With their insight on Humorists and Comedians, my friend Mac, and
respondent Abe, got their words chopped up by the magic of the Internet. I have
returned them, I believe, to plain text. I believe both had thoughts too good
to pass by because of what I call "machine language." Bob S
____________________________________
From: [log in to unmask]
Reply-to: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: 11/2/2012 10:23:55 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: Re: The 15th Annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is . . .
"Then comes Sir Walter Scott with his enchantments, and by his single
might checks this wave of progress, and even turns it back; sets the world in
love with dreams and phantoms; with decayed and swinish forms of religion;
with decayed and degraded systems of government; with the illinesses and
emptinesses, sham grandeurs, sham gauds, and sham chivalries of a brainless
and worthless long-vanished society. He did measureless harm; more real and
lasting harm, perhaps, than any other individual that ever wrote."
_http://www.twainquotes.com/SirWalterScott.html_
(http://www.twainquotes.com/SirWalterScott.html)
There are many perspectives on Mark Twain, and there are many perspectives
on those who receive honors in his name. Has the work of Ellen DeGeneres
chipped away at a social prejudice more than the work of Jonathan Winters?
Yes. Do I find her as funny? No. Do any of their legacies cast half the
shadow of the man whose list we serve? Maybe."
All I know is Mark Twain wrote many a line that his own daughters would
not want read to them. President Taft should stick to eating. What? He's
dead?
So much the better.
Don't forget to vote next Tuesday!
Sincerely yours,
ABE
________________________________________
From: Mark Twain Forum [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of McAvoy Layne
[mcavoy=
[log in to unmask]]=0A=
Sent: Friday, November 02, 2012 1:44 PM=0A=
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The 15th Annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is . . .
My wife chided me for not pronouncing her name correctly,
DeGeneres, not Dee-Jen-Heiress. But I think I've got it right now, and am in love
with her humor.
For the first time in the 15 year history of the Mark Twain Prize for
American Humor I was able to watch the 90-minute event as it aired on PBS. In
thanking PBS Ellen teased, I'm so glad to be a part of your farewell
season."
Even Oscar the Grouch had to guffaw.
Finally, this year for the first time, the Mark Twain Prize goes to a
humorist instead of a comedian. We've had hundreds of comedians in this great
land of ours but very few humorists, Ben Franklin, Twain (portrayed today
by Hal Holbrook), Will Rogers, Garrison Keillor...and the difference between
a comedian and a humorist is ever so vast.
The comedian's job is to make us laugh, and laughter is good for us, it
like massage on the inside, cuts down on the doctor bills, keeps us from
souring. But the comedian oftentimes bestows this favor upon us at the expense
of somebody else, or at the expense of decency, and leaves feeling guilty
for laughing at Pejorative humor.
President Taft once said, "Mark Twain never wrote a line that a father
could not read to his daughter." Yet George Carlin, a previous winner of the
Twain Prize, was famous for his "Seven Dirty Words You Can Never Say on
Television."
The humorist's job is merely to show us the good natured side of the
truth. The humorist is not looking for a laugh, the humorist is looking for a
nod of acknowledgement or perhaps the hint of a smile.
Twain reminds us that 'Laughter without a tinge of philosophy is but a
sneeze of humor. Genuine humor is replete with wisdom. Humor must not
professedly teach, and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it
would live forever -- which is thirty years."
As she took the stage to accept the prize, Ellen lamented the fact that
she had to follow so many funny people, and how she had hoped to follow Ken
Burns, thus making light of a truism that Sam illuminated so long ago. Set
a diamond upon a pall of black if you'd have it glisten.
She went on to say, "I have not read Twain, but then he has not seen my
HBO special. To whitch an admirer of both responded, "It would be impossible
to give the faintest idea of her talk on paper. Written or spoken by
another it would lose half its points of value. We can only congratulate those
who heard her and pity those who did not.
Lilly Tomlin stole my heart when she called Ellen, "Our Huckleberry
Friend." Ellen, like Huck, stuck by her friend to confront society and challenge
conventional thinking, conventional notions.
Twain railed against human foibles and humbuggery, yes, but he did it with
a scalpel, not a switch-blade. Twain's discriminating irreverence was
drawn not from the warrior's quiver, but from the artist's pallet. He would
not kick a humbug in the shin, but would place a bench strategically in his
path so that he might bark his own shin. Its one thing to have a sense of
humor, it is something more to have a humorous outlook on life. Ellen
DeGeneres has a health-giving outlook on life, and is a humorist of the blood
royal. To my mind she is the very first to truly deserve the Mark Twain
Prize for American Humor. We might go another generation to find another of
her rank, or perhaps another generation for her to find us...
McAvoy
McAvoy Layne
ghostoftwain.org
Chautauqua-Central.org
Email: [log in to unmask] (mailto:[log in to unmask])
PO Box 4522
Incline Village, NV 89450
775-833-1835
"Diligently train your ideals upward toward a summit where you will find
your chiefest pleasure in conduct, which while contenting you, will be sure
to confer benefits upon your neighbor and the community." --Mark Twain
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