Apropos of Nothing

by Woody Allen

when school later introduced me to Shakespeare they managed to force-feed it in such a way that when it was over you never wanted to hear another hark, prithee, or but soft as long as you lived.

I always say HS English ruins Shakespeare for millions of kids for life.

Incidentally, it is amazing how often I am described as “an intellectual.” This is a notion as phony as the Loch Ness Monster as I don’t have an intellectual neuron in my head.

Mort Sahl had a brilliant idea about starting a class action suit against the movies for ruining all our lives.

I do not expect you to take my word for this, but if any of you readers ever run into guys from the old neighborhood, ask them. When I happen to run into one of them, they always get on the subject of my skill as a ball player and, for some reason, never my movies.

why glasses do not make one a particularly literate person, much less an intellectual.

NYU a try.

Over the past 30 or so years NYU has become decidedly more competitive in its admissions. Prior to this only its graduate schools held a certain prestige.

the artist’s “legacy” will make him immortal. The catch here is that all the people discussing the legacy and how great the artist’s work is are alive and are ordering pastrami, and the artist is somewhere in an urn or underground in Queens.

me to a wonderful comedian named Herb Shriner,

Herb Shriner is the father of long-time soap star Kin Shriner and comedian & tv host Will Shriner. Shriner named his sons for Will Rogers and Kin Hubbard, humorous writer of the 20’s & 30’s.

Jonathan Winters needed nothing from anyone; he was simply a genius.

The Paul Winchell Show.

I watched Paul Winchell all the time when I was a little girl back in the 60’s. He was to us baby boomers what Edgar Bergan and Charlie McCarthy were to our depression era parents.

I felt if you believed everything you read in the tabloids you deserved your life.

When forced to pick a book to read in the library of P.S. 99, I randomly chose Six Plays by Kaufman and Hart. I turned by sheer chance to You Can’t Take It with You. The stage direction read, “The home of Martin Vanderhof—just around the corner from Columbia University, but don’t go looking for it.” That to me was an amusing

Don’t be outer directed. You know what you think is funny or what goals you are striving for. That’s all you need to know. You have a vision, try to execute it. Simple as that.

The marketing wizards work their voodoo, assuring me with these ads on this day in these theaters, we will all soon be driving Maybachs. Then the film opens, drops violently dead at the box office, and the litany of excuses come: the weather, the World Series, the stock market, Purim. Meanwhile, nobody shows up at the box office.

A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy did turn out very beautiful and magical, and nobody liked it or came to see it. Zelig had a much better fate,

wants what it wants. They found it selfish, but few if anyone realized I was simply quoting Saul Bellow quoting Emily Dickinson, not actually describing a philosophy of my own.

“The heart wants what it wants”. Is what Allen refers to

Fall is a different matter entirely but no less emotional. To me, it’s the loveliest time of the year. See, summer in New York is bad news. It’s hot, muggy, everyone’s away, and yes, you can move around with less traffic but it’s dull with all your friends gone and everything kind of sticky and humid. Anyhow, comes fall and the town starts percolating. New Yorkers return from vacation, the weather cools off.

Autumn in New York 🎶

You simply are funny or you’re not. If you are, you are,

Marner or dissecting a frog. I sit dutifully fighting vainly the old ennui

From Cole Porter’s Your Fabulous Face

life is too ironic to get a grip on.

let me simply say to me, Groucho Marx, W. C. Fields, and Elaine May are indisputably funny, with S.J. Perelman the funniest human of my time on earth. Oh, and don’t forget Pogo. Walt Kelly’s comic strip was touched by genius. There are others, but let me move on.

Some French girl in Paris needed me to play myself in a French film she was directing, and as it was her first movie and the whole appearance took an hour, I scooted over to her set when I was in Paris and did as instructed. I don’t like to see myself in movies, so I never saw any of these films,

This was Sophie Lleouche’s Paris-Manhattan with Alice Taglioni and Patrick Bruel. A light romance with charming Parisian touch.

This was the city before middle-class New Yorkers fled, and turned Times Square over to the tourists.

Arthur Miller was something I could have only fantasized about as a boy, as a young man, even the week before. I asked a million questions, and I recall quite vividly that he confirmed for me that life was indeed meaningless.