TOM CLARK: Reflections (Groucho Marx and the principles of prosody) / fleurs du mal

Reflection [Larvik]: photo by astrid westvang, 9 May 2017

Quarry with pool [Telemark]: photo by astrid westvang, 4 March 2017

Lake Paringa, South Westland. | by bobsan88

Lake Paringa, South Westland: photo by bobsan88, 14 May 2017

Clyde, Central Otago: photo by bobsan88, 6 March 2017

Middlemarch, Central Otago | by bobsan88

Middlemarch, Otago: photo by bobsan88, 10 March 2017

Groucho Marx and the principles of prosody

I remember one of [Groucho Marx's] lines on my morning show that was widely quoted, and stolen by unknown comedians and by one or two well-known ones.

We had discussed the musical Hair for a moment.

It had just opened, and because it contained Broadway's first frontal nude scene with both sexes there was lot of talk about it.

I asked Groucho if he had seen it, and I knew he did not have a prepared answer.

I saw the machinery whir for a split second, and he said, "No. I was going to see it, but I went home, took off my clothes, looked at myself in the mirror, and saved seven dollars."

The audience roared, and the line sped round the country and into several nightclub acts.

Sitting that close, I could see that the suddenness of the line and the laugh surprised him for a tenth of a second.

Then he calmly put his cigar in his mouth and waited out the laugh.

The figure he chose for the price of an orchestra seat was of course not the correct figure, but it had the right number of syllables for the joke.

Dick Cavett: from Cavett (1974)

#6: photo by shah toufiqur rahman ovi, 15 May 2017

[Bagmati River, Kathmandu, Nepal]: photo by Jeff Williams 03, 28 March 2017

[Untitled]: photo by Md. Enamul Kabir, 29 April 2017

Cockhead. A youngster along with his rooster at Galiff Street Pet Market, also known as Bagbazar Sokher Haat, in Kolkata. The market is open from early in the morning to late afternoon. I was told by a few visitors that these big roosters are purchased for cockfighting -- which is a popular enjoyment for many of the regular buyers.: photo by swarat_ghosh, 7 May 2017

Untitled [burning the leavened food, pesach holiday, Beney Brak]: photo by Ilan Burla, 10 April 2017

[Tel Aviv]]: photo by Ilan Burla, 2 May 2017

DSC_4879c: photo by ilan Ben yehuda, 13 May 2017

[Untitled]: photo by Riccardo Cattaneo, 17 February 2017

#Mosul A man pushes 2 children in a wheelchair as they flee heavy fighting between ISIS militants and Iraqi special forces By @mayaalleruzo: image via Photojournalism @photojournalink, 16 May 2017

Israeli solders arrest a Palestinian protestor during protest in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jails near the settlement of Shavei Shamron near the West Bank city of Nablus, Tuesday, May 16, 2017.: photo by Majdi Mohammed/AP, 16 May 2017

#Ramallah A Palestinian hurls a stone towards Israeli troops during a protest in support of prisoners on hunger strike. By Mohamad Torokman: image via Photojournalism @photojournalink, 16 May 2017

Palestinians bid farewell to female martyr Fatmah Hejaiji #Ramallah #IOF_violations via PIC @PalinfoEn: image via Palestine Info Centr @ PalinfoEn, 17 May 2017

Israeli occupation cowards killed Fatima Afif Abd al-Rahman Hjeiji. She was 16 years young. #Ramallah #Palestine: image via Bint Abu Banned @itsmenanice 13 May 2017

#Israel Ultra-Orthodox Jews pray as others harvest wheat in a field near the central Israeli town of Modi’in. By Abir Sultan @epaphotos: image via Photojournalism @photojournalink, 16 May 2017

The Trump presidency may now be disintegrating, tumbling toward entropy: image via Nicholas Kristof @NickKristof, 17 May 2017

President Donald Trump reaches to shake hands with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, May 16, 2017, where they made statements.: photo by Evan Vucci/AP, 16 May 2017

A member of the Secret Service keeps watch on top of the North Portico of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, May 16, 2017, after a person jumped over a bike rack barrier in front of the North Lawn fences.: photo by Susan Walsh/AP, 16 May 2017

President Donald Trump watches Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan depart following Erdogan's visit to the White House in Washington, Tuesday, May 16, 2017.: photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP, 16 May 2017

As #handshake performance becomes a meme, foreign policy reduced to: get to 1st base. @dougmillsnyt #Erdogan: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 17 May 2017

What would have been seen as smug starts to read as disconnected. Embellished by TR and indiscriminate embrace of 1 more autocrat. @Reuters: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 17 May 2017

Pool pic today for #Trump pro-police proclamation. Should be slam dunk, but cops look like unwilling props. Sinking ship? @GettyImages: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 17 May 2017

Memory is made of these decisive moments

                                                                   the thrill of a child's first dead hand -- Ashbery, The Tennis Court Oath

The boy, the youth and the man always experience fundamentally the same things; the meaning of an incident often does not dawn on him until years after he has experienced and endured it; but he can hardly

ever distinguish the deposit of the years that are past from the experience of the present hour in which he is living. Is one not in every moment of one's life the same child or the same invalid or the same

lonely stranger with the same wakeful, sensitive, unappeased nerves? Is one not in every situation of life the person capable of experiencing this and that, who possesses, in the recurring features of his

experience, the one protection against the passage of time? Do not all our experiences take place as it were at the same time? And is this simultaneity not really the negation of time? And this negation, is it not

a struggle for the recovery of that inwardness of which physical space and time deprive us?

Arnold Hauser, on Proust, in The Social History of Art: Volume IV (1951)

Still so many questions left unanswered. Photo by the brilliant @somogettynews. 5/17 House Dem press conference.: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 17 May 2017

Fateful fantasy of #favelas having any recourse, or "hands on," as number of killings by #police soars. @Reuters #Rio: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 17 May 2017

An Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, begins to bloom at Cal State Fullerton Tuesday, May 16, 2017, in Fullerton, Calif. The flower lets off a smell while blooming, that some say is akin to smelling rotting flesh.: photo by Jae C. Hong/AP, 16 May 2017

6 comments:

TC18 May 2017 at 10:17
Barbara Lynn: You'll Lose a Good Thing (1962)

Barbara Lynn: You'll Lose a Good Thing (live, 1966)
TC18 May 2017 at 10:56
Barbara Lynn: What'd I Say? (live, 1966)

Barbara Lynn: It's Better To Have It (live, 1966)
Unknown18 May 2017 at 21:36
Hey Mr. Clark! Trying to catch up these past few days. Reflections upon red lights and a green light today! I'm not sure if I'm up to it but, Ciaridi- (sorry, maybe) like I'm seeing the poems/pictures, the pictures/poems. Like the landscape here (everywhere?) it's all a $7 seat, no matter the far away year, or Brad Pitt's ability to cast a fly while depressed? Reflections. Reflections. Can you explain? It's all over the place, right? Then there's this perfection: Barbara Lynn's "You'll Lose a Good Thing." I can't help myself!
Eric18 May 2017 at 21:50
Emjays: This Is My love (1958)
TC19 May 2017 at 04:12

Tom, I think long practice had likely made Groucho pretty good at estimating the size and mood of the house, per syllable (6 and 1/2th sense?). The reflections (astrid's that is) are in Norway. The stuff Brad gets to do while depressed almost makes depression seem like a reasonable option. Where can the rest of us, the happy ones, sign up?

Thanks, Eric. Nice.
Eric19 May 2017 at 09:34
Glad you liked it. (GO BLUE!)

Thursday, 18 May 2017

Reflections (Groucho Marx and the principles of prosody) / fleurs du mal

6 comments: