R. Seth Friedman

Damnit, so good. These are notes for my reference so apologies to my 'feed'.

-From an essay on the rainbow clown wig/ "John 3:16" guy: "Marooned and frustrated in Los Angeles, Stewart put aside John 3:16, much as he had put aside the Rainbow Man almost ten years before, and created a new character: the 'Backslidden Christian'. With the Backslidden Christian, Stewart proved the old adage that genius rarely strikes twice."

-From "Thus Spake Cinderfella," an essay about Jerry Lewis & one of the best essays I've ever read: "Indeed, 'The Day the Clown Cried' takes what is one of the all-time classic images of kitsch- the sad clown so often seen painted on black velvet and hanging in your cousin's depressing rec room- and forces it to mean something."

and elsewhere from the same ssay,,,

"'Do you think it's normal for God to put children in steel cages?' asked Jerry, 'If it is, then I say God goofed!' Told that he would lose viewers and station affiliates all over the country, Lewis then responded, 'I've been told that I have offended a lot of people... but I still say God goofed!'

In the '70s, Woody Allen seemed to be whining about God as if God wouldn't return his phone calls: does He like me? Why the silence? I never hear from Him! But here was the out-of-favor, supposedly-no-longer-funny, cultural dinosaur Jerry Lewis... announcing the death of God before the whole continent, refusing to apologize for it, and still asking for his viewers' hard-earned dollars."

-From another essay about 'going out': "The whole part of you that exists outside yourself keeps getting murdered. This murder of the Social Self is not some rare event, like, say, banishment from a village for crimes against the community. It happens all the time. Every time you are down or depressed. Or desperate for intimacy, sex, or conversation. or tired from work. Or fight with one or two key people on the phone list. Or there's nothing to do. Or your friends start marrying and moving off to the 'burbs. Or you just have bad luck, everyone's busy, and you didn't call enough. No one escapes the failure to go out. For most people, failure to go out is the ordinary condition."

Cripes, what a breath of fresh air.… (mer)