F&*% You, I'm a Genius

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Reading a review of a play in the NY Times this morning, I had an idea so amusing, so filled with promise of future pleasure, I really do have to write it down before it sinks into the boneyard of all those other little spritzes of inspiration that I thought I could not possibly forget, so wonderful were they.

Because, so often, I would forget. I would wake up remembering the fact of being inspired, but there was no meat on the bones, just a memory of the moment but not the stuff itself.

Anyway, as I read the review my thoughts ran on two tracks: admiration for the work behind the play being reviewed -- the patience; the suffering; the multiple rewrites -- and for the review itself, which was giving me such pleasure, second-hand but useful in all kinds of ways, including now having one little bit more of cocktail chatter.

And the idea came to me. Why not write reviews of my own towering works of genius? I don't mean of my actual towering works of genius, but the ones I will write or might write or could write or at least can think about writing. Two for one! Efficiency squared!!

So, yeah, I am going to be doing that from now on when I have the time and if I think of it and if someone reminds me. They don't have to be long reviews, after all. Some can be those little follow-up thumbnails you see when the book comes out in paperback or the DVD of the movies arrives or the community playhouse licenses the Broadway hit from seasons past.

Thus:

Two-fisted Fighting Poet Doc Scores Again

Encumbering a one-man autobiographical play performed by its author with the thumb-in-the-eye title of "F*&% You, I'm a Genius" is the sort of provocation that begs for a reviewer's most crisp rebuttal:

No, you're not.

But it's a mark of local teacher/scholar/playwright J. Michael Robertson's talent that this reviewer came to scoff and stayed to cheer.

It's a critical chestnut: Show, don't tell. The facts are the argument -- when they are undeniable. And when it comes to charming the skeptic, that's what Robertson did last night in a three-hour monologue describing the initial resistance to his reintroduction of iambic pentameter to the Broadway stage and, quickly thereafter, to Hollywood itself, by letting his fists do the talking.

From his first "F*&% you" to his final "and if you don't like it, you can kiss my a**," he commanded his audience, even though the performance was done in total darkness, Robertson's only instrument his thrilling baritone.

Is this what it was like to be alive at the dawn of Shakespeare?

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• F&*% You, I'm a Genius (jmichaelrobertson.blogspot.com)

A Cartoon at the Expense of Twitter

Inspired by a post at Brother Pabst's fishlanguage, I commented, and in that comment imagined a hypothetical cartoon, and the creative excitement rose to such a degree that I stole an image online so that I could create the cartoon. So it's no longer hypothetical.

Are you twittering this?

Coming Soon: A Poetry Salon! (Give Me Some Zombie Fries and I'll Get You In)

Go left and down and hit Salonista Central if you're curious. It's a wiki. I posted this today in the "memories of the salon" section. When it comes to words, I like to multipurpose.

MR: Just to start the ball rolling, I'll recount a fairly recent salon moment burned into these old retinas -- and into the old stirrup and anvil, too. It was a salon hosted by Lyle and Matt to which Lyle had invited some of her classiest musical friends, those interested in your classical music of equal amounts beauty and obscurity, a wonderful ride on the wayback machine, don't you know?

But these delicates did not know much about the salons and (I assume) assumed there would be a certain daintiness about the proceedings.

*Then came Wieder.*

He did a where-are-they now bit in which he managed to defame the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. and all the Kennedys. Ah, the moment dances in memory, as half of us howled for the wit of it but also for the *Wieder* of it. But some of Lyle's guests physically recoiled, having come to the zoo to enjoy the peacocks and prairie dogs only to see the monkeys F**K.

You see, you have to earn the right to be at a salon. Wieder plunges you into an acid bath. When it comes to Wieder, that which does not destroy you, makes you laugh.

After 5-4 Death Panel Vote, Robert Novak Terminated

Of course, that's a parody headline. If there were real death panels, the vote would have been 9-0.

The Healing Power of Laughter, or How I Became Department Chair

I Was Nine Years Old. I Laughed and Laughed.

This Morning the SF Chronicle's Own Don Asmussen Made Me Laugh Out Loud

Here's the whole panel.

William Shakespeare's Five and Twenty Random Things Abovt Me

Image via Wikipedia

The rest are just as funny. Kudos to the Canadian, Mike McPhaden.


1 Sometimes I Feele so trapp’d by iambic pentameter... Does that make me a Freake?

2 I haue been Knowne to cry at Bear-baiting.

3 I am not uery ticklish. I am Not. So prithee, do not euen try. Waste. Of. Time.

4 I cannot keep Lice, and know not why.

5 Sometimes I thinke plays are all Talke, Talke Talke, and wish for a cart-chase scene. I tried one in The Merry Wives, but it looked like Shitte, so I cut it. The men playing the horses were so Pissed at me.

P.S. By the way, humorian Robert (Bob) Wieder brought this to my attention. When it comes to yuks, his palate is quite refined.

Honi soit qui mal y pense (Old French: "shame upon him who thinks evil upon it", or "evil to him who evil thinks")

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By Their Yuks Ye Shall Know Them: I Think This is Quite Funny. I Even *Look* Like This Guy.