A Fistful of Fig Newtons
Shepherd, Jean
to become a fugitive and thereby prove her commitment to the revolution. What she proved instead was her commitment to J a n e Atpert. Once underground, her politics, never c e r t a i n ,...
...I come across "Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories" which, a f t e r " S c u t Farkas and the Eighter from Decatur," turns out to be the best thing Shepherd ever did...
...in fact, the bits in both her books that tender critics winced at were the ones i liked best (such a s Social Studies' breezy rich person's guide on where to meet poor people...
...But a sour undertone also ran through Met Life, redolent of Interview, Andy Warhol's tabloid for the airheads of the haut demimonde, where many of these pieces originally appeared...
...A FisOCul of Fig Newtons is Shepherd's third collection of short stories and essays and, like the preceding two, is framed by the predicament of the narrator-,here, a commuter stuck in a traffic jam in the Lincoln Tunnel, indulging in flights of fancy and recollection to relieve the boredom and maintain sanity as he fights off an encroaching "Puerto Rican in a battered van, marked ACE PLUMBING SUPPLIES," who is about to beat him out of a precious inch of roadl and an airport bus that "sent a blast of diesel fumes that caught me f a i r and square, a clean s h o t . " In between we are treated to the story of a titanic laxative-eating contest in a dormitory...
...Then, if you happen to hit it big, you must face the prospect of a career spent living up to the initial hype...
...No one's to blame for wanting an encore performance...
...Men's colognes too...
...Perhaps I need Ovaltine's Little Orphan Annie Secret Decoder Ring...
...for which I ~_ II enclose ch'eck or money order totalinq $ II | Name ! I Address i | City State Zip I i Please add applicable taxes NR AS | n i l I l l l l l U m I I I I l l m' H i =m= m mira m m i N THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAY 1982 37...
...A line about his father sticks in my throat, reminds me of mine, and brings tears to my eyes (or maybe it was just a dysentery cramp...
...It is a risky thing, I acknowledge, to make pronouncements on what is and isn't funny...
...She stood by the sink, plucking nervously at her bathrobe...
...Those who come to it hoping to learn more about a particularly ugly period of dissent in American history or about the kinds of people who became involved in radical politics during the late 1960s will be d i s a p p o i n t e d - - unless they come prepared to believe that Alper.t's unexamined and longstanding will to power is paradigmatic...
...ESSEX CT 06426 U s A ~ l i i SAVE UP TO 90% ON PERFUMES We've created our versions of Opium, Bal A Versailles, Joy, Oscar de la Renta, 1000, L'Air du Temps, Chloe, Shalimar, Noretl, Halston Night, etc...
...He was having too much fun...
...She resented the need for a disguise, for the hated eyeglasses and the unflattering shade of h e r dyed hair...
...Candied violets are the Necco wafers" of the overbred"), shameless puns, and enough droll put-downs of s e v e n t i e s lunacy to furnish a time capsule...
...There is persuasive evidence here, too, of the a u t h o r ' s growth as an artist...
...And so were we...
...Randy, and Eduardo...
...Among the Left, however, she acquired heroine status --personifying uncompromised resistance to the system...
...Joseph A. Rehyansky is an enlisted veteran o f service in Vietnam with George S. Patton llI's llth Armored Cavalry Regiment, a aontmbutor to National Review, and a lawyer...
...But in order to clarify the matter, dear reader (as Fran Lebowitz might put it), I shall now endeavor to set forth a few points...
...Send for free sample and fragrance list...
...Her eagerness to parade an intimate, smirking knowledge of Manhattan's gay subculture infects many New York women anxious to surf on the crest of chic...
...But the highlights of Metropolitan Life were its loopy conceits, like Monty Python sketches in prose, often inspired by mundane fixtures of New York life...
...Jean Shepherd...
...will be revived...
...This is not a conclusion I care to d r a w - - n o t , at any r a t e , on the basis of an account whose sole purpose seems to be the a u t h o r ' s self-vindication...
...m m,, -=, =,= n m =,,, ,,m mev.m9 i ~-J VJ ~1~ At" y0ur D00KsI0re or MCGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY i 1221 Avenue of the Amencas New York, N.Y 10020 paperback copy(ies) of LOW | Please send me | PROFILE: How to Avoid the Privacy Invaders by | Wittiam Petrocel~i @ $5.95 each...
...There, in " L o s t at C , " an epic about grade school and high school wherein the author--damn his h i d e - - r e v e a l s virtually every secret known to kids for avoiding getting called on in class (when all else fails, "repeat silently, with intense concentration, the hypnotic command Don't call on me, Don't call on me, Don't call on me, sending out invisible waves of powerful thought energy until the teacher's mind is mysteriously c l o u d e d " ) , Shepherd boasts that " t h e years passed, punctuated by occasional tight squeaks, but.my true identity as a faker was never really in danger of exposure...
...A phone book advertisement for the Weak Speech Handset inspires her theory that it's "aimed for the tedious crowd--those who are weak in the speech department"and must surely come in models like the Oscar Wilde ("produces speech that is entirely epigrammatic")and the Evelyn Waugh ( " t h r i l l and amaze your loved one . . . the ultimate in contempt...
...And beneath the jaded, chain-smoking persona, there lurked a heart o f - - what...
...You mean you're home for good...
...That'~ what I was wondering as I sat through Shep's three-hour show It was supposed to last two hours, but at 11 o'clock he hollered to one of the stage hands: "Would you please call WOR and tell them to put on one of my old tapes?--I ain't gonna make it by 11:30...
...Miss Lebowitz, dubbed a "major new American humorist" with the publication of Metropolitan Life, may be the beneficiary of a continuing knight shortage in the space where the Round Table stood--because Social Studies, while i n t e r m i t t e n t l y delicious, still made me wonder how many of its critical garlands represented wishful thinking by the laughstarved...
...Never, Morn...
...But she does show signs of resting--or at least fidgeting--on her laurels...
...J e a n Shepherd e x p r e s s e s with transfiguring clarity the t e r r o r and poignancy that can shred the heart of an ordinary mortal when he realizes, at that decisive point in his lifelong progress, that the light at the end of the tunnel is . . . New Jersey...
...Home for good...
...But mean-spirited is another thing, a thing that happens when the vitriol sprays only outward...
...Money back if nOt pleased...
...Not bad, for a faker...
...Is that what you mean...
...But I write Shepherd a note telling him how much I enjoyed it, and I quickly receive a short but warm reply...
...A FISTFUL OF FIG NEWTONS Jean Shepherd / Doubleday / $14.95 Joseph A. Rehyansky S eton Hall University, 1966...
...I am vindicated...
...On mood jewelry: "One can safely assume that a person who finds it necessary to consult a b r a c e l e t on the subject of his own s t a t e of mind is a person who is undoubtedly perplexed by a g r e a t many things...
...First of all, it's no easy thing being an Urbane Literary Curmudgeon...
...Again the snoring commenced...
...I won't say that Fran Lebowitz, the Urbane Literary Curmudgeon who gave us the acidly funny best-seller Metropolitan Life in 1978, has slept 'til noon with her eagerly awaited second volume, SoczaIStudies...
...Her sense of timing was unerring...
...Out of theArmy...
...Nor did I find another clue to the meaning of this worrisome scrawl for another 14 years, until I hit page 182 of A Fistful ofFig Newtons...
...I'm out...
...Out of what...
...no longer does his kid brother Randy "mewl and puke" under the sink when he d o e s n ' t get what he wants--he bangs his head against the wall until the Old Man, having had enough, suspends him by one ear, and whomps his behind...
...Eugene, Mr...
...it's the aren't-we-naughty ethos that New York magazine has been dishing out to its yearning middle-class subscribers for years...
...Yep...
...Who the hell was it...
...Send $7.50 (U.S...
...Present Lebowitz with an i n s t i t u t i o n called the F i r s t Women's Bank and dangerous speculations ensue: a bank closed two or three days a month for cramps, and a host of spin-offs like the First National Piggy Bank for children-with Banking by Color--or the First National Raving Bank for homosexuals, featuring three-dollar bills, a two-drink minimum, and tellers named Mr...
...On discos: " I f you are of the opinion that an evening without amyl nitrate is like a day without sunshine, you Should avail yourself of this substance in the privacy of your own truck and not in the middle of a Crowded dance floor...
...For another, we all giggle and guffaw at different things--and most of us secretly revel in our selectivity...
...I can tell you: She was that most common of creatures, a rebel with insufficient cause...
...Every time I glanced around it stopped...
...My God," says Shep, looking at the first one, "Where the hell did you get t h i s ? " He writes something friendly and innocuous on the cover...
...I don't even have a copy of this one anymore.'" He looks me up and down, full-length, quickly but thoroughly, and scrawls, "For Joe, A real faker...
...Our family was never much for crying, and when someone did, you weren't supposed to notice...
...I think there's some summer sausage left...
...an appreciation of a true tour de force in tantrum-throwing on a bus bound for summer camp...
...dealing with all aspects of language...
...Gold, according to friends who describe Lebowitz to magazine interv i e w e r s . If so, it did nothing to deepen her sketches from those of an If You Love Words, you'll, love VERBATIM, The Language Quarterly...
...how did he know?--two years later, in Vietnam, sitting in a hex t e n t , listening to the heat, and thumbing through a mildewed copy of Playboy...
...0r~$8.50 (elsewhere) for a one-year Subscription, starting with the current issue...
...Others--the less blatantly decadent, I'd imagine--appeared in Mademoiselle...
...Every college newspaper office bristles with obnoxious youths who want to arch their eyebrows and toss off light essays for a living...
...Got any salami in the icebox...
...Instead, stuffed under my arm, are the only two record albums Shep ever cut...
...Actually, they're my f a t h e r ' s , gifts from me to the man who introduced me to Shepherd, almost ten years before...
...you risk being mistaken for one of them the moment you sit down peevishly at your typewriter...
...At least one--' 'The Marathon Run of Lonesome Ernie, the Arkansas T r a v e l e r " - - i s a fleshed-out and detailed retelling of one of his old radio bits, a story I first heard about 20 years ago and have never forgotten--at once funny, sad, surrealistic, and uniquely American...
...What did he mean...
...For one thing, humor tends to melt under analysis like ice cream under a photographer's lamp...
...Allow 6 weeks...
...One might as well try to compare the achievement of Neil Armstrong with that of ChristoPher Columbus...
...I'm done...
...at $15.00 per oz...
...I h a v e n ' t got the book yet...
...In fashioning herself as the scourge of the tacky, Lebowitz has adopted a pose of seething invulnerability, even down F m...
...Not that I d o n ' t like my humor mean...
...In God We Trust--All Others Pay Cash has just been published, and Jean Shepherd will be autographing copies before his show...
...Once underground, her politics, never c e r t a i n , shifted with the wind...
...She turned on the hot water in the sink and instinctively began to swab the cupboard top with a damp Brillo pad...
...Who was Jane Alpert when no one else was looking...
...new views of Hohman, Indiana during the Depression, where the sun sets through a brasscolored sky...
...Obviously I was as unreal to her as she was to me...
...I contend that, for anyone in the humor business, this can be surprisingly / Brenda L. Becker is a writer and editor living in New York City...
...You mean you never have to go back...
...read it if y o u ' r e a kid, or if y o u ' v e ever been one...
...I'nevitably, with the appearance of this volume, the tired old comparisons of Jean Shepherd with Twain, Mencken, and his own hero, George Ade...
...Never...
...I unbuttoned my GI overcoat, pretend36 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAY 1982 ing not to notice her glistening eyes...
...Meatloaf, red cabbage, the old daybed, moldy tires in the basement, my mother's Chinese red chenille bathrobe, which faintly breathed out the myriad aromatics of countless breakfasts past, swept over me . . . My mother seemed stunned to see me squatting in the kitchen wearing a snowy GI overcoat . . . "When do you have to go back...
...Three years is a long time...
...Every home has its own distinctive aroma, which reflects the diet, the skin condition, the personal habits, the state of deterioration of the sofa, of the specific family-that is holed up in that particular cubicle...
...Her much-vaunted impeccable style--that of a supercilious wiseacre p e d a n t - - l a p s e d frequently into labored manner:,sm...
...And damn it all, she would make us sit up and take notice...
...I am still wondering--what did he mean...
...And, if that's what he meant, how did he know...
...Essential Products Co., Inc...
...SOCIAL STUDIES Fran Lebowitz / Random House / $9..95 Brenda L. Becker t 61j'et~ a name for early r i s i n g , " says my mother ominously, "and you can sleep 'til noon...
...I paid my dues...
...Although people in the movement were almost sacrificially generous in giving her sanctuary, Alpert throughout seemed less concerned with the cause than with the minutiae of her appearance...
...Some of the gtories have appeared in print before, and some are new--at least to the printed page...
...After fifteen or twenty minutes of this i r r i t a t i n g phlegmy sound, I realized that it was me...
...Growing Up Underground is confession without revelation, alternately infuriating and saddening...
...There is no clue, however, to the meaning of his well-remembered greeting...
...A New York, NY 10005 212-344-4288 Serving Wall Street area since 1895 especially sophisticated comedienne to those of a genuine humorist...
...Metropolitan Life, I recall, had me whooping and calling up friends to quote passages at length from her grab bag of epigrams ("Sleep is death without the re sponsibilify...
...read it if you've ever been hopelessly in love, or bored, or frightened, or disillusioned...
...She-busied herself with buttering bread, and pouring milk...
...I reject these comparisons partly because they fail to do Shepherd justice, but primarily because they are grotesquely inadequate: He speaks to us of an era, of attitudes and phenomena, of which these predecessors, however worthy, knew not...
...Or stuck in traffic...
...I cannot imagine, either, how even the most stubbornly conservative i n t e r p r e t e r of the counterculture could pat himself on the shoulder on the basis of this tacky, shrill chronicle...
...She was sentenced to twenty-seven months in prison and f r e e d a f t e r twenty for good behaviol...
...She was angry, for calculable and incalculable r e a s o n s , but f.~r worse, she was ignored...
...Like an aspiring actor, you must struggle to imprint yourself on the public retina alongside a glut of fellow would-be's, most of them banking more on native charm than craft...
...and other stories bound to enhance Shepherd's reputation as a humorist, savage wit, and truthteller...
...90 Water St., Dept...
...All was forgiven...
...For those who might be tempted to conclude that Shepherd writes only for the funny bone, I'll offer this one passage, which memorializes his unannounced return home, at 2:30 in the morning, from three years of service during World War Ih Instantly, I was engulfed in the totally familiar smell of my own family nest...
...Kathy Boud i n , h e r s e l f a fugitive, risked a special visit.to try to argue Alpert out of her much-publicized " r a d i c a l - feminist" principles . . . . In the late fall of 1974, post-Watergate, Alpert turned herself in...
...I don't have to go back...
...plus $2.00 delivery charge first bottle, 50 cents each additional one...
...Then, looking at the second one, "Holy cow...
...easy, despite the show-biz perception that the world is tough on its jesters...
...Read this book, if you're a veteran (of World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, or even Canada...
...an unforgettable story of a 24-hour stint of KP on a sealed troop train during World War II ( " I t mugt have been about the tenth or fifteenth hour that I became conscious, dimly through the hullabaloo and the scorching heat, that somebody in my immediate vicinity was snoring fitfully...
Vol. 15 • May 1982 • No. 5
