"Let me be the first to admit that the naked truth about me is to the naked truth about Salvador Dali as an old ukelele in the attic is to a piano in a tree, and I mean a piano with breasts."
James Thurber wrote that wonderful sentence in a 1943 essay called "The Secret Life of James Thurber," and how wonderful is it to be teaching a class with a textbook that includes this essay?
But that reminds me of another naked truth: for years I've been telling my humor classes that James Thurber once said that the essence of humor is the willingness to place oneself on painful public record. I believe that, and I believe Thurber said it, but where? I haven't been able to track the statement down anywhere. If you Google "Thurber" with "public record," you get a whole lot of hits referring to some other Thurber, Fred Thurber or Mike Thurber or Joe Thurber, whose entry into the public record has more to do with crime than with humor. So now I don't know whether to keep telling my students that the essence of humor is the willingness to place oneself on painful public record without attribution, or perhaps I should admit the naked truth about my inability to locate the source. Help?
5 comments:
This is where a real librarian would be useful.
I found a reference to the comment as "awkward public record."
But again, this is what librarians are for! :) Good luck!
(I'd do the it's James Thurber, but I don't remember exactly where I saw it thing.)
Which reminds me, dang, I liked what I read of Thurber when I was a kid! I should read him again!
I don't recall that quote, but I've always loved this one: "The power that created the poodle, the platypus and people has an integrated sense of both comedy and tragedy." I don't know where I first heard that. Maybe from you??? Anyway, I like the idea of believing in a God who has a sense of humor.
Oh, hey! I'm a real librarian. I have found the quotation online as "the proof of humor is the ability to put one's self on awkward public record." I found this in an electronic copy of the book E.B. White: A Biography by Scott Elledge. It is on page 90, and has a superscript 15 next to it, so there is presumably a reference, but I cannot see it in my electronic copy. The book is in your new library, though, and you can find it on the 3rd floor at call number PS3545.H5187 Z64 1984.
Librarians rock! (And know how to find everything!)
Thanks, Jessica! I can't get to campus until Monday, but from searching the E.B. White book a little more on Amazon, I think I found a reference for the quote...which appears to have come from the very volume of James Thurber's letters I have on a bookshelf downstairs.
I should note that The Thurber Carvinal was the very first hard-back book I ever purchased with my own money. It was a momentous occasion. A seventh-grade classmate had introduced me to Thurber's writing and I immediately knew who I wanted to be when I grew up, so when I found the book on the "Reduced" table at the Little Professor bookstore on Park Avenue in Winter Park, Florida, I bought it. For five dollars. I cherished the book for years until I loaned it out to a former college roommate, who lost it. What could I do? I had to buy a second copy. Hardback, just like the original, but it unfortunately set me back more than five dollars.
Now I know where I'll start my weekend reading. Student drafts for work...Thurber for relaxation.
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