Fierce Pajamas: An Anthology of Humor Writing from The New Yorker

by Finder, Henry

  Freud’s tentative moves in the direction of an all-purpose analytic napkin inspired others to ponder the matter. At the Weimar Congress, Bleuler called for a standardization of napkin technique. A lively debate ensued, with a variety of shapes, sizes, and materials finding ready champions. Abraham favored classical antimacassars, while Jung was partial to jute placemats, which he imported from a private source in Africa. The purist Holtz (it was he who in 1935 criticized Freud for not being Freudian enough) ridiculed the whole notion of a napkin and advocated “six couches, to be changed daily, like underwear.” Liebner, who detested Holtz, suggested that the material of the napkin vary with the patient’s complaint; Freud then recalled that he had had no success in treating the celebrated “Wolf Man” until he tried a scrap of terry cloth, to which the patient developed a massive transference. In a culminating speech at Weimar, Freud outlined his vision of the ideal solution: “Hygienic, disposable, inexpensive, and without any referential value whatsoever. I dream of a totally affect-less napkin that every analyst can afford.”

  Freud’s experimental early napkins (many of which are still in private collections) show this drive toward simplicity and clarity—swatches of wool, gabardine, madras, burlap, and unbleached muslin, and, finally, a double layer of cheesecloth. He was making notes on the use of blotting paper when the Anschluss forced him to leave for London. Later that week in Vienna, the Nazis publicly burned most of his napkin file, including an irreplaceable sampler knitted by Lionel Walter, the Baron Rothschild.

  The enormous current popularity of psychoanalysis in the United States is easily explained by the napkin historian. American technological know-how, plus the easy availability of materials, provided the answer Freud and his early disciples searched for but never found. In 1946, after extensive research at Mount Sinai Hospital, a team of pillow scientists at the Kimberly-Clark paper company test-marketed a prototype napkin in the analytic communities of Boston, New York, and Los Angeles. It was a double-ply, semiabsorbent, bleached-wood-fibre product, with a forty-per-cent rag content and an embossed edge. The response was overwhelming, and the course of psychoanalysis was forever altered. As Dr. Neimann Fek said, expressing the gratitude of his colleagues, “It took seventy years before we perfected the beard and the fee. Now, finally, the napkin. No one need ever be crazy again.”

  1975

  MARSHALL BRICKMAN

  WHO’S WHO IN THE CAST

  ANTHONY MOON (Zeckendorf) was born in England and attended Eton, Wibley, and Miss Gobbett’s Academy, concluding his formal education at St. Vitus’s College, Oxford, where he studied moue under the brilliant House Beamish. His first professional job was as Obadiah in the revue A Pound of Cheese, which ran for fifteen years at the Wee-Theatre-in-the-Bog, breaking all records for the West End and closing only when the cast set fire to the scenery. After joining the National Theatre, Mr. Moon was acclaimed for his performances as Rosalind in As You Like It, Monroe Parch in Parsippany Place, and Sir Giggling Fatbody in Sheridan’s The Wind-Sucker. Mr. Moon is the author of A Penn’orth of Rumply, a fantasy for “children of all ages” based on the limericks of Albert Speer, which is currently in preparation for the 1977 season. His autobiography, Scones at Eventide, was a best-seller and will be filmed by the Rank Organisation, featuring Colin Ponce and Colin Headstrong-Jones as the twin bakers.

  MISHRU FEK (Curley) in a long and distinguished theatrical career has appeared in over three thousand productions, from Second Avenue cabaret (Don’t Make Me Laugh, So Who Are You Kidding?, I’m Entitled, and You Should Live So Long) to regional theatre (Chaim in The Wild Mouse, Vontz in Crusts) to Broadway, where he triumphed last season as the grief-stricken father in Runteleh, the Pulitzer Prize–winning musical drawn from the life of Eddie Carmel, the Jewish giant. In recent years, Mr. Fek has divided his time between King Lear (“twice a year, rain or shine”) and Hollywood; his latest films include Blood of the Face Eaters, Nostril from Outer Space, and Monster Beach Party. His television credits include numerous specials, notably an abbreviated version of Runteleh, for which he won the coveted Emmeleh. The Department of State has engaged Mr. Fek to tour Europe with his phenomenal one-man show Jews in Motion, an entertainment based on the responsa of Chodish, the skating rabbi of Budapest.

  MARY BETH NUMKINS (Nell Runcible) is a self-professed “stage kook” who has appeared in stock and regional theatre. Among her favorite roles are Molly in Tom O’Monahoon’s Chowder, Sally in The Misty Bog, Wendy in The Bosky Feu, Peggy in The Dusky Glen, and Polly in Poppa’s Pockmark. She appeared as Princess Tinkle-Beam in Toast and Mrs. Toast and won plaudits for her portrayal of the shepherdess in The Bleat of My Heart. She maintains that the theatre is a “special, magical place, made of fairy-webs and gossamer.” She lives in New York City with her cat, Mister Cat, and a large colored man.

  RAMON PELIGROSO (Parson Anders, Ziggy) was last seen in the role of the psychotic barber in Don’t Nobody Gonna Whup My Face, presented last season at the Drainpipe Theatre. In addition, Mr. Peligroso has appeared as the addict in No Horse for Handkerchief-Heads and the sadistic orderly in Enema. He created the role of Goatberry Jones in the national company of Harlan Peachtree’s Massive Apparatus, for which he won the Frobischer Award. His autobiographical play, The Repositude of Naphthalene Catfish, was presented last season by the Militant Playhouse.

  LYDIA BUNTING (Mrs. Peahen) made her theatrical debut thirty years ago in Tennessee Williams’ For the Safety of the Passengers, the Driver Is Not Permitted to Change Any Bills Larger Than Five Dollars, playing the harelip to Luther Dabchick’s waterhead. After a hiatus of twenty-eight years, she returned to Broadway last season in the revival of Perfervid Desires, which closed during the first act, although the critics were unanimous about her performance. This marks Miss Bunting’s first appearance in the legitimate theatre without a mobcap.

  RENÉ CATAFALQUE (Beggars, Whores, Townspeople)

  To act is to be;

  To be is merely to seem.

  The truth is a hat.

  —HANS EKHARDT

  O’BOB MACVOUT (Director) trained at L.A.M.D.A. and the Yale Drama School under Fleming Pease, directing revue and cabaret (Redoubtable Antics of ’62, Arty-Tarty). After a spell in television, he directed the wildly successful nature film Ring of Bright Beavers (“Vapid family fun! Non-threatening!”—L.A. Times), which grossed six hundred million dollars worldwide and won him three Oscars, two Patsys, and the Distinguished Flying Cross. Last season he directed Sir Henry Wolfsbane in the highly acclaimed R.S.C. production of Congreve’s Pox; or, The Traducer Traduced, which won both the Drama Circle Critics Citation Prize Award and the Award Circle Drama Critics Prize Citation.

  LEON MATRIX (Sets and Lighting) is one of our most versatile designers, whose work ranges from the long-running Leafy Green Vegetables to the costumes for Mary’s Nose. Trained under Schlemmer and Gropius, he did pioneering work at both the Bauhaus and the Bau-wau-haus, the avant-garde Theatre for Hounds he designed for Piscator in Berlin. More recently, he won the rarely awarded Mortimer for Roach!, the musical version of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, which will be presented on Broadway every season by David Merrick. He is four feet tall.

  ARNOLD BATFISH (Author) spent several years as an advertising copywriter and burst upon the theatrical scene with a cathartic evening of one-acters: Spearmint, Doublemint, and Excremint, which won him both a Nudlicer and a Peavy. His dental trilogy, Drill, Fill, and Rinse, Please, was hailed as the finest American dental writing in fifty years and was compared to Gogol’s The Overbite and Sophocles’ Oedipus in Pyorrhea. Mr. Batfish resides with his wife, Laura, and her wife, Leslie, at Nutmeat College, North Carolina, where he holds the Robert Goulet Chair of Dramaturgy.

  AHMET ERGOTAMINE (Producer) has been represented on Broadway by Goodbye, My Toes and the smash hit musical Morons Over Manhattan, currently in its third season. In association with Max Rubric he produced The Man in the Paper Pants and The Smell of Shapiro for the Colloid Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles. M
r. Ergotamine’s reputation as a promotional genius dates from 1950, when he employed a chimpanzee in a miter to unicycle through the theatre district to publicize his knockabout religious farce, Bishopzapoppin! His innovative all-black production of The Dance of Death was followed by an equally successful all-male-Pakistani Riders to the Sea and an all-parrot Importance of Being Earnest. Next spring, he will produce Death of a Salesman in New Orleans with everyone (cast and audience) wearing giant papier-mâché Mardi Gras heads, borrowed from the Grand Krewe of the Knights of Toulouse.

  1976

  DANIEL MENAKER

  HEALTH DEPARTMENT LISTS RESTAURANT VIOLATIONS

  SEPTEMBER 27—The New York City Health Department has cited the following restaurants, food shops, and other eating places for violations of the health code:

  P. J. Murphy’s, 1100 Second Avenue: early-seventies jukebox.

  Au Contraire Restaurant, 79 East 54th Street: gross disproportion of foundation executives among clientele.

  Tyrone X. Shabazz Nation of Islam Cafeteria, 79 West 148th Street: reverse-quota seating.

  Joe’s Spot Food Shop, 987 Amsterdam Avenue: abandoned automobile in kitchen.

  Gang of Four Shanghai Restaurant, 37 Mott Street: makes hungry where most it satisfies.

  One Man’s Meat Antivegetarian Restaurant, 34–561⁄4 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn: trace elements of soybean extender in chopped round steak.

  Zoom ’n’ Dolly Avant-Garde Triplex Theatre Candy Stand, 9 Greenwich Avenue (third-floor hallway): no Jujubes.

  Jekyll’s Deli, 10 East 7th Street: dropping rodents.

  The Upper Crust Penthouse Restaurant, 665 Fifth Avenue: overt ridiculing of tip.

  Let’s Eat Right to Get Off Health Food Café, 37 St. Marks Place: undernourished waiters.

  Sauce for the Moose Alaskan Hideaway, Jerome Avenue and 210th Street: fused after-dinner mints.

  VIOLATIONS CORRECTED

  Mi-Mi-Mi Opera Café, 49 West 66th Street: “I Loves You, Porgy” dropped from singing waiters’ repertoire.

  Nadine’s Bigshot Hangout, Third Avenue and 89th Street: Tongsun Park barred from premises.

  INSPECTOR VANISHED

  Punch Bowl S&M Diner, 294 11th Avenue.

  1977

  CHARLES MCGRATH

  THE DELTS OF VENUS

  (SELECTIONS FROM ANOTHER VOLUME OF EARLY WRITINGS BY ANISE NUN)

  PREFACE

  Gomez told me about the Collector. I was living in Paris, finishing up the eleventh installment of my memoirs of infantile sexuality, and I was so poor that for days on end I ate nothing but string and leaves. Gomez said that the Collector would pay a dollar a page for stories about sport.

  “Well,” I said, “we know a little about sport, eh, Gomez?”

  What else was I to do? Arnold needed cash for some dental work, Helga needed wallpaper for her garret, and Lazlo wanted to hire a dozen convent girls for his experimental film. So Gomez told me the story of the Stewardess and the Swedish National Track Team, and I wrote it up for the Collector. A day or two later, the Collector called me on the telephone. “More action,” he said. “Leave out that sex stuff and just give me the sport.”

  I swore that never again would I work for a man so cold and unfeeling—so insensitive to the true sport of love—but Arnold wanted money for opium, Helga’s cat needed an operation, and Lazlo wanted to buy a dozen see-through middy blouses. Swallowing my pride, I wrote for the Collector the stories published here.

  —ANISE NUN

  EUGÉNIE AND THE BARON

  When Eugénie awoke, it was late in the afternoon, the draperies were drawn, and the Baron was sitting in a velvet-covered chaise, smoking and regarding her coldly. He was wearing a soft peaked cap and a loosely cut suit of fine striped flannel, and his eyes had the fixed, hypnotic gaze of an animal, or of a man who has not slept for several months. There were furs on the floor, exotic plants in the window, and a replica of the American League pennant of 1975 hung from the ceiling.

  When the Baron saw Eugénie begin to stir, he crushed out his cigarette, strode over to the bed, and pulled back the sheets. “Here, put this on,” he said, handing her a catcher’s mask. “And this, too.” He slipped a chest protector over her chemise and began fastening the straps in back. Eugénie felt his warm breath on her shoulder and she quivered involuntarily. He smelled of stale popcorn.

  “That’s too tight,” she said. Her skin was very sensitive, and she was afraid the leather would give her an equipment rash.

  “They’ll work themselves loose,” the Baron said hoarsely, and then he held the mitt out to her. It was huge and fat, laced at the bottom, and had a deep, soft pocket. Burned into it were the words “Official Yogi Berra.”

  “Please,” Eugénie said. “I don’t feel like it right now.”

  The Baron said nothing but led her out into the long hallway and motioned for her to crouch. “Just give me a target,” he whispered. “Give me a good target.”

  The Baron paced off sixty and one-half feet along the carpet, then turned and—softly at first, then faster and harder—began throwing to Eugénie a hard white ball, which she caught, reluctantly, and tossed back to him. After a while a light sweat broke out on the Baron’s forehead, and Eugénie could hear him begin to breathe heavily. The throws came even faster now, and the ball began to move curiously, shooting down and to the inside, or else at times seeming to pause a moment and then soaring up and away. Eugénie was still tense and uncertain, but the shape of the Baron’s leg, as he kicked it toward the ceiling just before delivery, was so graceful and the arc of the ball as it spun and curved through the air was so vivid and poignant that she felt a part of herself begin to thaw. Her left hand, inside the dark, odorous mitt, grew warm and then began to tingle with a kind of delicious pain, and, without entirely willing it, Eugénie found herself calling out, “Hum, baby, hum. Atta boy. No batter, no batter. Way to go, way to go, babe!”

  MARIE

  Marie had fallen into a way of life that caused her family and relatives to disown her. She lived above an all-night lanes in Montparnasse, and she liked to bowl for money. Her father, who was dying of consumption, prevailed on her to change her habits, and he obtained for Marie a position as a governess in a large house on the Rue Victor-Massé. The work was not arduous—it consisted simply of caring for a small boy named Pierre and wearing sheer black stockings and a garter belt so intricate that only the Master knew how to fasten it—but Marie soon grew restless. At night she had difficulty sleeping, and thrashed in bed for hours, practicing her four-step approach and her body English.

  At last Marie could bear this state of craving no more, and early one morning, before the sun was up and while the rest of the house was still asleep, she stole into Pierre’s room and gently shook him awake. “Pierre, darling, I have a surprise for you,” she said softly, full of self-loathing and yet unable to help herself. “Something very nice.”

  She helped the boy off with his pajamas—his skin, as she allowed her hands to linger over it, was smooth and almost unnaturally cool, like the finish on a duckpin—and she dressed him in powder-blue Sans-a-Belt slacks and an open-collared satin shirt with the words “Café Joe” embroidered on the back.

  “What a lovely boy you are!” said Marie. Breathlessly, she handed him a bowling ball. “Roll it,” she whispered. “Let me see you roll it.”

  Pierre looked at her questioningly, and a faint blush came to his cheeks.

  “Surely you must have bowled before,” said Marie. “Perhaps with one of your little chums?”

  “No,” said the boy timidly.

  “A big strong boy like you? Never been bowling? I don’t believe it.”

  “No, really,” said Pierre.

  “But you know how, don’t you?” Marie said gently. “Haven’t the boys in school told you how?”

  Pierre nodded shyly.

  “Well, then!” Marie laughed. “Now I will teach you some things they didn’t tell you. I will teach you some things even Papa d
oesn’t know!”

  Arranging ten of Pierre’s lead soldiers in a triangle on the nursery floor, Marie showed the boy how to make the 4–10 split, how to handle the groove in a worn-down lane, and how to put a duck hook on the ball so that it slammed into the pocket from the Brooklyn side. “There!” she said, her bosom heaving. “Now you try, and if you’re a very nice boy I’ll tell you about Bowling for Francs.”

  MATHILDE, GEORG, AND THE KNICKS

  Mathilde was young, wealthy, and very beautiful—she had many lovers—but she had never been to see the Knicks. The one man she wished to share this experience with, a tall Hungarian named Georg, for many weeks refused to oblige her. Finally, he yielded to her entreaties, and on a soft, rainy evening in March they took the A train together to Madison Square Garden, to catch the Knicks and SuperSonics.

  The game proved to be all that Mathilde had hoped, with the Knicks jumping away to an early lead on three dazzling picks by Bob McAdoo, and before the end of the first quarter she had grown feverish with excitement. Her lips were moist, hoarse cries issued from her throat, and at crucial free throws her hand unconsciously sought out Georg’s. Mathilde then understood why so many men refused to introduce their lovers to the Knicks: they feared awakening in them an insatiable passion. Georg, however, was behaving very strangely, almost as if he were afraid of her ardor, and in the last quarter she noticed that his eyes were tightly shut. On their way home in a cab after the game, Georg sighed and told Mathilde this story: