Sid Caesar

            

            On Thursday in Children’s Literature, Professor Baker informed us that Janet and Allan Ahlberg’s “The Jolly Postman or Other People’s Letters” would not be available form the publisher until after the course is over. She said that she will still lecture on the book, but we will not be tested on it. That’s the only one of the remaining books of which I couldn’t find an electronic copy. She’s probably going to have to bump something anyway, the way she gets caught up with certain books in her lectures and doesn’t cover everything she’s originally planned.

            Later that night she sent us a message that “The Jolly Postman” has arrived at the Bob Miller Bookroom. I checked a couple of the U of T libraries and found that they have the book there, so I probably won’t bother buying it.

            Case in point, in this lecture we were supposed to talk about James Marshall’s “George and Martha” and Arnold Lobel’s “Frog and Toad Are Friends”, but we didn’t get to Frog and Toad at all.

            James Marshall said of drawing that there is only one place within a frame where an image belongs, and if it’s not there it is misplaced.

            The only story from George and Martha that we talked about was “The Tub”. It begins with the sentence, “George was fond of peeking through windows.” The next image shows George standing and looking in Martha’s window while she is taking a bath. The next shows her having somehow tossed the bathtub through the window onto George’s head, as she says, “We are friends, but there is such a thing as privacy!” I said that I can’t help but associate George and Martha with George and Martha Washington. I think it’s possible that George symbolizes government and Martha the people, and that this is a story about government spying on its own people. A lot of people laughed appreciatively when I said that.

            Since Orkin treated my place eight days ago, I have only seen one bedbug crawling on my wall, and that was three days later. When I killed it, it was black and dry inside. I decided on Thursday afternoon to do a search of my bedroom and I found two more living but sick looking bedbugs. I called the landlord and told him that it’s better to be safe, so he’s going to order one more treatment.

            That night I started watching the Sid Caesar Collection: the Magic of Live TV”. “The Seven Dwarfs” skit had some funny moments. There was a hundred dollar bet as to whether or not there was a dwarf named “Weepy”. Finally Sid called up Walt Disney studios, somehow got Walt Disney on the phone and asked him. All we could hear was Sid’s end of the conversation: “Oh … Well does your wife know?”

            The most impressive thing that I’ve seen from Sid Caesar so far was from the show that led to “Your Show of Shows”. It was “Five Dollar Date” from “The Admiral Broadway Review” in 1949. He compares a date in 1939 to a date in 1949, and barely taking a moment to breathe, he plays all the parts of the guy, the girl, the cab drivers, the waiters, and etcetera and he sings it. It was manic