Former Talking Head on Current Revolution

David Byrne reviewed Jeff Mapes' book Pedaling Revolution in the New York Times. Excerpts follow; one of the things I found interesting is the matter-of-fact way that Byrne wraps up with an assumption that "creatively ambitious" people will eventually end up on bicycles.

[Jeff Mapes] argues that cycling promotion can raise society’s level of general fitness, since people exercise more when it seems less like exercise and more like something mostly enjoyable that also performs a function, like getting to work. “Bike and walking advocates,” he writes, “have been rebranding their cause as ‘active transportation,’ which manages to come off as nonthreatening to your average couch-bound American while carrying a nice touch of gravitas as well.”

Mapes finds the experience of riding around Portland — North America’s most bike-friendly city (though I think Vancouver is close) — so enjoyable that he takes as a given that it’s a positive thing... But as he and I know, there’s a lot of opposition. The United States is as much a car culture as ever, even if the companies that helped make us that way are now in ruins. And governments and urban planners have all been in on the game...

“Pedaling Revolution” is not about mountain biking… it’s not about racing, Lance Armstrong, or what kind of spandex to buy. Nor is it about the various forms of extreme biking that have arisen lately: bike jousting on specially made high-horse bikes, BMX tricks or the arcane world of fixed-gear bikes, or fixies. For decades, Americans have too often seen cycling as a kind of macho extreme sport, which has actually done a lot to damage the cause of winning acceptance for biking as a legitimate form of transportation...

As Mapes points out, when more women begin riding, that will signal a big change in attitude, which will prompt further changes in the direction of safety and elegance. I can ride till my legs are sore and it won’t make riding any cooler, but when attractive women are seen sitting upright going about their city business on bikes day and night, the crowds will surely follow.

...Greenways, safer bike lanes, pedestrian zones and bike parking places will make our cities not only more comfortable and enjoyable, but also, as Janette Sadik-Khan, the New York City transportation commissioner, said recently, more economically competitive as well, as more of them become places where people with ideas and creative ambitions want to both live and work.

Unfortunate Names

I know a thing or two about unfortunate names. Sure, you find “Bart King” to be impressive, regal even. But that moniker has caused some difficulties, especially during my school years. Particularly cruel was one class when the instructor himself began chanting, “Gene, Gene, made a machine! Joe, Joe, made it go!” (I'm guessing you know the rest?)

But hey, no one ever said getting a master’s degree would be easy.

Writing for the New York Times, Sarah Lyall filed a story from Crapstone, England on this very topic. Britain has an absurdly high ratio of place names that are likely to cause a smirk and a snicker. While bandying jokes about Ugley (in Essex) or North Piddle (Worcestshire) is all well and good at a pub, try markng down “Thong” as your residence on a job application.

Let’s say you teach middle school. A kid asks where you’re from. “Pratt’s Bottom” you reply. And then you’d have to pack up your belongings and quit from the subsequent derision, because a “prat” is a nimrod. And a “bottom” is… yeah. The American equivalent would be saying you’re from “Nerd’s Butt,” I suppose.

As to the photo to the right, a “water butt” is a receptacle for collecting water. And a “hole” is where the water collects. See? It makes perfect sense. But nonetheless, the sign is a popular place for tourists to moon for a photo op. Those idiots!

While periodic attempts are made to rename these puerile places, I enjoyed Carol Midgley’s defense of them: “Sniggering at double entendres is a loved and time-honored tradition in this country.” Ours too! “Gene, Gene, made a machine, Joe, Joe, made it go…"

Making a Crack, Taking a Dig, and Hurling a Barb

Former talk-show host Dick Cavett blogs for the New York Times, and he recently mused on witty insults. One that stuck with Cavett over the years was a disagreement between two comedy writers that ended with one firing off, “Your parents owe the world a retraction.”

Cavett also includes a comment by Clement Freud, who was apparently not a Frank Sinatra enthusiast. Upon learning that Sinatra had been punched by a fan, Freud said, “That’s the first time the fan hit the s***.”

Blog commenters chimed in by the score; among their contributions is an apocryphal Frank Zappa story:

Joe Pine was one of the first TV hosts to specialize in haranguing and humiliating his guests and audience. Some attributed his nasty behavior to an outlook on life soured by having lost a leg and needing to wear a prosthesis.

Pine made the mistake of having Frank Zappa on his show and greeting him by saying, “Well, I guess that long hair makes you a girl.”

Zappa replied, “I guess that wooden leg makes you a table.”

Strangely, there’s another amputee anecdote: In London, stage comedienne Coral Brown saw “a theatre critic who had panned one of her performances. The woman, who had an amputated leg, was sitting at a table surrounded by an adoring coterie.

Coral strode to the table and in a voice no one could ignore, exclaimed: ‘How wonderful to see you with all of London at your foot!’”

Ooh, two more: Billy Wilder putdown another person's musical ability thusly: “He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.”

And when George Kaufman had a feud with producer Jed Harris, he said, “When I die, I want to be cremated, and have my ashes thrown in Jed Harris’ face.”

The Greatest Photograph of the 20th Century

An obituary in the New York Times for comic artist Bill Elder (1921-2008) featured this, the greatest photograph of the 20th century.
The 1939 photo shows future MAD magazine writer/artists Bill Elder (above right) and Al Jaffe. The two schlubs are seemingly just clowning around in their Brooklyn high school cafeteria. But there’s something more here than mere comic perfection. Elder and Jaffe grew up during the Depression, an era when law dictated that every American be photographed in somber mien (right).

And yet here’s these two goofballs.

Elder and Jaffe could have gone into dry cleaning or retail, but they were destined to be comic artists. In that capacity, Elder squeezed an astounding density of humorous details into his illustrations, like this one from his 1954 MAD piece, “Restaurant!” (Full page layout below.)

Elder was also the artist who began wedging funny doodles in the marginalia of each page of MAD. His sophomoric humor was so charmingly unfettered that it leads me right back to that photo at the top. Now those are two unfettered kids. God love 'em.

Who Wants a Screaming Monkey Wreath?

Did you know the New York Times website ran a little something that included The Pocket Guide to Mischief? Cool. My work is not generally mentioned in the same breath as J. M. Coetzee’s.

The image was part of a slideshow dedicated to— well, here, I’ll just let Rachel Harris explain:

"[O]nce in a while, when we’re pulling the endless books and press releases from publishers out of envelopes, out plops a little item of some sort. In fact, of every sort. From tennis balls to whoopee cushions, we’ve seen it all. Collectors call this kind of stuff 'literary ephemera,' and some of it is quite collectible. But not much of it."

Hey, do I detect a dismissive tone there? Watch it Harris, I'm an expert prankster (left).

Hey, while I’m at the New York Times, I see there’s a piece on other “gifts” that could be misconstrued as unwelcome. Jeff Snoonian (left) bought himself and his brother matching blue velour jumpsuits. This ensemble is accented with pinkie rings. Total cost: $90. Other memorable (and cheap!) gift ideas include:

• a screaming-monkey wreath
• a needlepoint outhouse
• a toilet-plunger lamp
• an annual Chia Pet (every year, a new one!)

(Hey, want to know what I really want? An Annoy-a-tron!)

Ratings Insight

“Wendy and Lucy” is rated R. It has some swearing, a little drug use and a brief implication of violence, but no nudity, sex or murder. The rating seems to reflect, above all, an impulse to protect children from learning that people are lonely and that life can be hard.

From A.O. Scott's New York Times review.

Un-Noosed and Not Kosher

This 1931 poster for the Man With the Iron Neck gives a good preview of his act. The Great Peters was a bungee-jumping pioneer; the rope he used covered a really long elastic band, so Peters could plummet, nearly touch the ground, bounce back, and un-noose himself.

Though the Man With an Iron Neck died in 1943 while performing this stunt, it wasn’t due to a weak spine. (Intestinal fortitude was also not to blame.) The Great Peters met his end when his rope broke. There’s no bouncing back from that.

In a not-very related story, the New York Times has a story today about Israeli gangsters sitting shiva for murdered crime boss Yaakov Alperon. Apparently, somebody didn't like Alperon despite attempts to rehab the family name. As part of this p.r. campaign, Alperon had opened up his family home to model Yael Goldman (above) "as part of a television reality show, 'Once in a Lifetime,' in which people were matched with different, often incongruous, types of families." Kooky!

Goldman was happy to do the show, but waxed philosophical afterwards. The model said, “You see ‘The Sopranos’ and it sounds sexy that some Mafioso comes and charms you into the sunset. But in reality it is the opposite. It is very intimidating, scary, not kosher.” Oy.

The poster above is from Ricky Jay’s droll and vastly informative book on unusual performers, Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women.