Woody Allen

Folks often tell me I remind them of Woody Allen.... But as I'm over six-feet tall, and have a huge black beard Moses or Karl Marx might have envied, and don't wear glasses, I'm hardly a dead ringer, the spittin image, or whatever.
Woody's ambition was always to be somebody else, and I can relate to that. Mine was always to be HIM (at least while he was loved by Mia Farrow).
The really big difference between us, however, is that he's very talented, and this comes across in this trilogy of show more titles, as well as in films like "Love and Death".
(For what it's worth, I do make people laugh a lot, but never intentionally... there's the rub!)
Anyhow, these excerpts, hopefully, may amuse you:

Should I marry W.? Not if she won't tell me the other letters in her name.
Today I saw a red-and-yellow sunset and thought, How insignificant I am! Of course, I thought that yesterday, too, and it rained. I was overcome with self-loathing and contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman.

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Look at me, he thought. Fifty years old. Half a century. Next year, I will be fifty-one. Then fifty-two. Using this same reasoning, he could figure out his age as much as five years in the future. So little time left, he thought, and so much to accomplish.

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Gossage:
How curious your last letter was! Well-intended, concise, containing all the elements that would appear to make up what passes among certain reference groups as a communicative effect, yet tinged throughout by what Jean-Paul Sartre is so fond of referring to as "nothingness."

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Notes from the Overfed
(After reading Dostoevski and the new "Weight Watchers" magazine on the same plane trip)
I am fat. I am disgustingly fat. I am the fattest human I know. I have nothing but excess poundage all over my body. My fingers are fat. My wrists are fat. My eyes are fat. (Can you imagine fat eyes?) I am hundreds of pounds overweight. Flesh drips from me like hot fudge off a sundae. My girth has been an object of disbelief to everyone who's seen me. There is no question about it, I am a regular fatty. Now, the reader may ask, are there advantages or disavantages to being built like a planet? I do not mean to be facetious or speak in paradoxes, but I must answer that fat in itself is above bourgeois morality... For what is fat after all but an accumulation of pounds? ...No, my friend, we must never attempt to distinguish between good fat and bad fat. We must train ourselves to confront the obese without judging...

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Understand that you are dealing with a man who knocked off Finnegan's Wake on the roller coaster at Coney Island... And yet , with this much perception dripping from me, like maple syrup off waffles, I was reminded recently that I possess an Achilles' heel culturewise that runs up my leg to the back of my neck. show less

Allen's third full-length play doesn't have a patch on his two early Broadway successes that contributed to his fame. It's closer to a domestic tragedy than the comedies for which he was known (although by 1981 he had branched out into serious films and would make a decent bundle of those over the years). It's a small-scale drama, Tennessee Williams perhaps but in a modest manner, or Neil Simon but without the whimsy, all contained within a formal, conventionally-structured script. The play show more didn't do well on Broadway, despite Bea Arthur and Danny Aiello as the dysfunctional parents whose frail son is their only hope. Still, it's a decent enough showcase for character and development, which weren't always strengths with Allen's later plays (indeed, were never really strengths again in his stage work). Not sure I'd rush to stage this any time soon, though. Allen's 50 films are where the meat is at; this is a placid soup by comparison. show less

Tuvieron que pasar 16 años para que Woody Allen regresara a las letras con un nuevo libro de relatos cortos. Cómo acabar de una vez por todas con la cultura (1971), Sin plumas (1975), Efectos secundarios (1980) y Pura anarquía (2007), son los antecedentes literarios del flamante Gravedad cero (2022), una serie de 19 cuentos de los cuales 8 aparecieron previamente en la sofisticada publicación The New Yorker, y 11 fueron escritos especialmente para esta edición. Se trata del humor de show more Woody Allen en pura ebullición, todo lo que el lector puede esperar del ocurrente e intelectual humor del autor neoyorkino, quien no ha perdido ni un poco la puntería en su divertida (y pesimista) visión de la existencia. Un crew de filmación que destruye la casa de un coleccionista, vacas con instintos psicópatas, las complejidades de los bienes raíces en New York, comediantes mediocres que entretienen gallinas, almohadas capaces de conseguir la paz mundial y seres humanos que reencarnan en langostas que se sirven en restaurantes del Upper East Side, son apenas algunas de las excéntricas tramas que Allen despliega a todo galope, salpicando su prosa con múltiples referencias al arte y la cultura pop. Entre el surrealismo y la sexualidad hilarante, entornos dignos de Kafka y situaciones tan exageradas que provocan carcajadas súbitas, Woody Allen arrasa igual con la industria del cine, los críticos y la política; lo mismo satiriza a Miley Cirrus que se burla de los autos inteligentes que sufren dudas existenciales; describe porrazos en la cabeza que crean eruditos y caballos que pintan lienzos al estilo de Joan Miró. La editora de The New Yorker, Daphne Merkin, apunta atinadamente en el prólogo: “No es fácil ser gracioso”. Pero la pluma de Allen desdobla una literatura divertida y ágil, que innegablemente se siente cinematográfica. Atención al último relato Crecer en Manhattan, más extenso, cercano a la novela corta, que bien podría ser el esbozo de una nueva película del director. Las palabras que utiliza para describir ese Manhattan que tanto ama, con sus atardeceres y el verde encendido de Central Park, erizarán la piel del lector. show less

I know that "The Kugelmass Episode" gets a lot of attention--and rightfully so; it's fantastic--but "Retribution" is definitely one of the best short stories I've ever read. It was hilarious, full of the one liners and wit that Woody excels at, but it was also extremely heartfelt and beautifully written. It's such a complete piece of fiction and the character development in a little over 20 pages was greater than in many novels and films. It's a story I'll certainly be going back to many show more times. Maybe I'll even write about it. Who knows? show less