Seems I was the only guy on the planet who loved The Letter by The Box Tops — I played it incessantly on a jukebox on Corfu in 1976 — and did not know the vocals were by Alex Chilton, who before he died last week achieved what Phil Nugent called “inspiring flakiness.”
Since I just [...]
Alex Chilton’s “inspiring flakiness” vs. Seymour Krim’s
Cars and Hamlet’s Ghost in Polanski’s “Ghost Writer”
I’ve never seen cars depicted so malevolently and anthropomorphically as they are in Polanski’s new film, The Ghost Writer.
Polanski bet that we are so identified with our cars that they could be used as stand-ins for people and still deliver the emotional weight the story needs; that the audience would view the car as a [...]
Ben Stiller’s “Greenberg” works in Seymour Krim’s “Failure Business”
A line from David Denby’s New Yorker review of “Greenberg” touches on a theme that shows up often in Jewish American literature. Denby says that Greenberg, played by Ben Stiller, “can’t accept mediocrity, but, an aesthete without an art, he doesn’t know how to get himself anywhere.”
I’ve got Seymour Krim on the brain, so naturally [...]
continue reading >>Allan Sherman’s family lived as non-Jewish Jews among Jews
When Sherman began 8th grade in Los Angeles in the fall of 1936, his mother Rose had recently been married — for the fourth and last time — to a Jewish conman and gangster. I have his FBI file. It’s big. (Mostly he liked to burn down businesses, usually his own. But the file suggests [...]
continue reading >>Seymour Krim forgotten? Fuggedaboudit
When I discovered Seymour Krim I couldn’t find anyone who had heard of him. To me he was the missing beat, hence the title of my book.
But over the last few days I’ve been hearing from people who not only have heard of him, but knew or corresponded with him.
Prof. Mark Shechner at SUNY Buffalo [...]
Allan Sherman didn’t attend 21 schools (but he early had a way with words)
One of the tidbits that Allan Sherman fans have heard is that he attended 21 schools before college. The figure comes from his entertaining but not wholly reliable autobiography, A Gift of Laughter.
Well, that’s not right.
For my biography of Sherman I have done some prodigious digging, and as I gathered information I became embarrassed that [...]
Saul Bellow on pit bulls
Yes, I’ve got a Saul Bellow text for everything.
Anyway, this Daily Beast article on the danger of pit bulls is obviously right. What’s frightening is the irrational and confused responses posted by scores of people who are stupid and/or nuts.
Bellow picked up on Americans’ bizarre love for these dangerous animals more than 20 years ago [...]
Isaac Rosenfeld talk unexpectedly moving (especially if you’re a Seymour Krim fan)
Essayist Richard Rodriguez talked movingly about the notion of success and failure last night in his discussion with Stanford’s Steven Zipperstein about the latter’s Isaac Rosenfeld biography, Rosenfeld’s Lives: Fame, Oblivion, and the Furies of Writing.
In the conversational presentation between the two writers and friends at the San Francisco JCC, Rodriguez questioned Rosenfeld’s reputation as [...]
It was ‘Jewish or Bust’ for Allan Sherman
In my post yesterday I wrote that Allan Sherman’s first Jewish song parody invoked Humpty Dumpty partly because his parents, Rose and Percy Copelon, filed for divorce in June 1932, when Sherman was seven.
That’s enough to make any kid feel that no one could put his pieces together again.
But how to explain Humpty Dumpty happily [...]
Allan Sherman news: His very first Jewish song parody
Allan Sherman news? How can there be Allan Sherman news? The guy has been dead for almost 37 years.
There can be news because I’ve been researching his life for a biography, and I’ve interviewed dozens of his friends and family and obtained a great deal of original material and recordings from archives and individuals.
Incredibly, considering [...]
