Life — June 19, 1924 — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Pretty Dull Reading NLESS all signs fail (and these old bones are usually Abie’s Irish Rose” is in a fair way to The cognoscenti are beginning to pretty reliable) * being taken up socially discover it. The process in such matters is simple. A hook, or a play, or a comic strip goes on for several years as the meat of Then, as the the multitude and the poison of the patricians tItitude shows no intention of changing its mind, one or two pioneer highbrows look into the matter and discover that that it really contains the opus has been maligned all alon elements of greatness, that it sings the soul-song of the People. Watch out for the su ed hailing it. The ation of “Abie’s Irish Rose.” Th may drive it out of town yet, where all other means have failed brows have sta There seems to be some confusion, however, as to just what is highbrow and just what is lowbrow. Mr. Gilbert Seldes, formerly an editor of the Dial, and, according to our national standards, a highbrow (that is, he has read books by foreign authors and refers to them occasionally), has written a readable book called “The Seven Lively Arts” in which he finds high merit in the artistic performances of Ring Lardner, Irving Berlin, Joe Cook and George Her- riman (the creator of “Krazy Kat”). In reviewing this book, Mr. Seldes’ fellow-craftsmen seem to object to a cer- tain co sion on his part in leaning out of his high hrow carriage to toss pennies to lowbrow performers. They seem to feel that Mr. Seldes does not really enjoy the work of these artists so much as he does the thrill of a philan- thropic gesture. lesce T? us it is quite understandable that Mr. Seldes, a high- brow, should revel genuinely and without affectation in the work of Lardner, Cook, Berlin and Herriman, because these gentlemen are Grade-A highbrows themselves. Each has a universal quality which renders him popular, but at his best he is so far over the heads of the average reader and audience that he might as well be working in a foreign medium. Lardner’s entire structure is built on an unsparing and icated exposure of the lowbrow mind, so subtle and delicate that thousands of readers of the Saturday Post unquestionably found nothing amusing in it except the adventitious misspelling and slang. Messrs. Cook and mad at heart, and shcer madness is, They have, ning quite Herriman are entirely of course, the highest possible brow in humor. ing Lardner has, certain fundamental comic ele- just as f which make everybody laugh «s of their imagination they regardless of brow- clevation, but in the upper reac are f ticates As wil who turned down “The Golden Honeymoon,” one of the best l Keith management, who esteem as a vaudeville feature owing to several millions of r only the sophi » this fact, we call George Horace Lorimer: nesses rdner or any one else ever wrote; the eld Joe Cook in comparatively low stories that Ring their patrons’ considering him “just crazy”; and the readers of the Hi ted “Krazy Kat” into a minor position in a poll of their favorite comic strips. arst papers, who have several times v , then, these enthusiasms of Mr. Seldes’ are justified on the ground that they are, like Mr. Seldes, highbrow, y we turn to in a search for real lowbrow humor? rtle, specify as es- what ma We would, with no desire at all to s! sentially lowbrow in humorous method: ¢(1) the comedy of Mr, H. L. Mencken; (2) the fun-making of the Russians, as exemplified in the Chauve-Souris and the Moscow Art Players, and, of course (3), the comic art of William Shakespeare. R. MENCKEN, while sophisticated enough for all prac- tical purposes in his mental processes and serious criti cism, is, when he wants to be funny, dependent on the ex- tremely lowbrow medium of mic-sounding words like »ish-posh” and “sitz-platz,” and figures of speech reminis- cent of Public School 165 when sitting down heavily and kicking in the seat of the pants were considered good enough fun for any one. When Mr. Mencken has said something funny to you it is all over your face like a pail of whitewash, and he has nothing left for himself. The comedy of the Russians and Shakespeare, with its concomitant check-blowing and grunting, is comparable with the Mencken method in tonnage, but is without Mr. Menck- en’s mature intent. It all is derived from the whitewash pail and all is particularly delightful to auditors under eight years of age or their equivalent. In it we find our essence of lowbrowism, as it presupposes no mental processes at all in its audience. So by all means let Mr. Seldes applaud whom he wishes and grant him that he does it because he honestly enjoys it and because it is logical that he should enjoy it. And let the rest laugh when Mr. Mencken says “pish-posh” or when Falstaff rubs his stomach or when the Russians puff out Then every one will be laughing at something. Robert C. Benchley their cheeks. comicbooks.com