Jean Shepherd - Straws in the Wind 1966

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:02]Uh too close. Just one more shot.

[00:00:06]I'm going to blow a whistle into this [music] damn tin pot microphone here.

[00:00:10]And I'm telling you guys as far away as Sacramento, California are going to find a slight [music] buzzing in their ears.

[00:00:18]Just if I'm pushed a little too close because I was taught over the years by my old man to whistle the [music] way a real whistler whistles.

[00:00:26]I don't mean none of this stuff, you know, with the birds and There's a blue bird of happiness on my shoulder type [music] whistling. I mean real whistling. You ever hear me do that, Lee?

[00:00:35]With the two fingers? I'll do it some night. I'll call a cab.

[00:00:39]I'll break windows for blocks around.

[00:00:41]All right, don't push me now. [music] I've got a lot of talent, don't worry.

[00:00:47]For a lot of things.

[00:00:49]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Yeah, I'm all set here now.

[00:01:24]On a cockamamie [music] show. All right.

[00:01:29]Cheap jack. That's a great word.

[00:01:31]I think I we're we're killing our language. It's a fantastic word.

[00:01:36]Sniveling cheap jack.

[00:01:39]You know, how that describes so many of our salesmen here at the radio station.

[00:01:42]Yet, those words don't fit anymore in our in our smooth oleaginous That's a nice word, too. Our smooth oleaginous homogenized society. Well, are you prepared in there to give me some great moments in the British Empire music, please? Hit it hard.

[00:02:01]Let's say it again.

[00:02:02]Once again, we here at this >> [music] >> concerned radio station Oh, boy, are we concerned. Worried is a better word. Once again, we here at this concerned radio station bring [music] you a great moment in the British Empire.

[00:02:18]Taken from the files of the daily newspapers of the world.

[00:02:22]>> [music] >> There's a great moment here. Let's listen to this great moment. And you I'm pictured picture the moment. You got to picture the scene. Got to allow your imagination to run.

[00:02:33]And though Oh, oh, incidentally, if there's anything that this show is all right, it is a a straws in the wind type program.

[00:02:42]Straws in the wind type show in which we are trying to pull together all those various tiny straws which whistle through the great howling gales of night.

[00:02:52]Uh carrying us on towards whatever that fantastic fate is that man is about to suffer. I don't know. Have you ever Have you ever really seriously thought That I think that Now, I don't know why that just occurred to me.

[00:03:04]Something you very rarely think about.

[00:03:07]Have you ever seriously thought though what the end of all mankind will be eventually?

[00:03:15]There Just it's it's [laughter] a it's a thought, you know, I mean, I'm talking about all of us together, corporate mankind. I'm not talking about you.

[00:03:23]What's going to happen to you?

[00:03:25]You know, I think one of the reasons why it's very difficult for most people to ever think in those terms is it because it's almost impossible for most people to separate any thinking they do from their own fate or their own hang-ups or their own involvements or, you know, whatever it is that's bugging them.

[00:03:46]And and so for that reason, the philosopher is a very rare bird in many way cuz this is really what he does, you know, a philosopher is always concerned.

[00:03:55]He really contemplates mankind in a capital M sense.

[00:03:59]You know, he contemplates it.

[00:04:01]He holds it the same You remember that that that that picture that they bought here recently a few years ago uh recently historically speaking at the Metropolitan Museum Homer contemplating a bust of Aristotle?

[00:04:16]>> [laughter] >> Do you remember it? Or is it Or is it Aristotle contemplating a bust of Homer?

[00:04:22]Or Or is it the You remember that terrible joke I said about that? I'll not I'll not even bother you with that one. Uh you You Do you remember Do you remember that terrible joke?

[00:04:32]Well, all right, this this This this in a sense is a is a condensation of a distillation of that whole concept.

[00:04:40]Homer contemplating a bust of Aristotle.

[00:04:44]And what what this is literally mean This is not exactly the same as Jack Car Jack Let's say Jack Paar contemplating a bust of Bob Hope.

[00:04:54]It's not quite the same.

[00:04:56]Or Johnny Carson contemplating a bust of Merv Griffin.

[00:05:02]You see, we're a very different breed of cat in our world. And yet, that kind of thing would mean more to most people today than Homer contemplating a bust of Aristotle.

[00:05:12]Sure, I'm I I go past this this the Oh, yeah, you can you can judge You can judge a a a full an entire nation, really, on the themes that it uses for its its art.

[00:05:26]The themes, not how it does it, not how well it it perpetrates the theme, but what the theme is.

[00:05:35]This This is the importance of of art history.

[00:05:40]And so, the other day I'm walking past this very famous gallery on 57th Street where they have nothing but official art. I mean, it's very official art.

[00:05:49]I mean, you know, the the best painters and the best the most expensive stuff. The The world's The world's great insights are displayed here.

[00:05:58]And there in the middle of the window, the first the right there in the middle of it, you see, is their their big new show.

[00:06:06]And it's a sculptor. An American sculptor, of course.

[00:06:09]And it's a sculptor. And here's this gigantic fantastic bronze, right? And it's a bronze, by the way, done in the heroic style almost of Rodin.

[00:06:20]And there is a bronze. I look at this thing and say, "No, can't be. It's impossible." And there it is, a bronze.

[00:06:26]And what do you think is cast in this fantastic heroic mold? The Beatles.

[00:06:33]Which Yeah, there it is. And they're in bronze. I mean, with great square jaws looking out like they're about to populate the West.

[00:06:42]Uh not about to make a big deal at William Morris with their agency, you know, to make a another big No, not at all, you see.

[00:06:50]And so, you can judge really a a society very much by the themes of their their their artists, genuinely their artists.

[00:06:59]Well, cuz after all, the art artist is supposed to not only reflect the society that he lives in. He is supposed to in a sense be a leader of that society. And in addition to that, he is supposed to distill the meaning of that society.

[00:07:15]Now, that's what the artist does, really. He's not there to give you funny little sticks that you hang on your wall. That's not his primary purpose. He may wind up being a funny little stick you hang on the wall, but that's not necessarily his primary purpose. And so so you you see you you you see the the the the the theme there, the theme of what the artist works with. This is really far more important than whether he's good or not at it.

[00:07:42]Uh Now now Here you Have you seen Have you seen any of the any of the op art, for example? There's no theme at all except it's a kind of hypnotic. That's about it.

[00:07:53]It is Yeah, really, it's it's a it's a translation. I'm not putting it down. Not only immediately say, "Oh, he's putting it down." Not at all.

[00:08:00]No, no. No, no.

[00:08:02]Listen carefully here. Uh the the op art is a is an optical trick. This is incidentally why It's the same kind of thing that years ago Do you remember when when you used to see in the comics they had Believe it or not Remember all all the time they had Believe it or not, there was a chicken born with 17 legs. And this chicken lays a triangular shaped eggs, believe it or not. Sent in by Mrs. J.M. Watanabe of Euclid, Ohio. That kind of thing.

[00:08:32]Well, now invariably, every couple of weeks in the middle of this Believe it or not, there would be this like looking like a target. It says, "Which way does the line run? Look at it carefully, believe it or not.

[00:08:45]This is Is this a square or is it a triangle?" You remember those things?

[00:08:49]And they they always vary. You don't remember them. Well, I'm sorry, honey.

[00:08:52]That's why you think op art is good.

[00:08:54]Okay.

[00:08:56]So So Well, in other words, they're optical illusions, you know, they have a thing and you'd look at it says, "If you look at this long enough, it will begin to appear to move." You You do remember that kind of thing?

[00:09:06]Thank you.

[00:09:08]All right, George, he remembers last Wednesday. It's not easy. Uh and so Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The big the big bit today is to not to admit that you remember anything.

[00:09:17]That's That's That's very important. Oh, no, no, that's part of inness. It is, really.

[00:09:21]Uh you do not remember last year's gigantic fad.

[00:09:26]So, if you are deeply involved in Monty Rock, you never concede that you admit to remember Joey Dee and the Starliters.

[00:09:34]You do not admit this.

[00:09:35]Because by admitting that, you are also admitting you're over 4 years old.

[00:09:40]Which is a fantastic admission to make.

[00:09:42]After all, Joey Dee and the Starliters were popular in 1963.

[00:09:46]And after all, this is 1966.

[00:09:48]And what old phony remembers 1963? Holy smokes, that was before my time, years ago.

[00:09:54]Uh So the the concept of op and pop, which is really just an optical illusion.

[00:10:00]And the guys who were doing these things, making the triangles and the squares, were recognized I mean the guys who were doing it for believe it or not recognized it were just you know having fun. That's all. It was just a little stick. But if you really want to make it big, take whatever it is that you were doing that was just kicks, multiply it by seven, and cast it in bronze and take it up to 57th Street and you are in business all the way. Why? Because most of the people who buy this stuff have a nostalgia for their childhood.

[00:10:35]And they were not conceited.

[00:10:38]It is not easy to concede that that you you have a nostalgia for your kid them.

[00:10:43]And so let's say if if at the age of nine, the one thing that that you were hung on was hamburgers.

[00:10:50]I mean you really and let's face it the hamburger is is in a way the definitive statement of nine-year-oldness.

[00:11:00]Now, if that if that's if that is the case now. Now you are let's say 39.

[00:11:05]We'll just use this figure as a as a figure right out of the you know, just anywhere. Just take that figure.

[00:11:11]Now, let's let's assume however that you are basically a klutz.

[00:11:17]Now, there are many forms of klutzdom.

[00:11:19]Let's say that your IQ has hovered in the 87 mark for a long time. Once in a while it rises to 91 and then when the wind is in the wrong direction it may go down to 74.

[00:11:32]But let's say the mean average is around 89 roughly in that area.

[00:11:38]Which means that you're you have you have the average talent to make a rather decent bowling team anchorman.

[00:11:48]You're a pretty good organizer for the Kiwanis.

[00:11:52]You know, you Yeah, that kind of thing.

[00:11:55]But yet you have gone to a school where all of that stuff is is out.

[00:12:00]So what do you do when you're a displaced Kiwanis Club organizer?

[00:12:04]I mean what seriously do you do when when you you you've gone to a school and you've been able to squeak by, just barely get through.

[00:12:13]And now you have this degree in let's say a dynamic accounting.

[00:12:18]Some you know, it's a true klutz field. You know, you you've got a degree in in something of that kind. You know, like you have to what used to be what used to be called a clerk.

[00:12:29]Nobody admits he's any of these things anymore. It used used to be called a file clerk and now you're called an information collator and you've got a degree in that and you collate information. That means you file things.

[00:12:42]And you you now now you're living in a world where you have to go to galleries and you don't like galleries. You're really basically a bowling team captain and you know, you you you bridle at at at the well art, you know, art. The word art has always been a bad scene to a guy of fairly low intellect. It's you know, he doesn't quite dig this scene.

[00:13:04]But yet you got to go to the art gallery. So what happens? The art gallery comes to you.

[00:13:09]That's what happens. Now how does this happen? Because you're the paying customer ultimately.

[00:13:14]So you walk into the gallery. What do you want to see? You don't want to see what What is this? You don't want to see Brancusi's statement about existence?

[00:13:22]What is this? Get out of here.

[00:13:24]You want to see a hamburger.

[00:13:27]And so artists have leaped up to produce a giant bigger than life-size hamburger, which now sits over there in the corner and has a $4,000 price tag on it. Now you feel justified in your artistic judgment about this because this is something you relate to.

[00:13:42]And I think the growth of pop art and op art has all been connected with this kind of arrested development not only you know, I I don't mind people who have arrested development, but once you give them matches, once you in other words give them a credit card and they're dangerous.

[00:13:58]Because there's an old there's an old philosophical and economic law.

[00:14:04]What is I have to paraphrase it. The law really reads something like this that the that the bad will always invariably drive out the good.

[00:14:14]Which means that let three klutzes in the in the agency and invariably within five years the agency is a is a veritable it's a veritable Taj Mahal of klutzdom.

[00:14:27]Why? Well, I don't know why. Maybe it's because the klutz has more vitality.

[00:14:30]Maybe because he's louder.

[00:14:32]Could be.

[00:14:33]You know, you remember when you used to read about the barbarians at the gates?

[00:14:39]You didn't read about that either. Well, do you remember when you used to read about James Bond?

[00:14:44]That you remember.

[00:14:45]>> [laughter] >> Well, I'm sorry. Well, of course I I assume that you've read.

[00:14:50]That's a terrible assumption too to make.

[00:14:53]Speaking of the illiterate, would you please Oh yeah, that reminds me. This is W O R A M at F M New York.

[00:14:59]>> [music] [music] >> And now may we proudly recommend [music] the candy that requires you to live up to it.

[00:15:18]Regal Crown.

[00:15:20]The candy that stands on the bullwark.

[00:15:24]Indubitably [music] British, containing all the sterling qualities of that superb race. Tenacity, taste, and infinite stick-to-itiveness.

[00:15:37]>> [music] >> So we will request with great humility [music] that tomorrow you walk up to your favorite candy counter, your favorite cigar counter, and simply say, "I'll have sour grapes."

[00:15:55]Sour grapes by Regal Crown. Regal Crown, British to the veritable core and just a measly [music] thin dime. Superb.

[00:16:10]>> [music] >> You know, I I've had I don't know how I got on the subject.

[00:16:14]But should I pursue it, Lang?

[00:16:17]Well, I I I I use you as kind of litmus paper.

[00:16:21]Now I'm not putting you down, but seriously though I've often thought about this. The Are you Have you ever run into these statistics about illiteracy in this country?

[00:16:32]Now I'm not talking about people who don't know how to read. Now let me let me let me explain myself. I'm not discussing illiteracy in the technical sense, which most people do.

[00:16:41]That is to say people who can or cannot read. To me an illiterate is a person who doesn't read.

[00:16:48]He may know how to read. That is that is irrelevant. To me knowing a skill has no meaning unless the skill is used.

[00:16:59]Knowing how to write a book is not important unless you do write.

[00:17:04]Knowing how to and a lot of people like to confuse those two. They they will take seven art courses somewhere and because they know a few techniques about painting will call themselves a painter in spite of the fact they don't paint.

[00:17:16]To me a writer is not a writer unless he's writing. An actor is not an actor unless he's acting. That is to say that most actors whom I know and I know many of them are really not actors most of the time.

[00:17:29]They're hopeful actors. They're ex-actors. They're only an actor when they're acting.

[00:17:35]Now, that's the that is my definition of illiteracy that a that a person who knows how to read is not necessarily literate.

[00:17:43]And it's interesting to read some of the statistics on the decline of reading in this country. It's fantastic decline that the number of people who have bought a book in the last year, the number of people who have read a book in the last year has become almost minuscule.

[00:18:01]Now, I can produce the actual figures. It doesn't really matter, but they are they're rapidly declining.

[00:18:08]Now on the other hand, people will confront you with the obvious argument that there are a lot of paper book stores opening up. Well, a paper book store is very different from people reading a book.

[00:18:20]And buying a paper book is very different from reading a paper book.

[00:18:24]One of the most fascinating statistics that has been always contemplated with a certain amount of fascination, almost the way you'd be fascinated by a hooded cobra, is the statistic that bears upon that seeming paradox of people buying a paperback and reading that same paperback.

[00:18:47]In fact, I happen to have as a friend one of the top paperback publishers in the business.

[00:18:52]And he he's a very interesting guy and one day over over lunch he says, "Well, look." He says, "I I I realize." He says, "I'm not selling books that people read." He said, "I'm buying I'm selling things that they can carry around."

[00:19:08]Said, "And that's one of the reasons why we rounded off the corners of our paper books. They can be carried better."

[00:19:14]And he said, "We spend a hell of a lot more money on the covers these days than we ever spend on what goes in between the covers because we also recognize that people like covers. They buy a a fascinating cover." Now I'm not talking about the kind of cover, you know, that shows the guy with the with the chick and they're and they're you know, she's sprawled out there and there's a dagger sticking out between her shoulder blades and says, "Blood, guts, a swaggering novel of a young man's search for his manhood."

[00:19:42]And you know, that jazz.

[00:19:44]We're not talking about that kind of cover. We're talking about the superbly artistic cover, let's say, that in cases a volume of Kierkegaard or that he or the superbly artistic cover that encases something by Joseph Conrad.

[00:20:00]Now, it is he recognizes the fact that a lot of these books, you see, are in public domain. That's why so many of them are published. In short, it doesn't cost a publisher a red cent to go out and bring out, let's say, another version of a Greek classic.

[00:20:15]Uh maybe a few dollars to the translator or his estate. He might have translated it in in 1884 and his estate is still around. They own the few copyrights on that. You pay him $10 and you publish this thing. But, what you do is you go out and you get an artist, a really, you know, some top artist somewhere. You pay him $4,000 and he does a cover for you.

[00:20:36]And you've got another seller on your hand. Now, uh that type of person, by the way, does not buy the 35-cent paperback cuz he feels a nagging sense of uh he's not doing the right thing unless he pays a $1.75 for it. That's called a quality paperback.

[00:20:53]And so, today there is a tremendous traffic. Now, I I use that word in its in its antique or archaic sense with a c k. There's a tremendous traffic. It's a great word. t r a f f i c k.

[00:21:07]There is a tremendous traffic in these objets d'art.

[00:21:11]Now, they're not really books. Now, a book is designed to be read. These These are objets d'art.

[00:21:16]And so, uh many many a a pad in the village and many a pad in Darien and Westport is lined with unread paperbacks. Now, the point is it's not He Oh, yes, my friend went on to say, "We recognize the fact that all the people promised themselves that they're going to read these."

[00:21:34]He says, "They're not really uh illiterate people. These are people who always say, 'I've always wanted to read uh Aristophanes' The Birds.'"

[00:21:44]And so, here's this fantastic beautiful uh pebble finished uh uh cover with a with a superb drawing by Paul Klee on it. And it's a fantastic.

[00:21:54]It says, "The Birds." And uh a beautiful piece of business, you know. And he buys it for $1.75.

[00:22:00]He reads the first two pages of it and, you know, in the john somewhere.

[00:22:06]And then uh the the Yankee game comes on or he gets a call from Chucky or, you know, who knows what. And the next thing you know, it's it's uh next to the bed on the on the bed table. And the the next progressive step, of course, it's now in the bookcase. And there it is along with uh all the other the collected You can go on down Conrad's Victory.

[00:22:28]They're all there, you see. Moby Dick, the whole thing in these beautiful pebble color fantastic drawings, superb covers, but unread largely.

[00:22:37]Now, the statistic I'm getting at is you you have these two statistics which seem to uh be a paradox, one against the other.

[00:22:45]There are more books being printed.

[00:22:48]There are more books being bought today but less books being read today.

[00:22:55]So, that means then that book buying has become ritualistic.

[00:23:00]It's become a ritual, just like religions were rituals uh became ritualistic. Boy, I'll tell you, you can carry this ritualistic analogy even into the Yeah, even into worlds in the worlds that that don't seem to have any relevance. For example, the automobile, seriously.

[00:23:16]There are many cars today which are on the road which have the appearance of being a machine for transportation but which in effect are purely ritualistic.

[00:23:28]Have you Have you seen these big vast empty hoods when you open them up or a big vast empty uh trunk sticking out in the back, whereas actually all you've got is this very weak frame and this little over uh overloaded engine covered by a fantastic huge blown-up body.

[00:23:49]And that really is the basis of a lot of the discontent with today's automobile because you can be ritualistic about your books and about your church. But, when you're ritualistic about your cars, you're liable to wind up with a busted neck.

[00:24:02]And uh I would like to suggest that one of the very few automobiles that is not this way is the new Rover 2000 TC, a superb English automobile. Send a note to me here and we'll send you pictures about it. There was a time uh a couple of hundred years ago when the religion the when when a guy giving a a sermon, he was literally believed. In other words, he said, "Do thus and so." And they they uh they read the scriptures and it says, "Do thus and so, live thus and so." And a guy related what was in the scripture with the way he should live, literally, absolutely, completely.

[00:24:39]In other words, it said uh uh There there was there was a whole philosophy about uh Well, uh a good example would be a philosophy about poverty. About self-denial would be a better word, you see. And so, even the very rich uh would would practice a self-denial world. They did. I I've known people who still live like that, old rich people, you know, who go back to the 1800s.

[00:25:06]Uh you go to their house and they serve you this little thin piece of meat and they you get skim milk and they eat Jell-O. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it sounds funny to you know, to to to say a thing like this, but there was a time when in the in many of the world's religions, particularly Christianity and some phases of Judaism, there was a belief in self-denial.

[00:25:29]Now, so what did that mean? It meant really literally self-denial. It meant you don't have the baked Alaska, you have the Jell-O.

[00:25:36]Uh that meant you don't go out and buy 17 suits this week because the man from England Street Street is in and you order 17 suits.

[00:25:47]Yeah, the whole the whole point, of course, was that uh what uh was said was believed and what was believed was acted on.

[00:25:55]Now, what happened with religion, of course, in the last uh 40 or 50 years after that world, after that literal world, was that religion became uh ritualized. In other words, going to church was more important than doing what they said in church.

[00:26:13]Uh it became a ritual.

[00:26:15]Uh and and in many ways and many areas of the country, it still is a ritual and will always be now, I think, for forever and ever. However, on the other hand, uh what about what about ritualized uh literacy?

[00:26:29]Well, to to to carry that analogy further, you surround yourself by books which are unread.

[00:26:37]Just as in ritualized religion, you surround yourself by the artifacts of religion.

[00:26:42]Uh let's say you have a little plastic figure on your on your uh dashboard.

[00:26:49]Uh you you have a magnificent uh Bible that you got somewhere. You go to a fantastic building. Have you noticed all this great importance that's being paid today? In fact, there was an article in one of the magazines recently on church architecture. There's a great deal of importance being paid uh to the building that the church is in.

[00:27:08]Uh they pay a great deal of attention now to the music. Everybody's trying to get the jazz in there. They put on plays. If you notice that more and more churches are stopping with religion and they're doing plays now in church.

[00:27:20]And usually anti-religious plays, which is fascinating.

[00:27:23]Uh they they uh they have jazz. They have one one thing and another, all kinds of totally extraneous situations. In short, the church is literally turning in into a theater. Now, the church always was theatrical but only as a technique. Uh today, the church is changing quite literally into a theater in many areas. We have dozens of churches in Manhattan which long since have given up uh what could be called the religion business.

[00:27:51]And now, they present plays. And the the minister is really in the in the guise of a producer.

[00:27:58]He produces plays.

[00:27:59]Uh >> [laughter] >> and and uh the deacon is a director, generally. And quite often, the choir has been supplanted by a chorus. And uh they they they work It's It's a repertory theater country.

[00:28:12]And uh they they produce Tennessee Williams. They produce whatever the producer decides to do, but it's all done as a ritualized move towards religion. That's That's a whole new field, a whole 'nother discussion. We will not even get into that. But, getting back to ritualized literacy, which I think is even more fascinating at this point, you will find I'll tell you this as a as a as a as a man who does some writing that there are very few magazines today who even publish what could even remotely be called works of the mind. That is to say, fiction, poetry or anything that has to do with the creative mind at work. Almost all magazines have very carefully and slowly and almost usually unconsciously made the transition into what could be called uh repertorial magazines. And so, today, a magazine which used to say publish uh the works of a Hemingway or an F. Scott Fitzgerald or an Edna St. Vincent Millay or even a Norman Mailer or uh a Baldwin, now today publishes long involved articles on let's say, The Real Joe DiMaggio or uh uh Sandy Koufax's battle with arthritis.

[00:29:28]And they're they're couched usually in pseudo-literary terms, these articles, to make a pass at literariness, you see.

[00:29:36]You say, "Well, I'm really not reading a uh a fan mag story on Joe DiMaggio or a fan mag story on Koufax or a fan mag story on Richard Burton. I'm really reading great literature." But, what, of course you actually are reading is a fan mag piece. But you're getting both ends of the cake just as in the case of the ritualized religion man, he won't admit that what he's doing is going down and seeing a play. He wants to pretend that he's going to a church. So he gets both possible things.

[00:30:04]He's sitting in a church watching a play.

[00:30:07]So So what in actuality he's doing is seeing a play, but he's pretending that he's in church. And so a man who reads these magazines generally is pretending he's reading literature, but what he's really doing is reading a puff piece or a fan mag piece on say Richard Burton.

[00:30:23]But it it may be written with great flowery phrases and it may be written with with usually a literary or a past literary name or a borderline literary name. For example, say James Baldwin writes about Sandy Koufax's struggle against prejudice. Some idiotic thing like that. And so it's it's pseudo-literary stuff, but what it really winds up is you're reading about a ball player and you're reading really in a sense a repertorial piece. You find this true in almost all the magazines that we have around us today.

[00:30:59]Say what you will about Playboy, they still publish a lot of fiction. They really do. They're one of the few.

[00:31:06]In spite of the fact they also publish the centerfold out.

[00:31:10]Or maybe because of the fact that they publish the centerfold out. I don't know. This is not a puff piece for Playboy. I will say this however though, you find this creeping articleism is really what it is. It's the article writer. It's the creeping articleism is now taking over even in the world in the world of what used to be the novel.

[00:31:31]And so you have many novels that are just thinly disguised articles.

[00:31:36]Which make a fantastic smash all over the like Seven Days in May, thinly disguised article.

[00:31:43]Or like uh Or this this White House this big White House craze we had a couple of years ago.

[00:31:50]Where Fletcher Knebel and people like Eugene Burdick. They're thinly disguised article writers and their their past at being novelists is very very minimal if if at all. The Green Berets is a thinly disguised article. Now this is the kind of thing which has slowly begun to take the place of real writing. That is to say works of the imagination. So Joseph Conrad's Victory will say came out of his experience or Herman Melville's Moby Dick was a work of the imagination.

[00:32:26]Based on the world he had seen and felt and understood. Certainly you couldn't say that for The Ugly American is a typical example of the non-novel. Let's put it this way. The anti-novel novel.

[00:32:40]A thinly disguised article.

[00:32:42]Now I'm not arguing against that because that type of novel has always been around. Upton Sinclair wrote that type of article.

[00:32:49]Frank Harris wrote that type of book or article. They're they're really more articles than they are books, but this has now become really in a sense the Truman Capote's a piece is an example. Hardly anyone will admit that reads this anyone who reads it that he's really simply reading what what used to simply be called it used to run in three-part articles in True Detective.

[00:33:12]That kind of thing. The bloody axe murder that occurred in Kansas. Well now it's written with a pseudo-literary ease. It's written with an that's with an e s e rather than an e a s e.

[00:33:25]It's written with pseudo-poetic terms as he describes the blood that that splashes across the floor. He describes it as as a as a ruby red carmine instead of dripping blood. But the point is that that anyone who reads it really is in a sense reading the same thing that appeared for years under True Detective. Under real life detective stories or it appeared on the third page of the Mirror.

[00:33:50]Totally a work of imagination, but you've got to pretend that it is and that's important in a ritualistic society.

[00:33:59]And so everywhere people are pretending that it is a work of the imagination.

[00:34:05]And part of the pretense is how hard the man worked on it. That's part of the pretense. If the guy says, "Well, I went out and and I read the accounts and I walked around town asked a few questions and I wrote this thing." You have to pretend because we all know that art takes a long time to produce. So if you notice that the writer of this has made a great brouhaha that it took him six years to write it.

[00:34:25]That's important in the ritualistic world. Who cares how long it took A genuine work of art you don't care.

[00:34:33]Who cares how long it took Moby Dick to be created?

[00:34:37]Who cares how long it took say for example for Rembrandt to paint his peasant woman?

[00:34:44]Is it important?

[00:34:46]Well a lot of bad artists as a matter of fact take years to turn out a bad piece of junk.

[00:34:51]I've known one old lady who has been working on the same painting on velvet of a cat for over two years. And when she finishes it it's still going to be a bad painting of a cat on velvet.

[00:35:02]So but but in a ritualistic society these things are all very important. So have you noticed that in the discussions of that book there's always been brought up twice six years it took to write it.

[00:35:11]Very important. As if that makes it better.

[00:35:15]Who knows how long it took for Poe to write The Raven?

[00:35:20]There's no record of that. He might have written it in four and a half minutes.

[00:35:25]But a genius doesn't the time that it takes for a genius to create what it is what he does is rarely a criterion. Some geniuses take longer than others.

[00:35:35]For example, it took Rodin something sometimes 30 years to create a work.

[00:35:40]Well that was Rodin.

[00:35:42]On the other hand, Rembrandt have you ever seen Rembrandt's drawings?

[00:35:46]Rembrandt's drawings made on the fly are some of the greatest pieces of graphic art ever created and he did them in the minute and a half.

[00:35:53]So you have two different types of men at work.

[00:35:57]But time is never discussed in in the world of genuine art and yet this is part of that ritualism thing that we we're using here. This is a ritualistic pseudo-literary society. So large numbers of people reading the story of a murder really are reading the story of a murder, but they got to pretend they're reading new forms, a new novel creative novelistic form. And so you you keep up this facade just the way people who are going to a church quite often will will keep up all the artifacts in their houses. They will they will pretend one thing and they'll they'll play they have they have albums of hymns and all the whole scene. But actually what they're doing is pursuing a ritualistic kind [music] of of of uh world really. Rather than a real world which they actually exist in outside of the ritualistic area that they're paying obeisance to. Now is this too involved or not? All right. Now Now let's take let's take on the other hand the the business of of writing again going back into a a neo-literate society. Now it is quite natural during during a day of of of rapidly approaching illiteracy that you must find people who will explain it to you and tell you it's a good thing that this is happening.

[00:37:14]They're always This is what is known as following false idols. It's a definitely. They This in any given phase of history there are always people with very official credentials who will leap up and say whatever is happening is good.

[00:37:29]It's the best possible thing. As a matter of fact, are you aware that this is one of the very first things that happened in Hitler's Germany that large numbers of very official people with doctorates after their name leaped up and said, "He's right."

[00:37:43]And so the great vast herd of the German population shrugged their shoulders as well, you know, after all if Dr. Goebbels said so.

[00:37:51]After all he's a doctor philosophy, this doctor, that doctor and so on. They you know, they must be right. So they produced a whole false world of genetics and God knows what else, you see. All based on the official premise that anybody with the name doctor after his name must be an official man and hence knows what he's talking about.

[00:38:11]Now every every great movement must have its its its apostles of correctness.

[00:38:18]It's uh it's yes-sayers.

[00:38:22]To say that whatever the movement is it's good. I'm sure that during the days of the fall of Rome there were very official guys who stood on the edge of the purple swimming pool with grapes in one hand and Nubian handmaiden in the other who wrote learned tomes that Rome was at last approaching its best days.

[00:38:40]Absolutely it was better. Now who is the high There are a lot of high priests of this new illiteracy. Marshall McLuhan is one of them.

[00:38:48]And it's I've known McLuhan you know who McLuhan's work. Well I've known McLuhan personally. I've known McLuhan for for for let's see now. 15 years. I hate to admit it, but I have known McLuhan that long. When he was a struggling professor at the University of Toronto. And and McLuhan of course will be confused.

[00:39:06]People will assume that because he's written these things he's approving of all this. I happen to know something about McLuhan personally.

[00:39:13]What he He's a very interesting guy. And and so ultimately ultimately his writings will be taken which is really in a sense a giant his writing is really in a very basic way a giant rationale for galloping illiteracy.

[00:39:31]That he's he's for looking at comic strips really as opposed to or it is assumed that.

[00:39:39]That what he's really in a sense saying in much of his work is that we are living in an illiterate age and we're going rapidly towards that in a in a breakneck pace. We're galloping.

[00:39:52]Now, what is a literacy? Well, uh, it can be many things. Uh, sitting by the way in a movie house watching a movie is not literate.

[00:40:00]I don't care how serious the movie is, it is not literate. It is something else again.

[00:40:06]Uh, whatever that new definition that will finally, uh, arrive, I'm not sure yet. I don't think many people are. But it's a new kind of awareness, a new the new thing. But it's certainly not literate.

[00:40:19]Now, I'm not I'm not here >> [laughter] >> I'm not here beating the drums for for, uh, the old things. Not at all. I'm merely pointing out, let's stop pretending that we're literate.

[00:40:30]More people today read the book review section than ever read the books involved.

[00:40:37]Uh, very few people I know would dare to miss the New York Times Sunday book review supplement.

[00:40:45]Uh, because you see, they're keeping up the ritual. It's like the same people who would not dare to miss mass or dare to miss church.

[00:40:54]Uh, if you ask any of these people around about Wednesday if they read any of the books that they read about last week, they'd look at you like you're out of your mind. I mean, that's a ridiculous thing. Their job is to read the book reviews and discuss what uh, Norman said about Fred's book.

[00:41:14]Uh, it's an all little inner circle, which is very very important and very involved. However, this is part of the ritualized society. With the reviewer, incidentally, have you noticed it in the in the theater? The reviewer today has risen above that which he reviews.

[00:41:27]That's part of the ritualistic world.

[00:41:30]So, uh, you'll find this also in the case of religions where the the the ministers, the the Billy Grahams, the, uh, uh, the functionaries of the church, whatever the church might be. It could be the Catholic church, it could be the Judaic church, whatever it might be. The functionaries of the church have risen to become far more important than the thing that they deal with or talk about.

[00:41:52]And so, to see the Pope is far more important than to be a good Catholic.

[00:41:58]Uh, to go see Billy Graham is far more important than to live by the the, uh, the words that Graham ostensibly is discussing.

[00:42:07]So, to really thoroughly understand Walter Kerr is far more important than to know what Edward Albee is all about.

[00:42:15]Uh, to thoroughly understand Eric Bentley is far more important than to really know what, uh, say, uh, uh, it's too late. Then to really know what, say, uh, a good example would be, uh, Bertolt Brecht is all about. It's better to read Bentley >> [music] >> than to go see Brecht.

[00:42:35]Uh, it's it's much better. And so, if you line your rooms and your houses with books, you're okay.

[00:42:43]And spend your afternoons, uh, watching the Yankees.

[00:42:47]Or, uh, spend your evening down at a Brigitte Bardot flick.

[00:42:51]You can pretend, of course, you have to use the word flick. Uh, you have to pretend that watching Bardot is a fantastic spiritual exercise in total literateness in in in the >> [music] >> total understanding of mankind. You're not watching a set of bazoombs.

[00:43:07]You're watching something else [music] and you're getting something else. You'd have to ever admit that you're in the same class with that large crowd that stands outside of a Doris Day movie. Oh, no.

[00:43:16]Uh, as long as it was a as long as it was a Swedish producer or a or a French director, you're in business. So, if you can get both of them, get a Doris Day movie, uh, >> [music] >> directed by Ingmar Bergman, and written by, uh, Camus, you got the whole scene. When are they going to do it? It's got to happen. [music] >> [music]