Editor's notebook
Hoyt, Robert C.
AN EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK THE ULTIMATE ORDEAL SEE ALSO, FRANK McCONNELL, PAGE 18 rank McConnell writes in this issue about the joys, hopes, griefs, and anxieties experienced by any person in the...
...A parish bulletin in NCR's home town, Kansas City, Missouri, urged Mass-goers to "pick up your copy of Our Sunday Visitor, the Official Catholic Weekly Newspaper, as you leave the Church...
...turned on the spotlight, introduced me, handed me the mike, and walked away...
...The unlikely fact is that I once performed, for pay, as a stand-up comic...
...Or, sometimes, puzzlement might rise...
...Louis coffeehouse run by Protestant clergymen who, in their zeal to recapture Alienated Youth, provided nightly entertainment along with the coffee...
...This induces me to recycle a story I've told before, but not in this space...
...I was rescued, in absentia, by my longtime secretary at the National Catholic Reporter, Betty Fitzpatrick...
...A quote from a Commonweal [!] piece by Harvey Cox—"Tomorrow, so the argument runs, universities will provide the cog around which the rest of the society's spokes will rotate"—drew this response: "Let's roll that metaphor down the road and see if it meshes...
...In my jacket pocket, thanks to her foresight and diligence, was an envelope containing a year's file of a column called "Cry Pax...
...It's the unofficial ones you read as you leave the church...
...Judging from the context of Frank McConnell's column, he's done stand-up more than once...
...Nothing...
...There is no sound quite like that except perhaps the majestic-yet-swinging chorus of praise rendered by the nine choirs of angels, which I have not yet been in a position to savor...
...subtitled "A Column without Rules") which ran in every issue of NCR in its early years, consisting of various kinds of funnies contributed by our readers and staff...
...The dye for the monsignori-al purple, he said, was pressed from sour grapes...
...I don't remember how I ended my coffeehouse gig...
...In order to stop writing, you just " ROBERT G. HOYT...
...Not I. Never again, not for the holiest of good causes...
...Later, NCR published a book drawn from the column...
...remarked: "A sensitive, melancholy people, the Danes...
...KIDNEY RECIPIENT/TO LEAVE BED/SEVERAL TIMES...
...Mangled figures of speech provided grist...
...A few more, and I was interrupted by applause...
...There was a stool handy...
...Giggles...
...From a Montreal Catholic publication called Challenge we borrowed a monsignor's explanation of the slight tonal difference in the shades of purple in monsignors' robes and those worn by bishops...
...AN EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK THE ULTIMATE ORDEAL SEE ALSO, FRANK McCONNELL, PAGE 18 rank McConnell writes in this issue about the joys, hopes, griefs, and anxieties experienced by any person in the modern world who tries to do live comedy...
...I stumbled through a preface and read an item from one of the columns—maybe this one, which reported the wording of a sign on the wall of a Baltimore estate: "Trespassers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law...
...Noting a Los Angeles Times headline—b-52 crashes off Greenland with h-bombs: danes irked—Cry Pax...
...Masochism is evil...
...Not everything in the column was churchy...
...It's likely I had something stronger than coffee...
...But when the first action of a newly organized parish council in Jessie, North Dakota, was to cancel a bulk order for NCR, the column hinted that maybe the increase in lay responsiCommonweal bility was getting out of hand...
...I was billed to engage in profound but witty dialogue on Christian sarcasm, or something like that, with an ed4. 23 October 1992 itor named Stephen Rose...
...You talk about anxious...
...Sure...
...I had been booked as a speaker at a meeting of religious journalists—and, later, to help create amusement at a St...
...Well, no, for maybe a minute, during which I experienced a degree of anxiety unmatched anywhere except, I guess, in childbirth...
...Over the years, as it happened, I had become aware of what happens when I tell a joke off the cuff...
...I observed that every person in the place had at least two large, staring eyes...
...The story began: "In an effort to erase misconceptions...
...I learned, instantly, that sit-down comics also suffer...
...I sat down...
...The men looked like hostile sphinxes, the women like hostile lady sphinxes...
...The M.C...
...You've got it all wrong," said Pax...
...For about an hour...
...Doing penance is good...
...Sisters of Mercy...
...And from the Kansas City Star...
...There were titters out there...
...Government Printing Office offers a pamphlet called Writing Guide for Naval Officers which 'presents suggestions on how to start, expedite, and stop writing.' That last part is easy...
...A separate item disclosed Father Bernard Haring's proposed canonical rule: Monsignors should be permitted to wear their purple robes, but not in holy places...
...Since he was known to me as witty but profound, I had cast myself as appreciative straight man...
...No comment was necessary on the lead sentence in a Michigan Catholic story about a meeting that was to present the Catholic view on abortion...
...More samples...
...Its final item: "The U.S...
...But Rose—get this—didn't show...
...I tried another...
Vol. 119 • October 1992 • No. 18
