S. J. Perelman, popular raconteur of the 20th Century, doesn’t fare too well in the 21st Century. Perelman loves to include French phases in his stories. Latin phrases, too. Annoying!
Perelman spends plenty of time on Hollywood movies and Broadway plays, now long forgotten. Yes, I love Perelman’s snarky humor, but these stories from 1957 didn’t age well. Dated humor isn’t very humorous at all. Are you a S. J. Perelman fan? GRADE: C
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
And thou beside me, yacketing in the wilderness — 1 Short easterly squall, with low visibility and rising gorge — 10 Cloudland revisited: When to the sessions of sweet silent films — 17 No starch in the dhoti, s’il vous plaît — 27 De gustibus ain’t what dey used to be — 37 I am not now, nor have I ever been, a matrix of lean meat — 44 Cloudland revisited: Roll on, thou deep and dark scenario, roll — 51 The saucier’s apprentice — 59 Whereas, the former premises being kaput — 66 My heart’s in the highlands, and my neckband, too — 74 Cloudland revisited: Vintage swine — 82 Long time no sheepskin — 89 The swirling cape and the low bow — 96 Genuflection in the sun — 107 Cloudland revisited: The wickedest woman in Larchmont — 116 Swindle sheet with blueblood engrailed, arrant fibs rampant — 124 Come on in, the liability’s fine — 131 This little piggy went to market — 138 Cloudland revisited: I’m sorry I made me cry — 146 Danger: molting plumage — 154 Sorry, no phone or mail orders — 162 Don’t tell me, pretty gypsy — 169 Cloudland revisited: By the waters of razz-ma-tazz — 177 Next week at the Prado: Frankie Goya plus monster cast — 184 I’ll always call you Schnorrer, my African explorer — 191 One comely babe, piping hot — 202 Cloudland revisited: “M” is for the migraine that she gave me — 210 You’re my everything, plus city sales tax — 218 Is there a doctor in the cast? — 226 Cloudland revisited: Hungarian goulash, with battered noodles – – 236 Who stole my golden metaphor? — 244 Cloudland revisited: It takes two to tango, but only one to squirm — 251 Calling all addlepates — 259 Cloudland revisited: Shades of young girls among the flummery — 266 |
Perelman (note spelling) can still be enjoyed — in small portions at regular, widely-spaced intervals.
Dan, thanks for the heads up on Perelman. Once again, the insidious WORDPRESS spellchecker changes correct spelling to incorrect spelling! It’s maddening!
It did so repeatedly on your Myers post, too.
Todd, WORDPRESS imperiously doesn’t ask if it should make a “correction.” It just does it! And, if I’m not careful, when I correct WORDPRESS’s “correction,” WORDPRESS will just change it back again! Infuriating!
Gmail can do that as well. Certainly Facebook does, and at times Twitter.
Todd, with experiences like battling with the WORDPRESS spellchecker, I have a very Bad Feeling about Artificial Intelligence!
What Dan said, but yes, he is pretty dated these days.
Perelman’s lasting work may be his collaborations with the Marx Brothers. On the other hand, I don’t know how many people 40 and other even watch those movies anymore.
Fred, many of Perelman’s stories involve Hollywood or Broadway.
I think the Marxes still have a following, but not as huge a one as they had through the ’70s…
Todd, Time takes its toll on most Art.
As well as I can remember I’ve never read anything by him but for some reason I associate him with The New Yorker. But it was long before I started reading it, possibly before I was born.
Michael, Perelman wrote for THE NEW YORKER and other magazines and newspapers of that time. But, what he wrote for THE ROAD TO MILTOWN seemed dated to me.
Some humor does age better than other humor, no two ways about it, and topical humor about one’s peers in certain scenes requires some knowledge of those peers and scenes…anecdotes from Fred Allen in his books and certainly Robert Benchley sketches last better, or Jean Kerr essays, or so I suspect. Oscar Levant loses a lot of punch these days in surviving video, similarly…and Jack Douglas, in print. I don’t know, not having looked at any of his books for decades, if Perelman’s work also has changing senses of what’s funny about people in it…something James Thurber, for example, at times is smart or observant enough to get around.
Todd, Thurber’s humor seem to have done the best. His contemporary humorists have sunk into obscurity.
Even the title probably refers to a now-ancient tranquilizer. Or does it?
Todd, you might well be right.
Miltown was a widely-prescribed tranquilizer back when nobody worried about side-effects, addiction, etc.
One that was sued out of distribution here, at least, I think. Harlan Ellison was proud of using “lead Miltowns” as a metaphor for bullets fired at a character, iirc.
“From the doorway a roscoe said “Kachow!” and a slug
creased the side of my noggin. Neon lights exploded inside my
think-tank . . . She was as dead as a stuffed mongoose . . .
I wasn’t badly hurt. But I don’t like to be shot at. I don’t like
dames to be rubbed out when I’m flinging woo at them. “
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