tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752457333383090137.post5574567078330699890..comments2024-03-22T05:48:33.690-07:00Comments on Uncensored John Simon: WIT OR HUMOR?John Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00876490457067235124noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752457333383090137.post-19923497235119495452012-11-03T09:56:04.192-07:002012-11-03T09:56:04.192-07:00Reading Mr. Simon's examples here of his own w...Reading Mr. Simon's examples here of his own wit, I found myself chortling with glee. Perhaps I'm a sadist at heart.<br /><br />On a more modest scale, a humble example of what may be my own wit: After I saw <i>Out Of Africa</i>, the epic love story starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep, I told my sister, who was uncritically smitten by the movie and felt such a pang of loss at the ending when Denys (Redford) crashes his plane, that as far as I was concerned, the Redford character died just in the nick of time -- to spare us from any more of their belabored romance.Hesperadohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10394374828751466705noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752457333383090137.post-4744137515541980252012-10-29T21:54:02.408-07:002012-10-29T21:54:02.408-07:00Cyril Connerly (not sure of spelling) said, when a...Cyril Connerly (not sure of spelling) said, when asked what sport he did at Oxford, that "the only exercise I got was running up bills." <br /><br />Tom Parker, Wash. DC<br /><br />Thank you for the elegant wit, John. parkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13214552422317011740noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752457333383090137.post-57789271678241388892012-10-26T20:31:03.991-07:002012-10-26T20:31:03.991-07:00Thank God for Jerry Stiller!
If I may return, for...Thank God for Jerry Stiller!<br /><br />If I may return, for a moment, to the capacious topic of wit, I remembered, out of the blue, this Simon-ism of yore, from your assessment of "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever."<br /><br />In comparing the leading lady of the film version (disfavorably, of course) to the star of the Broadway play, you wrote: "After Barbara, what's missing from Barbra isn't only A, but everything from B to Z."<br /><br />Now, that's wit. By late October 2012, it has alchemized into magic. N.P. Thompsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09334071219304025469noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752457333383090137.post-43682687633667141782012-10-17T07:06:50.427-07:002012-10-17T07:06:50.427-07:00"I have done quite a bit of Shakespeare in my..."I have done quite a bit of Shakespeare in my lifetime," said Jerry Stiller, recalling his "substantial" parts including Launce in "The Two Gentleman of Verona" and the second murderer in "Richard III." "I was fired as the second murderer because I couldn't get along with the first murderer."noochinatorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12584058407655395128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752457333383090137.post-47401969448146446722012-10-16T10:54:52.243-07:002012-10-16T10:54:52.243-07:00Some wit, some humor from:
THE RICHARD BURTON DIAR...Some wit, some humor from:<br />THE RICHARD BURTON DIARIES<br />Editor, Chris Williams<br />Published 10/23/12<br /><br />On Sunday morning I read poetry at the Union with Wystan Auden. He read a great deal of his own poetry including his poems to Coghill and MacNeice. Both very fine conversation pieces I thought but read in that peculiar sing-song tonelessness colourless way that most poets have. I remember Yeats and Eliot and MacLeish, who read their most evocative poems with such monotony as to stun the brain. Only Dylan could read his own stuff. Auden has a remarkable face and an equally remarkable intelligence but I fancy, though his poetry like all true poetry is all embracingly and astringently universal, his private conceit is monumental. The standing ovation I got with the ‘Boast of Dai’ of D. Jones In Parenthesis left a look on his seamed face, riven with a ghastly smile, that was compact of surprise, malice and envy. Afterwards he said to me ‘How can you, where did you, how did you learn to speak with a Cockney accent?’ In the whole piece of some 300 lines only about 5 are in Cockney. <br /><br />He is not a nice man but then only one poet have I ever met was—Archie Macleish. Dylan was uncomfortable unless he was semi-drunk and ‘on.’ MacNeice was no longer a poet when I got to know him and was permanently drunk. Eliot was clerically cut with a vengeance. The only nice poets I’ve ever met were bad poets and a bad poet is not a poet at all—ergo I’ve never met a nice poet. That may include Macleish. <br /><br />For instance R. S. Thomas is a true minor poet but I’d rather share my journey to the other life with somebody more congenial. I think the last tight smile that he allowed to grimace his features was at the age of six when he realized with delight that death was inevitable. He has consigned his wife to hell for a long time. She will recognize it when she goes there.Joe Carlsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10925042164233399553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752457333383090137.post-29204382756701192122012-10-11T02:41:19.510-07:002012-10-11T02:41:19.510-07:00Pauline Kael might have been the last halfway dece...Pauline Kael might have been the last halfway decent critic who could get away with any number of ripostes in print (not always as witty as she imagined) AND still be reasonably well liked by colleagues, the public, etc. The critics today, as you know only too well, John, are reprehensibly well-behaved. A couple of them -- Dargis, Melissa Anderson -- try to get by with being mildly attitudinizing, yet mostly they are an awfully dull lot with nothing much to express.N.P. Thompsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09334071219304025469noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752457333383090137.post-2723987926471380432012-10-04T14:57:47.275-07:002012-10-04T14:57:47.275-07:00CRITIC VERSUS ACTOR
Tynan on Gielgud:
"His p...CRITIC VERSUS ACTOR<br /><br />Tynan on Gielgud:<br />"His present performance as a simpering valet is an act of boyish mischief, carried out with extreme elegance and the general aspect of a tight, smart, walking umbrella."<br /><br />Gielgud on Tynan: "Kenneth Tynan said I had only two gestures, the left hand up, the right hand up. What did he want me to do, bring out my prick?"Joe Carlsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10925042164233399553noreply@blogger.com