Among the most humorless people I knew were those who despaired at my love for the Naked Gun trilogy. Blinded by the shuffle of dick and fart jokes—these are the objects of scorn for critics of the Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker comedies—they couldn't see the inventive plot excursions and genius hilarity. Presumably they also didn't see the genius of the straight man amid the chaos: Sergeant Frank Drebin, Detective Lieutenant Police Squad.
June 2010 David Markson died in.
It would be fitting if his gravestone had "Wittgenstein" misspelled on it. As he suggested The Recognitions was misspelled on Gaddis'.
As soon as it was established that I had an enormous, blush-inducing crush on David, he promptly pulled a salacious book from the sexuality section, written by an old Playboy Bunny, in which she describes not only how cool and smart David was, but how impressive a lover. Said Theresa, five decades his junior.
Augusta National displayed its wariness with the evils of contemporary society quickly and efficiently. The signs at the entrance made everyone quite aware of the rules: there would be No Cell Phones, No Pagers, No Electronic Devices, No Guns, No Knives. They were more concerned with civility than the progress and survival of civilization. That may sound awkward or overly genteel, but civility turned out to be a lot more inviting than I had first thought.
