by STEVE MARTIN
A Demonstration of Actual Writing
It’s easy to talk about writing and even easier to do it. Watch:
Call me Ishmael. It was cold, very cold, here in the mountain town of Kilimanjaroville. (copyright) I could hear a bell. It was tolling. I knew exactly for who it was tolling, too. It was tolling for me, Ishmael Twist, (copyright) a red guy who likes frappe. [Author’s note: I am now stuck. I walk over to a rose and look into its heart.] That’s right, Ishmael Twist. ®
Finally, I can’t overstress the importance of having a powerful closing sentence.
Yes, in My Own Backyard
Last week in Los Angeles, I realized that the birdbath in my garden is by Raphael. I had passed it a thousand times; so had many producers, actors, executives, and the occasional tagalong screenwriter. No one had ever mentioned the attribution “Raphael.” In fact, none of my guests had bothered to attribute it at all, which surprised me since they spend so much time discussing it. When I try to steer the conversation around to my films, my television appearances, and my early work, all I hear back is: “What a charming birdbath.” To me, this is further evidence that the birdbath is a Raphael: one just can’t look away.
Much has been made of the fact that Raphael never sculpted. That may be true, but what is less known is that he designed many avian objects that we today take for granted, including the clothesline and the beak polisher. A birdbath is completely within the oeuvre of the master. Mine is stylistically characteristic of his work, including triangulation (inverted), psychologically loaded negative space, and a carved Madonna holding an infant who looks fifty. Identical birdbaths appear in thirteen of his paintings; there is a Vasari portrait of Raphael painting the birdbath, and there is a scribble in his last diary that in translation reads, “Send my birdbath to Glendale,” which is where I bought it at a swap meet.
In every person there’s an art expert, and I’m sure the one in you wants some proof of authenticity in this age where, every day, Rembrandt van Rijns are being demoted to Rembrandt Yeah Sures.
There are two ways of confirming a work of art: scholarship and intuition. As far as scholarship goes, you can imagine that my copy of Raphael for Dummies is now well thumbed in my quest for authentication. But I needed to find a latter-day Berenson to put the final nail in the coffin of confirmation. The Los Angeles phone book lists two Raphael scholars, although one has a Maui area code. Both have been called in, and they are unanimous in their conclusion: one for, one against. This kind of scholarship proves something, but it can never take you the last mile; it is intuition that confirms attribution every time. How many times have I sat in my garden with the cordless, sipping on a cocktail ice of Prozac and Halcion, ignoring the masterpiece that stood before me? However, everyone has experienced that moment when our inner censor slips away and the volume of our head-noise is turned down low and we realize we are sitting in front of Raphael’s birdbath. It is a swooping cloak of sureness, which falls from heaven and settles over you.
At that moment, I decided there was only one way to finally confirm my intuition to the rest of the world. I would visit the tomb of Raphael, who is buried in the Pantheon in Rome, and commune with the great master himself. (i emphasize the Pantheon italically because, in my dyslexia, I read it as Parthenon and wasted money on a trip to Athens. I suggest a name change for one of them, to avoid confusion. After all, it’s not like one is a river and one is an airport; they’re both buildings.)
Entering the Pantheon, one cannot help but experience a feeling of awe. Looking to the left, one sees the hallowed name Pesto, to the right, a series of Popes and Pope wannabees. Unfortunately, they are not buried in alphabetical order, so finding Raphael was not easy. I skipped over him a couple of times, because evidently he had a last name and that threw me off. Forgive me, but if I’m looking for the grave of Liberace, I want it filed under Liberace, not Wladziu Valentino, etc. Madonna take note.
I stood before the vault where Raphael has lain for the last four hundred and fifty years. Before I relate to you the next part, I have to tell you a little bit about the Pantheon. It has the world’s largest domed ceiling. A domed ceiling might be a big deal in the world of architecture, but in the world of whispering it is definitely lousy. Everything comes back to you three times as loud, and even your diction is cleaned up. So when I whispered, “Did you make my birdbath?” everybody in the place heard me except Raphael, who was dead. I whispered again, louder, “Did you make my birdbath?” A few minutes later, a man in a trench coat came up to me and said “Yes, but the Wide Man wants a green lawn.” He then handed me an envelope containing five hundred million lire and slithered away.
The voice of Raphael did not come to me with his answer until several hours later, when I sat in a cafe within sight of the Pantheon, sipping a synthetic low-fat coffee mixed with a legal (in Italy) derivative of Xanax and Quaalude. The voice emanated directly from the Pantheon and headed across the square to where I was sitting. Raphael, who now must be in heaven and hence has access to practically everything, used Italian but subtitled it with a dialect only my sister and I spoke when we were five. It confirmed that the birdbath was his and that he wanted everyone to know he was not gay.
The Martin Birdbath, as some scholars are now calling it—I objected at first—is still in the garden, although attended by a twenty-four-hour armed guard named Charlie (he’s off on the weekends), whom I have grown to like. I’m not quite sure he knows what he is guarding, but with the parade of academicians trooping through, he’s got to figure that it ain’t cheese. His job, in addition to keeping the birdbath from being stolen, is to keep birds away. This is hard, because to a bird, a birdbath is a birdbath, be it by Raphael or the Sears garden department.
Even though several offers have emerged, I’m not going to sell the Raphael. I’m not even going to mention it to my guests, unless I feel it’s going to get me somewhere. I suppose if I see someone staring at it as though a boom has just been lowered on them, I’ll take them aside and fill them in. I will tell them they are standing in the presence of a master, that they are in touch with the power of the ages, and that they deserve the overused but still meaningful hyphenation “sensitive-type.” Then I will direct them to sit back in my Gauguin-designed lawn chair and enjoy the view. How do I know it’s by Gauguin? It is. I just know it is.
Changes in the Memory after Fifty
Bored? Here’s a way the over-fifty set can easily kill off a good half hour:
1. Place your car keys in your right hand.
2. With your left hand, call a friend and confirm a lunch or dinner date.
3. Hang up the phone.
4. Now look for your car keys. (for answer, turn to page 26 and turn book upside down.)
The lapses of memory that occur after fifty are normal and in some ways beneficial. There are certain things it’s better to forget, like the time Daddy once failed to praise you and now, forty years later, you have to count the tiles in the bathroom—first in multiples of three, then in multiples of five, and so on—until they come out even, or else you can’t get out of the shower. The memory is selective, and sometimes it will select 1956 and 1963 and that’s all. Such memory lapses don’t necessarily indicate a more serious health problem. The rule is, if you think you have a pathological memory problem, you probably don’t. In fact, the most serious indicator is when you’re convinced you’re fine and yet people sometimes ask you, “Why are you here in your pajamas at the Kennedy Center Honors?”
Let’s say you’ve just called your best friend, Joe, and invited him to an upcoming birthday party, and then, minutes later, you call him back and invite him to the same party again. This does not mean you are “losing it” or “not playing with a full deck” or “not all there,” or that you’re “eating with the dirigibles” or “shellacking the waxed egg” or “looking inside your own mind and finding nothing there,” or any of the demeaning epithets that are said about people who are peeling an empty banana. It does, however, mean t
hat perhaps Joe is no longer on the list of things you’re going to remember. This is Joe’s fault. He should have a more memorable name, such as El Elegante.
Sometimes it’s fun to sit in your garden and try to remember your dog’s name. Here’s how: Simply watch the ears while calling out pet names at random. This is a great summer activity, especially in combination with Name That Wife and Who Am I? These games actually strengthen the memory and make it simpler to solve such complicated problems as “Is this the sixth time I’ve urinated this hour or the seventh?” This, of course, is easily answered by tiny pencil marks applied during the day.
Note to self: Write article about waxy buildup.
If you have a doctor who is over fifty, it’s wise to pay attention to his changing memory profile. There is nothing more disconcerting than patient and healer staring at each other across an examining table, wondering why they’re there. Watch out for the stethoscope being placed on the forehead or the briefcase. Watch out for greetings such as “Hello ... you.” Be concerned if while looking for your file he keeps referring to you as “one bad boy.” Men should be wary if, while examining your prostate, the doctor suddenly says, “I’m sorry, but do I know you?”
There are several theories that explain memory problems of advancing age. One is that the brain is full: It simply has too much data to compute. Easy to understand if you realize that the name of your third grade teacher is still occupying space, not to mention the lyrics to “Volare.” One solution for older men is to take all the superfluous data swirling around in the brain and download it into the newly large stomach, where there is plenty of room. This frees the brain to house relevant information, like the particularly troublesome days of the week. Another solution is to take regular doses of ginkgo biloba, an extract from a tree in Asia whose memory is so indelible that one day it will hunt down and kill all the humans that have been eating it. It is strongly advised that if taking ginkgo biloba, one should label the bottle “Memory Pills.” There is nothing more embarrassing than looking at a bottle of ginkgo biloba and thinking it’s a reliquary for a Spanish explorer.
So in summary, waxy buildup is a problem facing all of us. Only a good strong cleanser, used once or twice a month, will save us the humiliation of that petrified yellow crust on our furniture. Again, I recommend an alcohol-free, polymer-base cleanser, applied with a damp cloth. Good luck!
hblesh en8inar will, owow not thewshtj ofingeningenw enar.1 hy. will, wand i ens aranden. so- na
Mars Probe Finds Kittens
The recent probe to Mars has returned irrefutable evidence that the red planet is populated with approximately twenty-seven three-month-old kittens. These “kittens” do not give birth and do not die but are forever locked in a state of eternal kittenhood. Of course, without further investigation, scientists are reluctant to call the chirpy little creatures kittens. “Just because they look like kittens and act like kittens is no reason to assume they are kittens,” said one researcher. “A football is a brown thing that bounces around on grass, but it would be wrong to call it a puppy.”
Scientists were at first skeptical that a kitten-type being could exist in the rare Martian atmosphere. As a test, Earth kittens were put in a chamber that simulated the Martian air. The diary of this experiment is fascinating:
6:00 A.m.: Kitten appears to sleep.
7:02 A.m.: Kitten wakes, darts from one end of cage to another for no apparent reason.
7:14 A.m.: Kitten runs up wall of cage, leaps onto other kitten for no apparent reason.
7:22 A.m.: Kitten lies on back and punches other kitten for no apparent reason.
7:30 A.m.: Kitten leaps, stops, darts left, stops abruptly, climbs wall, clings for two seconds, falls on head, darts right for no apparent reason.
7:51 A.m.: Kitten parses first sentence of lead editorial in daily newspaper, which is at the bottom of the chamber.
With the exception of parsing, all behavior is typical Earth-kitten behavior. The parsing activity, which was done with a small ballpoint pen, is considered an anomaly.
Modern kitten theory suggests several explanations for the kittens’ existence on Mars. The first, put forward by Dr. Patricia Krieger of the Hey You Bub Institute, suggests that kittens occur both everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. In other words, we see evidence of kitten existence, but measuring their behavior is another matter. Just when the scientists point their instruments in a kitten’s direction, it is gone, only to be found later in another place, perhaps at the top of drapes. Another theory, put forward by Dr. Charles Wexler and his uncle Ted, suggests that any universe where round things exist, from theoretical spheres to Ping-Pong balls, necessarily implies the existence of a Mover Kitten. The scientific world has responded by saying that the notion of the Mover Kitten is not a concern for legitimate research and should be relegated to the pseudoscientific world. The pseudoscientific world has responded by saying that at least three endorsements from independent crackpots are needed before anything can truly be called “pseudo.”
Some have suggested that the hostility of the Martian climate should be enough to seriously set back the long-term prospects of any species. However, the weakness of Martian gravity is a bonus for felines. They are able to leap almost three times as high as they can on Earth. They can climb twice as far up a carpet-covered post, and a ball with a bell in it will roll almost three times as far. This is at least equal to the distance a mature poodle can roll a ball with its nose.
Even though there could be a big market on Earth for eternal kittens, most scientists agree that the human race should not pursue a further involvement. There are those, however, who believe that having now discovered the creatures, we have a responsibility to “amuse” them. Dr. Enos Mowbrey and his wifestcousin, Jane, both researchers at the Chicago Junebug Institute for Animal Studies, argue that the kittens could be properly amused by four miles of ball string cut into fourteen-inch segments. The cost of such a venture would be:
Four miles of string: $135
Segmentation of string: $8
Manned Mars probe to deliver string and jiggle it: $6 trillion.
It is unfortunate that Dr. Mowbrey’s work has been largely dismissed because of his inappropriate use of the demeaning term kitty cat.
The next time you look up at the heavens, know that mixed in the array of stars overhead is a pale-red dot called Mars, and on that planet are tiny creatures whose wee voices are about to be thunderously heard on this planet, a meow of intergalactic proportions.
Dear Amanda
Dear Amanda,
This will be the last letter I write to you. I think we have made the right decision. Thank you for your love. We had a wonderful experience these past five months. I want you to know that our time together will live inside me in a special place in my heart. It is best if we do not phone or write. Love always, Joey
Dear Amanda,
I dialed you last night because the Lucy pie episode was on and I knew you’d want to see it. Anyway, while I was leaving a message, I leaned on the phone and accidentally punched in your message-retrieval code. Sorry about that. Who’s Francisco? Just curious. Joey
Dear Amanda,
I realized that I still had your set of six Japanese sake cups that I bought for you on our trip downtown and was wondering when it might be a good time to drop them off. You can give me a call at the usual number but maybe better at the office up till seven but then try the car or I’m usually home now by seven forty-five. I would like to get these back to you, as I know you must be thinking about them. This will be my last letter. Regards, Joey
Dear Amanda,
It was a lucky coincidence that my cat leapt on your speed-dial button last night, as it gave us a chance to talk again. Afterwards, I was wondering what you meant when you said, “It’s over, Joey, get it into your head.” So many interpretations. Just curious. Oh, I found myself on your street last night and noticed a yellow Mustang that I don’t remember ever being at your apartment complex. I
s this the mysterious Francisco I’ve heard rumors about? No big deal. Just curious. I left one of the sake cups at your front door; it happened to be in
my car. What was that loud music? With respect, Joey
Dear Amanda,
This will be the last letter I write to you. I hate to hurt you like this, but I’m seeing someone new. You’d like her. Her name is Marisa—she has the same number of letters in her name as you! Incidentally, I heard that Francisco had or is having a tax problem. Should I meet with him? I’m over it all now and would be glad to help. Also, a word of warning: Latins. One woman is never enough. Just a thought. Joey
P.s. Do you have my red Pentel pen? I really need it. Page me when you get this.
Dear Amanda,
This will be the last letter I write to you. I’m quite upset that you changed your phone without a forwarding number. There could still be emergencies, and I’m still in possession of those fancy upholstered hangers of yours. Marisa questioned me about them the other day, and it wasn’t fun. They’re probably too dear to you to throw out, as we bought them together at the swap meet the day your mother raved about me, saying I was “pleasant.” Please come by and pick them up; they’re seriously damaging my relationship with Marisa. A good time would be any Wednesday after five but not after seven, Fridays anytime except lunch, Monday is good, and the weekend, anytime. Also Tuesday. By the way, there’s someone named Francisco trying to pick up girls on the Internet. Hmm ... I wonder. Joey
Dear Amanda,
Valentine’s Day is tomorrow, and I hope you don’t mind my throwing this note through your window, as the post would be too slow. The rock it’s tied to came from our desert trip! I’m wondering if you’d like to get together for a quick lunch on the fourteenth—you can even bring Francisco if you want; maybe I could help him sort out his heavy urology bills. I need to get my letters back from you, and could you bring this one too? I could bring the hangers, and I also want you to have the photo of me nude skydiving. Can you let me know soon? I’m waiting outside on the lawn.
