Wolves, Werewolves, Foxes and Nuns

Only Whimsical Wanderings could bring them together

There are certain things I wonder about. Such as, why is it a penny for your thoughts, but you have to put your two cents in? Somebody’s making a penny! (Thanks to the great philosopher Steven Wright for this wonderment).

And why did people once believe the moon is made of green cheese? Why not cream cheese or Velveeta? Why cheese in the first place?

Apparently this idea comes from Slavic mythology, which sounds like a major whose graduates are qualified to say, “Would you like fries with that?”

In the 16th century a story began to circulate about a wolf who was convinced by a fox that the reflection of the moon on a pond was really a wheel of green cheese. So the wolf drinks the pond and bursts. Happily ever after this is not.

The story’s theme is gullibility, and to be wary of foxes. Not the kind of “foxes” the Czechoslovakian Festrunk brothers, Yortuk and Georg—those “wild and crazy guys”—were looking for in the old SNL skit with Dan Akroyd and Steve Martin.

Interestingly, in the 1940s, a guy on the prowl for a fox was known as a wolf. So in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, the 1948 classic with Bela Lugosi as Dracula and Lon Chaney, Jr. as The Wolfman, there’s a line where Larry Talbot (Chaney) is warning Chick (Abbott) and Wilbur (Costello) about his curse.

Talbot: I know you'll think I'm crazy, but in a half an hour the moon will rise and I'll turn into a wolf.

Wilbur: You and twenty million other guys.

Which brings me to the great Tex Avery, one of the original animators at the legendary Warner Bros. cartoon division. He had a hand in all those characters, including giving Bugs Bunny his catchphrase, “What’s up, doc?”

He moved to MGM in the 1940s, where he was given the creative freedom to create the wildest, loudest, fast-paced cartoons ever drawn. One of his characters was a slick wolf who shows up in Red Hot Riding Hood (1943). In this one, Red is an alluring dancer at a nightclub, and Wolf goes absolutely bonkers for her. His eyes pop way out, he slams tables and chairs, he howls. Because, you see, he’s a wolf, and he has his fox in sight.

Which puts me in mind of terrible pickup lines men have used over the years. Such as, “Are you Jamaican? Cause jamaican me crazy.”

Which further reminds me of the amnesiac who went into a bar and up to a blonde. said, “Say, baby, do I come here often?”

I love amnesia, though I forget why. No, wait. I remember now. It’s the basis of so many classic pulp mysteries and movies. Like in a novel by the great suspense writer Cornell Woolrich, called The Black Curtain. A man has an accident on the street, then goes home, only to learn he hasn’t been there in years. Not only that, he’s a suspect in a murder. Now the clock is ticking for him to figure out who he is and why he didn’t do it. Or did he?

Amnesia was used famously in Robert Ludlum’s novel The Bourne Identity and later in the Chistopher Nolan film Memento (1991), where the narrative goes backwards. Genius storytelling.

Someday I want to write an amnesia story and will, if I remember to do so.

***

Sister Carol Pack died in Los Angeles. She was 82 and served for 50 years in a number of parishes in California, focusing on care for the underserved, at-risk youth, and hospital chaplaincy.

There are several movies featuring nuns, such as The Bells of St. Mary’s (with Ingrid Bergman and Bing Crosby), and The Trouble With Angels (Rosalind Russell and Hayley Mills, my first on-screen crush!)

But my favorite is Lilies of the Field, starring Sidney Poitier (in his Academy Award-winning performance) as an itinerant worker who pulls his thirsty car into a scruffy chicken ranch in the Arizona desert. The ranch is the home of five German nuns, led by a steel-spined Mother Superior (the Oscar-nominated Lila Skala). The Superior believes God has sent Homer Smith (Poitier) to build them a chapel. Homer just wants to be paid for a day’s work and be on his way.

There’s a wonderful scene where the wandering Baptist uses his Bible to show that “the laborer is worthy of his hire.” But the wily Superior also has a Bible, and shows him Proverbs: "Cast in thy lot amongst us, let us all have one purse... "

If you’ve never seen it, do yourself a favor. In this era of superhero knockoffs, ear-splitting action, and frenetic kids’ fare, it’s good to rediscover a quiet, moving film in glorious black and white.

Although I combined kick-butt action with the devoted life in a series of novelettes. Years ago my son came to me with at twinkle in his eye and said, “Why don’t you write a story about a vigilante nun? You could call it Force of Habit.”

He was joking, but I thought it was a great concept. So I wrote a series. It’s about Sister Justicia Marie of the Sisters of Perpetual Justice. The titles are:

Force of Habit
Force of Habit 2: And Then There Were Nuns
Force of Habit 3: Nun the Wiser
Force of Habit 4: The Nun Also Rises
Force of Habit 5: Hot Cross Nuns
Force of Habit 6: Nun Too Soon

For your reading convenience, I’ve put them all into a collection, which you can find here.

You know, we don’t have enough poems about yaks. So here’s one by the late, great poet laureate of Mad magazine, Frank Jacobs:

The yak sits like a mammoth mop,
A shaggy apparition;
He won’t go near a barber shop
And runs from the beautician;

He bellows with a dreadful roar
But still, he won’t attack us—
He’s much too busy looking for
A young, seductive yakess.