Woody Allen

I’ll be real: I couldn’t not read this book because Dylan Farrow doesn’t want me to read it, because she’s like, Love me because my dad is a jackass, right, because, well, let me ask you—

—Is it zero sum?
—Yes.
—And I guess I’m supposed to love you because your dad’s a jackass?
—Yes.
—Well, I don’t know what happened or didn’t happen, all I know is that if it’s zero-sum I have to revert to doing what’s best for myself, which kinda revolves around my life and how My! dad is a jackass. Do you think I could go on tour too, get people to love me because my dad’s a jackass?
—I don’t know your dad.
—He can really play the jackass card, though: in my life, more than yours. He’s a Christian tyrant; wants the Confederates to come back…. Can’t tell a joke. And again, I don’t know who you are or who I’d be if I were you, still less what happened when whatever happened or didn’t happen happened, you know.
—Somehow when you say, “I know”, it makes your convoluted sentences even harder to follow.
—Well, life is lived everyday, you know, right. And, to be honest: and I wasn’t going to tell you this, you know, but the fact that this Woody character has this non-daughter who has a whole persona going being his non-daughter made him more of a standout for me, made me want to see if he could tell a joke….

…. And, of course, the real reason not to read Woody Allen: his work was done about fourteen billion years after the death of Socrates, in Ancient Rome….

And to think it was written in English, and not the language of the birds!

—And it wasn’t even about freeing the masses from non-Marxism! Or from economic distress! All it does is make the worthless fuckers happy! (throws the pencil)

But I forget how that scene goes, now, or when exactly he throws the pencil, so, you know. Roll with it, ok?

…. I kinda like it. It makes me sad, but it’s good; it’s ironic, and how things are. It’s how I thought David Sedaris would be. Sometimes with Dave it was too much like “I am very wise”; with Woody it’s more, “Things are just strange as fuck—the end.” And it’s like: strange as fuck, starting with the people who think they understand, right. The Lost Generation intellectual, you know, who has since turned into a robot who is busy at work in theoretical and practical time travel so that he can get back to the time where he belongs, right….

“Doesn’t have a point of view/Knows not where he’s going to/Making all his nowhere plans for nobody.” The Beatles at Needleman’s funeral

…. I find the absurdity of it reassuring. I decline to defend this feeling logically…. And I doubt I’ll have much more to say, lol. But it’s better than a game show, or, you know, philosophy. Toss up with sports. It depends if Boris Becker gets into a tussle with the line judge, and the announcer guys posh-style make fun of him, and then how you respond to that, you know.

…. Re: absurdity; it’s hard to please a schoolteacher, but I think Woody does a good job of not making untranslatable Latin language puns, without telling dick jokes, you know.

…. “But thus I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.” F.N.

I haven’t read the Fredder properly, of course—but reading random quotes online of a philosopher you don’t really understand as a random high schooler with a shitty grasp of reality is the perfect background for reading a book like this, you know….

“Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see….” John Lennon. And if only he’d held onto that, he wouldn’t have spent half of the last decade of his life trying to punish himself and not letting himself succeed, and the other half, well, being John, being John when he’s…. Well, anyway.

…. Which is certainly not to say that Woody is everybody, or that everybody is Woody, or that you could even introduce the two at a party. —Woody, this is everybody. Everybody, this is Woody. I’ll leave you two to messily blur your boundaries…. ~ That is the great failure of classicism, you know, of classics-ism, the idea that in books, men, and even more, women, are nothing, and one man is everything…. It is very male humor. It’s a man’s perspective. But, then, you have seen the goose by the lake; it remains only to find the duck, right…. Don’t hurt it, though; don’t hurt the goose…. And, you know, the 70s was a long time ago now, but if this is not something other than classicism, classics-ology, then, well, (chuckles), that Greek man must be a tenacious wrestler perched on our back, if even Woody couldn’t get him off, right….

…. And, I mean, it is a long time ago—Ah yes, the 70s; “it’s only right, that you should, play the way you feel it”: yes, yes, very droll, I’m sure—part of culture, but also, Over & Done. But tonight on the 24 Hour News Cycle, scientists pave the way to the robot race: and cut out and nom on the part of the brain that does emotions so that we can have better technology and do chess forever. But first: OH MY GOD IS THAT A COLORED MAN ON THE NEWS HE IS A THIEF, GUARD GUARD! I SHOULD NEVER HAVE LEFT COUNTY DOWN THE LAND OF MY ANCESTORS. (beat) Tea?

…. Although for the record, I think that the line should have been, “//Lovers//, they will come and they will go”—but it was a great band, you know.

…. Yeah, I wonder if they had “People” magazine back in the 70s, you know. I’d say “Elle”, but she is (very occasionally) taken by her role as the defender of girlie’s honor, you know.

Anyway, it’s fun. I mean, not honor. What, did you think this was “Angel in the House”? 😸

I mean, if there’s an angel involved, it must be the one from that track, from—I still don’t know why they didn’t call it ‘Made in the //Morning//‘, you know; say what you will of Harry’s boyish good looks, I suppose he’s not all that bright…. 😸

Although if you’ve read all the books, it’s very different, because, because…. Well, because there are lots of allusions, that’s how it’s bloody different, you know. 😹

…. FINAL JUDGMENT: Destroy All Old People, starting with the gerontologists who are about to retire. 👌… (mer)

Tuvieron que pasar 16 años para que Woody Allen regresara a las letras con un nuevo libro de relatos cortos. Cómo acabar de una vez por todas con la cultura (1971), Sin plumas (1975), Efectos secundarios (1980) y Pura anarquía (2007), son los antecedentes literarios del flamante Gravedad cero (2022), una serie de 19 cuentos de los cuales 8 aparecieron previamente en la sofisticada publicación The New Yorker, y 11 fueron escritos especialmente para esta edición. Se trata del humor de Woody Allen en pura ebullición, todo lo que el lector puede esperar del ocurrente e intelectual humor del autor neoyorkino, quien no ha perdido ni un poco la puntería en su divertida (y pesimista) visión de la existencia. Un crew de filmación que destruye la casa de un coleccionista, vacas con instintos psicópatas, las complejidades de los bienes raíces en New York, comediantes mediocres que entretienen gallinas, almohadas capaces de conseguir la paz mundial y seres humanos que reencarnan en langostas que se sirven en restaurantes del Upper East Side, son apenas algunas de las excéntricas tramas que Allen despliega a todo galope, salpicando su prosa con múltiples referencias al arte y la cultura pop. Entre el surrealismo y la sexualidad hilarante, entornos dignos de Kafka y situaciones tan exageradas que provocan carcajadas súbitas, Woody Allen arrasa igual con la industria del cine, los críticos y la política; lo mismo satiriza a Miley Cirrus que se burla de los autos inteligentes que sufren dudas existenciales; describe porrazos en la cabeza que crean eruditos y caballos que pintan lienzos al estilo de Joan Miró. La editora de The New Yorker, Daphne Merkin, apunta atinadamente en el prólogo: “No es fácil ser gracioso”. Pero la pluma de Allen desdobla una literatura divertida y ágil, que innegablemente se siente cinematográfica. Atención al último relato Crecer en Manhattan, más extenso, cercano a la novela corta, que bien podría ser el esbozo de una nueva película del director. Las palabras que utiliza para describir ese Manhattan que tanto ama, con sus atardeceres y el verde encendido de Central Park, erizarán la piel del lector.… (mer)