“I should have availed myself of waggery, had not malice been multitudinous.” —Christopher Smart The English are known for their love of the eccentric. Batty dons, hapless clerics, Colonel Blimps, imperious aunts, and addled aristocrats are scattered over the landscape of the English popular imagination. In a society where a high value is placed on...
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The Arty Life
Frances Spalding: Vanessa Bell; Ticknor & Fields; New York. Karen Monson: Alma Mahler: Muse to Genius: From Fin-de-Siecles Vienna to Hollywood’s Heyday; Houghton Mifflin; Boston. Women are in many ways the bearers and keepers of culture. However excluded they may have been from be coming artists in their own right, women throughout history have shown a...
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Opinions & Views – Liberal Culture – Closed Circuit
Mr. William Kennedy, a writer lavishly honored last year with both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, recently wrote an enthusiastic review, published by the New York Times Book Review, of a book by Mr. Mario Cuomo, the liberal governor of New York. I voted for Mario Cuomo for Govemor of New...
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Before the Borscht Belt — and Beyond
The Literary Humor of the Urban Northeast, 1830-1890; Edited by David E. E. Sloane; Louisiana State University Press; Baton Rouge. Chicago’s Public Wits; Edited by Kenny J. Williams and Bernard Duffey; Louisiana State University Press; Baton Rouge. It is a commonplace that humor arises from the amused recognition of the disparity between the ideal and...