From The New Yorker Archive: S.J. Perelman

[AdamSmith]

In a 1963 Paris Review interview, S. J. Perelman declared that the “comic writer is a cat on a hot tin roof. His invitation to perform is liable to wear out at any moment; he must quickly and constantly amuse in a short span, and the first smothered yawn is a signal to get lost.” Influenced not only by noted humorists Ring Lardner and Robert Benchley but also by the novelist James Joyce, Perelman easily surpassed his own definition by matching an erudite wit with allusions to Greek and Roman antiquity, pulp novelists, show-biz esoterica, and other arcana. Contributing nearly three hundred pieces to the magazine between 1930 and 1979, he also spent several years in Hollywood writing gags for the Marx Brothers (he co-wrote “Monkey Business” and “Horse Feathers”). After Perelman’s death, William Shawn wrote of his chief humorist: “Along with being funny, his allusions and wordplay could be as recondite as Joyce’s, Pound’s, or Nabokov’s. The English language was his element: he dwelled in it, was nourished by it, loved it—revelled in it…. When people suggested that he might have a higher calling than humor, he sensibly paid no attention to them.”

Perelman often got inspiration for his casuals from news items or magazine pieces. In 1955, he read an article in the Times about Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s father having his laundry sent to Paris. This intrigued him, and he wrote a satirical piece, “No Starch In The Dhoti, S’il Vous Plait,” consisting of a series of fictional letters between an angry Pandit Motilal Nehru and a bemused Parisian launderer:

Paris

July 18, 1903

Pandit Motilal Nehru

Allahabad, U.P., India

DEAR PANDIT MOTILAL:

I am desolated beyond words at the pique I sense between the lines in your recent letter, and I affirm to you on my wife’s honor that in the six generations the family has conducted this business, yours is the first complaint we have ever received… Only yesterday, Marcel Proust, an author you will hear more of one of these days, called at our

établissement

(establishment) to felicitate us in person. The work we do for him is peculiarly exacting; due to his penchant for making notes on his cuffs, we must observe the greatest discretion in selecting which to launder. In fine, our function is as much editorial as sanitary, and he stated unreservedly that he holds our literary judgment in the highest esteem….

Yours cordially,

OCTAVE-HIPPOLYTE PLEURNICHE

Allahabad, U.P.,

September 11, 1903

DEAR M. PLEURNICHE:

Spare me, I pray, your turgid rhetoric and bootlicking protestations, and be equally sparing of the bleach you use on my shirts. After a single baptism in your vats, my sky-blue

jibbahs

faded to a ghastly greenish-white and the fabric evaporates under one’s touch…. Five or six days ago, a verminous individual named Champignon arrived here from Pondichéry, asserting that he was your nephew, delegated by you to expedite my household laundry problems. The blend of unction and cheek he displayed, reminiscent of a process server, should have warned me to beware, but, tenderhearted that I am, I obeyed our Brahmin laws of hospitality and permitted him to remain the night. Needless to say, he distinguished himself. After a show of gluttony to dismay Falstaff, he proceeded to regale the dinner table with a disquisition on the art of love, bolstering it with quotations from the Kamasutra so coarse that one of the ladies present fainted dead away…. He was gone before daylight, accompanied by a Jaipur enamel necklace of incalculable value and all our spoons….

Your well-wisher,

PANDIT MOTILAL NEHRU

http://www.newyorker.com/books/double-take/eighty-five-from-the-archive-s-j-perelman

[AdamSmith]

BEAUTY AND THE BEE

S.J. Perelman

It is always something of a shock to approach a

newsstand which handles trade publications and find the

Corset and Underwear Review displayed next to the

American Bee Journal. However, newsstands make strange

bedfellows, as anyone who has ever slept with a news-

stand can testify, and if you think about it at all (instead of

sitting there in a torpor with your mouth half-open) you'd

see this proximity is not only alphabetical. Both the Corset

and Underwear Review and the American Bee Journal arc

concerned with honeys; although I am beast enough to

prefer a photograph of a succulent nymph in satin Lastex

Girdleiere with Thrill Plus Bra to the most dramatic

snapshot of an apiary, each has its place in my scheme.

The Corset and Underwear Review, which originates

at the Haire Publishing Company, 1170 Broadway, New

York City, is a magazine for jobbers. Whatever else a

corset jobber is, he is certainly nobody's fool. The first

seventy pages of the magazine comprise an album of

superbly formed models posed in various attitudes of

sweet surrender and sheathed in cunning artifices of

whalebone, steel, and webbing. Some indication of what

Milady uses to give herself a piquant front elevation may

be had from the following list of goodies displayed at the

Hotel McAlpin Corset Show, reported by the March,

1935, Corset and Underwear Review: "Flashes and

Filmys, Speedies and Flexees, Sensations and Thrills,

Snugfits and Even-Puls, Rite-Flex and Free-Flex, Smooth-

ies and Silk-Skins, Imps and Teens, La Triques and Waiki-

kis, Sis and Modern Miss, Sta-Downs and Props, Over-

Tures and Reflections, Lilys and Irenes, Willo-th-wisps

and Willoways, Miss Smartie and MisSimplicity, Princess

Youth and Princess Chic, Miss Today and Soiree, Kor-

dettes and Francettes, Paristyles and Rengo Belts, Vas-

sarettes and Foundettes, Fans and Fade Aways, Beau

Sveltes and Beau Formas, Madame Adrienne and Miss

Typist, Stout-eze and Laceze, Symphony and Rhapsody,

Naturade and Her Secret, Rollees and Twin Tops,

Charma and V-Ette, La Camille and La Tec/

My neck, ordinarily an alabaster column, began to

turn a dull red as I forged through the pages of the Corset

and Underwear Review into the section called "Buyer

News/' Who but Sir John Suckling could have achieved

the leering sensuality of a poem by Mrs. Adelle Mahone,

San Francisco representative of the Hollywood-Maxwell

Company, whom the magazine dubs "The Brassiere Bard

of the Bay District"?

Out-of-town buyers!— during your stay

At the McAlpin, see our new display.

There are bras for the young, support for the old,

Up here for the shy, down to there for the bold.

We'll have lace and nets and fabrics such as

Sturdy broadcloths and satins luscious.

We'll gladly help your profits transform

If you'll come up to our room and watch us perform.

Our new numbers are right from the Coast:

Snappy and smart, wait!— we must not boast—

We'll just urge you to come and solicit your smiles,

So drop in and order your Hollywood styles.

One leaves the lacy chinoiseries of the Corset and Un<

derweai Review with reluctance and turns to the bucolic

American Bee Journal, published at Hamilton, Illinois, by

C. P. Dadant. Here Sex is whittled down to a mere nub-

bin; everything is as clean as a whistle and as dull as a

hoe. The bee is the petit bourgeois of the insect world, and

his keeper is a self-sufficient stooge who needs and will get

no introduction to you. The pages of the American Bee

Journal are studded with cocky little essays like "Need of

Better Methods of Controlling American Foulbrood"

and "The Swarming Season in Manitoba." It is only in

"The Editor's Answers, a query column conducted by Mr.

Dadant, that Mr. Average Beekeeper removes his mask

and permits us to peep at the warm, vibrant human be-

neath. The plight of the reader who signs himself "Illi-

nois" (Fve seen that name somewhere) is typical:

I would like to know the easiest way to get a swarm of bees

which are lodged in between the walls of a house. The walls

are of brick and they are in the dead-air space. They have been

there for about three years. I would like to know method to

use to get the bees, not concerned about the honey.

The editor dismisses the question with some claptrap

about a "bee smoker" which is too ridiculous to repeat.

The best bet I see for "Illinois" is to play upon the weak-

ness of all bees. Take a small boy smeared with honey

and lower him between the walls. The bees will fasten

themselves to him by the hundreds and can be scraped

off when he is pulled up, after which the boy can be

thrown away. If no small boy smeared with honey can

be found, it may be necessary to take an ordinary small

boy and smear him, which should be a pleasure.

From the Blue Grass comes an even more perplexed

letter:

I have been ordering a few queens every year and they are

always sent as first-class mail and are thrown off the fast trains

that pass here at a speed of 60 miles an hour. Do you think it

does the queens any harm by throwing them off these fast

trains? You know they get an awful jolt when they hit the

ground. Some of these queens are very slow about doing any-

thing after they are put in the hive.— Kentucky.

I have no desire to poach on George Washington

Cable's domain, but if that isn't the furthest North in

Southern gallantry known to man, I'll eat his collected

works in Macy's window at high noon. It will interest

every lover of chivalry to know that since the above letter

was published, queen bees in the Blue Grass have been

treated with new consideration by railroad officials. A

Turkey-red carpet similar to that used by the Twentieth

Century Limited is now unrolled as the train stops, and

each queen, blushing to the very roots of her antennae, is

escorted to her hive by a uniformed porter. The rousing

strains of the Cakewalk, the comical antics of the darkies,

the hiss of fried chicken sputtering in the pan, all com-

bine to make the scene unforgettable.

But the predicament of both 'Illinois" and "Ken-

tucky" pale into insignificance beside the problem pre-

sented by another reader:

I have been asked to "talk on bees" at a nearby church some

evening in the fall. Though I have kept bees for ten years, I

am "scared stiff" because not a man in the audience knows a

thing about bees and I am afraid of being too technical.

I plan to take along specimens of queen, drone and worker,

also a glass observatory hive with bees, smoker and tools, an

extra hive, and possibly some queen cell cups, etc.

Could you suggest any manipulating that might be done for

the "edification of the audience"? I've seen pictures of stunts

that have been worked, like making a beard of bees; and I've

heard of throwing the bees out in a ball only to have them

return to the hive without bothering anyone. But, I don't

know how these stunts are done, nor do I know of any that ]

could do with safety. ( I don't mind getting a sting or two my

self, but I don't want anyone in the audience to get stung, or 1

might lose my audience.)

I've only opened hives a few times at night, but never liked

the job as the bees seem to fly up into the light and sting very

readily. That makes me wonder whether any manipulating

can be done in a room at night.

How long before the affair would I need to have the bees in

the room to have them settle down to the hive?— New York.

The only thing wrong with "New York" is that he

just doesn't like bees. In one of those unbuttoned moods

everybody has, a little giddy with cocoa and crullers, he

allowed himself to be cajoled by the vestrymen, and now,

face to face with his ordeal, he is sick with loathing for

bees and vestrymen alike. There is one solution, however,

and that is for "New York" to wrap himself tightly in

muslin the night of the lecture and stay in bed with his

hat on. If the vestrymen come for him, let him throw

the bees out in a ball. To hell with whether they return

or not, and that goes for the vestrymen, too. It certainly

goes for me. If I ever see the postman trudging toward

my house with a copy of the American Bee Journal, Fm

going to lodge myself in the dead-air space between the

walls and no amount of small boys smeared with honey

will ever get me out. And you be careful, American Bee

Journal— I bite.

http://archive.org/stream/bestofsjperelma00pere/bestofsjperelma00pere_djvu.txt

[MsGuy]

I would like to know the easiest way to get a swarm of bees which are lodged in between the walls of a house. The walls are of brick and they are in the dead-air space. They have been there for about three years. I would like to know method to use to get the bees, not concerned about the honey. The editor dismisses the question with some claptrap about a "bee smoker" which is too ridiculous to repeat. The best bet I see for "Illinois" is to play upon the weak- ness of all bees. Take a small boy smeared with honey and lower him between the walls. The bees will fasten themselves to him by the hundreds and can be scraped off when he is pulled up, after which the boy can be thrown away. If no small boy smeared with honey can be found, it may be necessary to take an ordinary small boy and smear him, which should be a pleasure. 

Been quite a few decades since a general circulation magazine could get away with publishing an essay about the pleasures of smearing small boys with honey.

[AdamSmith]

In another essay S.J. sends up some then-fashionable advice about child-rearing by first recounting it (can't recall the details right now) and then saying something like:

After considering the situation, I decided my children could find their own way to Hell.

P.S. Found it!

S. J. Perelman, one of the great old New Yorker humorists, had the pleasure of reading [Diana] Vreeland's "Why Don't You" pieces when they were brand new. In April, 1938, he was moved to a rebuttal. A couple of choice slices:

"If a perfectly strange lady came up to you on the street and demanded 'Why don't you travel with a little raspberry-colored cashmere blanket to throw over yourself in hotels and trains?' the chances are that you would turn on your heel with dignity and hit her with a bottle. Yet that is exactly what has been happening for the past twenty months in the pages of a little raspberry-colored magazine called Harper's Bazaar.

"The first time I noticed this 'Why Don't You?' department was a year ago last August while hungrily devouring news of the midsummer Paris openings. Without any preamble came the stinging query 'Why don't you rinse your blond child's hair in dead champagne, as they do in France? Or pat her face gently with cream before she goes to bed, as they do in England?' After a quick look into the nursery I decided to let my blond child go to hell her own way, as they do in America."

Just one more: "'Why don't you try the effect of diamond roses and ribbons flat on your head, as Garbo wears them when she says goodbye to Armand in their country retreat?' asked Miss Sly Boots in a low, thrilling voice." Perelman describes how he took up this suggestion; it ended badly.

http://www.thesartorialist.com/photos/why-dont-you-by-diana-vreeland/

[AdamSmith]

"Dental or Mental, I Say It's Spinach"

About a visit to the dentist:

http://madmadrileno.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/dental-or-mental-i-say-its-spinach-s-j-perelman/

[AdamSmith]

The Paris Review interview:

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4536/the-art-of-fiction-no-31-s-j-perelman

[lookin]

All delightful! Thank you.

The Paris Review interview:

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4536/the-art-of-fiction-no-31-s-j-perelman

. . .

INTERVIEWER

How many drafts of a story do you do?

PERELMAN

Thirty-seven. I once tried doing thirty-three, but something was lacking, a certain—how shall I say?—je ne sais quoi. On another occasion, I tried forty-two versions, but the final effect was too lapidary—you know what I mean, Jack? What the hell are you trying to extort—my trade secrets?

INTERVIEWER

. . . merely to get some clue to the way you work.

PERELMAN

With the grocer sitting on my shoulder. The only thing that matters is the end product, which must have brio—or, as you Italians put it, vivacity.

. . .

[AdamSmith]

I just about posted that grocer line myself!

[lookin]

. . . and 'lapidary'!

adj: (of language) engraved on or suitable for engraving on stone and therefore elegant and concise.

[AdamSmith]

One begins to ponder whether the bottomless barrage of beguiling moppets adorning your posts comes from some private stock that we, or the authorities, really might should know more about.

Or not.

[MsGuy]

Turns you on, does he?

Are you still required to notify the neighbors of your status, AS, or has that court order expired?

PS Google image has a bottomless reservior of moppets. Or a reservior of bottomless moppets. (makes a difference which you google . It's all in how you frame your search terms. )

[AdamSmith]

Turns you on, does he?

This reeks of entrapment.

[MsGuy]

Actually, AS, entrapment is an affirmative defence (burden of proof on the defendant) that can be negated by prosecution evidence of a prior inclination by the defendant to commit the crime in question.

Translation: Sucks to be you.

[AdamSmith]

Well, you're the one with the dirty pictures.

[AdamSmith]

Feature on Perelman's cartoons, which I had not known about.

Scroll down past the material on J.H. Donahey, then click the page images to enlarge to readable size:

http://jeffoverturf.blogspot.com/2010/06/nemo-6-jh-donahey-and-early-sj-perelman.html

[MsGuy]

BTW, AS, don't trust Siri with your playtime adventures.

The bitch will roll on you every time.

[RA1]

And, all this time, I thought lapidary meant spilling a milk product onto one's "front".

Best regards,

RA1

[lookin]

http://jeffoverturf.blogspot.com/2010/06/nemo-6-jh-donahey-and-early-sj-perelman.html

What'll we do tonight, sweetie, stay at home?

No, I've got a frightful cough, let's go to the theatre!

I can understand his hooking up with the Marx Brothers!

[AdamSmith]

S.J. in Wikiquotes...

• I have Bright's disease and he has mine.
  • A patient confronts his doctor, in a cartoon printed in Judge magazine (November 16, 1929)

• "Great-grandfather died under strange circumstances. He opened a vein in his bath."
  "I never knew baths had veins," protested Gabrilowitsch."
  "I never knew his great-grandfather had a ba—" began Falcovsky derisively.
  • "The Idol's Eye", The Most of S. J. Perelman (1992) p. 32.

• "Oh, son, I wish you hadn’t become a scenario writer!" she sniffled.
  "Aw, now, Moms," I comforted her, "it’s no worse than playing the piano in a call house."
  • "Strictly from Hunger", The Most of S. J. Perelman (1992) p. 45

• The worst disgrace that can befall a producer is an unkind notice from a New York reviewer. When this happens, the producer becomes a pariah in Hollywood. He is shunned by his friends, thrown into bankruptcy, and like a Japanese electing hara-kiri, he commits suttee.
  • "Strictly from Hunger", The Most of S. J. Perelman (1992) p. 47

• Only the scenario writers are exempt. These are tied between the tails of two spirited Caucasian ponies, which are then driven off in opposite directions. This custom is called "a conference".
  • "Strictly from Hunger", The Most of S. J. Perelman (1992) pp. 47-48

• I guess I’m just an old mad scientist at bottom. Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation’s laws.
  • "Captain Future, Block That Kick!", The Most of S. J. Perelman (1992) p. 71

• In pulp fiction it is a rigid convention that the hero’s shoulders and the heroine’s balcon constantly threaten to burst their bonds, a possibility which keeps the audience in a state of tense expectancy. Unfortunately for the fans, however, recent tests reveal that the wisp of chiffon which stands between the publisher and the postal laws has the tensile strength of drop-forged steel.
  • "Captain Future, Block That Kick!", The Most of S. J. Perelman (1992) p. 72

• Under a forehead roughly comparable to that of the Javanese or the Piltdown man are visible a pair of tiny pig eyes, lit up alternately by greed and concupiscence. His nose, broken in childhood by a self-inflicted blow with a hockey stick, has a prehensile tip, ever quick to smell out an insult; at the least suspicion of an affront, Perelman, who has the pride of a Spanish grandee, has been known to whip out his sword-cane and hide in the nearest closet.
  • The Best of S. J. Perelman, Introduction (1947)
  • The Introduction was written under the name "Sidney Namlerep".

• Before they made S J Perelman they broke the mold.
  • The Best of S. J. Perelman, Introduction

• [The waiters'] eyes sparkled and their pencils flew as she proceeded to eviscerate my wallet – paté, Whitstable oysters, a sole, and a favorite salad of the Nizam of Hyderabad made of shredded five-pound notes.
  • The Rising Gorge (1961) p. 13

• Fate was dealing from the bottom of the deck.
  • The Rising Gorge (1961) p. 183

• The main obligation is to amuse yourself.
  • As quoted in I Seem to be a Verb (Bantam Books, 1970), p. 62

• Button-cute, rapier-keen, wafer-thin and pauper-poor is S.J. Perelman, whose tall, stooping figure is better known to the twilit half-world of five continents than to Publishers' Row. That he possesses the power to become invisible to finance companies; that his laboratory is tooled up to manufacture Frankenstein-type monsters on an incredible scale; and that he owns one of the rare mouths in which butter has never melted are legends treasured by every schoolboy.
  • The Most of S. J. Perelman (1992) p. xii.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/S._J._Perelman