not connected with any premeditated activity. No, this was the work of a more insidious group of derelicts, and I dare any one of them to appear before me, as I am more than prepared to engage in a round of fisticuffs with any foe.

After donning woolen gloves to protect against the slivers of glass, I began my reviewer’s ritual. I opened the book up to the approximate middle, and scanned the first sentence to get a sense of the content. It read: Castrating for Christ. I shrieked and threw the book across the room. Heavens! What was this modern obsession with castration?! I recovered and recollected the book, nervously attending to the task at hand. Must review…must press on…I opened the book again, flipping to the mid-section once more, to cop a feel, as it were, to sample the writer’s style. I read: “In 1981, a Moroccan man was charged with sexually assaulting a pelican on the Greek island of Skyros.” I knew this to be true, having known the pelican. So, he’s got his facts straight, said I. I felt a surge of strength, and decided right then that I would accomplish this feat. I would read each page of this User’s Guide, and be none the worse for it.

I must admit that I had trouble getting around particular parts, squeamish as I tend to be. And though I usually like to take things slow, to get to know the subject before diving in, the guide was a harsh mistress, forcing me to take hold of things I had never once considered, pushing me to an awakening eroticism that strained against weakening psychological levees.

…to be continued. Held for review by board of censors.

101 Essential Tips
Caring For Your Cat
by Andrew Edney and David Taylor
70 pp. DK Publishers. $5.

Agitprop Shock: Reviewing Caring For Your Cat
By J.D. Howdencracker

I became acquainted with DK Publishers’ “101 Essential Tips” series while serving time in upstate Pennsylvania—for what I regard as a rather minor incident involving a Texas state trooper, a two-ton vat of a petroleum-based lubricant and my late aunt’s Chevy Nova. The Romshack Prison Library, housed in the crawl space between the boiler room latrine and an electrified fence, provided little in the way of muscular works of literature, but had over time developed rather impressive cross- sections of B-list religious tracts, Ken Follett paperbacks, a blend of this-and-that Worker Party papers, and a decidedly curious number of Curious George volumes. It was only after spending a few hours pondering over the feasibility of a simple man with a yellow hat entrusted with such a precocious beast that I happened to catch sight of a slim volume nestled beneath a Watchtower and a mat of hair. My eyes had been cast downward per standard deep-thought processes, and in the fading glaze I found focus: 101 Essential Tips: Becoming a Big Fat Writer. It would be a redundancy to expound upon its profound value on my being.

You’ll understand my disappointment then, dear reader, as I was to revisit the usually excellent DK series with the 1995 release of Caring For Your Cat. At first glance, it bears striking resemblance to the familiar handiness of the prior guide to which I’ve mentioned. The cover’s claim to “break down the subject into 101 easy-to-grasp tips” serves as a welcoming invitation for every one of us—from the polished fop to the illiterate lipspittle—to settle down into the kind of expedient, no-frills learning we can all appreciate. Its large, roman-type numerals make counting the tips easy on the eye, and the full-color photographs of felines are varied and believably candid. If, however, a sufficiently learned (you pronounce the “ed” part like you would the name of the talking horse) individual were to sit with the subtext of the handbook, as I have, he would discover an entirely ineffectual, nay injurious piece of work that benefits neither the would-be pet owner nor the sorry brute itself. No, it would not be too harsh to draw comparisons with the ill-founded writings of the early century’s eugenicists.

Note, for example, the first section, “How To Choose a Cat.” While the first tip, “Why Buy a Cat?” is an entirely thorough examination of the philosophy of cat ownership, the second tip “Which Sex?” is an unapologetic display of the kind of tired gender roles that this reviewer has learned to eschew for success with the sexually promiscuous women’s-libber. The accompanying photo displays the exceptionally virile male ginger tabby lording over the passive, dusky female. Shockingly, the caption reads, “If, however, your male cat is neutered, it will become more docile and ‘female-like.’” Whatever the editors’ views of biological determinism may be, the violent implications of matters such as castration are not to be discussed in cavalier terms such as these. Particularly with vulnerable artist-types.

Tips #4 and #5, comparing the relative advantages and disadvantages of the “longhairs” and “shorthairs,” are supplying, in the opinion of this writer, crass monikers that only serve to highlight our very own social dilemma. To draw the same divisions amongst the felis catus as exist between the hippie and the working man is to wipe our grime onto a clean towel, as it were. Furthermore, to my knowledge, cats are rarely employed nowadays anyhow, and so the idea that one breed of cat should work to undermine capitalism with their sloth-driven anarchy is nothing but nonsensical.

What other assumptions does this text make on its readership besides cultural and moral backwatership? Well, that you possess a cat, for one. I found it nearly impossible to get a good grasp any of the tips past #11 without actually having a cat to experiment upon. Be forewarned: this is not a post-dinner-by-the-fire sort of read. Actual enterprise is expected. This is in contrast to 1967’s Becoming a Big Fat Writer guide, as it asked one to bring nothing but a large inheritance (supplied by the late aunt). And so I made my way to the local animal shelter (covered in tip #8) to select a specimen. Once selected, I found myself invigorated by the promise of applying what I had learned. The section on grooming had seven tips outlined, and I counted under my breath each number—45, 46—as I digested each instruction. It was infinitely frustrating to at once discover that not only could I not apply two of the seven tips—#49, brushing a shorthair, and #50, brushing a longhair—as my cat was hairless, but that the little man had leapt from my window as I had been outlining and sketching a proper diagram to clean his every cavity. It is surely bad planning on the editors’ part to not include such dictums as “Avoid placing your cat near an open window.”

Without a cat, it is hard to truly place any value on tips such as “How to Treat Ear Mites,” “Worms,” and “Diarrhea.” What might have been helpful advice for a human specimen such as myself is shrouded in cat-specific jargon that helps me none. I will say that the final section of the book, “First Aid,” is itself a genuinely thrilling, visceral ride through entirely hypothetical situations. Barring the use of documented images of cat despair and peril, Art Editor Colin Walton provides well-executed drawings of removing a bee sting from a tender ear, treating the wounds of a devilish tom, and a crime scene that teaches one to note broken bottle pieces lying near a drooling flop of a pet as indications of accidental (or otherwise) poisoning.

It does not all end well, however, as tips #59 through #62—Stop that Aggression, Stop that Straying, Fighting Spirit, and Nervous Grooming—read much like my sister-in-law’s letters to my ex-wife during our marriage. This is an admittedly subjective observation, but nevertheless it seems to me a rather off-putting bit of manipulative psychobabble.

Caring For Your Cat, a divisive handbook that lays in wait for the innocent to thumb through in a supermarket checkout line, has left me a harried man, shedding the hair my hairless pet would not have shed. As always, I invite all of you who may have also acquired such tripe to meet on the corner of 2nd and Main for a communal book burning. Next week I will be vacationing in southern Auckland on an emu farm, but I shall return the following week with my review of the September 17th -24th T.V. Guide.

J.D. “Bigguns” Howdencracker was born in 1963 to a promiscuous farm girl named Olive. His upbringing has nothing to do with his current problems adjusting to society, lest you put all of the blame on his well-meaning parents. He began writing at the age of five, having finally mastered the spelling of his name. His review column is read by at least three people each week and syndicated on select bathroom stalls of the Northeastern Ohio truck stop community. He lives in Cleveland with his fish, Judy, and his loyal hostage, Ben.