Mark Twain’s Viciously Funny Marginalia Took Aim at Some Literary Greats

in Comedy, Literature | November 20th, 2013

plutarch-twain

Hem­ing­way once said that “all mod­ern Amer­i­can lit­er­a­ture comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huck­le­ber­ry Finn.” Twain, how­ev­er, was not only a mas­ter of sub­tle­ty and humor in fic­tion, but also a pierc­ing­ly fun­ny and some­times scathing essay­ist whose pen ranged from pol­i­tics to lit­er­ary crit­i­cism. Despite pub­lish­ing many bit­ing essays, many of Twain’s best barbs nev­er reached their tar­gets. Instead they remained with­in the mar­gin­a­lia of his books. In a series of doc­u­ments made pub­lic by the New York Times, Twain’s ire at slop­py writ­ing makes itself known. Some com­ments, like this one regard­ing his friend, Rud­yard Kipling, are fair­ly innocu­ous:

KIPLING-1

While Kipling got off light­ly, John Dryden’s trans­la­tion of Plutarch’s Lives seems to have hit a nerve, caus­ing Twain to change the inscrip­tion to “trans­lat­ed from the Greek into rot­ten Eng­lish by John Dry­den; the whole care­ful­ly revised and cor­rect­ed by an ass.” (Up top)

DROOLINGS-1

Notes in the mar­gins of Lan­don D. Melville’s Sarato­ga in 1901 show that it fared no bet­ter. Twain, it appears, renamed the vol­ume, dub­bing it â€śSarato­ga in 1891, or The Drool­ings of An Idiot.”

He also deemed some of the writ­ings to be the “Wail­ings of an Idiot.”

LITTLE MIND

And, just so there was­n’t any ambi­gu­i­ty about what he thought, Twain labeled Melville a “lit­tle mind­ed per­son.”

For more of Mark Twain’s jot­tings, head over to the New York Times’ doc­u­ment archive and The Mark Twain House & Muse­um.

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mark Twain Plays With Elec­tric­i­ty in Niko­la Tesla’s Lab (Pho­to, 1894)

Mark Twain Drafts the Ulti­mate Let­ter of Com­plaint (1905)

Mark Twain Cap­tured on Film by Thomas Edi­son in 1909. It’s the Only Known Footage of the Author

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Stephen Colbert & Louis CK Recite The Gettysburg Address, With Some Help from Jerry Seinfeld

in Comedy, History, Politics | November 19th, 2013

On a Thurs­day after­noon in Novem­ber of 1863, Edward Everett took to the stage in Get­tys­burg, Penn­syl­va­nia, to deliv­er the main address at the Con­se­cra­tion Cer­e­mo­ny of the Nation­al Ceme­tery. Everett was a politi­cian who had served as both a clas­sics pro­fes­sor and pres­i­dent of Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty, and was also a renowned ora­tor. His address to the 15,000-strong crowd began on the fol­low­ing grandil­o­quent note, which Everett pro­ceed­ed to hold for two hours:

“Stand­ing beneath this serene sky, over­look­ing these broad fields now repos­ing from the labors of the wan­ing year, the mighty Alleghe­nies dim­ly tow­er­ing before us, the graves of our brethren beneath our feet, it is with hes­i­ta­tion that I raise my poor voice to break the elo­quent silence of God and Nature. But the duty to which you have called me must be per­formed; grant me, I pray you, your indul­gence and your sym­pa­thy.”

Despite this wave of lofty sen­ti­ment, Everett’s speech was over­shad­owed by the 278-word for­mu­la­tion that would for­ev­er com­mem­o­rate that day, deliv­ered by Abra­ham Lin­coln.

Unlike Everett’s remarks, Lincoln’s Get­tys­burg address (whose five ver­sions can be found here) has shown lit­tle wear since its deliv­ery on Novem­ber 19, exact­ly 150 years ago. While there is some evi­dence to sug­gest that the audi­ence was ini­tial­ly non­plussed by the speech’s sim­ple lan­guage and strik­ing brevi­ty, today Lincoln’s words are con­sid­ered to be among the most fine­ly wrought rhetoric in the West­ern canon: they remain acces­si­ble to all, yet seam­less­ly entwine the thread of equal­i­ty that ran so clear­ly through the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence with the idea of the war being essen­tial to the preser­va­tion of the Union. One can­not help but sus­pect that hon­est Abe failed to grasp the impact that his pithy ora­tion would have; Everett’s sub­se­quent com­ments to the Pres­i­dent, how­ev­er, pre­fig­ured the speech’s his­tor­i­cal arc:

“I should be glad if I could flat­ter myself that I came as near to the cen­tral idea of the occa­sion, in two hours, as you did in two min­utes.”

In hon­or of the 150th anniver­sary of Lincoln’s deliv­ery of the Get­tys­burg address, doc­u­men­tar­i­an Ken Burns has embarked on a project called Learn The Address in an attempt to get Amer­i­cans to record their recita­tions of the speech. In the mashup below, Burns pro­vides footage of politi­cians, enter­tain­ers, and jour­nal­ists giv­ing their ren­di­tions. We’ve also includ­ed some of our favorites, includ­ing Stephen Colbert’s high­ly com­i­cal mono­logue (top) and Jer­ry Sein­feld explain­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of the address to Louis CK, right above.

For more ver­sions of Lin­col­n’s Get­tys­burg address, includ­ing those by Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, Conan O’Brien, and Bill O’Reil­ly, head to Ken Burn’s Learn The Address site.

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman.

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Watch a 44-Minute Supercut of Every Woody Allen Stammer, From Every Woody Allen Film

in Comedy, Film | November 7th, 2013

In dai­ly life, Woody Allen is far from the del­i­cate bun­dle of cere­bral nerves he so often por­trays in his films. He was a suc­cess­ful track run­ner in high school, and, accord­ing to Eric Lax’s biog­ra­phy, trained for sev­er­al months to par­tic­i­pate in the Gold­en Gloves. But, as with so many young pugilists, parental con­cern got in the way—his par­ents refused to sign the con­sent form to let him box.

On screen, how­ev­er, Woody Allen remains Hollywood’s reign­ing neb­bish. Jesse Eisen­berg once seemed poised to take the title, but while he is some­times ner­vous and intro­vert­ed, his per­for­mance in The Social Net­work con­firmed that he can har­ness the flash­es of inten­si­ty seen in teenage films like The Squid and The Whale and Adven­ture­land.  Michael Cera, mean­while, the sec­ond most promi­nent of the con­tenders, is a whol­ly dif­fer­ent actor to Allen—while Allen is inse­cure and all-too-vol­u­ble, Cera is sim­ply all-too-nice.

Allen’s unabashed delight in his inse­cu­ri­ties and his hypochon­dri­ac con­cern with neu­roses is the plat­form for much of his humor. He has honed the persona’s man­ner­isms to per­fec­tion, and the clip above pro­vides a mas­ter class in just one: the Allen stam­mer. By the end of this stag­ger­ing­ly impres­sive 44-minute super­cut, con­tain­ing every sin­gle one of Allen’s ver­bal stum­bles and foot-drags from all of his movies, you should have laughed, cried, and fall­en into a stu­por. Please enjoy respon­si­bly.

via Huff­in­g­ton Post

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Woody Allen Box­es a Kan­ga­roo, 1966

Woody Allen Lists the Great­est Films of All Time: Includes Clas­sics by Bergman, Truf­faut & Felli­ni

Watch an Exu­ber­ant, Young Woody Allen Do Live Stand Up on British TV (1965)

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Watch Rare Film of Richard Pryor Singing the Blues: No Joke, All Heart

in Comedy, Music | November 1st, 2013

With the pos­si­ble excep­tion of Bey­once as Etta James in Cadil­lac Records, no onscreen por­tray­al of a female jazz singer tops Diana Ross as Bil­lie Hol­i­day in Lady Sings the Blues. She is so mes­mer­iz­ing, in fact, that it’s easy to for­get, if you haven’t seen the movie recent­ly, that Ross is flanked by two oth­er excel­lent per­form­ers in Bil­ly Dee Williams as Louis McK­ay, a com­pos­ite stand-in for Holiday’s three hus­bands, and Richard Pry­or as the “Piano Man,” Ross’s accom­pa­nist. It was a role that “pro­pelled him into star­dom” and kept Pry­or out in front of an audi­ence as a movie actor. Watch a clip from the film below, with Ross’s Hol­i­day and Pry­or’s surly Piano Man togeth­er at 3:39.

Odd as it seems that a dra­mat­ic role would be Pryor’s break­out per­for­mance, unex­pect­ed still per­haps is the video at the top of Pry­or singing the blues him­self. None of his raunchy or self-dep­re­cat­ing wit here, just a gen­uine, heart­felt ren­di­tion of Jim­my Cox’s 1924 “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.” Accord­ing to eOne Music’s Eric Alper, Pry­or not only start­ed per­form­ing com­e­dy after he moved to New York City in 1963, he also sang, open­ing for such soon-to-be-greats as Nina Simone and Bob Dylan. Pry­or in fact got his start on the club cir­cuit as a drum­mer, so “he was famil­iar with the scene.” Movies.com recounts a poignant sto­ry from Simone’s auto­bi­og­ra­phy about Pryor’s intense stage fright before one of these ear­ly gigs:

He shook like he had malar­ia, he was so ner­vous. I couldn’t bear to watch him shiv­er so I put my arms around him there in the dark and rocked him like a baby until he calmed down. The next night was the same, and the next, and I rocked him each time.

As a singer, Pry­or doesn’t chan­nel and focus his anx­i­ety so much as he slow­ly mas­ters it, appear­ing a lit­tle stiff at first but even­tu­al­ly knock­ing it out with a sur­pris­ing­ly good per­for­mance that well deserves a lis­ten. The prove­nance of the clip isn’t exact­ly clear, and some intro mate­r­i­al marks it as part of a doc­u­men­tary, maybe. Please weigh in if you know or sus­pect the film clip’s source.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Richard Pry­or Does Ear­ly Stand-Up Com­e­dy Rou­tine in New York, 1964

Nina Simone Per­forms Six Songs in 1968 TV Spe­cial, The Sound of Soul

Hear Zora Neale Hurston Sing the Bawdy Prison Blues Song “Uncle Bud” (1940)

Watch the Only Known Footage of the Leg­endary Blues­man Lead Bel­ly (1935 and 1945)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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10 Figures of Speech Illustrated by Monty Python: Paradiastole, Epanorthosis, Syncatabasis & More

in Comedy, Literature, Philosophy, Poetry | October 31st, 2013

Ah, the ancient art of rhetoric. There’s no escap­ing it. Var­i­ous­ly defined as “the art of argu­men­ta­tion and dis­course” or, by Aris­to­tle in his frag­ment­ed trea­tise, as “the means of per­sua­sion [that] could be found in the mat­ter itself; and then styl­is­tic arrange­ment,” rhetoric is com­pli­cat­ed. Aristotle’s def­i­n­i­tion fur­ther breaks down into three dis­tinct types, and he illus­trates each with lit­er­ary exam­ples. And if you’ve ever picked up a rhetor­i­cal guide—ancient, medieval, or mod­ern—you’ll be famil­iar with the lists of hun­dreds of unpro­nounce­able Greek or Latin terms, each one cor­re­spond­ing to some quirky fig­ure of speech.

Well, as usu­al, the inter­net pro­vides us with an eas­i­er way in the form of the video above of 10 fig­ures of speech “as illus­trat­ed by Mon­ty Python’s Fly­ing Cir­cus,” one of the most lit­er­ate of pop­u­lar arti­facts to ever appear on tele­vi­sion. There’s “para­di­as­tole,” the fan­cy term for euphemism, demon­strat­ed by John Cleese’s over­ly deco­rous news­cast­er. There’s “epanortho­sis,” or “imme­di­ate and emphat­ic self-cor­rec­tion, often fol­low­ing a slip of the tongue,” which Eric Idle over­does in splen­did fash­ion. Every pos­si­ble poet­ic fig­ure or gram­mat­i­cal tic seems to have been named and cat­a­logued by those philo­soph­i­cal­ly resource­ful Greeks and Romans. And it’s like­ly that the Pythons have uti­lized them all. I await a fol­low-up video in lieu of read­ing any more rhetor­i­cal text­books.

via Coudal

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Mon­ty Python’s “Sum­ma­rize Proust Com­pe­ti­tion” on the 100th Anniver­sary of Swann’s Way

The Mon­ty Python Phi­los­o­phy Foot­ball Match: The Greeks v. the Ger­mans

Clas­sic Mon­ty Python: Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw Engage in a Hilar­i­ous Bat­tle of Wits

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Watch an Exuberant, Young Woody Allen Do Live Stand Up on British TV (1965)

in Comedy, Television | October 29th, 2013

In 1965, Woody Allen took time out from his first film What’s New Pussy­cat to tape a half-hour of stand up in front of a live tele­vi­sion audi­ence in the UK.

Exu­ber­ant and horny in an adorable, pup­py­ish way, the 30-year-old com­ic seemed to rel­ish this return to his night­club act. The com­e­dy is sit­u­a­tion­al, obser­va­tion­al, auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal — imag­ine Louis CK with a PG vocab­u­lary, no kids, a neck­tie and a twin­kle in his eye. Already ensconced on the Upper East Side, he paints a decid­ed­ly down­town vision of a New York pop­u­lat­ed by artists’ mod­els, swing­ing Ben­ning­ton girls, and women with pierced ears. Like Louis—or the young Brook­lyn hip­sters on Girls—he’s itch­ing to score.

It does a body good to see him at this “child­like” stage of his career.

As he told jour­nal­ist Eric Lax in Con­ver­sa­tions with Woody Allen:

“…comics are child­like and they are suing for the approval of the adults. Some­thing goes on in a the­ater when you’re four­teen years old and you want to get up onstage and make the audi­ence laugh. You’re always the sup­pli­cant, want­i­ng to please and to get warm laughs. Then what hap­pens to comics — they make it and they become a thou­sand times more wealthy than their audi­ence, more famous, more idol­ized, more trav­eled, more cul­ti­vat­ed, more expe­ri­enced, more sophis­ti­cat­ed, and they’re no longer the sup­pli­cant. They can buy and sell their audi­ence, they know so much more than their audi­ence, they have lived and trav­eled around the world a hun­dred times, they’ve dined at Buck­ing­ham Palace and the White House, they have chauf­feured cars and they’re rich and they’ve made love to the world’s most beau­ti­ful women — and sud­den­ly it becomes dif­fi­cult to play that los­er char­ac­ter, because they don’t feel it. Being a sup­pli­cant has become much hard­er to sell. If you’re not care­ful, you can eas­i­ly become less amus­ing, less fun­ny. Many become pompous… A strange thing occurs: You go from court jester to king.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Woody Allen Amus­es Him­self by Giv­ing Untruth­ful Answers in Unaired 1971 TV Inter­view

Woody Allen Lists the Great­est Films of All Time: Includes Clas­sics by Bergman, Truf­faut & Felli­ni

Woody Allen Box­es a Kan­ga­roo, 1966

Ayun Hal­l­i­day won­ders that she has yet to bump into this famous and cur­mud­geon­ly  New York­er.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Watch Slipping Storm Troopers in Previously Unseen Blooper Reel & Outtakes from Star Wars

in Comedy, Film | October 29th, 2013

The “bloop­er” reel above from the film­ing of Star Wars: Episode 4, we’re told by io9, is “brand new” footage. Brand new to us, of course. Dis­cov­ered by a Red­di­tor, it made the rounds yes­ter­day and every­one pro­nounced it amaz­ing. And so it is. Many scenes lack audio, mak­ing the humor all the more sub­tle. We get some line flubs, action scenes gone awk­ward, and the vin­tage ear­ly title below.

SWVintageTitle

If you’re any­thing like every­one else I know who’s seen this (if you’re read­ing this—you like­ly are), you’ll watch the two and a‑half minute reel at least two or three times, if not more. And if you find your­self less than jazzed about the com­ing of Star Wars: Episode 7 (or about the exis­tence of episodes 1–3), we’ll at least have the hun­dreds of new memes spawned by this ridicu­lous footage. As i09 says, “get to GIF-ing, peo­ple.” And get to writ­ing dia­logue for those silent scenes.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch the Very First Trail­ers for Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi (1976–83)

Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Revis­its Aban­doned Movie Sets for Star Wars and Oth­er Clas­sic Films in North Africa

Star Wars Uncut: The Epic Fan Film

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

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An Awkward/NSFW Interview with Nirvana Producer Steve Albini (Plus B‑52 Frontman Fred Schneider)

in Comedy, Music | October 26th, 2013

Record engi­neer Steve Albi­ni got a fair amount of press last month when the music world cel­e­brat­ed the 20th anniver­sary of Nir­vana’s In Utero, an album Albi­ni helped ush­er into the world in 1993. It would be Nir­vana’s last stu­dio record­ing.

In a recent post on Open Cul­ture, Josh Jones described Albi­ni as fol­lows:

Jour­ney­man record pro­duc­er Steve Albi­ni … is per­haps the cranki­est man in rock. This is not an effect of age. He’s always been that way, since the emer­gence of his scary, no-frills post-punk band Big Black and lat­er projects Rape­man and Shel­lac. In his cur­rent role as elder states­man of indie rock and more, Chicago’s Albi­ni has devel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion as kind of a hardass. He’s also a con­sum­mate pro­fes­sion­al who musi­cians want to know and work with.

In the video above cre­at­ed by leg­endary com­ic out­fit Sec­ond City, Albi­ni sits down (lit­er­al­ly) to talk with a stand­ing, awk­ward Tuck­er Wood­ley. It’s amus­ing, cer­tain­ly uncom­fort­able, and occa­sion­al­ly Not Safe for Work. We also have Wood­ley’s inter­view with Fred Schnei­der, of the B‑52s,  below.

Thanks to our read­er Nate D. for send­ing this along.

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter and Google Plus and make us part of your dai­ly social media diet.

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