Beating Edward Gorey to the Macabre Punch

Edward Gorey is an Intertubes darling for his macabre ABC book, the Gashlycrumb Tinies.

But he wasn’t the first to pen such nasty little rhymes as

A is for Amy who fell down the stairs,
B is for Basil assaulted by bears.
C is for Clara who wasted away,
D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh.

And Jocelyn Henry Clive Graham probably wasn’t the first, either, but he certainly preceded Gorey and his tinies with his own strain of black humor. Witness:

In the drinking well
Which the plumber built her,
Aunt Eliza fell.
We must buy a filter.

Witness further:

Weep not for little Leonie,
Abducted by a French marquis.
Though loss of honor was a wrench,
Just think how it improved her French.

And finally:

Billy, in one of his nice new sashes,
Fell in the grate and was burnt to ashes.
Now, although the room grows chilly,
I haven’t the heart to poke up Billy.

And that’s only the surface of Graham’s odd little world, which belies the saintly look on his face.

His Little Willie rhymes are even worse:

Willie poisoned his father’s tea;
Father died in agony.
Mother came and look quite vexed:
“Really, Will,” she said, “what next?”

Willie fell down the elevator –
Wasn’t found till six days later.
Then the neighbors sniffed, “Gee whizz!
What a spoiled child Willie is!”

Little Willie on the track.
Heard the engines squeal.
Now the engine’s coming back;
They’re scraping Willie off the wheel.

Willie saw some dynamite,
Couldn’t understand it quite;
Curiosity never pays;
It rained Willie seven days.

And here’s his most succinct, and my favorite:

Little Willie;
Pair of skates;
Hole in the ice;
Golden gates.

Edward Gorey better put his runnin' pants on.

Good Committee Writing

Generally, I deplore writing by committee.

I don’t mind good collaboration, which you can see works wonderfully well in the likes of Gilbert and Sullivan, Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, and Disney’s Sherman Brothers:

And let’s face it – just about everything you read out there has been written by more than one person, for every writer has an editor guiding the way. It’s easy to pick out, for example, where JK Rowling’s editors stepped in to guide her in her earlier books, though she found her own way afterward. JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis shared their works with each other and with others, seeking and getting plenty of input. I’m seeking input on my own writing (though, it seems, so is everyone else).

So it’s with this kind of baggage that I approach Jack Alan, an amalgam of Jack Goodman and Alan Green, both advertising men, who worked together on a series of humorous pieces that skewered the popular How-To books of their era.

They echo their skewering of the genre in the short piece “From Pillar to Post,” in which Jack Alan describes the early days of owning a Great Dane. Here, they describe what happens when Jack is called on to punish the misbehaving pup:

I now change my approach, deciding to try the Great Big Playmate tactic. Crouching on all fours, I advance on him, barking several times with mock ferocity. He decides to humor me by pretending he thinks I'm a huge, dangerous dog. With a happy yelp, he flashes around a chair and dashes upon me from behind. Since he weighs roughly eighty-two pounds at the moment, I am now flat on the floor with him on top of me. He wants to pretend he is shaking me by the neck. This is too difficult unless he actually does shake me by the back of the neck. So he does.

I get up and brush myself off. I brush him off me, too, several times. I have now succeeded in gaining his confidence and showing him that I am a regular fellow who doesn't mind a good, clean romp, so I am through. But he isn't. He likes it too well to quit. He gets my tie in his teeth and hangs from it. It is some time before I get my breath.

He still refuses to stop. It is therefore time for me to Punish Him. I decide to lock him in the bathroom. This consists of the following steps:

1. He instantly senses my purpose and scrambles into the bedroom under the bed.
2. I rush after him and say, “Come out from under there this minute!”
3. He doesn't.
4. I get down on the floor and look under the bed. We face each other silently for a moment, each trying to outstare the other. I blink, which gives him the round.
5. I mutter several dire threats. So does he.
6. I hold out my handkerchief, hoping he will grab it and pull, thereby enabling me to drag him out.
7. He grabs it and pulls.
8. We are now both under the bed.
9. I seize him firmly and wriggle out.
10. A head bumps severely against the box spring. It is not his.
11. I shove and pull him into the bathroom and back out, closing the door.
12. I stop closing the door to avoid catching his nose in it.
13. I shove him back and close the door, catching my hand in it.
14. We both howl simultaneously.

Returning to the living room, tired but victorious (look up Pyrrhic in any good encyclopedia), I now proceed to describe my dog to you. He is still a puppy, seven months old. He is a good dog to have for a case history because, although a thoroughbred, he has a character which is practically a cross section of that of America's dogs.

Full text of their funny tale is found here.

Here, Jack Alan shows the secret of committee writing: The whole is better than the sum of its parts. While the writers may work together on ideas and word choice, they keep in mind that the end goal is a good, readable story, not that they win every argument.

Now maybe I’m reading these two wrong. Some teams have an idea man and a writer. Others do a bit of both. I’m putting on rose-tinted glasses here, imagining how the process works. However they do it, those pulling Jack Alan’s strings do it well.

Half of Gilbert and Sullivan

I never knew much of W. S. Gilbert – half of the famed Gilbert and Sullivan – outside of this:

Which we’ve seen on this blog before.

But Louis Untermeyer opened my eyes a bit, especially with this Gilbert quotation:

When I was a lad I served a term
As office boy to an attorney’s firm.
I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor,
And I polished up the handle of the big front door.

A bit which any student of Chuck Jones will immediately recognize from this (starts at about 4:50):

But my favorite has to be Gilbert’s “Etiquette,” a comic tale of two souls on a desert island who don’t interact or share the food they find because they haven’t been properly introduced.

How they wished an introduction to each other they had had
When on board The Ballyshannon! And it drove them nearly mad
To think how very friendly with each other they might get,
If it wasn't for the arbitrary rule of etiquette!

One day, when out a-hunting for the mus ridiculus,
GRAY overheard his fellow-man soliloquising thus:
"I wonder how the playmates of my youth are getting on,
MCCONNELL, S. B. WALTERS, PADDY BYLES, and ROBINSON?

These simple words made PETER as delighted as could be,
Old chummies at the Charterhouse were ROBINSON and he!
He walked straight up to SOMERS, then he turned extremely red,
Hesitated, hummed and hawed a bit, then cleared his throat, and said:

"I beg your pardon--pray forgive me if I seem too bold,
But you have breathed a name I knew familiarly of old.
You spoke aloud of ROBINSON — I happened to be by--
You know him?" "Yes, extremely well." "Allow me — so do I!"

It was enough: they felt they could more sociably get on,
For (ah, the magic of the fact!) they each knew ROBINSON!
And MR. SOMERS' turtle was at PETER'S service quite,
And MR. SOMERS punished PETER'S oyster-beds all night.

Of course, they have a falling out over this very mutual acquaintance, as when a prison ship arrives, they think they are saved until they see the poor Mr. Robinson at the oars, punished for seven years for “misappropriating stock.” They reject their rescue and remain on the island, hostile towards one another for each knowing such a blackguard as Robinson. Full text of the poem is here.

I admire Gilbert’s erudite rhyming and tight poetic structure. It's highly recitable, easy to memorize -- as long as you're not stumbling over the big words -- and tells a good story.

Master Thespian

When I was at the University of Idaho earning my bachelor's degree, the wife of a friend convinced me to participate in a community production of "Beauty and the Beast of Loreland." She had a particular part in mind for me and sought to take advantage of my tremendous bulk to play the part of the jailer, who was supposed to be a menacing, if only briefly seen, minor character in the Beast's household.

As the friend's wife was the director, she directed us. The direction I heard most often was this: "You're supposed to be a jailer, yet you're walking like a ballerina. I want to see some stomping."

So I stomped with wanton abandon and had to be told to draw it in.

That was my first and last experience with community theater, though I had a narrow escape shortly after I got married and my wife got sucked into a production of "The Good, the Bad, and the Broccoli."

So I understand how Wolcott Gibbs felt as he retold the tale of his first appearance in a play as a very young man playing Puck in William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." He got directions from the director as well:

Our director was a man who had strong opinions about how Shakespeare should be played, and Puck was one of his favorite characters. It was his theory that Puck, being "the incarnation of mischief," never ought to be still a minute, so I had been coached to bound onto the stage, and once there to dance up and down, cocking my head and waving my arms.

"I want you to be a little whirlwind," the man said.

However, the director neglected to remember that Puck's costume included a large number of bells. Wolcott goes on:

To a blind man, it must have sounded as thought I had recklessly decided to accompany myself on a xylophone. A maturer actor would probably have made up his mind that an emergency existed, and abandoned his gestures as impracticable under the circumstances. I was thirteen, and incapable of innovations. I had been told by responsible authorities that gestures went with this part, and I continue to make them. I also continued to ring -- a silvery music, festive and horrible.

Oh, Wolcott knows kids, at least the kind of milquetoast kid I was: I, too, remember countless times being told to do something and doing it, even though the results weren't as expected. I was also incapable of innovation.

The bells went on to cause mayhem, as they distracted the other actors:

All this had a very bad effect on the fairy, who by this time had many symptoms of a complete nervous colapse. However, he began his next speech:

"Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are you not he
That . . .

At this point I forgot that the rules had been changed and I was supposed to leave out the gestures. There was a furious jingling, and the fairy gulped.

"Are you not he that, that . . . "

He looked miserably at the wings, and the director supplied the next line, but the tumult was too much for him. The unhappy child simply shook his head.

"Say anything!" shouted the director desperately. "Anything at all!"

The fairy only shut his eyes and shuddered.

"All right!" shouted the director desperately. "All right, Puck. You begin your next speech."

By some miracle, I actually did remember my next lines, and had opened my mouth to begin on them when suddenly the fairy spoke. His voice was a high, thin monotone, and there seemed to be madness in it, but it was perfectly clear.

"Fourscore and seven years ago," he began, "our father brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived. . . "

He said it right through to the end, and it was certainly the most successful speech ever made on any stage. I don't remember if I over knew, how the rest of us ever picked up the dull, normal thread of the play after that extraordinary performance, but we must have, because I know it went on. I only remember that in the next intermission the director cut off my bells with his penknife, and after that things quieted down and got dull.

Oh yeah. I can see that happening. That's exactly why I stay out of the theater. And it's the kind of acting brilliance that Master Thespian would appreciate. Probably something along the lines of this:

Robert Frost's Childrens' Book?

Droll, dry wit.

Reserved language. Mellifuous language. RHymes tighter than a miser's DNA.

That is Robert Frost.

I know so little of poetry, though I write a bit from time to time. I think that's part of the reason I'm reading this book and blogging about it, so I can learn a bit more about the forms and the styles and the writers who use them.

Robert Frost is an enigma to me. I know his poem about the road not taken. I know he was a New Englander. And that's about it. I'm sure there are many out there who know much more than I about the man, so I won't go into any detail here.

Except to say I love his poem "Brown's Descent." Such tightly-wound, rich language with such a whimsical story underneath it. Written in a more modern, more folksy style, it could easily have been this:

But when you read lines like this, you know this is from no ordinary poet:

Sometimes he came with arms outspread
Like wings, revolving in the scene
Upon his longer axis, and;
With no small dignity of mien.

Faster or slower as he chanced,
Sitting or standing as he chose,
According as he feared to risk
His neck, or thought to spare his clothes

This whole story -- of a hapless farmer who gets blown down an icy hillside by a sudden winter gale -- could easily be a children's book. And perhaps it was, that long ago, written in 1919. But I doubt it. Still, it's fun to think of kids gathered 'round the fire at night, asking dad to read about the poor Farmer Brown getting blown down the hill again.

My kids prefer Josh McBroom. But tonight, I'll read them some Robert Frost.

Long Live Jim Clark! And Robert Frost.

When YouTube's Jim Clark has done one of his fantastically absurdist "animations" of a fellow or lady reading one of their most famous works, you know that author is a heavy-hitter:

Thus it is with the subject of our next installment at the Treasury of Laughter: Robert Frost.

The road less traveled. Most of us have heard the poem. Some of us can at least recite a few lines. But there are fewer who have actually read it. Here it is:

The road not taken......

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Soon we'll be treated to Frost's comic poem "Brown's Descent." Until then, enjoy the quirky, unintended weirdness of Jim Clark's animation.

The Paranoid Corey Ford

As a person who is naturally shy and easily gets flummoxed in social situations, I certainly empathize with the nameless drip in Corey Ford’s “Wanted, Dead or Alive,” as he details the excruciatingly painful (to him) process he went through to open a charge account at a department store.

He starts off like this:

One of my ancestors must have robbed a bank. There must be something in my family history to account for the guilty way in which I stammer and blush and glance shiftily out of the corner of my eye whenever I try to cash a cheque, or give references for an apartment, or open a charge account in a department store.

I feel his pain, though my anxiety may stem from the time that Dad and his brother Sjaak, as little boys, locked themselves in the sole pay telephone booth in their village of Santpoort just prior to World War II, forcing the postmistress to go in search of Frau Davidson to extricate her boys in case a call came in on the line.

Ford continues in a comically anxietal vein:

“Garters,” I explained huskily.

The clerk appeared mildly interested.

“Don’t want to buy ‘em,” I added in short gasps. “Don’t want to pay for ‘em, that is,. Want to,” loosening my collar, “charge ‘em.”

“In whose name?” asked the clerk.

In the name of the great Jehovah and . . . Ford,” I checked myself. “My own name. I want to open an account.”

Of course, as we all know all too well, such paranoia only can grow, as Ford tells us:

“I see,” said the clerk quietly, with the sort of look that seemed to add: “And maybe this will clear up the mystery of those solid-silver belt-buckles that have been disappearing lately.” And he exclaimed in a loud voice: “Mr. Messersmith.”

There was a slight odor of sulphur, and Mr. Messersmith appeared, rubbing his hands. “Ah?”

“This is Mr. Ford,” said the clerk significantly.

“Ah. Of course,” said Mr. Messersmith, casting a grateful look at the clerk.

“Mr. Ford,” added the clerk, with an ill-concealed smile, “says he would like to open an account.”

I could see a look of almost respect creep into Mr. Messersmith’s eyes, as he contemplated this bit of sheer bravado on my part. At least, he reflected, this crook had his nerve with him. “Won’t you come with me?” he urged, leading me gently by the arm toward the elevator.

Little bureaucratic niceties, in the eyes of the paranoiac, assume gargantuan significance:

“And now,” said Mr. Alvord [a Messersmith minion] presently, handing me back my license and blotting his questionnaire grimly, “have you ever had a charge account before?” “No,” I lied bravely. “Are you sure?” frowned Mr. Alvord. “Think,” Mr. Messersmith added darkly in my ear. I sagged. “Once,” I admitted weakly, “I opened a charge account with Brooks.” I leaned forward impulsively. “But that was years ago, Mr. Alvord . . . I was a mere boy then. Surely you can’t hold against me the follies of my . . .” “Any other account?” patiently. “No,” I insisted, watching him like a cat.

Of course, Mr. Ford gets his account – though he leaves the store without the garters, too ashamed of his assumed criminality to buy them, even on the account the Messrs. Messersmith and Alvord have so politely set up for him.

Aye, sometimes looking into a person’s motivations is akin to looking into an empty room. Corey Ford reminds us of that well.