The (truly weird) 1969 psychedelic Sci-Fi novel Barefoot in the Head by British author Brian Aldiss features a recurring trope wherein characters, at random intervals, keep getting surprised and distracted by a dog walking by wearing a red necktie.
I'm not implying that Best Show references to characters continually getting surprised and distracted upon seeing a mouse walking by wearing a cape are a direct, or even indirect, lift from Aldiss's book. Given that The Best Show can, with no exaggeration, be called Joycean in its scope, wit, and ability to plumb the depths of the unconscious, alls I'm saying is that I find this to be a pretty neat coincidence. The Dollar-Menu Dickens, indeed.
Someday I'll write a scholarly analysis of the absurdly deep nexuses of clustered egghead references embedded in Best Show lore, a la Ben Watson's The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play, in which Watson lines up Frank Zappa next to Joyce, Freud, Shakespeare, et al.
Also, Barefoot in the Head is the name of a Thurston Moore project he put out on Ecstatic Peace! Records back in 1990, a record in which Moore played alongside members of Borbetomagus and Thomas Pynchon penned liner notes. Hey! How's about it?
