Thursday, 26 February 2015

90 YEARS OF NEW YORKER WIT.

The New Yorker is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year, so I looked at the first four issues. Here are some lines that caught my attention:
  • On general principles, this magazine expects to take a firm stand against murder. But we don’t want to be bigoted.
  • Broadway has no end of actors out of work. But as a rule they refuse to admit the truth of their unemployment.
  • Re the exhibit at the Grand Central Art Galleries: If you care for anything later than Ingres, stay at home.
  • Better a third rate artist and a first rate publicity man than a first rate artist and no publicity man at all.
  • Re prohibition: The bootleggers are cautious. They always suspect a customer of being a prohibition agent, unless some taxi driver is willing to vouch for them.
  • The transit situation in New York City which for many years has been a problem and a nuisance is rapidly becoming a menace.
  • The Last Laugh – Cameo Theater. An imported German film and a milestone in the progress of cinema. Superbly acted by Emil Jannings.
  • Burning witches at the stake was a grand sport in its day and much more sportsmanlike than the modern game of censorship.
  • The New Yorker wishes one and all an Ideal Ides of March. Tax vobiscum.
  • Re Ziegfeld Follies: It isn’t drama. It’s osteopathy…The girl was admirably undressed. I do not mean that the costume was bold. Far from it. It was positively shrinking.
(Source: February/March 1525 issues of The New Yorker)

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