Just in time for the holidays: Your comprehensive-ish guide to "Thurber (et al.) Tonight" (the whole dang series)

Including Woody Allen, Robert Benchley, Bob and Ray, Will Cuppy, Wolcott Gibbs, Ring Lardner, S. J. Perelman, Jean Shepherd, and E. B. White Tonight


All I asked Santa for was a better picture of the great Will Cuppy; the one I've been using looks like it was taken clandestinely while he was in the Witness Protection program. However, given my lack of faith in the fat phony, I wasn't optimistic that he'd come through, so I went searching on my own once again, and once again my Google Images search for "Will Cuppy" yielded the swell pix of Will Rogers and Ring Lardner which somehow always turn up, and once again I had to decide, with heavy heart, that no, they wouldn't really fill the gap better than what we've got. But then the above image turned up, and I figured that since it purports to be part of a book cover, the chap portrayed therein must actually be our Will. I have to say, though, that this pic creeps the dickens out of me, and so I don't think I'll be popping it into the Will Cuppy slot below. I think I'm actually going to be trying to forget I ever saw it. Sheesh!

by Ken

You look around and see all those decked halls, then close your eyes and hear all that fa-la-la-la-la-ing, and almost instantly you know something's up, am I right? Or else you read Noah's post last night, "Profiles In Cowardice: The Electoral College," and noticed that it's also Part 1 of his annual, er, tribute to the outgoing year, this time out: "2016: America Off The Rails."

That's right, it's the Holiday Season!

Okay, okay, I know it's been going on since about Columbus Day, if not Labor Day, and tonight is already Christmas Eve, for Bill O'Reilly's sake! I believe in letting the damned thing sneak up on me, so sneakily that with any luck it's almost past before it announces its presence. In a week or so we'll be ushering in a new year, and then begins the Countdown to Inauguration Day. And then we're on to wishing for a minimum of four more good years for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

So in the holiday spirit, or at least what passes for it hereabouts, I'm looking to slip into the DWT schedule some of what Tom and Ray Magliozzi, the Car Talk guys, liked to bill as "encore presentations" of memorable shows, which they hastened to explain were really things they pulled more or less randomly out of a box of old tapes. Naturally I never believed they were chosen entirely at random -- after all, there had to be some reason why those particular tapes were in that particular box, right? 

And I'm not going to be choosing entirely randomly either. On the theory that along about now we could all use a few laughs, and also because it's one of the things i'm proudest of having done, I'm planning to dig into the "Thurber (et al.) Tonight" series I did here way back in some previous century.

Earlier this year I did perform a couple of resurrections from the series. There was a June post called "Having trouble getting things done? Learn from the master, the great Robert Benchley," which brought back a piece I think of just about every day, "How to Get Things Done." (Short version: "The psychological principle is this: anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.") Then in August I felt the itch again, and again it was a Benchley piece I had to bring back, in a post called "Comedy Tonight: 'Why We Laugh -- or Do We?': Another 'Benchley Tonight' Resurrection."

And I didn't even get (back) to what may be my very favorite Benchley piece, "A Little Sermon on Success." (As noted in the comprehensive-ish listing below -- "comprehensive-ish" in that I can't help feeling that I've missed an instance or two here or there -- you can find it here.) Not to mention the sublime "My Five- (or Maybe Six-) Year Plan." And . . . .

And no Thurber encore presentations at all! Yikes!

So I've cooked up this scheme for the holiday season (and perhaps the January slump season as well) to find post slots where I can slip in some especially cherished posts from these revered masters, and maybe some suggested "must reads" from among the stuff of theirs that was previously presented, at least until Howie cries out, "Please stop already!"

But, first things first (not my usual practice, as readers may be aware), I thought we would start with the comprehensive-ish listing itself. This is essentially unchanged from the version to which I have been providing a link since time immemorial. The one change I contemplated was to be able to pop in, finally, a better picture of Will Cuppy, but as noted in the photo caption above, that project came to a creepier-than-dead end.

And so, without further ado, excepting one tiny click-through --


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Having trouble getting things done? Learn from the master, the great Robert Benchley

Harking back to our comedy nights with Benchley plus James Thurber, Woody Allen, Bob and Ray, Will Cuppy, Wolcott Gibbs, Ring Lardner, S. J. Perelman, Jean Shepherd, and E. B. White


"The secret of my incredible energy and efficiency in getting work done is a simple one. I have based it very deliberately on a well-known psychological principle and have refined it so that it is now almost too refined. I shall have to begin coarsening it up again pretty soon.

"The psychological principle is this: anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment."

-- Robert Benchley, in "How to Get Things Done"

by Ken

Today, a long-delayed labor of love: the resurrection of a series that was itself a prolonged labor of love, running here in the late-night slot -- for which, in fact, the late-night slot was invented -- over a long and fondly remembered period. It started with Thurber but then went on to include all the names you see above. And in resurrecting it, the name that has crowded to the forefront of my consciousness is that of the great Robert Benchley, specifically in the form of the piece we're about to revisit: "How to Get Things Done," which was first published in the Chicago Tribune in 1930 and first appeared here as a "Benchley Tonight" post in January 2011.

Lately I've been trying to get bits of my life in order, or at any rate a bit more in order, and have had frequent occasion to talk about this as well, frequently with other people trying to do the same thing with their lives. As a result, I've had frequent occasion to try to synopsize this all-but-definitive treatise on how really and truly to get things done -- the secret, as our Bob puts it, to "how I manage to get so much work done and still keep looking so dissipated." By the way, I tried unsuccessfully to track down a picture of our Bob "riding to hounds" or "going to fancy-dress balls disguised as Louis XIV"; there don't seem to have been photographers present on these occasions.

So there was no question in my mind that of all the thousands of sublime pieces that appeared in this series, "How to Get Things Done" is the one for which present-day readers are likely to have the most urgent need. The master list for the series, by the way, can still be found here.



Now let's get down to business -- or, rather, business Benchley-style.

How to Get Things Done

by Robert Benchley

A GREAT MANY PEOPLE have come up to me and asked me how I manage to get so much work done and still keep looking so dissipated. My answer is "Don't you wish you knew?" and a pretty good answer it is, too, when you consider that nine times out of ten I didn't hear the original question.

But the fact remains that hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country are wondering how I have time to do all my painting, engineering, writing and philanthropic work when, according to the rotogravure sections and society notes I spend all my time riding to hounds, going to fancy-dress balls disguised as Louis XIV or spelling out GREETINGS TO CALIFORNIA in formation with three thousand Los Angeles school children. "All work and all play," they say.

The secret of my incredible energy and efficiency in getting work done is a simple one. I have based it very deliberately on a well-known psychological principle and have refined it so that it is now almost too refined. I shall have to begin coarsening it up again pretty soon.

The psychological principle is this: anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.

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Ring Lardner Tonight: The conclusion of "You Know Me Al" II -- Did you see this one coming?

I should probably have called attention sooner in our second You Know Me Al series to the remarkably perceptive appreciation of the "completeness" of Jack and the people around him offered by Virginia Woolf, which John Lardner quoted in the new introduction he wrote for You Know Me Al in 1958.


"I am the happyest man in the world Al."

-- from Jack's letter of October 14

by Ken

As we come finally to this topsy-turvy conclusion of the "Busher Comes Back" chapter of You Know Me Al, I have to own that I've been hard on Jack. But to know him is, well, to know him, and I've been reading on, not just through this chapter but farther into the book, and Jack is . . . well, so totally Jack, and so recognizable a combination of personal and personality types, that it's hard not to call him on his bullshit. It is, in fact, one of Ring's great accomplishments in these stories that he maintains both interest and surprise even as Jack's way of dealing with the world becomes so maddeningly familiar.

I know I've had the link in place all through the series, but perhaps I've been remiss in not directing attention to the introduction that Ring's oldest son, John, wrote for a new edition of You Know Me Al shortly before his own death in 1958. Now that we have the full picture of Jack's first major-league season under our belts, I hope it's not too late to recall just a bit of the quite fine appreciation of the busher stories which John quoted (in our Part 1) from no less than Virginia Woolf:

Mr. Lardner has talents of a remarkable order. With extraordinary ease and aptitude, with the quickest strokes, the surest touch, the sharpest insight, he lets Jack Keefe the baseball player cut out his own outline, fill in his own depths, until the figure of the foolish, boastful, innocent athlete lives before us. As he babbles out his mind on paper there rise up friends, sweethearts, the scenery, town, and country -- all surround him and make him up in his completeness.

FOR THE CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER II
OF YOU KNOW ME AL, CLICK HERE

YOU KNOW ME AL: Our story to date

John Lardner's Introduction (1958): Part 1 and Part 2
Chapter I: A Busher's Letters Home
Part 1, Preface and Jack's letters of Sept. 6 and Dec. 14 and 16
Part 2, The busher reaches the bigs -- March 2, 7, 9, and 16
Part 3: Countdown to Opening Day -- March 26 and April 1, 4, 7, and 10
Part 4: The busher makes his big-league debut -- April 11 and 15
Part 5: A major development for Jack -- April 19, 25, and 29
Chapter II: The Busher Comes Back
Part 1, The busher comes back -- May 13 and 20
Part 2, Big news for Al -- July 20
Part 3, A surprise for Jack -- August 16 (plus "The real Charles Comiskey")
Part 4, Back in the bigs -- August 27
Part 5, Big doings in Detroit -- September 6
Part 6, "Boston is some town, Al" -- September 12
Part 7, Bedford, IN, meets NY, NY -- September 16
Part 8, Rain day in Philly; arrival in D.C. -- September 19 and 22
Part 9, In D.C., it's Jack vs. Johnson -- September 22 and 27
Part 10, The "city serious," and Jack's biggest news yet -- October 3 and 7
Part 11, Reversal(s) of fortune -- October 9 and 12

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: "You Know Me Al" II, Part 11 -- Reversal(s) of fortune

"I have lost all interest in the game and I don't care if Callahan pitches me to-morrow or not. My heart is just about broke Al."

-- Jack, in his letter of October 9

by Ken

Tonight, for a change, Jack's nemesis is that least comprehensible (and perhaps, to Jack, least justifiable) subspecies of mankind, left-handed pitchers. Here he is whining to his friend Al about a big rookie left-hander of the Detroit Tigers, Joe Hill:

Honest Al I don t see how he gets by. He ain't got no more curve ball than a rabbit and his fast one floats up there like a big balloon. He beat us the last game of the regular season here but it was because Callahan had a lot of bushers in the game.

FOR JACK'S TALE(S) OF WOE TONIGHT, CLICK HERE

YOU KNOW ME AL: Our story to date

John Lardner's Introduction (1958): Part 1 and Part 2
Chapter I: A Busher's Letters Home
Part 1, Preface and Jack's letters of Sept. 6 and Dec. 14 and 16
Part 2, The busher reaches the bigs -- March 2, 7, 9, and 16
Part 3: Countdown to Opening Day -- March 26 and April 1, 4, 7, and 10
Part 4: The busher makes his big-league debut -- April 11 and 15
Part 5: A major development for Jack -- April 19, 25, and 29
Chapter II: The Busher Comes Back
Part 1, The busher comes back -- May 13 and 20
Part 2, Big news for Al -- July 20
Part 3, A surprise for Jack -- August 16 (plus "The real Charles Comiskey")
Part 4, Back in the bigs -- August 27
Part 5, Big doings in Detroit -- September 6
Part 6, "Boston is some town, Al" -- September 12
Part 7, Bedford, IN, meets NY, NY -- September 16
Part 8, Rain day in Philly; arrival in D.C. -- September 19 and 22
Part 9, In D.C., it's Jack vs. Johnson -- September 22 and 27
Part 10, The "city serious," and Jack's biggest news yet -- October 3 and 7

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: "You Know Me Al" II, Part 10 -- The "city serious," and Jack's biggest news yet

"I have got it figured that Hazel is fixing to surprise me by dropping in on me because I haven't heard nothing yet."

-- Jack, October 3

READY FOR JACK'S BIG NEWS? CLICK HERE

YOU KNOW ME AL: Our story to date

John Lardner's Introduction (1958): Part 1 and Part 2
Chapter I: A Busher's Letters Home
Part 1, Preface and Jack's letters of Sept. 6 and Dec. 14 and 16
Part 2, The busher reaches the bigs -- March 2, 7, 9, and 16
Part 3: Countdown to Opening Day -- March 26 and April 1, 4, 7, and 10
Part 4: The busher makes his big-league debut -- April 11 and 15
Part 5: A major development for Jack -- April 19, 25, and 29
Chapter II: The Busher Comes Back
Part 1, The busher comes back -- May 13 and 20
Part 2, Big news for Al -- July 20
Part 3, A surprise for Jack -- August 16 (plus "The real Charles Comiskey")
Part 4, Back in the bigs -- August 27
Part 5, Big doings in Detroit -- September 6
Part 6, "Boston is some town, Al" -- September 12
Part 7, Bedford, IN, meets NY, NY -- September 16
Part 8, Rain day in Philly; arrival in D.C. -- September 19 and 22
Part 9, In D.C., it's Jack vs. Johnson -- September 22 and 27

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: "You Know Me Al" II, Part 9 -- In D.C., it's Jack vs. Johnson

"It was cloudy before the game started and when I was warming up I made the remark to Callahan that the dark day ought to make my speed good. He says Yes and of course it will handicap Johnson."

-- Jack, in his second September 22 letter from Washington

You'll notice that tonight's first letter is the second Jack has written to Al from Washington on September 22. In the first (which we read last night) he wrote about being matched up against the great Walter Johnson. If you were wondering how that worked out, the fact that Jack writes a second letter the same day may be a clue. -- Ken


FOR THE RESULT OF THE WASHINGTON GAME,
AND THE RETURN TO CHICAGO, CLICK HERE

YOU KNOW ME AL: Our story to date

John Lardner's Introduction (1958): Part 1 and Part 2
Chapter I: A Busher's Letters Home
Part 1, Preface and Jack's letters of Sept. 6 and Dec. 14 and 16
Part 2, The busher reaches the bigs -- March 2, 7, 9, and 16
Part 3: Countdown to Opening Day -- March 26 and April 1, 4, 7, and 10
Part 4: The busher makes his big-league debut -- April 11 and 15
Part 5: A major development for Jack -- April 19, 25, and 29
Chapter II: The Busher Comes Back
Part 1, The busher comes back -- May 13 and 20
Part 2, Big news for Al -- July 20
Part 3, A surprise for Jack -- August 16 (plus "The real Charles Comiskey")
Part 4, Back in the bigs -- August 27
Part 5, Big doings in Detroit -- September 6
Part 6, "Boston is some town, Al" -- September 12
Part 7, Bedford, IN, meets NY, NY -- September 16
Part 8, Rain day in Philly; arrival in D.C. -- September 19 and 22

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: "You Know Me Al" II, Part 8 -- Rain in Philly; arrival in D.C.

"They was a letter here from Violet and it pretty near made me feel like crying. I wish they was two of me so both them girls could be happy."

-- Jack, in Philadelphia (September 19)

We have two letters tonight: one from Philadelphia, chronicling a rain day, and then -- after a double header against the "Athaletics" -- there's one from Washington, D.C., on a day when Jack is to match up against . . . Walter Johnson! -- Ken


FOR THE NEWS FROM PHILADELPHIA AND "THE
CAPITAL OF THE OLD UNITED STATES," CLICK HERE

YOU KNOW ME AL: Our story to date

John Lardner's Introduction (1958): Part 1 and Part 2
Chapter I: A Busher's Letters Home --
Part 1, Preface and Jack's letters of Sept. 6 and Dec. 14 and 16
Part 2, The busher reaches the bigs -- March 2, 7, 9, and 16
Part 3: Countdown to Opening Day -- March 26 and April 1, 4, 7, and 10
Part 4: The busher makes his big-league debut -- April 11 and 15
Part 5: A major development for Jack -- April 19, 25, and 29
Chapter II: The Busher Comes Back
Part 1, The busher comes back -- May 13 and 20
Part 2, Big news for Al -- July 20
Part 3, A surprise for Jack -- August 16 (plus "The real Charles Comiskey")
Part 4, Back in the bigs -- August 27
Part 5, Big doings in Detroit -- September 6
Part 6, "Boston is some town, Al" -- September 12
Part 7, Bedford, IN, meets NY, NY -- September 16

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: "You Know Me Al" II, Part 7 -- Bedford, IN, meets NY, NY

"I run into a couple of the ball players and they took me to what they call the Garden but it ain't like the gardens at home because this one is indoors."

-- from Jack's letter of September 16 from New York

The Garden that Jack was taken to would have been
the second Madison Square Garden (1890-1925).

FOR JACK'S NYC INITIATION, CLICK HERE

YOU KNOW ME AL: Our story to date

John Lardner's Introduction (1958): Part 1 and Part 2
Chapter I: A Busher's Letters Home --
Part 1, Preface and Jack's letters of Sept. 6 and Dec. 14 and 16
Part 2, The busher reaches the bigs -- March 2, 7, 9, and 16
Part 3: Countdown to Opening Day -- March 26 and April 1, 4, 7, and 10
Part 4: The busher makes his big-league debut -- April 11 and 15
Part 5: A major development for Jack -- April 19, 25, and 29
Chapter II: The Busher Comes Back
Part 1, The busher comes back -- May 13 and 20
Part 2, Big news for Al -- July 20
Part 3, A surprise for Jack -- August 16 (plus "The real Charles Comiskey")
Part 4, Back in the bigs -- August 27
Part 5, Big doings in Detroit -- September 6
Part 6, "Boston is some town, Al" -- September 12

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: "You Know Me Al" II, Part 6 -- "Boston is some town, Al"

SCHEDULING NOTE

I'll explain in a post at 9pm PT why tonight's scheduling has been reversed. -- Ken

Before Boston, the White Sox played a series in Cleveland.

"I got a letter from Hazel in Cleveland and she is comeing to Chi in October for the city serious. She asked me to send her a hundred dollars for her fare and to buy some cloths with. I sent her thirty dollars for the fare and told her she could wait till she got to Chi to buy her cloths."

-- from Jack's letter of September 12 from Boston

by Ken

I've already raised the question whether Jack's invariable first impulse to physical mayhem is real or just something in his mind. What's interesting about the stunt he pulls pitching in relief in Cleveland, not only disobeying an instruction from the manager but in the process almost giving the game away, is that even by the time he writes his account to his friend Al he still has no idea what he did wrong, and he still reports that his first response was . . . well, let him tell it --

Anyway the game was over and I felt pretty good. But Callahan don't appresiate good work Al. He give me a call in the clubhouse and said if I ever disobeyed his orders again he would suspend me without no pay and lick me too. Honest Al it was all I could do to keep from wrapping his jaw but Gleason winks at me not to do nothing.

The stop after Cleveland is Boston, and Jack's first visit turns into a big deal for him, with highlights like going down to the wharf to see them unload the fish. ("They must of been a million of them but I didn't have time to count them.")


FOR THE EXCITEMENT OF JACK'S
FIRST VISIT TO BOSTON, CLICK HERE

YOU KNOW ME AL: Our story to date

John Lardner's Introduction (1958): Part 1 and Part 2
Chapter I: A Busher's Letters Home --
Part 1, Preface and Jack's letters of Sept. 6 and Dec. 14 and 16
Part 2, The busher reaches the bigs -- March 2, 7, 9, and 16
Part 3: Countdown to Opening Day -- March 26 and April 1, 4, 7, and 10
Part 4: The busher makes his big-league debut -- April 11 and 15
Part 5: A major development for Jack -- April 19, 25, and 29
Chapter II: The Busher Comes Back
Part 1, The busher comes back -- May 13 and 20
Part 2, Big news for Al -- July 20
Part 3, A surprise for Jack -- August 16 (plus "The real Charles Comiskey")
Part 4, Back in the bigs -- August 27
Part 5, Big doings in Detroit -- September 6

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: "You Know Me Al" II, Part 5 -- Big doings in Detroit

"I says Well you can't see me. She says Why what's the matter, Jack? What have I did that you should be sore at me? I says I guess you know all right. You called me a busher. She says Why I didn't do nothing of the kind. I says Yes you did on that postcard.* She says I didn't write you no postcard."

-- Jack's account of a phone call he received
from Violet in his September 6 letter from Detroit

* "that postcard" --

"[L]isten Al I don't want to be bought by Detroit no more. It is all off between Violet and I. She wasn't the sort of girl I suspected. She is just like them all Al. No heart. I wrote her a letter from Chicago telling her I was sold to San Francisco and she wrote back a postcard saying something about not haveing no time to waste on bushers. What do you know about that Al? Calling me a busher. I will show them. She wasn't no good Al and I figure I am well rid of her. Good riddance is rubbish as they say."

-- from Jack's letter of May 20 from Los Angeles

by Ken

In presenting Jack's last letter, the August 27 one from Chicago, telling Al about his return to the big leagues and the game he pitched against the "Athaletics," the best team in baseball at the time, I went back and forth about whether to call attention to . . . um . . . I think perhaps I better declare a --

SPOILER ALERT

In the end I decided against saying anything about what I'm now going to say just a little about, because it seems to me that Ring has laid this all out so carefully that I don't want to deprive you of the chance to experience it the way he intended for at least the first time through.

What I might have called attention to is the P.S. to the letter, where Jack tells Al he's headed for his teammate Allen's ("the left-hander that was on the training trip with us") to play cards. The first thing to note is the pure-Jack evaluation of Allen's pitching: "He ain't got a thing, Al, and I don't see how he gets by." He still grasps so little about pitching at the big-league level that he can't understand how any pitcher can win without a fastball like his and another pitch or two of obvious contrasting sorts. He really can't understand how it's possible: (a) for him to lose a game, or (b) for most any other pitcher to win a game.

The other thing about the August 27 P.S. is . . . no, I've said too much already.


JACK HAS A LOT TO TELL AL ABOUT HIS RETURN
TO DETROIT. TO GET CAUGHT UP, CLICK HERE

YOU KNOW ME AL: Our story to date

John Lardner's Introduction (1958): Part 1 and Part 2
Chapter I: A Busher's Letters Home --
Part 1, Preface and Jack's letters of Sept. 6 and Dec. 14 and 16
Part 2, The busher reaches the bigs -- March 2, 7, 9, and 16
Part 3: Countdown to Opening Day -- March 26 and April 1, 4, 7, and 10
Part 4: The busher makes his big-league debut -- April 11 and 15
Part 5: A major development for Jack -- April 19, 25, and 29
Chapter II: The Busher Comes Back
Part 1, The busher comes back -- May 13 and 20
Part 2, Big news for Al -- July 20
Part 3, A surprise for Jack -- August 16 (plus "The real Charles Comiskey")
Part 4, Back in the bigs -- August 27

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: "You Know Me Al" II, Part 4 -- Back in the bigs

In 20-plus seasons (1907-27), the great Walter Johnson had a 417-279 record (that's a .599 winning percentage), second in wins only to Cy Young's 511 (and still no. 1 in shutouts, with 110), racking up 3508 strikeouts (as Wikipedia notes, no other pitcher even reached the 3000 mark until Bob Gibson did it in 1974!), winning MVP awards 11 years apart, in 1913 and 1924. Rather predictably, he was chosen for MLB's All-Century Team.

I got here last Tuesday and set up in the stand and watched the game that afternoon. Washington was playing here and Johnson pitched. I was anxious to watch him because I had heard so much about him. Honest Al he ain't as fast as me. He shut them out, but they never was much of a hitting club.

-- from Jack's letter of August 27, from Chicago

by Ken

It's true that the Washington Senators' flame-throwing right-hander Walter Johnson, like Ty Cobb, established himself as a superstar remarkably early. But it's even earlier in Johnson's career (this is c1914, remember) that Lardner captured the scope of his greatness. By the way, the Wikipedia article on Johnson (link above) quotes a nice chunk of the recollection of Cobb, maybe the best pure hitter to play the game (yes, Ted Williams had more power, but Cobb's speed and base-stealing prowess kept pitchers and their defenses in constant disarray), of the first time he faced the unheralded and unimpressive-looking rookie. Once Johnson took the mound that day in August 1907, Cobb says, "I encountered the most threatening sight I ever saw in the ball field."

With Jack's return to the White Sox, heralded in last night's letter, both coach Kid Gleason and manager Callahan are curious about his response to watching Johnson pitch. As we'll see, they don't seem terribly surprised.


FOR JACK'S RETURN TO THE WHITE SOX, CLICK HERE

YOU KNOW ME AL: Our story to date

John Lardner's Introduction (1958): Part 1 and Part 2
Chapter I: A Busher's Letters Home --
Part 1, Preface and Jack's letters of Sept. 6 and Dec. 14 and 16
Part 2, The busher reaches the bigs -- March 2, 7, 9, and 16
Part 3: Countdown to Opening Day -- March 26 and April 1, 4, 7, and 10
Part 4: The busher makes his big-league debut -- April 11 and 15
Part 5: A major development for Jack -- April 19, 25, and 29
Chapter II: The Busher Comes Back
Part 1, The busher comes back -- May 13 and 20
Part 2, Big news for Al -- July 20
Part 3, A surprise for Jack -- August 16 (plus "The real Charles Comiskey")

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: "You Know Me Al" II, Part 3 -- A surprise for Jack

Plus the real Charles Comiskey

We talked about the amazing career of the astounding Ty Cobb -- much of it still in the future as of the time of our story -- in Part 2 of You Know Me Al I, "The busher reaches the bigs."

"I ain't afraid of Cobb or none of them now, Al."

-- from Jack's letter of August 16

by Ken

Jack, now pitching in the Pacific Coast League, hadn't written to Al for two months prior to his last letter, dated July 20, in which he broke the news that he was engaged -- to another of the baseball groupies he falls for like, well, like a yokel from Bedford, Indiana (except that only a certain percentage of such yokels get engaged to their baseball Annies). Now almost another month has passed, and Jack has another surprise for Al.


FOR JACK'S LATEST BIG NEWS, CLICK HERE

YOU KNOW ME AL: Our story to date

John Lardner's Introduction (1958): Part 1 and Part 2
Chapter I: A Busher's Letters Home --
Part 1, Preface and Jack's letters of Sept. 6 and Dec. 14 and 16
Part 2, The busher reaches the bigs -- March 2, 7, 9, and 16
Part 3: Countdown to Opening Day -- March 26 and April 1, 4, 7, and 10
Part 4: The busher makes his big-league debut -- April 11 and 15
Part 5: A major development for Jack -- April 19, 25, and 29
Chapter II: The Busher Comes Back
Part 1, The busher comes back -- May 13 and 20
Part 2, Big news for Al -- July 20

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: "You Know Me Al" II, Part 2 -- Big news for Al

Yes, tonight Jack shares big news with his friend Al.

"Up to a week ago Sunday I had won eleven straight. I have lost a couple since then, but one day I wasn't feeling good and the other time they kicked it away behind me."

-- Jack Keefe, in his letter of July 20

by Ken

In my post earlier tonight I wrote a bit about the comical cluelessness of our "hero," Jack Keefe, writing among other things: "When he pitches, of all the games he loses -- and he loses a lot -- none are ever his fault. It's the fielders behind him, or the hitters' lack of production, or the umpires, or in extreme cases his not being his usual self (which of course happens to pitchers, but they have to go out and keep their team in the game anyway)."

As I mentioned last night, there is a two-month gap between Jack's last letter, dated May 20, and tonight's letter, dated July 20. I also mentioned that in tonight's letter Jack has big news to pass on to his friend Al.


TO READ JACK'S BIG NEWS, CLICK HERE

YOU KNOW ME AL: Our story to date

John Lardner's Introduction (1958): Part 1 and Part 2
Chapter I: A Busher's Letters Home --
Part 1, Preface and Jack's letters of Sept. 6 and Dec. 14 and 16
Part 2, The busher reaches the bigs -- March 2, 7, 9, and 16
Part 3: Countdown to Opening Day -- March 26 and April 1, 4, 7, and 10
Part 4: The busher makes his big-league debut -- April 11 and 15
Part 5: A major development for Jack -- April 19, 25, and 29
Chapter II: The Busher Comes Back
Part 1, The busher comes back -- May 13 and 20

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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You can't tell GOP wingnuts and Teabagging voters and cooking-show contestants and Ring Lardner's Jack Keefe apart without a scorecard

Oh no, Hell's Kitchen is back! At a certain point, congressional Republicans merge in the mind with the people who vote for them and the clueless legions of TV cooking-show contestants and Ring Lardner's Jack Keefe.

by Ken

Not long ago we were told that President Obama's latest "plan" for getting a deficit-ceiling increase included splitting the debt-ceiling and deficit-reduction issues so that "we" would do debt-ceiling increase now and later revamp the tax code -- and I remember thinking what? you're going to let those people tinker with the tax code???

By "those people," of course, I meant the primitive life forms that invaded the 112th Congress. And I had to remind myself that these low-life mental defectives, people you wouldn't trust to walk your dog or sweep out your barber-shop floor, actually have statutory authority to deal with taxes and every other damned thing that comes before Congress. This sounds like really bad science fiction.

I can't help recalling, though, that after all there were constitutionally franchised voters elected these people to public office. And I think back to the time when the Teabaggers were inventing themselves, or being invented, and numbers of my liberal colleagues took us elitists to task for railing at them. Like as if we didn't have the sense to understand that they have grievances. D'oh! Of course they have grievances. But they have walled themselves off from all receptiveness to reality, and it was already clear that once again in their time of troubles they were going to turn to absolutely the vilest people in the universe, who were manipulating them like puppets, only dumber.

Lately I can't seem to escape this thread in human nature: the passionate embrace of the cosmically imbecilic -- and often malignly manipulative. This summer I seem to be watching a crush of those TV cooking-competition shows (you know, Master Chef and Chopped and Chopped and Food Network Star (less egregious than many of the others, I have to say, but still), and now Hell's Kitchen again, and while I've written before about so many of the competitors' staggering lack of self-knowledge and lack of perceptiveness about their rivals, and there it all is again, only now it blends right in with "the busher," Jack Keefe, the "hero" of Ring Lardner's still-sublime "busher" stories.

It's been a treat reimmersing myself in Lardner's You Know Me Al, preparing for its return to in our late-night (9pm PT) comical-writing rotation last night. But it's a complicated sort of treat, because Lardner's understanding of people is so acute Jack Keefe, the big, hard-throwing young pitcher we saw ascend to and quickly fall out of the big leagues when we did Chapter I of You Know Me All, because Jack is, frankly, such a yutz.

To go with that very large natural talent of being able to throw a baseball really hard Jack has, well, nothing. Barely a clue about how to apply his natural gifts in terms of matching pitches to hitters, and as his manager and coaches keep trying to make him understand, a staggering cluelessness (read "indifference") about such hardly subtle phases of the game as holding runners on base and fielding his position. (It's uncanny how exactly Lardner's writing about pitching in 1914 translates to 2011.)

And on a larger scale, Jack takes no responsibility for his actions, and has as little sense of other people's strengths and weaknesses as he has of his own. And nothing is ever his fault. When he pitches, of all the games he loses -- and he loses a lot -- none are ever his fault. It's the fielders behind him, or the hitters' lack of production, or the umpires, or in extreme cases his not being his usual self (which of course happens to pitchers, but they have to go out and keep their team in the game anyway).

And his solution to every life problem, at least in his head, is to want to beat up on the person he's identified as the cause of his problems. It's an interesting question whether Jack is actually a bully or merely has the instincts of one, because there are, as best I can recall, no instances in the stories of his actually doing to anyone the horrible things he imagines -- and not because he really thinks better of it, or rises above it, but because . . . well, as with everything else in Jack's life, there's always an excuse.

One of the fascinations of trying to scope Jack out is that every bit of information we get about him comes from him. Even when he's reporting other people's actions or perceptions, he is after all the one doing the reporting, so it's all filtered through his murky lens.

At least in Lardner's telling Jack's stumbling unperceptiveness becomes entertaining. Unfortunately, there's nobody of comparable talent scripting those food "reality" shows -- and the terrifying spectacle of our social and political realities are all too real. It's fun to have them "written" by someone of a talent I consider Lardner-esque like Tom Tomorrow, but the fact that they're so terrifyingly real only makes it more horrifying.

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Ring Lardner Tonight: Chapter II of "You Know Me Al" -- The Busher Comes Back!

I ain't had no fair deal Al and I ain't going to no Frisco. I will quit the game first and take that job Charley offered me at the billiard hall.

-- from Jack's April 29 letter, the last of Chapter I

by Ken

As we left "the busher," at the end of Chapter I of You Know Me Al, hard-throwing rookie pitcher Jack Keefe's first tour of duty with the Chicago White Sox had come to a sudden and inglorious end after less than a month, with this news imparted to his friend Al Blanchard back home in Bedford, Indiana:

Well Al it's all over. The club went to Detroit last night and I didn't go along. [Manager] Callahan told me to report to [team owner Charles] Comiskey this morning and I went up to the office at ten o'clock. He give me my pay to date and broke the news. I am sold to Frisco.

("Frisco" was at the time, c 1914, a minor-league team in the Pacific Coast League.) [UPDATE: I realize I've made the old San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League sound like ancient history. In fact, the Seals remained active in the PCL through 1957, when they were bumped by the relocation of the New York Giants to San Francisco for the 1958 season, playing their first two seasons in Seals Stadium, until the funhouse that was Candlestick Park was finished. As of the 1958 season the Seals moved to Arizona and, affiliating with the major-league team that sent them packing, became the Phoenix Giants -- until Phoenix got its major-league franchise in 1998. Come to think of it, I suppose 1957 sounds approximately as ancient to most folks today as 1914. Never mind.]


WAS THIS THE END FOR JACK?
TO FIND OUT, CLICK HERE

YOU KNOW ME AL I: A Busher's Letters Home

John Lardner's Introduction (1958): Part 1 and Part 2
Chapter I: A Busher's Letters Home --
Part 1, Preface and Jack's letters of Sept. 6 and Dec. 14 and 16
Part 2, The busher reaches the bigs -- March 2, 7, 9, and 16
Part 3: Countdown to Opening Day -- March 26 and April 1, 4, 7, and 10
Part 4: The busher makes his big-league debut -- April 11 and 15
Part 5: A major development for Jack -- April 19, 25, and 29

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: Can you guess who wrote these three "Talk of the Town" items about Ring?

Well, sure, you know which way we run the bases in this country, but what if you were a boy from Niles, Michigan, who learned your baseball in England?

by Ken

The combination of Ring's wit and his singular ability to wring confusion out of order, or what passed for order, made him eminently, er, citable. For tonight I've plucked three "Talk of the Town" items out of The New Yorker's archives, and in addition to being entertained, you get to guess who wrote them. (Of course until the Tina Brown era "Talk" items were always published unsigned, but one of the neat things about the extremely neat New Yorker index is that authorship of many originally unsigned pieces is revealed and fully indexed. I assume that many unsigned pieces remain unattributed, since the format of unattributed authorship allowed for multiple and/or "compound" authorship. "Talk" pieces, for example, were frequently reported by a staff reporter and written by a staff editor.)

Answers appear at the end, with scoring instructions.


FOR TONIGHT'S RING LARDNER-THEMED
"TALK OF THE TOWN" ITEMS, CLICK HERE


SUNDAY IN THURBER TONIGHT: Part 1 of "The Greatest Man in the World"


THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, and JEAN SHEPHERD TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: A postscript to "Champion" -- How it found its way into book form

The 2004 reprint of How to Write Short Stories
(whose title was suggested by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

"Scott Fitzgerald was the catalytic agent in the transformation of Ring Lardner from a journalistic funnyman to a literary figure. Just as he was to do with his next year's 'find,' Ernest Hemingway, Scott persuaded Ring and Max Perkins of Scribner's that both parties would benefit from an affiliation. The specific idea, which had apparently never occurred to Ring, was to make a book of a selection of his short stories . . . "

-- Ring Lardner Jr., in The Lardners: My Family Remembered

"I'm sorry you have had so much trouble gathering the stuff."

-- Ring, in a letter to Scribner's editor Maxwell Perkins,
referring to the grueling hunt for copies of his stories

by Ken

In the terrific introduction (which we read in two parts, first and second) that John Lardner wrote in 1958, not long before his death at 46, for a new edition of his father's You Know Me Al (of which we read the first chapter in five parts), Ring's oldest son identified a distinctly backhanded quality to the outwardly effusive praise for Ring's work by his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald (right); John further suggested, quite persuasively, a corresponding blind spot on Fitzgerald's part regarding his own work. None of which should diminish the sincerity of Fitzgerald's admiration for his friend's writing, or the crucial role he played in creating public awareness of his literary prowess.

It probably never occurred to Fitzgerald, though, as he pursued his plan to have Scribner's publish a collection of Lardner short stories, that there would be a monumental logistical problem: simply laying hands on the texts, hardly any of which the author had in his possession, either in manuscript or published magazine form. As Bill Lardner (i.e., Ring Jr., the third of Ring and Ellis's four sons) explains, his father didn't keep copies of, well, much of anything.

[A morbid note: Young as Ring (1885-1933) was when he died, Fitzgerald (1896-1940), almost 11 years his junior, would die even younger, at 44.]

FOR BILL LARDNER'S ACCOUNT OF THE PUBLICATION
OF HOW TO WRITE SHORT STORIES, CLICK HERE.


FOR RING'S PREFACE TO HOW TO WRITE SHORT STORIES (WITH SAMPLES), CLICK HERE.

FOR THE SARAH E. SPOOLDRIPPER PREFACES TO THE LOVE NEST AND THE STORY OF A WONDER MAN, CLICK HERE.

RING'S "CHAMPION" -- THE WHOLE STORY

Part 1: We make the acquaintance of young Michael Kelly
Part 2: In Milwaukee, Midge makes connections
Part 3: In Boston, Midge makes his mark
Part 4: In New Orleans, Midge reads some mail
Part 5: Back in his hometown, the champ knows how to deal with a sponger
Part 6: Back in Milwaukee, the champ rearranges more old arrangements
Part 7: In New York, the champ meets the press
Postscript: How "Champion" found its way into book form (tonight)

TOMORROW NIGHT: I've been thinking that with "Champion" under our belts we've got an obvious segue to Thurber's "The Greatest Man in the World," but I haven't managed to plan that far ahead yet.


THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, and JEAN SHEPHERD TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: The conclusion of "Champion" -- In New York, the champ meets the press

"Just a kid; that's all he is; a regular boy. Get what I mean? Don't know the meanin' o' bad habits. Never tasted liquor in his life and would prob'bly get sick if he smelled it. Clean livin' put him up where he's at. Get what I mean? And modest and unassumin' as a school girl. He's so quiet you wouldn't never know he was round. And he'd go to jail before he'd talk about himself."

-- Midge's new manager, to a newspaper reporter,
in tonight's concluding installment of "Champion"

by Ken

"Champion" was included in the collection of Lardner stories that F. Scott Fitzgerald prevailed on his publisher, Scribner's, to put out. Probably we should have had this story when we started out. Now I'm going to save it for a little "Champion" postscript tomorrow night.

But tonight, at last, we come to the final installment of "Champion," which finds Midge in New York.


FOR PART 7 OF "CHAMPION," CLICK HERE.

RING'S "CHAMPION" -- THE WHOLE STORY

Part 1: We make the acquaintance of young Michael Kelly
Part 2: In Milwaukee, Midge makes connections
Part 3: In Boston, Midge makes his mark
Part 4: In New Orleans, Midge reads some mail
Part 5: Back in his hometown, the champ knows how to deal with a sponger
Part 6: Back in Milwaukee, the champ rearranges more old arrangements
Part 7: In New York, the champ meets the press (tonight)
Postscript: How "Champion" found its way into book form (coming Wednesday)

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, and JEAN SHEPHERD TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: Part 6 of "Champion" -- Back in Milwaukee, the champ rearranges more old arrangements

"'What do you want?' [Midge] demanded.

"'I guess you know,' said Lou Hersch. 'Your wife's starvin' to death and your baby's starvin' to death and I'm starvin' to death. And you're dirty with money.'"

-- in Part 6 the champ receives a visit from his
brother-in-law (it doesn't turn out well for Lou)

by Ken

We come tonight to the next-to-last installment of "Champion."

As I mentioned last night, Ring's son Bill (Ring Jr.) comments in his 1976 memoir The Lardners: My Family Remembered on the late flowering of his father's work in other languages.

The most impressive development in recent years has been the spread of his work into foreign countries. During his lifetime and for thirty years after his death, he was practically unknown outside the English-speaking world; this year [1976] there are collections of his stories on sale in France, Italy, West and East ermany, Rumania, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and a number of other countries. How full an appreciation of his work there can be in all these new languages, I am not competent to judge, but clearly some obstacles have not been surmounted:

The rhythm at least of "And he give her a look that you could pour on a waffle" is lost when it becomes "E le diede un'occhiata che avreste potuto spalmarla benissimo su una fettina di pane."

And the reader is not getting the same sense of the character speaking the line when "I've saw outfielders tooken sick with a dizzy spell" is converted to "J'ai vu des joueurs de l'extérieur avoir une attaque de vertige."

In 1975 I accepted an offer from Pakistan (of two hundred and fifty dollars, no less) for the amateur theatrical rights in the Urdu language to a revue sketch of Dad's that contains the exchange:

"Me? I was born out of wedlock."

"Mighty pretty country around there."

I'm still waiting to hear how this holds up in Urdu.

FOR PART 6 OF "CHAMPION," CLICK HERE.

RING'S "CHAMPION" -- THE WHOLE STORY

Part 1: We make the acquaintance of young Michael Kelly
Part 2: In Milwaukee, Midge makes connections
Part 3: In Boston, Midge makes his mark
Part 4: In New Orleans, Midge reads some mail
Part 5: Back in his hometown, the champ knows how to deal with a sponger
Part 6: Back in Milwaukee, the champ rearranges more old arrangements
Part 7: In New York, the champ meets the press
Postscript: How "Champion" found its way into book form

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, and JEAN SHEPHERD TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Ring Lardner Tonight: Part 5 of "Champion" - Back in his hometown, the champ knows how to deal with a sponger

Eh bien, c'est Le Champion!

"'And I want the deed done before I come back,' said Grace as she rose from the table. 'You won't fall down on me, will you, hon?'"

-- Grace, to Midge, in tonight's installment of "Champion"

by Ken

Hugh Laurie was on The Graham Norton Show recently (well, it was last week that we got the show -- assuming I haven't lost a week -- which means that with a favoring wind it was taped a week or so before that), just back from the continent promoting his new New Orleans-recorded blues CD, and Graham asked him about the popularity of House in Europe, which it seems is enormous. This rather surprises Hugh, who explained that he would have thought the show awfully "wordy" to survive translation, making clear that he meant "wordy" in a the best possible way, referring to the writing that makes the show so satisfying for him.

(Hugh also told a wonderful story about his last stop in Germany, where he was thronged by fans trying to get him to autograph pictures while he was trying to catch a train. When they realized that no, he wasn't going to sign any more pictures, they started tearing them up and booing -- which he was startled to discover in German comes out "Ooh! Ooh!" -- and shouted for him to leave the country, which he explained was the very thing he was trying to do.)

Now if we imagine that House is too "wordy" for non-English-speakers, what would a rational translator make of Ring Lardner -- with, say, a line like: "I'm willin' to hear what you think is fair. I don't want nobody callin' me a Sherlock." His son Bill (aka Ring Jr.) touches on this in The Lardners. We'll have that with tomorrow night's Part 6.

FOR PART 5 OF "CHAMPION," CLICK HERE.

RING'S "CHAMPION" -- THE WHOLE STORY

Part 1: We make the acquaintance of young Michael Kelly
Part 2: In Milwaukee, Midge makes connections
Part 3: In Boston, Midge makes his mark
Part 4: In New Orleans, Midge reads some mail
Part 5: Back in his hometown, the champ knows how to deal with a sponger
Part 6: Back in Milwaukee, the champ rearranges more old arrangements
Part 7: In New York, the champ meets the press
Postscript: How "Champion" found its way into book form

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, and JEAN SHEPHERD TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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