You wanna know what’s wrong with this world? No one knows who SJ Perelman is anymore. And no one likes a snob who quotes obscure writers, so I don’t, but it’s hard work to stifle myself that way. I’m forced to stand silently, my jaws akimbo, because SJ Perelman loved words like “akimbo.” He gave his characters names like Akimbo; Akimbo, I see now, would be a good name for a 1930s movie producer. Having written several Marx Brothers movies, Perelman hated Hollywood, which he thought of as infested with juice bars, chiropractors and Tarot readers. I don’t mind any of those institutions, but I idolize SJ Perelman. I imitate him. I’ll imitate him right now.
Marcus Aurelius Akimbo alighted from his Pierce Arrow, a starlet in one arm and a jeraboam of Maalox in the other, only three hours late for our meeting.
He once described himself as “button-cute, rapier-thin.” Reading him is like getting on a bizarrely enthusiastic, self-mocking train to conjecture-land, with stops in absurdville. Here’s an excerpt from one of his stories about leaving New York for Bucks County, PA:
When I first settled down on a heap of shale in the Delaware Valley, I too had a romantic picture of myself. For about a month I was a spare, sinewy frontiersman in fringed buckskin, with crinkly little lines about the eyes and a slow laconic drawl…. After I almost blew off a toe cleaning an air rifle, though, I decided I was more the honest rural type. I started wearing patched blue jeans [and] mopped my forehead with a red banana (I found out later it should have been a red bandanna)…. One day, while stretched out on the porch, I realized I needed only a mint julep to become a real dyed-in-the-wool, Seagrams V.V.O. Southern planter…. I sent to New York for a broad-brimmed hat and a string tie, and at enormous expense trained the local idiot to fan me with a palmetto leaf.
Here’s a link to Richard Corliss’s Time magazine story from which I ripped that quote.
WWSPD? Yes, what would SJ Perelman do? In my own grommet-cute, AK47-stocky way, I strive to do the same.
4 Comments
Ha. *I* know who he is, dammit, and I’m totally not above being a snob and quoting obscure writers who shouldn’t be obscure. Do it all the times, and who cares if it makes people scratch their heads. Hell, sometimes I’ll even quote myself. Incidentally, I think Akimbo would be a GREAT name for a cat. Or a dog.
I agree with the Tsarina. Akimbo would be a great name for a dog. Especially an Akita.
Here’s how I found this place: I was walking by the bookstore at Colfax & Grant, today, where People Who Sweat is prominently displayed in the shop window, at exactly eye level. (On the Grant St. side, if you’re curious). A few hours later, google plus 2 hits of the ol’ “enter” key, and I’m reading one of my favorite writers discussing an old friend from when (45 years ago) my mom was the librarian in the Fauquier County Public Library, Warrenton Va., i.e., Mr. Perelman.
The “Humor” stack wasn’t too filled out, but it did include S.J.
Thank God you are still writing. Westword readers miss you.
And what a great thing, this internet…
Hey, I know who S.J. Perelman is — and I bet you’d like Peter DeVries’ stuff, too …
Glad you are still writing, and hope you still write songs from time to time.
Post a Comment