List of Posts
This January I finally got back to San Francisco for a week, my first visit to the west coast in something like seven years; always flying out of the country instead of across it.
The blog is nine months old today, so of course it is giving birth to a new feature.
Today is the 73rd birthday of Tommy Smothers and, as much as I think it’s important to honor the work of those who have passed away, it’s a pleasure to be able to salute a fine comedian who is still very much with us. Tommy Smothers was one-half of the Smothers Brothers, partnering his younger brother Dick (born 11-20-39) on their own CBS television variety show. They are still active and in fact both can be seen in cameo roles in last year’s The Informant!.
The hardest act I ever had to follow, bar none, was the boxing kangaroo on the Hubert Castle Circus. Here’s Woody Allen battling a kangaroo when he was playing ringmaster at the Hippodrome in 1966.
Today I introduce yet another new feature to this blog, a complete book in the form of a pdf file suitable for reading online, downloading, or printing. Because of legal issues, most if not all books presented here will be from the pre-copyright era, roughly a century or more ago, and therefore of a historical nature.
About a month ago I wrote about Jon Davison’s clown research project over in the UK. Today I want to report another such effort, this one here in New York City by Brian A. Bernhard.
Let the Great World Spin
a novel by Colum McCann
NY: Random House, 2009
349 pages
The Christmas pantomime is what remains of the old harlequinade, the cauldron for physical comedy in 19th-century England.
We all know how hard it can be for a Hollywood star to make ends meet these days, what with the economy and all, which is why so many famous actors and directors have to choose between waiting tables and doing Japanese commercials. These commercials are so demanding that only a select few choose to go this route. Thanks to guest poster Jonathan Lyons for alerting me to a practice that recalls the slave trade of centuries past.
I returned from San Francisco last night and found Manhattan’s West 4th Street subway stop plastered with posters for Diesel’s new ad campaign based on the theme “Be Stupid.” Apparently the idea is to equate “being stupid” with being a daring non-conformist, with such tag lines as:
Today we celebrate the birth and career of Ray Bolger (January 10, 1904 – January 15, 1987), vaudevillian and song & dance man best known for his portrayal of the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz (1939).
In a first for this blog, I am posting from 37,000 feet above earth, aboard a Delta Atlanta–NYC flight with free wi-fi (trial offer). I’m sure this will soon be standard, even for us bozos in coach, but right now I’m thinking it’s pretty cool.
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Workshops & Other Events
My first book (1976)
My book Clowns has long been out of print, but you can borrow it for two weeks at a time from the Internet Archive. More information is available here.
My second book (2015)
Visual and verbal humor for the cognitively and artistically curious! Available here.
“A book to treasure!”
—Bill Irwin