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Archive for the ‘Humor’ Category
The Morning After: Too Much Eggnog?
Wednesday, December 12th, 2012“An Object of Beauty” by Steve Martin
Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010.
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Many readers are going to enjoy this rich, wise and entertaining novel, especially those of you who happen to be:
Part of the art world. “An Object of Beauty” is a closely-observed story that traces the rise and fall of a young business woman in New York City, from 1993 to 2009. It is set in a corner of the commercial arena that traffics in works of fine art. If you work or play in the world of artists, art dealers, gallery owners, auction houses and their supporting enterprises; or if you are simply a curious outsider interested in what Martin calls “this insular collective” — then “An Object of Beauty” is sure to please. During the course of a well-constructed tale, Martin holds a mirror up to the art community’s denizens and their transgressions. If this is unfamiliar territory, you’ll want to be in “learning mode” as Martin (himself an experienced buyer, seller, and lover of art) pauses the narrative from time to time to deliver a mini art history lesson next to an illustration of a painting or sculpture (there are 22 in all) important to the developing plot. On a practical note, he also offers tips on how to negotiate your way through this strange jungle. Martin names names and reveals prices (throughout the novel there is a Balzac-like focus on the prices of everything).
Collectors. Although the reader’s attention is on the wily plots of the young careerist Lacey Yeager, and secondarily on the fate of her friend Daniel (an art critic and the story’s narrator), the author also populates the book with a parade of minor characters who suffer from the collecting disease. They occupy a spectrum from the savvy and methodical to the passionate, obsessive, and borderline insane. Martin displays a psychologist’s skill in exposing the emotional sources of their never-ending longing. If you are, or if you know, a capital-“c” Collector (of coins, dolls, baseball cards, whatever), you will likely find these sketches funny and right on the money.
Fans of Mr. Martin. We know Steve Martin can be a consummate happy clown, and part of the marketing campaign for this novel will (misleadingly) associate the book with his antic, feel-good, sweetness-and-light side. But Martin is more than that, as true fans and readers of his two novellas (Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company) know. And we value and trust his serious interests. Yes, there is wit in the new novel, and Martin’s trademark wordplay and love of paradox (“it was easier to sell a painting that was not for sale”), but he wisely suppresses his protean comedic chops in furtherance of the story. Fans of the author will appreciate that “An Object of Beauty” is a serious novel.
In telling a tale of misplaced values and money run amuck, in a world where relationships are polluted by greed and dishonesty, what comes through is Martin’s essential modesty. He avoids making definitive statements. While he may wax philosophical, especially on matters of aesthetics (his own seduction by the power of great art is evident), he makes no grand pronouncements. Instead, there is simply a keen-eyed view of human failings and, sadder still, a sober acceptance of the rarity of love. Martin is a quiet moralist.
Hey, just askin’
Friday, October 29th, 2010.
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So you’re wondering what ever happened to the boy in the photograph? Could finding the answer be as easy as connecting the dots to the cover of this new book?
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i live. i ride. i am. i yi yi.
Sunday, December 6th, 2009The first six words in the title of this post — if you count each un-capitalized “i” as a word — is the tagline of a new advertising campaign for Jeep vehicles. The campaign’s 30-second TV commercials have not been well received by media observers. See, for example, comments here, here, and here. Jeep is also placing “i live, i ride, i am” advertisements in magazines, and in my opinion these are truly, madly, deeply, bad. I’m talking about text so awful it defies parody. Here is a two-page spread in the December 14, 2009 edition of TIME magazine (pages 34-35):
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The words that appear in faint gray type in the upper right quadrant — the text providing the premise for the punchy tagline — reads as follows:
i’ve been through hell and high water
i can text but prefer to talk
i read Keats and wear cleats
i think toy dogs are ok
but big dogs rule
i get my “fresh catch” from
the sushi bar sometimes
i wear all earth tones,
but mud is my favorite.
Yes, those lower-case “i”s are indigenous to the copy. It wouldn’t surprise me if a phalanx of Apple attorneys were suspiciously eyeing those “i”s. It also wouldn’t surprise me if those same lawyers offer Chrysler, in lieu of crippling litigation, a friendly settlement proposal calling for minor changes in the tag line:
i live. i ride. i phone. i pod. i mac. i am.
But for now let’s give credit where credit is due. It was the Mad Men at Jeep’s advertising firm who came up with the idea of eschewing margins in favor of pseudo-poetically centering each of the nine descriptive lines. And it was their idea to italicize the word sometimes — a nuance sure to render many a reader weak-kneed.
I confess I was puzzled, however, to find the bold lack of punctuation surrendering to convention just when the statement reaches its final two lines. It’s as if the copywriter, almost done with the task, was suddenly touched by the ghost of her tenth grade English teacher, who whispered a plea: A comma and a period, please!
On the other hand, who among us can resist forming a wry smile at the rhyming of Keats with cleats? Clever.
As for the trendy sentiments expressed in the ad, yes, they’re sophomoric. But so what? (The visiting ghost came from the tenth grade, remember?) Maybe the whole thing is an homage to the malarkey found in the Manifesto of Thompson Hotels?
But enough about words. The bigger oddity is the photo in the left panel of the ad. This, presumably, is the Keatsian survivor of the fabled watery hell (or was it hellish waters?). This is a man who does not know for sure whether tonight’s dinner will include sushi. Can you blame him for scowling at us? Of course not.
But I wonder: Why was he asked to take a pose that is in-your-face and awkward, macho and goofy? Hey, I know the arm swing’s a guy thing; I do it too. But here’s the risk: Someone will be tempted to suggest this guy’s next gig ought to be on stage playing opposite Katisha (She: “My right elbow has a fascination that few can resist.” He: “Ditto my left, baby.”)
Is it just me, or do you also find the more you stare at the picture the more his bare forearm looks like a raw turkey drumstick attached to his left ear? (OK, maybe it’s just too close to Thanksgiving for me.) Whether it be a drumstick or an arm, the fact is the thing’s projecting forward from pictorial space, and none too elegantly. As artists will testify, foreshortening can be a bitch. See, for example, Durer’s posthumously published treatise, De Symmetria. So why did the creator of the ad go there, and why compound the problem by featuring a limb that’s freakishly fingerless?
At least when we watch Simon Cowell’s bad habit of scratching the back of his neck, we see him in motion (as in this video at 1:41 – 1:43) and we get to see his hand, as shown in this screen shot:
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[As for the title of this post, if you want to read more about “i yi yi” (aka, “Aye Yi Yi”), an expression used to show frustration, hopelessness, sadness, annoyance, click here and here.]
Quote for the Week . . . and a Spammer’s Joke
Sunday, October 18th, 2009From an article in The Wilson Quarterly, online here, comes this observation by Tyler Cowen:
“The measure of cultural literacy today is not whether you can ‘read’ all the symbols in a Rubens painting but whether you can operate an iPhone or other web-related technologies.”
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In recent days this blog has received a spate of comments from spammers fronting for online “pharmacies” (if you know what I mean). Each message begins by recounting a joke (to lower your defenses?). I thought one of the jokes was good enough to repeat here. It’s in the child-pleasing Q&A format and goes like this:
“What happens to illegally parked frogs?”
“They get toad away.”
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The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest: Update
Monday, August 3rd, 2009Back in February I reported on my many failed attempts at winning The New Yorker’s cartoon caption writing contest. Now there’s one more failure to add to the pile. For Contest #201 (July 27,2009), I decided to improve my odds of losing by submitting two captions. Below is the cartoon (drawn by veteran cartoonist Tom Cheney) followed by five possible captions — two of my ideas mixed in with the three finalists announced this morning.
“My office? Think of an Edward Hopper — but with lots more light and air.”
“Maybe we should do the firings in the basement?”
“They said the complaint box was anonymous.”
“Let’s meet in my office, weather permitting.”
“Hello, Mother? I reached the top. Now what?”
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The winner (which again will not be me) is going to be announced August 24. In the meantime, I found something to support the first caption. It inspires an alternative caption of even greater obscurity:
“Me? Oh, just waiting for that secretary in the blue painted-on dress.”
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UPDATE (08/25/2009): The second, third and fourth entries above were the three finalists. The winner was the fourth caption. I found another Hopper painting somewhat in the same spirit as Tom Cheney’s cartoon, at least insofar as this office also appears to be al fresco: “Office in a Small City” (1953).
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Better Thought Next Time, No. 3 (Joel Stein)
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009Joel Stein, humorist and frequent contributor to Time magazine, where his pieces are often the best thing between the covers, is a very funny fellow indeed. True, his humor is mostly adolescent, and if you’ve been reading his stuff for years, like me, you may be wondering, when is this guy ever going to grow up already? The answer, I suspect, is never, not ever. Because on that day he’d have to find another line of work.
Joel Stein has a blog. Let me correct that: he had a blog. Let me correct my correction: he has a blog but it’s been defunct for nearly three years. He stopped posting after a final entry dated September 6, 2006. And from what I saw of his other posts, well, let’s just say abandonment was a mercy. His heart wasn’t in it (translation: there was no money in it, and as Dr. Johnson said, no one but a fool ever wrote except for money). Foolishly, I have a blog, and my most recent post is the one you’re enjoying this very moment. Or it could be that my most recent post is an even newer one, and though hard to believe, the newer post might be even more of a joy to read than this!
So the question I’m asking is, who is smarter, Joel or me? And who has more endurance when it counts? (This may come down to a split decision.)
Before my theme becomes completely stale, I wanted to mention an article by Stein that appeared in the April 16, 2009 edition of Time. There Joel ruminates at great length on his and other guys’ penises. He does so under the guise of examining the great circumcision debate (“Joel Stein Contemplates Circumcision (For His Son),” here). I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with Joel thinking and writing about his or other people’s genitals. It’s a potentially humorous subject and Stein is a funny guy (or did I say that already?) But the article contains one very odd thought, actually a strange thought accompanied by a strange image, that occurred to him in the course of comparing Americans and Europeans. Stein writes:
“Our penises are clean and sleek and new like Frank Gehry skyscrapers, while theirs are crumbling, ancient edifices inhabited by fat old men in hats.”
Let’s pause for moment. (You wanted to catch your breath anyway, right?)
OK, then. Someone’s got to step up to the plate — and I volunteer to be that someone — and ask whether Mr. Stein has even the teensy-weensiest bit of familiarity with the architectural designs of Frank Gehry’s skyscrapers? Not Gehry’s sprawling horizontal buildings, like the Experience Music Project, with their shiny smooth expanses of titanium and stainless steel, but his skyscrapers. I’m asking the question rhetorically. Non-judgmentally, too.
Consider Gehry’s proposed plans for a skyscraper in lower Manhattan:
Sleek? In these photos do you see anything “sleek” (a word that requires smoothness)? Hardly. “Wrinkled-looking [with a] distinctly bumpy silhouette” is how the Gehry skyscraper was described by the NY Times. Are there really a lot of folks out there who long to stroke this form? (Note to self: Avoid eye-contact with J.S., lest his hand be raised.)
To read an author is to enter her mind. Or in the case of Joel Stein, his mind, whenever he’s not stealing thoughts from her. (I make a little joke, no?) The consistently clever views that seize Stein’s mind, when put in English and down on paper, make me laugh. But my message is this: We can’t trust him with architecture. He needs to bone up on it.
Now, food — food he knows about, as he’s shown here, here, and most squeemishly here. I bet if Mr. Stein were to come across the items below (items introduced to my local Safeway some time ago) he would stop and stare and stare some more — and then come up with some funny way to mention this in a column. Something I’ve been trying to do for weeks.
They say Joel likes to Google his own name from time to time, something we all like to do. But he adds this twist: To protect his fragile ego he sets the search parameters to find only those articles in which the author of the piece writes that Stein is really “funny” and repeats that adjective at least five times within the article.
Hi Joel !