Book Review: The Most of S.J. Perelman.

Scholars attempting to wrest knowledge from the skimpy shelves of the Marshall-University High School library in Minneapolis in the year of our Lord 1970, would be sadly taxed by the giggles of a slender youth who just happened to bear a remarkable resemblance to myself.

This bean pole of an adolescent, all Adam's apple and beaky proboscis, was bent over a tome entitled "The Most of S.J. Perelman" and enjoying himself tremendously with such classic pieces of literary insanity as "The Idol's Eye" or the numerous manic memoirs prefaced as "Cloudland Revisited".

He cared not that most of the pieces involved a vocabulary that would baffle a Rhodes Scholar -- the sheer insanity of the word play and blistering sarcasm shone through like a beacon on a murky night.

There has never been, nor can there ever be, another writer of the ilk of Sidney Joseph Perelman. But I refuse to try to cajole you into reading his work. If ever a writer were an acquired taste, it is Mr. Perelman. He disdains to use a simple word when a ten-dollar whopper is available. He uses French, Italian, German, and Yiddish phrases extensively, with no translation. His references are archaic and obscure to the point of Gnosticism. I still need to have a dictionary at hand when I read him.

So who wants to bother with such a shovboat? Me, for one -- and anyone who admires an artist of the first water. For Perelman is undoubtedly a virtuoso with the English language. He makes it do his manic bidding with deceptive ease.

You want I should give you an example, boychick?  Here's all the example you'll get from me, boyo: Perelman co-wrote several of the early Marx Brothers movies. So, if you've always been a closet Grouchophile, you'll realize just what kind of magical stuff Perelman is capable of. Nuff said.

Sadly, I've never been able to interest my family or friends in the brilliant work of S.J. Perelman. The common complaint is always: "He's too hard to read!"

Well, gold and diamonds are hard to find -- that's what makes them valuable. Anyone who will go to the trouble of exploring Perelman for even a half hour, wading through his coruscating prose with an encyclopedia in one hand and a LaRousse in the other, will be rewarded with lapidary writing the likes of which no longer exist in American literature.

I recently picked up a used copy of The Most of S.J. Perelman on Amazon.com for two dollars, plus shipping and handling.

Real journos do not take a bribe

Since the election, most of the attention about “news” has centered on how to get “fake news” off of Facebook and Google. Instead, why can’t organizations that care about good journalism launch a promotional campaign to teach the American public what a real journalist is? 

from The News & Observer

Real journos do not take a bribe.

Nor spiritous liquors imbibe.

The truth is their life.

They do not fear strife.

They never stoop to diatribe. 

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article118741663.html#storylink=cpy

Light the World #4

 Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun:

Ecclesiastes 11:7

Sweet light, from sun and stars and moon.

Sweet light, to which we must attune.

Sweet light, that meets us from above.

Sweet light, a symbol of His love.

Still light, that warms the heart to peace.

Still light, that brings us to our knees.

Still light, one night so long ago;

shown on a manger all aglow.

Strong light, that no one can abate.

Strong light, our life to calibrate.

Strong light, an heirloom and a force.

Strong light of Christ, our only Source! 

The Gospel Pedagogue

Machine gun through the lesson,

most Gospel teachers try;

they do not like long comments, 

or questions such as "Why?"

They send me off to slumber;

such pedagogues provoke

a boredom that does tempt me

to try an ad-lib joke.

These teachers do not like me,

as in my folding chair

I try to push the boundaries 

and ranging thought I dare.

But then, on further thinking,

uneasiness does lurk --

Am I an sincere seeker,

or just a classroom jerk?

Book Review: Mr. Laurel & Mr. Hardy. by John McCabe.

Did a book ever excite and inspire you as a child?

If not, I feel sorry for you.

When I was 9 I read John McCabe's hagiography of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, entitled "Mr. Laurel & Mr. Hardy". It changed my life. Up until then I had vague ambitions about comedy and laughter, but once I turned the last page of McCabe's book my life's course crystalized: I would catch laughter and scatter it far and wide.

And, for the most part, I did. First as a circus clown, then as a pantomime artist, and finally, in my old age when physical comedy became awkward and painful, by developing into an artisan of light verse.

I recommend this book, not because of what it did for me, but because it is so plainly and joyously written by a writer who enjoys his subject. I dislike the modern tendency of biographers to dig up all the dirt on their subject and then make a point of disparaging their subject (usually after the man or woman is dead and can't defend themselves). This is the so-called modern scholarship. It's modern malarkey, in my book.

If you can't celebrate someone's life, why write about it at all?

McCabe was a Shakespeare scholar and teacher, and he brings the Bard's rich language to his descriptions of how Stan and Ollie teamed up and operated to produce a unique world-wide belly laugh that is still reverberating in many hearts. His summation of the two is not complex:  Two nice guys who just happened to strike a vein of comic gold. It petered out eventually, and the two men lived in the shadows during their last years. They were unpretentious going up in the world, and they remained that way on their slide down.

I had the great good fortune to correspond with John McCabe for many years. I sent him a fan letter when I first joined Ringling Brothers Circus back in the early 70's, and he was kind enough to reply, asking me all sorts of question about life as a circus clown. My cache of letters from him are a cherished treasure that I dip into occasionally to warm my heart in an increasingly cold and unfunny world. Let me share just one quote with you:

"Although Laurel was the real 'brains' behind the team, thinking up the gags and actually doing most of the directing, it was Babe Hardy that everybody loved on the lot. He kept the team warm and human by occasionally standing up to Stan, when Stan proposed a gag that seemed too cruel or unfeeling. Babe would say something like "That's brilliant, Stan; but it'll scare the kids, not make 'em laugh. Can we change it, just for my sake?" And Laurel would always defer to Hardy, because, in his own words "How can you not love that big heart of his?'"

The book will make you feel good without pandering to bathos or scandal. You can purchase a good used copy on Amazon.com for about a dollar, plus shipping and handling.

Refugees face a growing backlash in a liberal Australian city

Sixty-one percent of Australians disapprove of people who arrive by boat seeking asylum, many of whom are escaping wars or persecution in Afghanistan, Iraq and Sri Lanka, an annual survey by Monash University academic Andrew Markus published last week found.

from the Washington Post

A refugee landed in Perth

met with complete lack of mirth.

They said "We don't want

either you or your aunt."

So they kept him from finding a berth. 

Five myths about the decline and fall of Rome

Rome wasn't built in a day
but fell apart almost that way.
The plebes got too haughty;
patricians too naughty -- 
and then they blew up like Pompeii. 

Light the World #4

  Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.

Isaiah 60:1 

You cannot outrun light.

You cannot hold back day.

The flame will not be hid,

As brightness leads the way.

Light makes no sound to hear,

but penetrates all space,

until it settles near

our loving Father's place.

The darkness that has sunk

so many in the mire

now flees before the light

of God and his Esquire! 

Book Review: My Life and Hard Times, by James Thurber

America has a genius for celebrating the eccentricities of family. There are always aunts and uncles coming out of the woodwork with strange fancies and occluded mindsets; cousins who are occasional jailbirds and/or lunatic backpackers; and don't forget the siblings that join cults or found them. 

Parents and grandparents appear as buffoons or throwers of gasconades. And that doesn't even begin to cover the faux ancestors that humorists like to invent; horse rustlers who wound up as guests at a necktie party or sea captains that braved the Straights of Malacca for jewel-encrusted jade Buddhas or to bring home an exotic spouse with batik tattoo.  

It's a fabulous tradition that possibly reached its height back in 1934, with the publication of James Thurber's brief autobiography and family bestiary, "My Life and Hard Times". 

Thurber details, with a reporter's dispassionate eye, the eccentricities and downright lunacy of his immediate family. With chapter headings such as "The Night the Ghost Got In" or "The Night the Bed Fell Down", you get the feeling that the Thurber household had few restful evenings -- and you'd be right. The book, which runs only 138 pages, runs the gamut from city panics to gun play to rogue pets. Thurber wastes little time or energy with run-on sentences or big words. His prose bristles with brief declarative sentences. A semi colon is as rare in his writing as a pork chop at a Jewish wedding. 

What this means is that the reader is treated to a glimpse of many fanciful characters without any fanciful prose. 

This would be a hard book to dislike for any reason. The humor is robust at times, at times rather sly and coy. But it's written without an iota of malice or venom, just lots of homespun bewilderment. This is how America used to laugh at itself -- and it's sorely missed in today's supercharged environment.

 Copies on Amazon.com are available for as little as one cent (plus shipping and handling). 

Hampshire College once again flies U.S. flag after weeks of protests

The school’s president, Jonathan Lash, announced the decision to re-raise the American flag on campus in a statement released Friday. The school and its leadership had been at the center of a roiling debate — and some ridicule — since Lash decided on Nov. 21 to stop flying the flag on the campus of the small western Massachusetts liberal arts college, following election-related protests that argued the flag represents hatred and racism.

from the Washington Post

When Hampshire College refused

to fly the flag, it really bruised

the feelings of vets

who showed their regrets

by wanting its Prez to be noosed. 

Bonus:  War with the Squirrels.   http://bit.ly/2ghyP0r