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Summary
Summary
S. J. Perelman (1904-1979) wrote for the Marx Brothers films Horse Feathers and Monkey Business and won an Oscar for his screenwriting on Around the World in Eighty. He remains best known for his many sketches and essays penned for The New Yorker during its golden age of humour. Author and New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik has selected the very best of his comic pieces, including his parodies of books and films, his biting social satire, autobiographical pieces, and a selection from the celebrated Cloudland Revisited series, in which Perelman revisits books and films from his childhood.
Author Notes
S. J. Perelman was a prolific humorist and satirist at the New Yorker for almost half a century. His contributions had a surrealistic quality in style and in subject that elicited from Dorothy Parker the judgment that he had "a disciplined eye and a wild mind" and "a magnificent disregard" for his reader. His raillery was aimed at popular fiction, motion pictures, advertising, and similar features of our transient culture. In his preferred form, a short drama, Perelman excelled in the unconventional, the concentrated, the sophisticated in humor.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Excerpts
Excerpts
From "Farewell, My Lovely Appetizer Add Smorgasbits to your ought-to-know department, the newest of the three Betty Lee products. What in the world! Just small mouth-size pieces of herring and of pinkish tones. We crossed our heart and promised not to tell the secret of their tinting. -- Clementine Paddleford's food column in the Herald Tribune . The "Hush-Hush" Blouse. We're very hush-hush about his name, but the celebrated shirtmaker who did it for us is famous on two continents for blouses with details like those deep yoke folds, the wonderful shoulder pads, the shirtband bow! -- Russeks adv. in the Times . I came down the sixth-floor corridor of the Arbogast Building, past the World Wide Noodle Corporation, Zwinger & Rumsey, Accountants, and the Ace Secretarial Service, Mimeographing Our Specialty. The legend on the ground-glass panel next door said, "Atlas Detective Agency, Noonan & Driscoll," but Snapper Driscoll had retired two years before with a .38 slug between the shoulders, donated by a snowbird in Tacoma, and I owned what good will the firm had. I let myself into the crummy anteroom we kept to impress clients, growled good morning at Birdie Claflin. "Well, you certainly look like something the cat dragged in," she said. She had a quick tongue. She also had eyes like dusty lapis lazuli, taffy hair, and a figure that did things to me. I kicked open the bottom drawer of her desk, let two inches of rye trickle down my craw, kissed Birdie square on her lush, red mouth, and set fire to a cigarette. "I could go for you, sugar," I said slowly. Her face was veiled, watchful. I stared at her ears, liking the way they were joined to her head. There was something complete about them; you knew they were there for keeps. When you're a private eye, you want things to stay put. "Any customers?" "A woman by the name of Sigrid Bjornsterne said she'd be back. A looker." "Swede?" "She'd like you to think so." I nodded toward the inner office to indicate that I was going in there, and went in there. I lay down on the davenport, took off my shoes, and bought myself a shot from the bottle I kept underneath. Four minutes later, an ash blonde with eyes the color of unset opals, in a Nettie Rosenstein basic black dress and a baum-marten stole, burst in. Her bosom was heaving and it looked even better that way. With a gasp she circled the desk, hunting for some place to hide, and then, spotting the wardrobe where I keep a change of bourbon, ran into it. I got up and wandered out into the anteroom. Birdie was deep in a crossword puzzle. "See anyone come in here?" "Nope." There was a thoughtful line between her brows. "Say, what's a five-letter word meaning 'trouble'?" "Swede," I told her, and went back inside. I waited the length of time it would take a small, not very bright boy to recite "Ozymandias," and, inching carefully along the wall, took a quick gander out the window. A thin galoot with stooping shoulders was being very busy reading a paper outside the Gristede store two blocks away. He hadn't been there an hour ago, but then, of course, neither had I. He wore a size-seven dove-colored hat from Browning King, a tan Wilson Brothers shirt with pale-blue stripes, a J. Press foulard with a mixed-red-and-white figure, dark blue Interwoven socks, and an unshined pair of ox-blood London Character shoes. I let a cigarette burn down between my fingers until it made a small red mark, and then I opened the wardrobe. "Hi," the blonde said lazily. "You Mike Noonan?" I made a noise that could have been "Yes," and waited. She yawned. I thought things over, decided to play it safe. I yawned. She yawned back, then, settling into a corner of the wardrobe, went to sleep. I let another cigarette burn down until it made a second red mark beside the first one, and then I woke her up. She sank into a chair, crossing a pair of gams that tightened my throat as I peered under the desk at them. "Mr. Noonan," she said, "you -- you've got to help me." "My few friends call me Mike," I said pleasantly. "Mike." She rolled the syllable on her tongue. "I don't believe I've ever heard that name before. Irish?" "Enough to know the difference between a gossoon and a bassoon." "What is the difference?" she asked. I dummied up; I figured I wasn't giving anything away for free. Her eyes narrowed. I shifted my two hundred pounds slightly, lazily set fire to a finger, and watched it burn down. I could see she was admiring the interplay of muscles in my shoulders. There wasn't any extra fat on Mike Noonan, but I wasn't telling her that. I was playing it safe until I knew where we stood. Excerpted from S. J. Perelman: Writings (LOA #346) by S. J. Perelman All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.Table of Contents
Introduction: Perelman, the Pearl of Providence | p. xiii |
Sketches and Satires | |
Puppets of Passion: A Throbbing Story of Youth's Hot Revolt Against the Conventions | p. 3 |
Those Charming People: The Latest Report on the Weinbloom Reptile Expedition | p. 7 |
Scenario | p. 9 |
Strictly from Hunger | p. 14 |
The Love Decoy: A Story of Youth in College Today-Awake, Fearless, Unashamed | p. 23 |
Waiting for Santy: A Christmas Playlet | p. 28 |
Frou-Frou, or the Future of Vertigo | p. 31 |
Captain Future, Block That Kick! | p. 34 |
Midwinter Facial Trends | p. 40 |
Counter-Revolution | p. 44 |
Beat Me, Post-Impressionist Daddy | p. 48 |
A Pox on You, Mine Goodly Host | p. 53 |
Bend Down, Sister | p. 57 |
Beauty and the Bee | p. 61 |
Button, Button, Who's Got the Blend? | p. 65 |
Swing Out, Sweet Chariot | p. 69 |
A Couple of Quick Ones: Two Portraits | p. 74 |
Hell in the Gabardines | p. 85 |
Farewell, My Lovely Appetizer | p. 91 |
Hit Him Again, He's Sober | p. 98 |
Physician, Steel Thyself | p. 103 |
Take Two Parts Sand, One Part Girl, and Stir | p. 110 |
Sleepy-Time Extra | p. 116 |
Amo, Amas, Amat, Amamus, Amatis, Enough! | p. 121 |
Send No Money, Honey | p. 126 |
Acres and Pains: Chapter One | p. 131 |
Acres and Pains: Chapter Twelve | p. 133 |
Don't Bring Me Oscars (When It's Shoesies That I Need) | p. 135 |
Rancors Aweigh | p. 141 |
Mama Don't Want No Rice | p. 149 |
Columbia, the Crumb of the Ocean | p. 157 |
Whenas in Sulks My Julia Goes | p. 166 |
Cloudland Revisited: Why, Doctor, What Big Green Eyes You Have! | p. 174 |
Chewies the Goat but Flicks Need Hypo | p. 182 |
Salesman, Spare that Psyche | p. 188 |
The Song Is Endless, but the Malady Lingers On | p. 195 |
A Girl and a Boy Anthropoid Were Dancing | p. 201 |
Cloudland Revisited: Rock-a-Bye, Viscount, in the Treetop | p. 208 |
Cloudland Revisited: When to the Sessions of Sweet Silent Films | p. 216 |
No Starch in the Dhoti, S'il Vous Plaît | p. 224 |
Cloudland Revisited: The Wickedest Woman in Larchmont | p. 232 |
Swindle Sheet with Blueblood Engrailed, Arrant Fibs Rampant | p. 238 |
Cloudland Revisited: I'm Sorry I Made Me Cry | p. 244 |
Sorry-No Phone or Mail Orders | p. 250 |
Next Week at the Prado: Frankie Goya Plus Monster Cast | p. 256 |
You're My Everything, Plus City Sales Tax | p. 261 |
Eine Kleine Mothmusik | p. 268 |
Where Do You Work-a, John? | p. 276 |
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Mime | p. 282 |
This Is the Forest Primeval? | p. 290 |
Impresario on the Lam | p. 299 |
Revulsion in the Desert | p. 307 |
Are You Decent, Memsahib? | p. 314 |
Tell Me Clear, Parachutist Dear, Are You Man or Mouse? | p. 322 |
Sex and the Single Boy | p. 328 |
A Soft Answer Turneth Away Royalties | p. 335 |
Hello, Central, Give Me That Jolly Old Pelf | p. 343 |
The Sweet Chick Gone | p. 351 |
Nobody Knows the Rubble I've Seen/Nobody Knows but Croesus | p. 357 |
Three Loves Had I, in Assorted Flavors | p. 365 |
Be a Cat's-Paw! Lose Big Money! | p. 371 |
Moonstruck at Sunset | p. 377 |
The Beauty Part: A Comedy in Two Acts | p. 385 |
The Hindsight Saga: Three Fragments from an Autobiography | |
The Marx Brothers | p. 469 |
Nathanael West | p. 481 |
Dorothy Parker | p. 490 |
Selected Letters | |
To Edmund Wilson (September 2, 1929) | p. 497 |
To I. J. Kapstein (October 9, 1930) | p. 498 |
To Groucho Marx (April 7, 1943) | p. 499 |
To Frances and Albert Hackett (August 14, 1949) | p. 501 |
To Abby Perelman (April 15, 1954) | p. 504 |
To Leila Hadley (August 21, 1955) | p. 506 |
To Leila Hadley (September 16, 1955) | p. 508 |
To Betsy Drake (September 28, 1955) | p. 510 |
To Leila Hadley (August 25, 1956) | p. 511 |
To Leila Hadley (November 22, 1956) | p. 513 |
To Paul Theroux (October 18, 1976) | p. 515 |
To Paul Theroux (December 24, 1976) | p. 517 |
Chronology | p. 521 |
Note on the Texts | p. 535 |
Notes | p. 540 |