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Home , Alexander Woollcott, Al Shean, Arthur Marx, At the Circus, A Night in Casablanca, Bert Kalmar

CAPTAIN FLASHBACK

A fanzine composed for the 408th distribution of the The Acme of Anarchy: Turbo-Charged Party-Animal Amateur Press A Potted History of the Brothers Association, from the joint membership of Andy Hooper and Carrie Root, residing at 11032 30th Ave. Somewhere between 45 and 50 years ago, my NE Seattle, WA 98125. E-mail Andy at father us a pair of tickets to a series of [email protected], and you may reach Carrie at screenings of the Marx Brothers’ movies, [email protected]. This is a Drag Bunt Press mounted by one of the many film societies then Production, completed on 6/19/2020. active on the Campus of the University of Wisconsin. My recollection is that my sisters CAPTAIN FLASHBACK is devoted to old fanzines, were too young to attend these evening shows, the Algonquin Roundtable, competitive croquet and and this became a special occasion for just the other fascinating phenomena of the 20th Century. All two of us. My mother, who introduced me to material by Andy Hooper unless indicated. many cultural treasures including J. R. R. Contents of Issue #19: Tolkien and , wasn’t a fan of Page 1: The Acme of Anarchy: “noisy” things like Marx Brothers pictures, so A Potted History of the Marx Brothers she was happy to let us have our fun. I’m not Page 2: A Key to Interlineations in Issue #18 sure we went to them all – even my Dad was Page 32: Comments on Turbo-Apa #407 Page 37: Fanmail from some Flounder: less than enthralled by Go West and The Big Letters to CAPTAIN FLASHBACK Store – but I am pretty sure we saw all of their Page 39: I Remember Entropy Department: first nine pictures, from (1929) “Madison & A Spending Spree” by Leigh through (1939), with a fond coda Edmonds, from EMU TRACKS OVER from A Night in (1946). AMERICA, 1974. My Dad now believes that he first encountered them at art house showings in Ann Arbor, when ’s weekly acted as an advertisement for their catalog. I know that he felt they were important – fun, delicious fun, but also something significant that he wanted to share with me. I was exhilarated by them – the dizzying rhythm of Groucho and Chico’s wordplay, Harpo’s silent business and gags, the giddy, escalating madness of set pieces like the “stateroom scene” from A Night at the Opera. I was launched into wild-eyed, gasping fits of giggling. I looked over to see my Dad in a similar condition and had a feeling of almost guilty pleasure. It was like being drunk together -- in a fleeting and innocent way. But there was something Chicago studio portrait of The Four Marx Brothers as they conspiratorial about it, too, an initiation into appeared in 1912. From L to R: Leo, Julius, Arthur, Milton. what’s really good. [Continued on Page 3] ------Issue #19, June 2020 ------

1 ------A Key to Linos published in May in CAPTAIN FLASHBACK #18: Page 3: “I believe that Accounting is a Sacred Science” Advert, Winter 1994 & Southeast Connection, quoted by Joseph Nicholas, FTT #17, April 1995 Page 4: “Software,” said Charles Platt in menacing tones, “is a disease.” From “Endless Loops,” Dave Langford, SGLODION #1.5 October, 1989 Page 5: “Thank you, dear boy. But I prefer something made by man…to something made by an oyster.” & Page 6: “Smoking a cigarette is like drinking beer from a thimble.” The eccentric, Bohemian “Mac” (Anna Lee) has the best lines in Samuel Fuller’s The Crimson Kimono (1960) Page 7: “May I never be separated from this Purple.” The Byzantine Empress Theodora as quoted by Procopius in his History of the Wars. Page 8: Can peace be gained until I clasp my wombat? Dante Gabriel Rossetti writes to his brother, quoted in Mozart's Starling by Lyanda Haupt. Found by Jerry Kaufman. Page 9: “I’m man enough to simply say, “I’m going to poop,” and I’d be honored to have Ron Howard involved.” Jerry Smith (Chris Pernell), Rick ad Morty S4 Ep, 2, “The Old Man and the Seat” Page 10: “They told us there were two fathers, one above and one below.” & Page 11: “They lied. There was ever only the devil.” James Delos (Ed Harris) Westworld, S2 Ep. 4 “The Riddle of the Sphinx.” Page 12: “Remember, in a pirate ship, in pirate waters, in a pirate world, ask no questions.” Advice from Captain Vallo (Burt Lancaster), Curt Siodmak’s The Crimson Pirate (1952) Page 13: “Thou hast a generous choice; the gallows or the sea.” Mutineer Humble Bellows (Torin Thatcher), enforces the pirate code, The Crimson Pirate (1952). Page 14: “Now, Marchese, we’re in the dark, where a sword is just a long knife.” Dardo Bartoli (Burt Lancaster) takes his revenge, The Flame and the Arrow (1950) Page 15: “Prefab Trout is described as a relaxed summer convention in the autumn.” Ian Sorenson reads from the Zagat Guide, CONRUNNER #10, Nov. 1988 Page 16: “Two things I can smell inside a hundred feet – burning hamburger and romance.” Diner owner Marney (Mary North) keeps the pulp era alive, Out of the Past, 1947 Page 17: “My Doctor never told me that. I had to hear it from Phish.” Hans Moleman struggles with Medicare, The Simpsons, S.13 Ep. 16, “Weekend at Burnsie’s” Page 18: “I can’t stand breakfast. It’s just constant eggs. I mean, why? Who decided?” Carolyn Martens (Fiona Shaw) asks a question for all of us, Killing Eve, S.2 Ep.6, “I Hope You Like Missionary” Page 19: “The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.” From The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon (1707-1770) Page 20: “Cathy and I considered ourselves the hippest of Kansas hippies.” Grant Canfield, “My San Francisco Century, Part One” PORTABLE STORAGE #3, 2019 Page 21: He was the Black Mamba, named for the dangerous snake of sub-Saharan Africa. Terminal line, obituary for Kobe Bryant, John Hertz VANAMONDE #1384, Feb. 26th, 2020 Page 22: …we drew our editorial titles for this issue from songs by Oingo Boingo… “We Close Our Eyes,” editorial by Ulrika O’Brien, issue #15 of BEAM, February 2020 Page 23: “Save some of these atomic age zingers for your English homework. Bukowski.” Rick Sanchez (Justin Roiland) knows how to exit a room, Rick ad Morty S4 Ep, 8, “The Vat of Acid Episode.”

------“The truth, if it ever existed, has gone through its customary transformation into something more easily digested by the human mind.” Joe Adamson, Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Sometimes Zeppo: A Celebration of the Marx Brothers (1973)

“Right now I'd do anything for money. I'd kill somebody for money. I'd kill you for money. Ha ha ha. Ah, no. You're my friend. I'd kill you for nothing.”

Chico Marx, The Coconuts (1929) ------

2 The Acme of Anarchy family apartment on East . A last Marx [continued from page 1] brother, Herbert Manfred Marx came along in 1901; his middle name honored Minnie’s first- I don’t think I was quite sophisticated enough to born son Manfred, an infant who died of understand the concept of absurdist humor or “entero-colitis” in 1886. what was so funny about Groucho speaking directly to the audience – I doubt I had ever Sam was born Simon Marrix in the French heard the phrase “.” But I understood region of ; he came to America in 1880 that they were tapping into a fundamental truth: and was universally known as “Frenchie.” He All Authority is Ridiculous. Their humor was as worked as a dance instructor during his early modern as Dadaism but seemed like it had roots years in America. After marrying the Frisian- in much older traditions: , Minstrel born Minnie Schönberg, he began to work as shows, Punch and Judy plays, Commedia what his sons universally described as a “very Maschera and the Commedia Improviso. bad tailor.” He didn’t like to measure his clients, preferring to guess at their sizes; rejected suits And I was convinced there was something a bit were sold door to door in New Jersey. While a magical, even other-worldly about . poor tailor, Sam was renowned as an excellent He was a tornado of wild faces, frantic whistles, cook; when he fell behind on rent, he would falling silverware and irresponsibly wielded cook the landlord a memorable meal and scissors, imperfectly concealed inside a received another week’s extension in return. shapeless overcoat and an incongruously formal , prepared to honk an unseen horn with Minnie was from a “show business” family. Her almost any portion of his anatomy. And at some Father Levy Schönberg had worked as a street point in almost every picture, Harpo would magician and ventriloquist in Germany, and her unexpectedly come upon a perfectly-tuned harp younger brother was a noted – a great golden, formal harp like you would see vaudevillian, who also appeared in such films as in a huge orchestra or a dragon’s hoard – and he The Blue Bird (1940). (And another brother, would play that harp as beautifully and expertly Heinrich, would perform under the name “Harry as if he were an angel on loan from the choir Shean.”) Minnie’s mother, Fanny Salomons ethereal. The first time you see it, it makes you Schönberg was a yodeler, and also played the snort once or twice, sure that a gag is coming. harp. Minnie played the harp too and would pass But as his thumbs pluck and strum and flutter a fascination with the unusual instrument on to over those heavy, rebounding strings, and the her second eldest son. All her boys remembered shimmering music cascades out of them, you fall her as the head of the household and the force silent in dumb awe and appreciation. It’s a which gave them the drive and discipline to be beautiful thing. Then he’s up again, blowing capable entertainers. She managed their careers raspberries, once more the clown no law can in their early days, using the pseudonym contain. Was the harp solo real? Did he imagine “Minnie Palmer” to conceal her relationship to it? Did you imagine it? Who is this guy? her clients. portrayed her in a musical titled Minnie’s Boys, which ran for At Home with Frenchie and Minnie three months in the spring of 1970. The book He was born on ’s on rd was co-authored by her grandson , November 23 , 1888, the third child of Simon the only son of Julius and his first wife Ruth “Sam” Marx and the former Minnie Schönberg. Johnson. His birth name was Adolphe, but he never cared for it and changed to the more American Despite the best efforts of their parents, one sounding “Arthur” in 1911. He and his older could not say that the Marx Brothers had an easy brother Leonard were soon joined by younger [continued next page] siblings Julius (1891) and Milton (1893) in the ------That’s our next project: Don’t Point That Beard at Me: The Story. ------

3 ------They’ve got a lot of nerve charging a dime for a show like that in these times. ------The Acme of Anarchy the scene. Around the same time, he was hired to [continued from page 3] play piano and harp in a Long Island bordello; we don’t know if he employed the same childhood. Adolphe told stories of swimming in technique as he had with the pictures the garbage-laden East River, skating in on one scavenged skate, and how he left Nightingales at Dawn school at the age of 8, during his repeat attempt Julius was the first to appear on stage as a to pass the second grade. Two classmates professional, making his singing debut in 1905 dropped him out of the second-story classroom at the age of fifteen. His brother Milton and a window, after which he decided not to return. young vocalist named Mabel O’Donnell joined He became literate by studying sings in the him in 1907, and they performed under the name street. A few years later, he was hired as a helper “The Three Nightingales.” In 1910, Arthur, who in a butcher shop, where he imitated his bosses also had a fine baritone voice, joined the group to make customers and neighborhood kids laugh. which briefly became “The Four Nightingales.” After the butcher shop, he worked as a courier At this point, Minnie and her sister Hannah and general office errand boy, and as a bellhop could no longer restrain themselves; they joined at the Hotel Seville. the ensemble, which was now known as “The Six Mascots.” Mabel O’Donnell left the group Arthur was fascinated with music, and made a sometime prior to 1912; she would be more try with six different instruments, including the famous as the author of children’s books, piano. His brother Leonard had a self-taught including several “first readers.” fluency on the piano that Arthur lacked; Arthur’s first jobs in entertainment were playing to Leonard, who had been happily making money accompany silent films in a . playing piano and losing it playing cards, was Unfortunately, he could really only play two persuaded to join the group. It was now re-titled songs from memory, and he had to vary the “The Four Marx Brothers.” The act was only tempo and tone of the songs to fit the mood of mildly comical and emphasized the quartet’s musical abilities. Julius played guitar and crooned love songs without a trace of irony, some of the same tunes he would warble on film in the 1930s. They gamely bounced from town to town (see “The Marxes in Chicago”) like thousands of other vaudevillians, making only a minor impression on audiences. This changed one night in Nacogdoches, Texas in 1909, when Julius was interrupted by a local who dashed into the theater shouting about a runaway mule. The audience leapt to their feet and poured into the street to see the spectacle, leaving a fuming Julius waiting for their eventual return. When they came back, Julius had extemporized new lyrics to his song. “Nacogdoches is full of roaches,” he opined, and later, “The Jackass is the flower of Tex-ass.” His brothers stood cringing in the wings, assuming the crowd would at least boo these insults and offer their own in return. To their shock, the audience laughed! Julius pouted and wiggled his Herman, Arthur, Julius and Leonard Marx in 1923

4 eyebrows and got another hearty roar. He then dove under the carpet and crawled along the More About Lafe Schönberg: floor like a mole. The story might be completely Levy Schönberg, also known as “Lafe” and apocryphal, or it may have taken place earlier, or “Louis,” was the longest-lived of the Marx in Ada, Oklahoma, but it is probably accurate in Brothers’ grandparents, and the primary portraying Julius as the instigator of mirth. source of the show business tradition in the extended clan. There is a certain mystery The act began to evolve steadily in the direction around him – just how mischievous was his of comedy after that event, and this would take career as a traveling magician and them on a 20-year journey toward Broadway and ventriloquist? Was he really a sort of con . Their first comic show was titled man, a schnorrer or more of a badchen, a sort “Fun in Hi Skule.” At least partly inspired by the of witty considered essential hugely successful 1908 Broadway musical entertainment for Jewish weddings? It is School Days, it featured a collection of certainly possible he was not above gulling characters based on ethnic stereotypes telling people with something like the old shell some painfully creaky jokes, all familiar game, but the real source of his poor Vaudeville fare, but audiences laughed. A kind reputation was some sort of sexual of sequel, Mr. Green’s Reception, was set at the indiscretion that led to his banishment from same school 20 years later. his hometown in Germany. When he fell in Particularly when they were young, the brothers love with Fanny Saloman, her devout parents all looked quite similar to one another. One of were aghast. The first of Fanny’s nine Leonard’s favorite ploys had been to apply for children, Schontje Schönberg, was born a full two jobs playing piano at the same time and year before their wedding in 1851 and was send his younger brother to cover one of them. initially claimed by Lafe’s mother to prevent The scam was usually revealed when Arthur yet more scandal from descending upon them. began playing. This similarity made the brothers Once Lafe and Fanny were married, they eager to develop specific characters so that spent several years touring Germany, audiences would be able to tell them apart. performing magic and music, and carrying Leonard became a kind of tough-talking but the entire family and all their belongings in a care-free Italian immigrant, a voice which he horse-drawn wagon. had been using to amuse friends and intimidate Eventually, Lafe and Fanny settled down, antagonists since childhood. Julius adopted an possibly in Dormun, where Minnie was born, exaggerated German accent, in imitation of and he found steady work making umbrellas. certain Schönberg uncles, and played a school Later, he was listed as an “artisan,” without master in “Fun in Hi Skule.” This character any indication of what his specialty was. sported the thick black greasepaint mustache After arriving in America in 1880, he worked that would become the foundation of his look as as a “fur pointer,” cloth-maker and tailor and Groucho. And Adolphe, now officially Arthur, apparently left performing to his children. At found his stage persona by losing his voice. least four of them, Hannah, Heinrich, Minnie Arthur had a good voice and carried his part in and Abraham had careers of some duration on the singing group well enough. But when the the stage. Not all of the family came to brothers began to indulge their natural attraction America at the same time and some of the to comedy, he found that he didn’t memorize older children remained in Germany. dialogue easily and was never able to keep up with his brothers as they barraged each other with puns and improvised jokes. He found that he got better laughs with his ridiculous facial ------Why, over at the Roxy you can get four feature pictures, a room and a bath for a nickel! ------

5 ------There has never been a book on humor written by a funny man. ------The Acme of Anarchy Groucho the Monk [continued from page 5] Groucho and the other Marx Brothers were pretty convinced that while Groucho’s name fit him admirably, expressions and broad physical gags if he didn’t Art Fisher had not generated it from whole cloth. It’s talk at all. pretty likely that Fisher was inspired by the work of The troupe had a bright red “Raggedy Anne” another German immigrant to America, the illustrator wig in their trunk – this had been worn by Mabel and cartoonist Charles Augustus Mager (1878-1956). O’Donnell, who used it onstage to conceal the Gus Mager began by drawing sports cartoons for newspapers, but soon created original comic strips fact that she had a lazy or misaligned eye. featuring anthropomorphic animals under the title In Minnie cut the pigtails off and popped it on Jungle Land or sometimes Jungle Society. Arthur’s head. It certainly made him stand out from his brothers. He also took to wearing a In 1904, he created the first of a series of stories rumpled khaki trench coat, from which a galaxy featuring an ape-like protagonist, titled Knocko the Monk. The “monks” in question were monkeys, not of incongruous items – blow torches, cuckoo members of a religious order. He was followed by a clocks, cream pies – might emerge. He series of “Monk” cousins, including Rhymo the Monk, communicated by frantically whistling and Mufti the Monk, Henpecko the Monk, Groucho the honking on an old-fashioned taxi horn. His Monk and the most popular, Sherlocko the Monk, who brothers presented a collection of less-than- later was renamed Hawkshaw the Detective. These were reputable types, but Arthur was a genuine all popular strips, nationally syndicated to many papers, primitive and his act included caricatures and and Fisher would have known the tradition he was gestures that were probably familiar in the joining in naming his acquaintances Groucho, Chico and amphitheaters of the ancient world. Harpo Marx. The Naming of Parts On the Naming of Gummo and Zeppo In 1914, the brothers presented all their There is still some question about the origin of accumulated ideas to their Uncle Al Shean (real Gummo and Zeppo’s nicknames. Neither was present at the poker game in Galesburg, Illinois, but if you name Abraham Elieser Adolph Schönberg) and were going to be a Marx Brother, professionally, you he composed a revue titled Home Again, which needed a nickname that ended in “o.” Harpo they would tour for the next four years. Family suggested that Gummo was naturally quiet or perhaps lore declared that Al had written the boys’ first a somewhat sneaky character, and this reminded sketch on a sheet of butcher paper during a visit people of the proverbial gumshoe-wearing detective. to the Marx apartment, so they were familiar Or he may have actually worn rubber soled shoes. But with his style. He was one of the more Groucho asserted that he got the name because after a successful comics of the era and appeared in the childhood plagued by illness, Milton had grown up to Ziegfeld with his partner Edward be a hypochondriac. He tended to put on rubber Gallagher as “Gallagher and Shean.” The Marx galoshes over his shoes whenever he left the hotel, Brothers were al adept at mimicking Al’s act. just in case it rained. Gummo was more successful Audiences responded well to the re-ordered when he left the stage to his brothers; in addition to revue, and the brothers became more adept at his talent agency, he later founded a raincoat their roles with practice. Sometimes retitled company. N’Everything, the show toured almost Zeppo’s name makes even less sense. Groucho continuously through 1918. asserted that Zeppo was born six months after the first And on a night in Flint, Michigan in the fall of Transatlantic Zeppelin flight, and that this had 1915, 14-year-old Herman Marx made his debut inspired the nickname. Paramount promotional with the act, to the utter delight of his mother material for Monkey Business repeated the same Minnie. Herman had grown up listening to his story. But it was patently a lie: brothers sing, act and crack jokes, and they all [continued next box] avowed that his was the fastest wit in the family.

6 He was also a careful mimic and could imitate On the Naming of Gummo and Zeppo, continued: all of his brothers as well as their stage characters. Julius later remarked that Herman The first Transatlantic Zeppelin flight took place in did so well in the role of in 1924, when Zeppo was 23 years old and had been The Cocoanuts that he would have let his using the name professionally for more than 8 years. brother play the part every night, if the theater would have let him smoke in the audience. Another explanation was related by Harpo, who believed the name had been inspired by a series of With Herman’s arrival, Milton made his jokes about a pair of rural bumpkins named Zeke departure. He had decided to enlist in the army, and Zeb, who were analogous to Ole and Lena in anticipating that the country would eventually Wisconsin’s Norwegian jokes. Supposedly, during a get involved in the European Great War. The period when the family was living in Chicago, family seems to have been at least mildly Herbert had managed to climb atop a wooden fence appalled, but his semi-serious reply was and was sitting on the top rail when his brother, then “Anything has to be better than being an actor.” known only as Leonard, came walking along the Worrying that this might become a trend, street. Feeling like his pose on the fence was fitting Minnie Marx discovered that farmers were for the proverbial hayseed, Herbert called out “Why, exempt from conscription, and purchased a hello, Zeke!” Chico, instinctively grasping the game, 170,000-acre farm in La Grange, Illinois in waved his hand as a howdy and cheerfully replied, hopes of sheltering the other brothers from the “Hello, Zeb!” This apparently stuck for a while, or at draft. They apparently didn’t find chicken least it stuck in Chico’s mind. And when the farming to their liking and made only half- business of stage names arose, the familiar “Zeb” or hearted attempts to placate Minnie’s concerns; “Zebbo” was put aside in favor of the more exotic none of them were drafted anyway. But Julius sounding “Zeppo.” With his intentionally cheesy altered his stage character to lose the German smile and his wavy but receding , he did accent and made his character into a more everything he could to prove he was a Zeppo for the “American” wise guy. rest of his show business career. Most readers will be aware that I have coyly avoided using the brothers’ stage names much to Another version claimed that that there was a an act this point, but children of the new millennium in vaudeville that featured a chimpanzee named might not be aware that the original “Four Marx Zippo, and this had inspired Herbert’s nickname; Brothers” were informally known as Chico, only when he went on stage, he insisted they change Harpo, Groucho and Gummo, in order of it, so he would not be mistaken for a more senior descending age. When Herman joined the act in player. This is actually a slightly sanitized version of 1915, he arrived with the nickname “Zeppo” what appears to be the real story, as related by already in place – see the associated sidebar for Harpo’s son Bill Marx. “Zippo” was not a further speculation on the origins of his and chimpanzee, but an African American sideshow Gummo’s nicknames. The oldest brothers all performer named William Henry Johnson, who received their nicknames from the same person. toured with Ringling Brothers and many other During a poker game in Galesburg, Illinois, a exhibitions as “Zip the Pinhead,” from the 1860s to monologist named Art Fisher gave the names his death in 1926. Zeppo did have some resemblance out as he dealt a hand of stud poker: “A card for to Johnson’s unusual profile, but the sheer mean- Groucho, a card for Chico (pronounced ‘Chick- spiritedness of the comparison made the story seem o’) and a card for Harpo.” These names struck unflattering in later years. And therefore, various the brothers as so appropriate that they fictions involving chimpanzees, fences and immediately began using them on and off stage, Zeppelins were invented. and would become internationally famous as Groucho, Chico and Harpo Marx. ------A man who has licked his weight in wild caterpillars. ------

7 ------Boy, you’re one terrific caveman, you know that? ------The Acme of Anarchy The Marx Sister [continued from page 7] While she apparently never performed with them, When Milton left for the army, Minnie told Zeppo the Marx Brothers grew up with a young woman they regarded as their older sister. This was Pauline that she wanted to keep the name “The Four Marx Marx, most likely born Pauline Lefevre in 1884. She Brothers” leaving him really no choice but to join was the daughter of Minnie Marx’s sister Hannah, the company. After four years presenting Home who was also a frequent resident in the Marx home. Again, they were ready for a new show, but Hannah married a grocer named Max Lefevre in unfortunately picked one of the few disasters of their 1881, and they had one son together, Louis Lefevre, career. Songwriter Gus Kahn was a personal friend; who appeared in vaudeville as “Louis Shean,” and his daughter Irene would eventually marry appeared onstage with in 1911. But Max Groucho’s son Arthur. He collaborated on the music was not living with Hannah by 1884, and she did not for The Cinderella Girl with Egbert van Alstyne, and name him as Pauline’s father. In the 1890 census she the script was written by . described herself as a widow. She married a man The show may or may not have been any good; it named Julius Schickler in 1892 and gave her name as “Johanna Lefevre.” Groucho (Julius Henry Marx) was completely undone by the Spanish Flu epidemic believed that he had been named in honor of of 1918. The show premiered in Grand Rapids, Schickler, because the family had hoped he was a Michigan; after intermission, Groucho addressed the wealthy businessman, a fantasy which evaporated crowd: “Folks, that first act wasn’t so good. From when he asked to borrow $30 from Frenchie. now on, we’re going to ad-lib.” Because of the flu, seating was limited to every other chair with every Pauline’s father apparently had no interest in his other row empty; there was no way the show could child. In his 1972 concert at , Groucho have broken even. After several more nights in sardonically observed that “The father of this sister Benton Harbor, the company returned to New York. got one look at the girl and fled to Canada and we There was a brief attempt to revive the show under never saw him again.” Frenchie and Minnie raised Pauline or “Polly” as if she was their daughter; they the title The Street Cinderella, but this also flopped. even falsified the date of their marriage on census In 1921, they performed in On the Mezzanine Floor, and other official documents, to make it appear that a show written by Herman Timberg, and managed they had been married when Pauline was born. by his sister, vaudeville performer Hattie Darling. Family lore suggested that Polly lacked the sense of Darling would appear in the show for its first few humor which drove the rest of the Marxes, and she months, as would the lightweight boxing champion may have been the inspiration for the character Benny Leonard. He was a huge fan of the Marx played by in their plays and Brothers, and also backed the show financially. movies. Groucho opined that “She was not a bad- It ran on three different Vaudeville circuits from looking girl, but her rear end stuck a-way out. You February to December 1921. In the early summer of could play pinochle on her rear end.” 1922, the show, now renamed On the Balcony, She married a tailor named Sam Muller in 1903, and toured theaters in London, Bristol and Manchester, they had four children together. Polly and Sam and England. But after a cool reception from London their eldest daughter Beatrice attended the Marx audiences, the company switched to the more family reunion in 1932 and appeared in the familiar stereotypes of Home Again and had a panoramic photo taken there. After Julius Schickler marginally better response. Elements of On the passed, Hannah went to live with Pauline and her Mezzanine Floor would be re-used in 1924 for I’ll husband. And during their time in Chicago, the Say She Is. Schicklers appeared in directories with children named Louis and Pauline, so the family was They might happily have continued to work the apparently put back together after Hannah married vaudeville stage until it actually disappeared, but a her second husband.

8 dispute with E. F. Albee, the most powerful The Marxes in Chicago booking agent in the field, cut them off from most of their audience in 1923. Efforts to produce a show on The Marx Brothers are most associated with New the rival Shubert circuit went nowhere – and in fact, York, and always identified themselves as proud natives of Manhattan. But between 1908 and 1920, the Lee and Jacob Shubert soon abandoned vaudeville Marx family, including Polly Marx, the widowed altogether to concentrate on their interests in the Levy Schönberg, plus Hannah and Julius Schickler “legitimate” musical theater. and her children, all relocated to Chicago, Illinois. Leonard did not make the trip but would rejoin the Beyond Vaudeville family some years later. The Brothers had liked the The Marx Brothers made a silent short film titled city when they visited it on tour and Minnie reasoned in 1921 with the very low-budget Caravel that being in Chicago would make it much easier to Comedies. Groucho was the villain brought to justice get hired, and then reach the midwestern and southern by the deerstalker-capped Harpo, who was credited as circuits where vaudeville was thriving. “Watson – A Detective.” It was the first screen script In 1910, they lived in an apartment at 4649 Calumet credit for Jo Swerling, who collaborated on big Avenue. Then in 1912, Minnie Marx’s take from the features including Gone with the Wind and It’s A Four Marx Brothers and the other performers she Wonderful Life. There was apparently only one print managed as “Minnie Palmer,” plus a loan from Al of the picture made and this was either mistakenly Shean, let her make a $1,000 down payment on a discarded or possibly burned by the bitter Groucho, $25,000 3-story brownstone house at 4512 Grand who was embarrassed by the movie’s poor quality. Boulevard (now Martin Luther King Jr. Drive). The neighborhood was prosperous and included many At this point, the partnership might easily have German-Jewish residents like the Marxes. dissolved. Harpo’s elastic face made him a natural for The Marxes made a variety of connections while they silent movies, and certainly he and the handsome, were Chicagoans. Zeppo went to school there; he was Zeppo could have found work in the pictures on either a regular visitor to a lavish home owned by coast. Chico was a capable enough pianist that he department store owner Louis Weber, whose might have played with any number of bands. Groucho grandchildren invited young Herbert to “skate” on the had an interest in the emerging field of radio and could polished floor of the mansion’s ballroom. Chico certainly have been a success there. The 1932 radio married his first wife Betty Karp while living in comedy series Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel starred Chicago in 1917, and their daughter Maxine was born Groucho and Chico and was regarded as very funny. there in 1918. In his memoirs, Groucho wrote that the proximity of brand-new Comiskey Park turned him But critics sniffed at plots involving sordid subjects into a Chicago White Sox fan, and that he saw Ty like adultery, and Standard Oil did not renew the Cobb and other great players of the era many times. show. The censors always had a lot to say about the Marx Brothers’ humor. There is no obvious explanation for why the Marxes left Chicago; they retained ownership of the house on It would have been a shame, however, to throw away Grand Avenue until 1926. The combined effects of the the accumulated experience of 15 years on stage, and Great War, the flu pandemic and professional they pressed on seeking work together. Chico difficulties with the midwestern vaudeville circuits explained the Brothers’ situation to composer Will might all have contributed to a decision to move back Johnstone in late 1922 or early 1923. When Johnstone to New York. The situation was definitely later learned that producer Joseph M. Gaites needed a complicated when the “real” Minnie Palmer, whose name and fame had been “borrowed” by Minnie Marx, show at very short notice to run in the newly sold returned to the in 1917, after a long Walnut Theater in , he summoned the residence in Europe. To confuse things further, the Marx Brothers, and enlisted his own brother Will, who “real” Minnie set up her own Theatrical Agency, wrote the story and song lyrics. They assembled a leaving bookers wondering who they were dealing flimsy plot about a rich girl seeking thrills and used it with. A new start focusing strictly on The Four Marx to knit together a bunch of sketches starring the Marx Brothers may have been the only option.

------I must say I find you less repellent than most people your age. ------

9 ------I make up rules for myself all the time. ------The Acme of Anarchy Bridge, Tennis and Croquet [continued from page 9] None of the Marx Brothers presented a particularly athletic appearance, although Gummo was a pretty Brothers, with musical numbers sandwiched between large man, and Zeppo was a wiry master of pull-ups them. The resulting pile of froth was titled I’ll Say in his youth. But all of them were fond of various She Is. games and outdoor activities, and sometimes, they Not surprisingly, previews rushed to stages in were remarkably good at them. Canarsie and Allentown were dreadful; but when the Chico was obviously the most enthusiastic card player show premiered in Philadelphia in May 1923, it was of the group, but all of the brothers played poker and an instant success. The show played continuously contract bridge, and apparently learned pinochle through the holiday season of 1923. In 1924, all was directly from Frenchie and their Uncle Al. Everyone forgiven between the Marx Brothers and the Shubert agreed that Chico was a great poker player, but like Circuit. I’ll Say She Is premiered in New York at the many compulsive gamblers, he could seldom stop Shubert-owned Casino theater on May 19th. while he was ahead. Harpo was considered better company, and always welcome at meetings of the This proved to be the night that the Marx Brothers hit Thanatopsis Pleasure and Inside Straight Club, the Big Time. Most of the important critics in New organized by Franklin P. Adams, , York were at the show, several of them attending only George S. Kaufman and other members of the because other engagements had been postponed. . It was unusual for high Among these were and Alexander profile games of the era in that women, including Woollcott, who both wrote ecstatic reviews. author and actor Tallulah Bankhead Woollcott was completely charmed by Harpo’s were welcome to join. performance, and the two would become friends for the rest of Woollcott’s life. I’ll Say She Is played for Groucho’s favorite game was tennis, and he was a 313 nights at the Casino Theater through May 1924. strong player, when he could resist his impulse toward comedy. A British-American celebrity When it closed, the Marx Brothers were the toast of doubles match was organized to celebrate the opening New York and the hottest attraction on Broadway. of the new clubhouse at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club Friendship with Benchley and Woollcott and in July 1937. Groucho was teamed with champion playwright George S. Kaufman brought membership player Ellsworth Vines, and and in the loose card-playing and drinking society known professional represented England. as “The Algonquin Round Table,” after the hotel Groucho showed up with 12 rackets and a suitcase; where its members convened. Chico, Groucho and after a few points, he sat down on the court and began Harpo were all initiates; Harpo had the longest and to deploy an elaborate picnic from the case, which he closest association with the group. Kaufman would shared with his fellow players. write the next Broadway hit for the Marx Brothers, a His son Arthur was also an extremely dedicated Florida-set musical comedy titled The Cocoanuts. tennis player. In 1941, he played for the US Junior also worked on the script, while the Amateur Championship. He defeated the top-ranked music and lyrics were written by . While player in the tournament, before falling to Bobby the show was under construction, Harpo and Zeppo Riggs in the championship match. had time to appear in a movie titled Too Many Kisses, Harpo was also competent amateur tennis player, featuring stars including Richard Dix and William and an enthusiastic golfer. His son Bill claimed that Powell. Zeppo’s role was uncredited, but Harpo was after his retirement to Rancho Mirage, Harpo was listed as “The Village Peter Pan.” inclined to enjoy playing golf naked in the The Cocoanuts was ready to preview in October 1925. desert sun. Nudism seems to have been It played for 276 shows at the Lyric theater on [Continued Next Box] Broadway through August of 1926, then went on the road and toured continuously until returning for a brief farewell run in May 1927. The travelling version

10 included four additional songs and added a vocal trio Bridge, Tennis and Croquet, Continued: known as “The .” Margaret Dumont also played a prominent role in the show; she would been something of a hobby as well. During a visit become Groucho’s most memorable “straight- to ’s summer home on woman” in the Brothers’ film career. ’s Neshobe Island, Harpo and some companions prepared to meet visitors to the retreat Dumont was also featured in the next Marx Brothers by stripping naked and leaping out at them from show, Animal Crackers, written by Kaufman and the bushes as they walked up the dock. The Ryskind, with music by and lyrics by visitors were playwright . It premiered on October 23rd 1928 at the th and his wife; Shaw admitted he had been surprised 44 Street Theater. It is called the most “anarchic” of to be greeted by a “naked young jackanapes.” the brothers’ Broadway shows, revolving around the theft of a valuable painting during a party to honor a But by far the most important pursuit on the legendary African explorer, Captain Jeffery T. island, and the game to which Harpo was most Spaulding. Audiences received it with unreasoning devoted, was lawn croquet. Woollcott’s guests glee, little realizing that it would be the last major played for both blood and money, sometimes Broadway production to feature the Marx Brothers. whacking each other’s balls into deep ravines and bramble fields. Games were not to be called for From Sound, the Silence darkness or snowy conditions; players’ cars were Motion pictures with sound, the “Talkies,” were lined up along the pitch, and their headlights used introduced in the fall of 1927, and musical comedies for illumination. Harpo was known for playing like Animal Crackers and The Cocoanuts were while wearing only a tiny pair of shorts, which exactly the kind of thing that movie producers were may have served to distract some of his flannel- looking for. bought the rights to clad opponents. The sheer lunatic intensity of film The Cocoanuts in 1928 and would put about these games was still very vivid to Harpo 35 years $500,00 into the picture. Morrie Ryskind adapted the later, when he wrote Harpo Speaks! with Rowland script. It was shot at Paramount’s Studios in Astoria, Barber. He was inducted into the United States Queens in the fall of 1928. For much of the Croquet Hall of Fame in 1979. production, the Brothers worked at the studio shooting the movie during the day, then took the train The Magical Realism of Harpo Marx to Broadway and appeared on stage in Animal In Harpo’s own time, his assaults on human Crackers in the evening. (Margaret Dumont had the behavioral norms and physical possibility were same schedule.) generally termed “Surrealism,” and Salvador Dali was counted among his many admirers. Over time, Shooting a movie with sound presented new the terminology we use to define the intrusion of challenges. Paramount constructed two special fantasy into nominal reality has evolved; I wonder, if soundproof glass boxes for the camera and operator, he were working today would we call him a so that the sound of the camera motors could be postmodern mime or a kinetic magical realist? concealed from the microphones. The picture Warner Brothers animators incorporated the Marx required two directors, and Joseph Brothers into several cartoons in the 1930s and Santley, the latter apparently concerned with the Harpo was naturally a favorite subject. Harpo was musical numbers. Of the two, Groucho said “One already a cartoon character in real life. He had the doesn’t understand English, and the other doesn’t same ability to suspend physical laws for a moment understand Harpo.” But Florey definitely brought his or two, before crashing to earth with a vaudeville imagination to the project; he designed the chocolate honk. Here is a survey of some of Harpo’s great telephone mouthpiece that Harpo munched on in one moments in clowning, from the Marx Brothers scene and thought of soaking down the documents feature catalog: [Continued Next Box] and blueprints in the “Why a Duck?” sequence with

------Like every time I eat a ham sandwich I have to send $100 to a pig. ------

11

This is the only known photograph of the entire Marx family. From left to Right: Groucho, Gummo, Minnie, Zeppo, Frenchie, Chico and Harpo.

From Left to Right: Gummo, Groucho and Harpo Marx, with their Uncle Julius Schickler Minnie Schönberg Marx, age 17

12

Sam “Frenchie” Marx with four of his sons on the set of Monkey Business in 1931.

Minnie Marx, circa 1925

Harpo, Chico, Groucho and Zeppo dressed for chicken farming in La Grange, Illinois in 1917.

Vaudevillian Al Shean in 1894

13 ------Don’t worry, the script is just Play-Doh to be extruded through the fun factory of my Tony Award watching genius. ------The Acme of Anarchy The Magical Realism of Harpo Marx, continued [continued from page 11] The Cocoanuts: The Brothers’ first film is also the water, after 27 takes were ruined by their most fragmentary, with the original cut running as thunderous crinkling. long as 140 minutes and containing as many as six more songs! Harpo performs a series of classic When the Marx Brothers saw the final cut of the “geek” routines, eating a button off a bellhop’s film, they were horrified, and tried to buy it back uniform, then an eraser smeared with library paste from the studio. Paramount demurred, and the and a rose from a bouquet. He drinks the ink from the picture would earn an estimated $1,800,000, a hotel’s inkwell (really Coca-Cola), and munches on significant success for the period. The movie the earpiece of a hotel phone, which was actually debuted in New York in May 1929 and was made of chocolate. He throws fountain pens as if they released across the country in August. The were darts and seems to pop an unseen balloon with comedy aspects were praised by the critics. each throw. He and Chico abuse and rob a mechanical Paramount dangled more money, and Kaufman cash register in a manner that becomes a performance and Ryskind set to adapting Animal Crackers to of the “anvil chorus” from Il trovatore, one of several the screen as well. references to high opera in the show. Although Harpo could easily pull off the kind of His harp performance is only improbable in that the expressionist performances standard in silent hotel has a harp standing around for him to play. He pictures, the Talkies finally set him apart from also produces a clarinet from somewhere on his the other performers around him. The advent of person and performs a solo of “When my Dreams sound revealed Harpo’s silence to audiences; by Come True,” the show’s Love Theme. not speaking, he was revealed as one of the most Animal Crackers: The most surreal thing about unique performers of the sound era. Harpo’s performance in Animal Crackers is that he is Unfortunately, two events were about to end this given the title of “The Professor,” and introduced to the crowd at the Rittenhouse estate with considerable extended residence in New York. The financial ceremony, which he immediately undermines by crash of October largely wiped out the money extending the bulb of his taxi horn for Mrs. that Groucho and Harpo had invested in the Rittenhouse to honk. At one point, he produces a fish stock market and sent Broadway into the same from his overcoat; and this was the movie where he dark Depression. But the Marx family were introduced the dropped silverware gag, which already in mourning by that time, as their involved stuffing a good three dozen pieces of beloved Mother Minnie Marx suffered a fatal flatware inside his coat. He uses a priceless painting stroke in September 1929. Animal Crackers was as a blanket while sleeping on a park bench but rolls it both the last play and the last movie which the back up without damage. And at the end of the movie, Marx Brothers made in New York. All the rest he uses a flit gun loaded with an unknown compound of their films were shot in Hollywood, and all of to render the entire cast unconscious; finding a lovely the brothers would relocate to California. young woman to cuddle with, he gases himself and settles happily by her side. Had Minnie lived for just another year, the Brothers would surely have found a part for her His harp solo is almost restrained; we simply see in one of their movies. On their third picture, him sitting by himself in the Rittenhouse gardens, Monkey Business, they did the next best thing playing a golden harp that stands about six feet tall. by bringing their Dad out to Hollywood for a He is accompanied by an unseen violin and his own cameo. Frenchie can be seen sitting on a cart full tuneful whistling; at the end he yawns and appears of baggage in the scene where the ship arrives in to fall asleep. port, and the boys wave back at the First Mate. [Continued Next Box] Sam was 72 at the time; he got paid $12.50 for each of his two days on set.

14 Monkey Business was the first Marx Brothers The Magical Realism of Harpo Marx, continued movie that was not previously a stage production. Their old friend Will Johnstone Monkey Business: This picture is unusual in that all collaborated on the first version of the script four of the Brothers’ characters begin the picture with writer S. J. Perlman. But by the time the known to one another and working toward the same goal of avoiding detection as stowaways. In the story finally reached the screen, as many as a opening melee, Harpo manages to hide underneath a dozen writers had worked on it, including all sleeping woman in a deck chair without waking her. He four Marx Brothers, the film’s producer and infiltrates a Punch and Judy show, using facial director, and comic star , who expressions to pose as a puppet, then shaves off some offered suggestions during a visit to the set. impressive in the ship’s barber shop. He Most of their subsequent movies would be a finds a large frog in one of the ship’s ornamental similar ordeal for their writers. Producer Herman fountains and induces it to jump into his hat by honking Mankiewicz referred to the Marx Brothers as the taxi horn. It remains there for later employment. “mercurial, devious and ungrateful” and this There is also a feather with an iron bar concealed inside sems to have been an accurate assessment of it, a tiny washboard offered in reply to a request for a passport and a fake hand, with he pretends to unscrew their attitude toward most . and uses to scratch his neck. The harp solo is However, the final product was thought to be accomplished by commandeering the instrument during just as funny as the first two pictures. The Irish a vocal performance, but he is allowed to remain and Censor was impressed enough that they banned play a composition which Chico requests. He also its exhibition in Ireland altogether, on the emerges from a huge floral wreath presented to a grounds that it might excite anarchistic gangster and is hustled away by goons who fail to even tendencies. mess up his hair. Fantasy, indeed. Hail, Hail Fredonia! : With a lot of exterior sequences, Many of the same writers worked on the next including a football game, Horse Feathers had a lot of opportunities for dangerous . Harpo’s Marx Brothers production, Horse Feathers, harp solo is one of the less strenuous sequences, including Johnstone, Perlman, Arthur although Harpo somehow makes another six-foot Sheekman, Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. But gilded harp appear outside ’s house. He the picture was really a feature-length expansion plays “,” which all four of gags that the boys had perfected in Fun in Hi brother perform at least once, and Harpo gets a second Skule. Two disreputable “icemen,” played by crack by whistling it – but this time he is serenading a Chico and Harpo, are somehow mistaken for horse, with whom he then shares a bouquet of tasty professional football players, and enrolled as flowers. When a policeman tries to arrest him for “ringers” at Groucho’s Huxley College. In the blocking traffic with his Dogcatcher Wagon, the cop climactic football game, Harpo rides a horse- ends up inside the cage, and Harpo pulls down a sign reading “Police Dog for Sale.” Told that he cannot burn drawn garbage cart like a chariot to score the a candle at both ends, he produces a candle with a winning touchdown. A still with the four double flame from inside his coat. brothers posed in the chariot appeared on the cover of TIME magazine in August 1932. The climactic football sequence would be worthy of . There are banana peels, a long piece of The worst complication for that production was elastic, and a horse-drawn garbage cart ridden like a a car accident which left Chico with a smashed chariot to score the winning touchdown. Or knee and several broken ribs. Filming was touchdowns – there are six footballs inside the cart, and delayed for two months, and Chico had to shoot every time they lay one down in the end zone, another many of his scenes in a sitting position. A stunt touchdown scores. Very Bugs Bunny-esque! double stood in for him in the football and [Continued Next Box] kidnapping sequences. This injury was one reason why Chico and Groucho agreed to do ------And you are the Barbies and Kens I will pose in my Malibu Beach house of Thespic Triumph. ------

15 ------What do you get when you cross an insomniac, an agnostic and a dyslexic? ------The Acme of Anarchy The Magical Realism of Harpo Marx, continued [continued from page 15] Duck Soup: This is the picture where Harpo seemed Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel for the NBC Blue to be trying to set a record for the most items cut with Network, and also why they shifted production from scissors in a single motion picture. Quill pens, pants the network’s New York studio to an empty RKO pockets, neck ties, the big white poofy crests on the soundstage after seven episodes, putting Chico closer tops of the Royal Guard’s helmets – nothing is safe to his doctors. from Harpo’s snips. When Groucho examines a tattoo of a doghouse on Harpo’s chest and meows at it, Horse Feathers was Paramount’s top money-maker of stock footage of a real dog barks out at him. A lot of 1932, and they wanted the Marx Brothers back on his action in this movie is just hooliganism – his screen as soon as possible. Many of the usual torment of the lemonade vendor played by Edgar suspects, including Kalmar, Ruby, Sheekman and Kennedy is only magical in that Kennedy does not Grover Jones began work on a new script, a fantasy murder or maim Harpo. During the siege of Fredonia, set in a mythical kingdom. But Paramount had Groucho steals that sequence with his many costume teetered at the brink of bankruptcy, and the Marx changes, but Harpo’s turn as “Paul Revere” is equally Brothers became concerned that they would not ridiculous, and he gets two girls – and a horse! receive the money they had coming from Monkey The most surreal moment in the movie is the “Mirror Business and other pictures. Their five-picture deal Scene,” in which Harpo pretends to be Groucho’s with the studio was about to be fulfilled, and they reflection in a recently broken mirror. It’s one of the threatened to walk out on the last picture without a most memorable sequences in a 20th Century movie new deal. Plans were made to form “Marx Brothers and has been copied dozens of times. Harpo pulls it Inc.” Its first project was to adapt the Pulitzer-winning off until Chico appears in the same outfit. musical , with Herman Mankiewicz directing. A Night at the Opera: After the orgy of pranks in Horse Feathers and Duck Soup, The movie that would eventually be titled Duck Soup wanted the Marx Brothers to be a kinder, gentler went through repeated drafts and title changes as 1932 quartet in their first picture for MGM. Harpo does wore into 1933. First it was called Oo La La, but by some shtick with a piano and piano stool before he the first version this had become Firecrackers. By settles down to serenade a collection of kids in January, 1933, the title was Cracked Ice, and this steerage. The harp belongs to the opera company lasted through two drafts. But in early February, crossing the Atlantic aboard the ship, so it has a Paramount announced the film was now named reason to be there. Grasshoppers, because animal pictures were popular, His ability to remain asleep through most of the and that filming would begin on February 20th. This stateroom scene certainly stretches credulity. Mallets didn’t happen either, but with Chico mending and perfect for knocking out cruel opera stars come to Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel coming to a close, hand magically. In the final scene at the opera everyone was getting restless. Their Dad Frenchie premiere, baseballs and gloves appear from nowhere, Marx had moved to Hollywood after Monkey and the orchestra will dumbly follow anyone who Business, but his health had been in decline for some waves a baton at them. But Harpo’s best work is in years. On May 13th, 1933, he died in a the sequence during the climactic opera, where he hospital from kidney failure. defies gravity in the ropes, descends a huge piece of canvas scenery by hanging on his scissors as they rip Very soon after Frenchie died, his sons settled their through the fabric, then he scampers back up the same conflict with Paramount, and Duck Soup was finally piece of cloth with no visible means of support. It filmed in July. There were elements that dated back to almost gets lost in the chaos, but it is a most the Napoleon sketch, but in many ways, it was quite remarkable gag. different from all the rest of the Marx Brothers’ [Continued Next Fox] movies. Neither Chico nor Harpo were allowed their usual musical solos, and the film’s political qualities

16 left some critics unimpressed “Forget the story, enjoy The Magical Realism of Harpo Marx, continued the comedy,” was one’s recommendation. Fortunately, Mussolini took the film’s potential indictment of A Day at the Races: The racetrack setting allows for a dictatorship personally, and banned the film in Italy, lot of business with horses -- leaping onto them, riding dramatically increasing international awareness and through improbable locations, and even the “protagonist” horse Hi-Hat gets to jump over a bunch interest in the Marx Brothers. Duck Soup was a more of stuff as a steeplechase racer. There are some pretty muted success than Monkey Business, but it drew dangerous stunts with horses that would never be done th Paramount its 6 biggest profit of 1933. now. There is some resemblance between the basic plot The Adventures of Exapno Mapcase and a show that Uncle Al Shean toured in the 1890s, The County Fair. The end of the contract with Paramount was also the end of Zeppo’s time on stage or in front of the cameras. Some of Harpo’s more surreal bits were cut from the He had joined the group at the request of his mother 18 final version of the film. In one, he tries to re-inflate a years before, and with the quartet’s obligations little girl’s balloon, but ends up inhaling it. In another, discharged, he decided it was time to make them go on Harpo and Chico break into a reception where Groucho as a trio. Now 32 and married, his hairline was is trying to snow Margaret Dumont, and Harpo pulls a large fish from his coat, which they scale and fry in a receding as quickly as had his brothers and playing the chafing dish. wavy-haired love interest was not going to be easy in the future. He had always had an interest in engineering Harpo’s harp sequence is the most cartoon-like in the and mechanics; he had worked for Ford for a while and feature canon. In the nightclub sequence, Chico plays had a brief sideline in stolen cars! He collaborated in a Rachmaninoff’s “Prelude in C Minor,” which turns into “On the Beach at Bali Bali.” When he finishes and theatrical agency with his brother Gummo, which flees the room, Harpo attacks the piano himself, his represented major clients including and starched dickey coming away to reveal the plaid shirt Lana Turner. He also founded an engineering firm, worn underneath. He literally batters the piano to Marman Products Co. Among numerous items which pieces; keys fly off as he plays them. As the wreckage the company manufactured for the war effort were collapses, Harpo pulls the framed strings from the clamps used aboard “Bock’s Car,” the B-29 which piano and tilts them up against his shoulder. It is delivered the second atomic bomb attack on Japan. actually a harp, and while he plays, the pursuing police and detectives are hypnotized into listening. Then he While Chico and Groucho worked on a new deal with spins the piano stool to a high speed, and when he sits MGM studios (When they tried to suggest the three on it, he is flung over the crowd and into an ornamental brothers were worth less than four, Groucho snapped pond, from which he flounders, again escaping the “We’re twice as funny without Zeppo.”), Harpo settled dumbfounded police. down for what he hoped would be a long rest on the A Day at the Races is also one of the most problematic beach in California. But a phone call from his friend, films for modern audiences because of the large dose of the columnist Alexander Woollcott, ended this idyll in Hollywood’s stereotypes of African Americans that it September 1933. Woollcott explained that the newly contains. The film features some great performances by elected Franklin Roosevelt was to honor one of his African-American actors – the picture won an Oscar in campaign promises by recognizing the . the short-lived category of Best Dance Number, owing And as part of the mission opening the new American to the work of a troupe of brilliant swing dancers embassy in , Harpo Marx was one of a small known as “Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers.” The lead dancers group of American entertainers and other cultural included Willamae Ricker, Snookie Beasley, Ella Gibson, George Greenidge, Dot Miller, Johnny figures who were invited to perform on a six-week tour Innis, Norma Miller and Leon Jam. Ivie Anderson, who in Russia. sang with Duke Ellington’s Orchestra, provided the It has been suggested the it was the Marx surname that main vocal in the dance sequence. Unfortunately, the recommended Harpo for this job and it probably didn’t name of song in question is “All God’s Chillun’ Got [Continued Next Lox] hurt. But it was more likely that Roosevelt or someone in his circle thought that Harpo was funny in any ------Someone who stays up all night wondering if there is a Dog. ------

17 ------They are as strange as moon cows, as incredible as unicorns, and their show has something of the same fabulous quality. ------The Acme of Anarchy The Magical Realism of Harpo Marx, continued [continued from page 17] A Day at the Races, continued: language and would naturally translate for a Russian Rhythm,” and the cast are called on to mug and audience. Woollcott also endorsed this sentiment. caper in a fashion fitting the stereotypes of the This proved to be a complete fantasy, as Harpo had to time. And at the end, the Marx Brothers smear their work with a straight man/translator, a singer and a faces with axle grease and escape the police in rotating cast of bit players and local variety black face. Ouch. Harpo initiates all this by playing performers. Officials were generally stiff with fear his penny whistle for a group of children who around his act, and translators reluctant to explain his follow him like the Pied Piper; he remains elated gags honestly, until the Soviet Foreign Minister by his powers throughout, but there is an element personally showed up to endorse the of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice in his ability to show and even did several bits on stage with Harpo. summon such a parade of caricatures. The tour began with two weeks in Moscow, followed Room Service: A special case. Not only was Harpo by one in Leningrad. Then two weeks were devoted to afforded no chance to play the harp, the semi- a tour of smaller towns and cities, followed by a last realistic frame of the stage play allowed few week back in Moscow. Posters for the tour featured opportunities for him to defy gravity or other his name in huge Cyrillic letters at the top, which he physical laws. His eccentricities are controlled, but translated as reading “Exapno Mapcase.” After some still present. He gleefully robs the innocent initial stiffness, the tour was a memorable success. playwright Davis’ bags, punching his mother’s And after his initial impulse to flee the country picture out of its frame and making off with his passed, Harpo carried the weight of being the roller skates. When a waiter who wants to be in the headliner with great aplomb. Afterward, he would be play brings the famished trio a meal, Harpo sits comfortable in a long series of solo appearances – steadily eating beans one at a time by stabbing even on radio! (Honk, honk!) When he departed them with a fork. He never stabs more than one Russia, U.S. Ambassador William Bullitt asked Harpo bean by accident or breaks the mechanical rhythm to carry correspondence back to the US for him; of his motion. Harpo kept it taped to his leg under his sock, and Harpo manages to smuggle a live turkey into the either evaded detection or was ignored by the hotel room; when he loses control and it escapes Russians. out the window, Groucho observes, “Well, we had When Harpo returned to California, he now also had no cranberries anyway.” someone waiting for him. Actress At the Circus: Harpo gets advice from a sea lion appeared in a variety of pictures between 1931 and during a game of checkers. He pulls a dove from 1937, including the title role in the W.C. Fields Groucho’s pocket and releases it out the window of vehicle Million Dollar Legs. She met Harpo at a party the train. In the scene in the midget’s railway car, at ’s house, to which Harpo had Harpo sneezes so violently that it blows a bookcase invited comedienne , in the hope that she off the wall. Later, Harpo magically pours water would be entertaining. Fleming listened to Harpo out of his horn to extinguish a fire. He also rides an most of the night, and then pursued him steadily for ostrich. The scene where he and Chico raid the four years. She proposed three times before he agreed Strongman’s rail car has several cartoon-like set- to marry her in 1936. They arranged a civil marriage pieces, such as when Harpo ends up hanging on the in a small town but were revealed when President door inside the Strongman’s bathrobe. Roosevelt sent the couple a telegram of congratulations. They would adopt 4 children and His harp sequence features a wonderful rendition of remained together to the end of Harpo’s life. [Continued Next Phlox]

18 Thalberg the Magnificent The Magical Realism of Harpo Marx, continued After Harpo returned from Russia, several possibilities were open to the Marx Brothers. There were projects At the Circus continued: that could have run on Broadway, and other sponsors “Blue Moon,” intertwined with “Swing Low, Sweet thought they could make money with them on radio. Chariot.” But it comes at the end of a musical But Chico ended up playing bridge with Irving number that largely duplicates the “Pied Piper” Thalberg, the “boy genius” now in charge of sequence in A Day at the Races, and also includes a production at MGM. Chico had taken over as the large number of African American actors behaving in stereotypic ways and in a setting segregated even family’s business manager after Minnie’s death in from the other circus folk. 1929. Although his handle on his own money was perpetually slippery, the other brothers felt that he The ending features the biggest pranks in Marx treated them fairly. Thalberg told Chico that he thought Brothers history. They commandeer the fancy their films wanted stronger stories, and a love interest reception planned by Margaret Dumont’s Mrs. that gave people someone to root for. He promised that Dukesbury and install a full-size circus tent outside they would have all the resources they needed at her living room without being noticed. Meanwhile MGM, including other front-line talent. And a few Chico and Harpo go down to the floating bandstand weeks later, the Marx Brothers had a five-picture deal (doesn’t everyone have a floating bandstand?) where with Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer. the fancy orchestra was waiting to perform. Harpo uses a pair of garden shears to cut the thick rope Their first picture with MGM, A Night at the Opera, is mooring the platform, and the band drifts steadily considered by many fans to be their masterpiece. out to sea. The conductor and musicians take no Thalberg brought George S. Kaufman and Morrie notice of this development, even when large ships Ryskind back to write an elaborate multi-continental can be seen crossing nearby. All the brothers plot set in the world of High Opera. Thalberg believed participate in the aerial finale, with even Margaret that as stage performers, the Marx Brothers would only Dumont’s stunt double hanging from a trapeze. be comfortable when they heard people laugh at the Go West: Everyone was showing their age in Go script, so he made them preview much of the material West, and for much of the movie Harpo contents before live audiences. Groucho was reunited with his himself with simple business like pretending that he long-lost love, Margaret Dumont; the film also featured can play the harmonica on horseback. His harp , Allen Jones and the billowing Sig sequence is one of the simpler set-ups, as he pretends Ruman. Despite touring the material for weeks before to play a native American blanket loom as if it were filming, the first cut of the movie fell flat. Thalberg and a harp, He mimes the music expertly on the strings Kaufman personally edited nine minutes out of the of the loom, and this is intercut with a few passes picture, so that it more closely matched the timing of where he is actually playing. The illusion is the stage show. This version delighted test audiences, effective. This time, he is surrounded by some and the movie was a major success. stereotypical native Americans, but they mostly stand by in dignified silence. Some of the brothers’ passionate fans were shocked that they behaved in such a benign and downright By far the most outrageous sequence is the long friendly manner through most of the film; in the railroad scene at the end of the picture, which has Paramount features, the Marx Brothers had attacked many elements reminiscent of ’s silent almost anything in front of them with a maniacal classic The General. Harpo does a whole series of impossible things, but this is my favorite: finding intensity, either rhetorically or physically, which that the axe he is using to chop up the train for fuel is tended to repel some audience members, particularly growing dull, he leans down through a hole in the women. When Thalberg dictated that their worst pranks floor and sharpens the blade against the spinning were henceforth to be directed only at villains, they steel wheel. No cartoon protagonist from Bugs to became just a little bit less funny, but so much easier to Bart could do any more. [Continued Next Pox] get along with.

------The worst they might ever make would be better worth seeing than most other things I can think of. ------

19

Members of Algonquin Round Table. Clockwise Minnie’s mother and father, from top left: Art Samuels, Harpo Marx, Alexander Lafe and Fanny Schönberg Woollcott, Dorothy Parker and Charles MacArthur

Zeppo Marx clowns with Gloria Swanson at ’s birthday party in 1933

Harpo plays in Animal Crackers, 1930

20

Harpo poses with 3 of his kids in the 1950s

Chico and Betty Marx with their daughter Maxine Gummo Marx, about 1921

Harpo, Zeppo, Chico, Groucho and Gummo at their appearance on in 1957

Harpo and Chico in “The Incredible Jewel Robbery,” GE Theater, 1959

21 ------People never stop making you read books, Tina. It’s a sick world. ------The Acme of Anarchy The Magical Realism of Harpo Marx, continued: [continued from page 19] : After Go West, Groucho was The next movie, the 1936 feature A Day at the Races determined that the next picture would be the last for the went through the same vaudeville-style preview tour, team; Chico was dismayed by the decision, but Harpo as well as 18 different scripts, but was nearly as funny was also weary of the struggle to make profitable as A Night at the Opera. Sadly, Irving Thalberg died pictures, and MGM was not likely to have asked them of pneumonia at age 37 while A Day at the Races was back. On the last day of shooting, they actually made a bonfire of their costumes, including Harpo’s wig. shooting in September. When he died, the Marx Brothers lost their champion at the studio. They left Harpo’s harp performance occurs in a dream sequence, MGM for a year but returned for three more projects. the only use of such a device in their canon. It bends Their remaining pictures at MGM, At the Circus reality beautifully, and also seems to be an attempt to (1939), Go West (1940) and The Big Store (1941) out-do the mirror sequence from Duck Soup. Dressed in an elaborate 18th Century costume, he sits between two were all cheaper productions, and made diminishing mirrors with an ornate harp, and of course, his revenues. The last picture recycled characters from reflections begin to play their own parts, eventually Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel. taking up different instruments. In 1938, Zeppo made a one-picture deal with RKO The Big Store was written by the team that typically Studios, casting his brothers in a filmed version of the wrote for the Ritz Brothers; the climax of the film is an successful stage play Room Service. The film also extended Mack Sennet-style chase sequence, in which starred , Frank Albertson and the 15-year- Harpo builds on the aerial work he did in At the Circus. old Ann Miller. Not being written for the Marx By now 53 years old, Harpo let several stunt men and Brothers, it lacked any chance for Harpo and Chico to trained skaters stand in for him on some of the high- speed sequences where he roller skates on top of display play the harp and piano. The overall impression was towers and flies briskly between them. There is an still quite good, and fans enjoy the film. But in the another improbably strong elastic band that allows him best tradition of RKO, it managed to lose $330, 000. to turn his body into an oversized paddle ball. Arthur You Bet Your Orchestras might have been slowing down physically but Harpo The world into which The Big Store was released was was still an amazingly kinetic character. profoundly different than the one which greeted The : In this picture, Harpo discovers Cocoanuts in 1929. Europe was once more involved a harp in a room full of treasure looted by the Nazis; as in a great war, and six months later, so was the United if out of respect, his performance of Liszt’s “Hungarian States. The “Smart-Set” for which the Marx Brothers Rhapsody in C Sharp Minor” is nearly as written, and had been such a sensation had been succeeded by the only gets a little swing into it in the last few bars. likes of Odets, Steinbeck and John Hersey. Their He begins the movie as valet to Sig Ruman’s overripe vaudevillian underpinnings of ethnic and slightly Nazi Heinrich Stubel and endures much abuse; he gains “off-color” humor were also problematic in the era of immediate revenge by sucking the toupee off his the Hays Code in Hollywood and were starting to hit master’s head with a vacuum cleaner, igniting much a flat note in American ears. further business. He has some great throwaway gags, like a five-foot long cigarette holder and a lorgnette As the United States entered World War II, the three which blows bubbles (which he then tries to bite). He performing Marx Brothers also faced a series of hides unseen and folded inside the lid of a trunk, personal transitions. Chico’s wife, the former Betty undetected even after it is opened. There is a sequence Karp, divorced him after 23 years of highly eventful with sliding closet doors in which Harpo conceals Chico marriage in 1940. Groucho’s wife Ruth left him not as well as himself. In the final sequence, he is able to fly a Douglas DC-3, but crashes it directly into the long after, and they were also divorced in 1942. Both Prefecture of Police building. Everyone survives the couples had raised children who were safely into crash, including Harpo, even though he is seen adulthood by the 1940s. And although Harpo’s protruding through a hole in the airplane’s roof. marriage to Susan became increasingly central to his . [Continued Next Sox] life, he lost one of his closest and most important

22 partners in crime, Alexander Woollcott. The two had The Magical Realism of Harpo Marx, concluded: appeared in a play, The Man Who Came to Dinner by George S. Kaufman and , acting as thinly Love Happy: Although their last picture provides disguised versions of themselves, during its west coast very slim pickings for those who enjoy the tour in 1939. “Alec,” as Harpo knew him, died on ensemble, it contains some of Harpo’s longest January 23rd, 1943. Woollcott suffered a heart attack sequences on screen. This only makes sense, as the while on the air debating Germany’s future, and died screenplay was based on a story by Harpo and was at some point considered as a solo vehicle for him. shortly after of a cerebral hemorrhage. Here his powers as a pickpocket are supernatural, as Chico fulfilled a long-held ambition by starting his own is the capacity of his coat, which can hold anything, big band, the Chico Marx Orchestra, in 1940. Harpo including a smoked ham. And despite the wig and also appeared on occasion in the band’s night club top hat, he is invisible to many around him. When he show; another attraction was a 17-year-old singer and is shaken down by goons (one of whom is a young drummer named Mel Tormé. After the war, Chico also Raymond Burr, with what appears to be a poodle on toured Europe, including a trip to England, France and his head), the coat disgorges tires, mailboxes, the Germany in 1949. Meanwhile, Groucho resolved to sled from Citizen Kane and a live puppy. continue his assault on radio. After the demise of Harpo endures torture with all the aplomb of a Flywheel, etc., Groucho and Chico had done an eight- cartoon character. He is forced to “smoke” an week stint making fun of current events on a CBS show immense hemp rope and survives immersion and called Marx of Time, aired in March and April of 1934. processing in a huge washing machine. He passes a The next year, they recorded a pilot for The Marx handkerchief in one ear and out the other in an effort Brothers Show, but this was apparently never aired. A to “clear his head.” An immense hand mirror shows 1940 project titled Chico’s Barbershop was probably a view of the back of his head, while he rakes never recorded. through his hair with an equally huge brush. He developed a situation comedy titled The Flotsam Harpo also does some genuine mime in this movie, Family, collaborating with Irving Brecher, the much more than in any other Marx Brothers film. of At the Circus. The networks were not And much time is spent trying to communicate ideas interested in the show with Groucho as the head of to Chico through charades, which was not necessary household. Brecher reworked the idea as The Life of in earlier works, when Chico simply understood Riley, and this was a major hit for what Harpo was saying without special effort. instead of Groucho. His harp solo begins as a one-handed rendition of In 1943, Pabst Brewing gave Groucho a 30-minute “Happy Birthday to You,” while the other hand is comedy-variety show titled , which festooned with burning birthday candles. This gives he hosted on CBS from March 27th, 1943 to June 17th, way to a very “straight” rendition of “Suwanee 1944. He was also a frequent host of the radio series River.” There are no hand closeups, giving the Mail Call from 1943 through early 1945, and a popular impression it is all Harpo playing. guest on dozens of other radio programs. The climax includes an aerial chase sequence was a recurring guest on Blue Ribbon Town, which featuring late 1940s animated neon signs; Harpo probably led to Groucho’s acquaintance with Gorcey’s rides the Mobil Oil Pegasus and ends up hiding in a wife Kay Mavis, who was 19 in 1943, and 21 when she billboard for Kool cigarettes. He ingests so much and Groucho were married in 1945. smoke that when the goons punch him, a thick, white cloud issues from his body and chokes his pursuers. In 1945, he produced another pilot for a radio comedy He flickers from place to place when the lights go titled The Beverly Groucho Hotel, but it never aired. out. At the end of the film, he dances happily away, By 1947, his hopes of hosting an ongoing radio the Romanov diamonds stashed in his coat pocket. program had dimmed, and when approached with the ------Cedric Hardwicke is my fifth favorite actor, the other four being the Marx Brothers. ------

23 ------Keep going east until we get to the Pot O’ Gold. ------The Acme of Anarchy TV Appearances [continued from page 23] The only time the Marx Brothers appeared on television together as actors was in The Story of idea of doing a quiz show by producer John Guedel, Mankind, a fantasy written and directed by Irwin Groucho scoffed: “A quiz show? Only actors who are Allen. In it, the Devil and the Spirit of Man, portrayed completely washed up resort to a quiz show!” Perhaps by , debate the relative good or evil of the question answered itself; but Guedel assured mankind. Groucho appeared as , Harpo Groucho that the quiz would only be an excuse for portrayed Sir Isaac Newton and Chico played an Groucho to be Groucho. You Bet Your Life first aired anonymous companion of Christopher Columbus. in on the ABC radio network, The cast included an amazing range of well-known sponsored by costume jewelry designer Allen performers, including Hedy Lamar, Virginia Mayo, Gellman. The program was originally pre-recorded Agnes Moorehead, , , Dennis and edited for broadcast, allowing Groucho time to Hopper and Francis X. Bushman as Moses. The 11- bring the audience into the state where they would year-old Melinda Marx, daughter of Groucho and break up at almost anything he said. And if he offered Kay Mavis, appeared as an “Early Christian Child.” It a joke that was just slightly too suggestive for air, at th aired on November 8 , 1957. least he and the audience got to enjoy it. Chico had the smallest footprint as a solo performer The biggest difference between the Groucho of Duck on TV. He played a character named Papa Romani on Soup and the radio star Groucho was that the latter episodes of two different anthology series in 1950, had a real mustache, which he began wearing in the The Bigelow Theater and The Silver Theater. He did 1940s. When the program moved to NBC in 1950, the three episodes of a musical variety show, The College network broadcast You Bet Your Life simultaneously Bowl, in 1950 and 1951 as “Chico Revelli,” owner of on television and radio. It would be one of the most the campus malt shop. In 1956, Chico and Groucho popular programs on TV in the middle-1950s. It appeared in a comic short called Showdown at Ulcer Gulch, produced by Chico’s son-in-law Shamus continued on radio through 1960, and TV through Culhane as entertainment for a Saturday Evening Post 1961, after which Groucho immediately hosted sales convention. Orson Bean and Salome Jens were another short-lived game show, Tell it to Groucho. A the stars, with additional cameos by , similar effort titled Groucho appeared on ITV in and . Chico played a character Britain in 1965, also ending quickly, He became a named “Mr. Kramer” on a Playhouse 90 titled “No recurring guest host of The Tonight Show during the Time at All.” And his last effort was “The Incredible period between ’s departure and Johnny Jewel Robbery” for in 1959. Carson’s tenure on the program, and actually introduced Carson on his first night on the job. Harpo’s TV career included a number of appearances on scripted shows where he more or less played A Coda in Casablanca himself. He appeared as the “Guest Comic” on All There were a few more films as well. In 1946, Star Revue in 1953 and played the role of The Gummo got the three preforming brothers into a Governor” in a 1954 episode of The Colgate Comedy project that would become A Night in Casablanca. It Hour titled “Revenge with Music.” He did his famous began as an explicit parody of the classic Casablanca, spot on in 1955 and was in the cast of a featuring characters such as “Humphrey Bogus.” 1957 Playhouse 90 titled “Snowshoes: A Comedy of Warner Brothers objected, and the Brothers exploited People and Horses.” After “The Story of Mankind” their resistance for publicity, but the film was for , Harpo narrated an episode of The relocated to an immediate post-war setting and Dupont Show of the Week that adapted Victor addressed the hunting of Nazi Criminals. (Groucho Herbert’s operetta The Red Mill. It may have been his did the Charleston on the rubble of Hitler’s bunker in only job as a vocal actor, as he did not speak in his 1958, so this was a long-standing interest.) Released radio appearances in the 1930s and 1940s. [Continued Next Box] by , the film had some real flashes of their old energy.

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Their last picture together as a team was Love Happy TV Appearances, continued in 1949. The screenplay was based on a story by Harpo After “The Incredible Jewel Robbery” in 1959, he and had once been intended as a solo vehicle for him. appeared in a 1960 episode of The DuPont Show The movie was co-produced by star Mary with June Allyson, titled “Silent Panic.” In 1962, Pickford. It might be most notable for a number of he appeared as a guardian angel in an episode of other performers in the cast, including Ilona Massey, The Hour titled “Somebody Up Leon Belasco, Raymond Burr, Marion Hutton and a There Should Stay There,” which sounds then-unknown . Chico played a remarkably like Deputy Seraph. Veteran actress memorable duet of “Gypsy Love Song” with Belasco Virginia Gray and the young Dyan Cannon were on piano and violin, a song he had performed 20 years also in the cast. earlier in The Cocoanuts. Harpo’s last appearance on a scripted series was in Groucho also had a starring role in in a 1962 episode of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, 1947, and made notable appearances in Mr. Music, starring , in which he played himself. , A Girl in Every Port and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? But after 1950, all three Groucho’s contract for You Bet Your Life! on performers were more likely to be found on television, NBC did not leave him very much time to act on in appearances that traded on famous routines from other TV programs. He appeared as himself in a their movie careers. Harpo reprised the mirror sequence 1955 episode of , titled from Duck Soup with Lucille Ball on the May 9th, 1955 “Jack is a Contestant.” In addition to his cameo in I Love Lucy, introducing him to many new viewers. He “The Incredible Jewel Robbery,” Groucho starred also played “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” on the in another episode of General Electric Theater harp. All five brothers were brought together to appear titled “The Hold-Out.” In it, Groucho was a father on The Tonight Show on February 18th, 1957. disturbed that his young daughter, played by Brooke Hayward, was intent on marrying Dennis The last piece of comedy to feature all three brothers Hopper. It aired on January 14th, 1962. was an episode of General Electric Theater titled “The Incredible Jewel Robbery.” It aired on March 8th, 1959, It should be no surprise that Groucho was a and starred Chico and Harpo, working entirely in lifelong devotee of the work of Gilbert and pantomime. The only line was spoken by Groucho, Sullivan, and so his favorite TV performance must who appears at the end to declare “We won’t talk until have been in the role of Ko-Ko, the humble tailor we see our lawyer!” This was received very nicely, and who unexpectedly becomes the Lord High inspired Harpo to begin development of a new situation Executioner in . The cast also featured comedy titled Deputy Seraph, which would star Chico as the Grand Poo Bah, and Harpo as bumbling angels. Groucho would appear Broadway legend as The Mikado, in every third episode as their titular supervisor. The and Melinda Marx in the role of Peep Bo. It was sequences with the Marx Brothers would merely act as presented as an episode of The Bell Telephone th framing device for a different love story every week. Hour, April 29 , 1960. That part would be shot at Pinewood Studios in The success of this project allowed Groucho to England, while the Marx Brothers would do their talk himself into starring in a teleplay based on his scenes in Hollywood. They actually began work on a 1948 play , written in pilot episode in April 1959. collaboration with his long-time friend Norman Sadly, when Chico went for a physical exam in order to Krasna. The two had slowly worked on the script get production insurance, doctors found he was for over a decade. It was staged with Otto Krueger suffering from advanced cardiac disease, which would in the lead and closed after just 8 shows. also prevent him from being able to memorize lines. [Continued Next Box] Only about 15 minutes of raw footage from the ------I’m going to kill Louie Neidorf. ------

25 ------Beauty became Utility; Joy became Laughter; Creation became Labor; Art became Productive; and Man became Machine. ------The Acme of Anarchy TV Appearances, continued [continued from page 25] It was adapted for broadcast on Kraft Theatre in July 1949, with Maurice Manson, John Seymour and Ann unfinished pilot remains. The director Sheridan. had also been developing a new Marx Brothers picture, which would have been titled A Day at the 15 years later, Groucho salvaged this play and brought it U.N. This was also abandoned when Chico died on to television as an episode of Bob Hope Presents the th Chrysler Theater, casting himself in the lead role. The October 11 , 1961. He was 75. play is the story of a businessman who has a falling out Harpo collaborated on an autobiography titled Harpo with his boss, retires from his job, moves to Florida to Speaks! with author Rowland Barber in 1961. It is spend time with his wife, doesn’t like it and returns to still widely considered to be one of the best show his old home and job. Groucho was 74 at the time; fairly business autobiographies ever published. He would late in his career to become a naturalistic actor. The laugh track did not help. The cast included Kathryn retire from performing in February of 1963 (Harpo Eames, Roland Winters and John Considine, with announced he was retiring at a performance headlined Groucho’s third wife Eden Hartford in the role of a gold- by comic singer Allen Sherman, who reportedly burst th digger, which she discharged admirably. into tears), and died one day after his 28 wedding anniversary on September 28th, 1964, while Groucho appeared on an episode of The Show in 1967, and played a character named “Mr. undergoing surgery on his heart. Shean,” an homage to Al. His final scripted role was as Groucho had a highly active epilogue; he continued to “Mr. Flywheel” in an episode of the situation comedy make television appearances through the 1960s, and Julia, starring Diahann Carroll. The title was “Farewell, even made one more terrible movie, ’s My Friends, Hello!” It aired December 3rd, 1968. 1968 calamity Skidoo. Preparing to simulate the Appearances made by the Brothers as themselves on effects of LSD on film, he sought the help of activist news and variety programs, interviews and game shows , who obliged him with a dose; Groucho are too numerous to list here. Chico did a very reportedly found the experience quite moving and memorable turn disguised as Harpo on I’ve Got a Secret, mostly pleasant. His last major public appearance was and Dick Cavitt’s interviews with Groucho were an epic at the Academy Award ceremony in 1974, where Jack in themselves. One particularly memorable appearance by Harpo was on The Dupont Show of the Week on Lemmon presented him with a special lifetime November 12th, 1961, an episode titled “The Wonderful achievement Oscar. It was meant to honor all four of World of Toys.” was the narrator. Harpo the brothers who had appeared on film, including performed “The Autumn Leaves” on the harp. The show Zeppo, who was in the audience. Zeppo would leave also featured appearances by , us on November 30th, 1979; he was characteristically and Rube Goldberg. last to go, as Gummo had passed in April of 1977, checking out ahead of Groucho, who continued his Still More Marx on Film th There is a total of thirteen feature films in which three or performance through August 19 . There is no more of the Marx Brothers appear and spend at least evidence to support the rumor that upon his death, some time together on screen. Groucho’s feature films worldwide cigar revenues fell by 15%. made after the end of the screen partnership are listed in the main body of the text, as is Zeppo and Harpo’s silent 46 years later – because I now think that campus film feature, Too Many Kisses. But they also made numerous series was in the fall of 1974, after Nixon had appearances in promotional shorts and news reels, and in resigned – I find it astonishing to consider that three several more features, sometimes as themselves. of the Marx Brothers were still alive when we watched those films, even though two of them were In 2001, Marx researcher Robert Moulton discovered a th previously unknown movie credit for Zeppo, working born in the 19 Century. And you can really draw a under his given name of Herbert Marx. A Kiss in the line running from Harpo back to Minnie Marx – born in 1865 – through her Mother and Father, Fanny and [Continued Next Box] Levy Schönberg, who were born in 1829 and 1823 in the Kingdom of Hannover. Groucho and Harpo both

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attested that Levy, later known as Louis Schönberg, Still More Marx on Film, continued lived to be 100 and died in 1919. Whatever issue this Dark starred Adolphe Menjou, Aileen Pringle, Lillian may raise with his date of birth it means that Levy lived Rich, Kenneth MacKenna and Ann Pennington, was to see his grandsons’ names on and maybe directed by Frank Tuttle, and released by Paramount even saw their act on stage. I imagine us at the theater Pictures in April 1925. Herbert is identified as “brother together watching, waving at one another from an of the famous Harpo” and part of the cast of I’ll Say aggregate distance of 200 years! I imagine Woollcott She Is in a review of the movie published in the New shushing us – trying to think of a new synonym for York Sun. “putrid,” while Fanny and Minnie wait for their boy In 1931, Paramount Studios created a feature Adolphe to play his harp. It’s a refuge of perpetual documentary to celebrate its 20th anniversary. The happiness, where every necktie is scissored off and House That Shadows Built was a collection of clips every duck meets his destiny. And if we’re all so very from previous features, profiles of Paramount stars and good, we’ll get a cartoon and a Robert Benchley short previews of upcoming projects. One of the highlights subject before the main feature starts. was a restaging of the opening act of I’ll Say She Is, the famous “Theatrical Agent” scene. For this version, the My feelings toward the Marx Brothers, even knowing boys attempted to imitate Paramount contract star all of their foibles and misdeeds, remain unabashedly , as they would also do in Monkey affectionate. As Thelma Todd says to Chico in Horse Business. Feathers, “Baravelli, you overcome me.” All three brothers also appeared in chapters of Criterion His reply? “All-a right, but remember, it was-a your Pictures’ Hollywood on Parade series in 1931, 1932 and 1933. They also appeared in a chapter of the idea!” Screen Snapshots series in 1936. Harpo appeared as Select Bibliography: himself in shorts of Jackie Cooper’s Birthday Party in 1931 and La Fiesta De Santa Barbara in 1935. He Adamson, Joe (1973). Groucho, Harpo, Chico and appeared in a short titled The All-Star Bond Rally in Sometimes Zeppo: A Celebration of the Marx Brothers. 1945. He was also in the elaborate wartime service New York: Simon & Schuster feature Canteen in 1943, also as “Harpo Marx.” Allen, (1992). Love, Groucho: Letters In 1970, animators Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr. from Groucho Marx to His Daughter Miriam Faber & produced a film for television titled The Mad, Mad, Faber Mad , featuring the voices of many of the Anobile, Richard J. (ed.) (1971). Why a Duck?: Visual century’s most celebrated funny people. They recreated the “Napoleon sketch” from I’ll Say She Is. Groucho and Verbal Gems from the Marx Brothers read his own part (Napoleon), while the versatile Paul Movies Avon Books Frees read Chico and Zeppo’s lines.

Bader, Robert (2016) Four of the Three Musketeers: Groucho’s last movie role was an uncredited cameo in The Marx Brothers on Stage. Northwestern University the 1972 feature The Candidate, starring . He also had one screenwriting credit on his Press resume, the 1937 feature film The King and The Barson, Michael (ed.) (1988), Flywheel, Shyster and Chorus Girl, which was another collaboration with Flywheel: The Marx Brothers Lost Radio Norm Krasna. Mervyn Leroy directed the picture, with Show Pantheon Books actors Fernand Gravey, Joan Blondell, Edward Everett Horton, Alan Mowbray and Jane Wyman. Coniam, Matthew (2015). The Annotated Marx Brothers: A Filmgoer’s Guide to In-Jokes, Obscure References and Sly Details. McFarland Publishers Inc ------It is this disaster that some would define as progress. ------

27 ------It was a half-size harp. Its strings were gone. Its frame was warped. ------Select Bibliography, continued: The Trunk: Harpo’s son Bill Marx, a talented pianist and composer, has long served as the Diamond, Noah (2016) Gimme a Thrill: The Story of I’ll historian of his father’s life and career; his website, Say She Is, The Lost Marx Brothers Musical and How It Was Made. Bear Manor Media Harposplace.com, is a wonderful introduction to the life and lore of Harpo. Later in his career, Dwan, Robert (2000). As Long As They're Laughing!: Harpo appointed Bill to serve as his properties Groucho Marx and You Bet Your Life. Midnight master; it became his job to load Harpo’s trunk Marquee Press, Inc. with all of the mundane and exotic items that were used in his act. He still has the trunk itself and Fix, Charlene (2013). Harpo Marx as Trickster. many of the props, and provides Harpo’s list of its McFarland Publishers Inc. usual contents on his site: Gaines, James (1977) Wit’s End: Days and Nights of the Telescope Algonquin Round Table. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

Teeth Louvish, Simon (2001). Monkey Business: The Lives Long black formal jacket, with tails and Legends of the Marx Brothers Thomas Dunne

Yellow and maroon flannel shirt with Sheriff Marx, Arthur (1954). Life with Groucho Simon & badge that spins Schuster

Two ladies’ black satin skirts Marx, Groucho (1967). The Groucho Letters: Letters Long horn from and to Groucho Marx Simon & Schuster

Extendable box Marx, Groucho (1963). Memoirs of a Mangy Lover Bernard Geis Associates Bubble liquid Lots of fake money Marx, Groucho (1976). The Groucho Phile Bobbs- Merrill Co. Several rubber bands Skirt cutting scissors and powder bag Marx, Maxine (1980), Growing Up with Chico Prentice- Hall. Giant scissors Marx, Harpo (with Barber, Rowland), (1961). Harpo Giant diamond ring Speaks! B. Geis Associates. Small diamond ring (with jeweler’s Mitchell, Glenn (1996). The Marx Brothers magnifying glass) Encyclopedia. B.T. Batsford Ltd. Tuners Stoliar, Steve (1996). Raised Eyebrows: My Years Piano ticker (metronome Seth Thomas) Inside Groucho's House General Publishing Group Trunk that says name of the theater on top Teichman, Howard (1972). George S. Kaufman: An Knives that come out of coat (and coat) Intimate Portrait. Atheneum.

Two wigs and wig head in excellent shape Zimmerman, Paul D. (1968). The Marx Brothers at the More wigs Movies. G.P. Putnam's Sons [Continued Next Rectangle]

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When Harpo Played His Harp The Trunk, continued: Well when Harpo played his harp, it was a mystery All the laughing stopped back to the balcony Two mechanical monkeys Chico, Chico, sure to please Large telescope in box Now let's watch him shoot the keys When Harpo would play his harp, all was still Hatchet and table (for cutting cards) When Harpo played his harp, it was a dream, it was Black top hat Well if someone else can do it, how come nobody does? But Groucho, Groucho, fast as light Wooden vase with flowers painted on and Some talk like him but not quite elastic attached to top When Harpo would play his harp, all was still, still Three shoes with skates on bottom Well Harpo This is the angels and Long metal tube with string that pulls out – where did you get that sound so fine? weighted Harpo We gotta hear it Rubber carrot One more time Three belts Harpo We're in the galaxies and Rubber mallet where did you get that sound so fine? Harpo Two short horns We gotta hear it Tape measure One more time Large cow bell Do you remember what he would do sometimes before he played? Huge cigar Well he'd look up to the sky and he'd look the angels' way Harpo, when you start Long rope (for openings) Tears of joy inside my heart Clarinet (with mechanical bubble machine Harpo would play his harp and all was still and tube)

All right Four harmonicas Harpo This is the angels and Harp string case with tuning keys Where did you get that sound so fine? Harpo Orchestra music for act We gotta hear it Sign for sewing on singer’s rear end Ooh, one more time Marshmallows Well Harpo We're in the galaxies and Garter belt Where did you get that sound so fine? Harpo We gotta hear it Ooh, one more time Oh-oh-oh-oh One more time © 1988, Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers ------All that remained of its old luster were a few flakes of golden dandruff. ------

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------The Acme of Anarchy: Scratch and Dent Sidebar Sale! ------Groucho in Print Harpo as Harpist Although none of the brothers had a formal Harpo grew up with his Grandmother’s harp education, all of them wrote comic material across standing in the corner of her bedroom. Minnie had their performing careers, and Groucho had a played the instrument as well, but Harpo didn’t respectable bibliography by the time of his death in begin to play until his twenties, when she sent him 1977. He wrote two columns for a harp and firmly invited him to try it. He claimed at the height of his romance with the Smart Set in that he had learned to hold the harp from a picture 1925. His first book was an extremely slim of an angel in a five-and-dime store. volume titled Beds in 1930; it was lightly He was notorious for having tuned the instrument expanded and illustrated with photos in 1976. in an eccentric manner that made it difficult for Groucho explained that he was eminently qualified most trained harpists to play it. He used a number to write it, having slept in everything from of unorthodox techniques and achieved effects that bassinets to beds of roses. Many Happy Returns: other players found remarkable. He spent some An Unofficial Guide to Your Income-Tax considerable time and money working with Problems (1942) was slightly more substantial and teachers including Mildred Dilling and learned to illustrated by cartoonist Otto Soglow. play the instrument in almost any setting. On the The first of his memoirs, Groucho and Me, was other hand, he never learned to read music. published in 1959; another humorist born in the th Harpo apparently didn’t record music under his 19 Century, , wrote a fond review, own name during the decades when he and his which would be included as a foreword in later brothers were in their performing prime. But by editions of the book. It sold well and was followed the 1950s, he was comfortable going into a studio by Memoirs of a Mangy Lover in 1963. In 1967, and playing harp for posterity. He released three he published his correspondence under the title albums in the decade: Harp by Harpo for RCA The Groucho Letters: Letters From and To Victor in 1952; Harpo in Hi-Fi, 1957; and Harpo at Groucho Marx. Groucho had exchanged mail with Work! in 1958, both on the Mercury label. a number of notable cultural and political figures, and his correspondence was donated to the Library Harpo’s unorthodox tuning placed less stress on of Congress. the strings, which allowed him to beat them without mercy on stage every night. Had he tuned In the late 1960s, Groucho was one of several the harp properly, his robust technique would figures from the Golden Age of Hollywood to probably have broken several strings every collaborate with author and film editor Richard J. performance and forced him to abandon the Anobile. Anobile’s works Why a Duck? and instrument. Hooray for Captain Spaulding! recreated scenes from The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers with Once he took it up, Harpo remained an avid stills and dialogue. Groucho and Anobile were co- player for the rest of his life, and generally authors of The Marx Brothers Scrapbook (1973), a practiced two to three hours every day. His resource which online writers use frequently. playing evolves across the film series, away Near the end of his life, Groucho collaborated on from glissandos and other harp clichés and two books with author Hector Arce. The Secret toward a more popular sound with a lot more Word is Groucho was a memoir of his career on “swing” to it. TV and You Bet Your Life. The Groucho Phile: As the only well-known artist who played the An Illustrated Life covered the entire Marx family, harp as a lead instrument in a popular musical and was particularly stuffed with photographs. style, Harpo had a huge effect on the image of Both of these were published in 1976. Hector Arce the harp around the world. Professionals once later published a memoir of his experiences scoffed at his efforts, but he probably inspired working with him, simply titled Groucho (1979). more people to take up the harp than anyone since that angel at the five-and-dime.

30 The Chico Pickle The School of Wayburn Leonard is surely the most enigmatic of the Marx Although Leonard and Adolphe had their Brothers. His devotion to gambling might very adventures as pianists, the Marx Brothers likely reasonably have led his family to cut him out of made their public performance debut in 1899, their lives. Some of them, particularly Harpo’s when the 8-year-old Julius was paid a dollar to wife Susan, came to see Chico as a sociopath, who sing a song while standing on top of a pickle barrel “cared least for those who loved him most.” at Coney Island. He was also the first to go on the road, as part of the Robin Leroy Trio in 1905. Leo was probably treasured all the more because Leroy and dancer Johnny Morris absconded with his older brother Manfred had died the year before the trio’s bankroll, leaving Groucho stranded in he was born. Minnie scraped together the money Colorado. Minnie had to wire him money for a needed to provide him with piano lessons, and he ticket back to New York. was a quick student. He was also reported to be very capable in mathematics, which either explains While it is generally observed that none of the his issues with gambling or makes them even more three main performing brothers had any school puzzling. Harpo and Groucho both wrote that experience beyond the 6th grade, this is not Chico had been a heartless thief, capable of finding completely true. In the summer of 1907, Minnie and pawning any item of value, even if it was enrolled Julius and Milton in ’s hidden in the walls of the apartment. Supposedly popular New York Vaudeville College. some of Frenchie’s ineptitude as a tailor arose Wayburn was most renowned as a choreographer, from his son’s habit of hocking his good shears. working on many famous Broadway productions. Chico was the first brother to earn money as an He was noted for incorporating popular dances entertainer, playing piano in brothels. He was not such as the Charleston, the Grizzly Bear and the part of the Nightingales or Minnie’s other early Black Bottom, into show choreography. He was troupes but was apparently performing on his own also particularly well-regarded as a dance teacher around the same time. He appeared as a duo with and worked at the Hart Conway School of Acting his cousin Louis Lefebvre, who performed as Lou before forming his own academy. Noted for his Shean; it seems likely that he began to use an decorative sweaters and ubiquitous silver whistle, Italian accent on stage with Lou, to offer the ethnic he worked with many young professionals who contrasts favored by popular Vaudeville teams. would become famous, including Groucho, June Allyson, , Fanny Brice, Jeannette When Minnie moved the family to Chicago in McDonald, and Mae West. 1908, Leonard did not go with them. He was on his own by then and earning his own gin rummy and Wayburn apparently approved of Julius and Milton pool hall money, but we can assume it was still a sufficiently that Minnie’s trio was originally billed relief to have Leo and his sticky fingers back in as “Wayburn’s Nightingales,” although we don’t New York. really know if this was done with his permission. Groucho had by then toured with English singer Leonard joined the act a few years later, Lily Seville under the name of “Lady Seville and supposedly without warning, although it is hard to Master Marx,” and was also one of ’ believe his Mother didn’t know he was coming. “Postal Telegraph Boys” in 1906, so he seemed During a show in Waukegan, Illinois, the brothers like a good risk. noticed that the piano player looked familiar and played wild trills and runs like their brother Leo. And perhaps that course in the summer of 1907 did Arthur pulled some wax fruit off of his costume, Milton some good as well. One of his Uncles had and flung it at Leonard, who pitched the missiles tried using him as a “dummy” in a ventriloquism back as they came, and the curtain fell. The trio act, but Milton’s stuttering had killed the gag. He was renamed The Four Marx Brothers, and showed more confidence after 1907, but still never Leonard was on the bill when they presented Mr. made much of an impression as a performer. But Green’s Reception on September 26th, 1912. His as the only one of them found fit to serve in World brash personality would take them to new heights. War I, his brothers were always proud of Gummo. ------As a token of his esteem for the one with the "marvelous wig," he also brought a harp strung with barbed wire. ------

31 ------Never shoot dice on a blanket. ------Mailing Comments on Turbo-Apa #407: Losing baseball and virtually all scripted TV at the same time has left a big hole, and movies Cover (Ruth Nichols): Enjoyed seeing Jim and have made the biggest contribution toward John Cleese together again after so many years. filling the gap. I had not thought about the That shot of The Minister of Silly Walks is parallels between Lone Star and The Man Who about 50 years old now. Back then, and indeed Shot Liberty Valance, but I’m sure John Sayles for much of his life, John Cleese was a fairly did. I’ve been letting TCM introduce me to a stalwart supporter of the Conservative Party. I number of things I’d never seen before, and I’ve wonder if he too thinks that they have become been struck by the way that some of them seem Extremely Silly. like an imaginary movie that Stu Shiffman might

have invented for one of his “Celluloid Fantasia” MADISON FOURSQUARE #43, Scott Custis pieces. I had never seen Burt Lancaster in The and Jeanne Gomoll: I have to agree with you Crimson Pirate and was stunned to discover that that James Keach’s performance as Jesse James it had some remarkable steampunk elements, is the biggest problem with The Long Riders. including an experimental submarine. The whole Even if the missing scenes were restored, I don’t thing is as light as feather, but it’s a lovely know if it would explain why he plays the part Hollywood fantasy. as if he just took two Percocet and a vodka gimlet. Perhaps Hill meant to make a case that it I was not familiar with the conversational rpg was the combination of Cole Younger’s audacity you described playing with your family. “Mafia” and Jesse James’ capacity for calculation that or “Werewolf” was invented at Moscow State made the gang successful. But I have to doubt University in 1987 by a researcher named that the Frank and Jesse that appear in The Long Dimitry Davidoff as an exercise in deception Riders resembled the characters which James and detection, to study stresses inherent in both. and Stacy Keach had played in their musical The It spread around the world within 5 or 6 years, Bandit Kings. Many actors play Jesse James like and eventually became a Latvian TV show. I James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause – restless, think a very similar game was popular in Britain uncompromising and uncomprehending. They in the 1930s, inspired by Agatha Christie’s novel never shut up. Keach ‘s Jesse is perhaps too real And Then there Were None. My observation is – a perfect representation of a man with no that playing a Murder game by text message is a interest in explaining himself. Full marks for pretty stfnal pastime for a bunch of middle-aged process, but the results are just opaque. mundanes. We must live in the future or something. The 1992 story of your near-miss with Russ Feingold and the odder encounter that followed AN WISCONZINE, Greg Rihn: You see what was funny, and I had a flash of nostalgia happens when you take your eye off the “doom” thinking about the Blue Marlin restaurant. Alas, ball for a month? But even with everything that once we moved to Seattle, I discovered that my has happened, I still feel like we’re getting close favorite seafood was actually fried lake perch. I to the end of this particular dystopian tunnel. On have that kind of encounter with someone that some days, I’m confident that the Senate will knows me, but whom I cannot recognize, about change hands in November; other days, I assume once a month on Facebook, Usually, a little that the Senate will be roasted alive on spits in digging will serve to jog my memory and November, but even that seems like a major remind me just who they are. But there a few improvement. Tammy Baldwin is tough, I bet that seem to be people that I know from a she can avoid the skewer. different reality – we have 26 friends in About once a year, I express a wistful longing to common, but I still can’t place them. join a role-playing campaign in reply to one of your stories about participating in just such a

32 game. But I don’t know if I really have the are a lot cooler than the mass-produced models. capacity to enjoy the vicarious violence now. I’ve been making myself keep one on for the Back when you and I met, I never hesitated to great majority of our walks outside, not because turn hundreds of orcs and goblins into collops, I am that worried about transmission outdoors, and generally gloried in green-tinted gore. I but because I just want to be able to stand know games have evolved a lot since those hack having it on for an extended period. If we have and slash days, and your efforts were always our friend Elinor Busby over in the next week or more focused on atmosphere and character than so to compose a SAPS contribution, I imagine relentless combat. But I’m just not sure that I’ll have to wear a mask for the whole visit, so I medieval fantasy is my métier now. I might be want to be ready. more suited to a Call of Cthulhu campaign, LETTER FROM THE FARM, Marilyn Holt: I where characters have the appropriate response think pesticides are having a brutal impact on to violence and other horrors. After living birds in places dominated by agriculture. I’ve vicariously on the Orpheum circuit for the last not heard of anything affecting crow populations three weeks, I’m wondering what the Vaudeville this year; maybe your crows just found a place role playing game would be like. First rule: with more corn spilled on the ground. I think Don’t play Gin Rummy with Chico Marx, and songbird populations have actually rebounded in remember, Zeppo carries a gun. built-up areas, because people are a lot less I have always laughed at Phil Foglio’s art and likely to let their prowl freely, and there are enjoyed him going back to the 1970s. But when generally less stray dogs and cats in most US he and Kaja began collaborating, the work cities than there were 40 and 50 years ago. I turned into something far more impressive. I am have noticed a wider variety of active little birds glad to read that they are publishing new stories. working the lawn after I mow it; chickadees and another sparrow-sized bird with a black head OCCAM’S WHISKERS, Georgie Schnobrich: have been ubiquitous this season, plus all the Your predictions about the long-term effects of usual robins and our resident pair of Stelllar’s the virus pandemic seem to have been undercut jays. And always a dozen crows lurk in the by our recent outbreak of street protest and other neighborhood, ready to converge on anyone who unrest in world record time. Conservatives and sits down with a bag of take-out. Maybe our progresses simultaneously arrived at a rationale little valley is an aspiring micro-habitat; we which would allow them to ignore social certainly seem to have a diversity of species. distancing, at least in the short term. Perhaps we are seeing the limits of fear, which you referred I don’t suppose that the supposedly “realistic” to in your comment to Jeanne Gomoll. This westerns made in the 1970s and thereafter were week, we’re talking about the President holding really any more “accurate” in their evocation of a big rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as if he can’t the past than They Died With their Boots On, stand the thought that people might brave illness but they were more acceptable to our eye than or death to declare that Black Lives Matter, but rhinestone-studded fantasies starring Roy might not suffer the same fate to make him feel Rogers and Gene Autry. People should certainly important. All of your speculations – snogging be dirtier, sicker, and an awful lot uglier than by contract only – make sense in a rational they appeared in Walter Hill’s The Long Riders. world where people have the patience to wait But I think that the object of the film was to give out a year in order to preserve a million human a more realistic portrait of the relationships lives. That is sadly not the planet we’re living between people, their motives for doing what on. Except New Zealand. they did, and the price they paid for doing it. In that area, The Long Riders is a particularly Our masks are all home-made models sewn by satisfying effort. [Comments continue next page] Carrie from things like pillowcases. I think they ------Chico was the only person I ever knew who could smell money through wallpaper. ------

33 ------I have never been attached to a dog like I am to this one… ------Comments on Turbo-Apa #407, continued: THE HOUSE ON THORNTON CREEK, Carrie a moment of time, and nothing can reproduce Root: It was engrossing to experience The that moment in any format. Hemmings of Monticello while you were And then the war broke out. You and Greg were reading it. A mitochondrial approach to history, more affected by the looting and destruction specifically following the contributions of than anyone else I know personally. In the wake women, is a more challenging approach because of all that, which continues in Seattle as it does of our tradition of giving women their husband’s in Minneapolis, I think that if I were offered a names, as if we were deliberately trying to chance to sit in a nice dark theater and watch a obscure their family relationships. Taking a show, where the ONLY thing I actually had to matrilineal view of history can make a lot of worry about was getting Covid, I’d probably well-known events suddenly seem much more take that chance. I think theaters will have interesting. I think the great flaw in all general people in them again sooner than we think; teaching of history is an attempt to tell too much whether we want to join them there is harder to story in too little detail. Everything becomes anticipate. more interesting when you focus tightly enough to see the individual stories from which history I’m not sure that wearing a mask is purely is composed. magical thinking, but the idea that medicine has the capacity to make or keep one “well” The meeting of the Madison book discussion probably is. I seem to lack the virus fear that group (via Zoom) sounded like fun, and also just most other people are feeling; I wonder if like the discussions we had when we lived in spending the last 25 years being afraid that Madison. Maybe if we can get a paper copy of diabetes would kill or blind me has left me with the book one of these months and I can join in; less capacity for alarm? Having persisted for but more recreational reading might force me to those 25 years, I’m naturally interested in keep my own page count under 30. getting 25 more; but I don’t think that dread You say the nicest things about me; I’m does anything to enhance my chances. delighted that you enjoy being my research TURBULENT APA-RITIONS, F. J. Bergmann: assistant. However, I want to assure you that if Why, hello you! It was entertaining touring the the need arose, I could probably coach the past six months of Turbo history through the football team too. mechanism of your mailing comments. I always AFTERWORDS SCVR-B & #38, Lisa Freitag: find that kind of “catch-up” zine fun to read, and Doing all this research on the Marx Brothers, our perspective has changed more than usual there were many times when the sheer delight of over the past half-year. Actually, deciding being in a theater with them was obvious from whether to commit to commenting on every the way that their former audiences talked about mailing is one of the most basic decisions an them. S. J. Perlman saw them on a Vaudeville apa-hacker faces. Keeping up with every mailing stage when he was just 12 years old and claimed is a laudable practice, but I’ve also seen plenty that the experience altered his perceptions of people driven to exhaustion by it. But that forever. In the contemporary world, I think was in the days when APAs sometimes had fifty people are less prepared to have that experience members and mailings weighed as much as a at a live theater show then they are for all the dictionary. These kids today with their swipes smaller forms of recorded media; having to and their poop emojis don’t know what it was watch anything in “real time” seems to give a like composing comments to stencil…of course, modern audience pause. I think that is the great neither do I. I pubbed my early zines on an and irreplaceable virtue of theater; it happens in Apple II….

34 Dispatches from Elsewhere ended up with a and have welcomed many baby ducks and kind of personal narrative about the principal ospreys to the neighborhood. The latter are writer and lead actor of the show and in a way adolescents now; they fly around calling at the that undercut the intensely specific story that top of their lungs just in case someone would came before it. And I’m still not quite sure what like to come feed them. Meanwhile, the parents happened to the character played by Andre seem to have moved to Lake Chelan for the Benjamin. But it was an absolutely ideal summer. I just wish we could have shared all distraction for a time that seemed so unreal to these developments with grandkids – yours, begin with; wondering about the characters, their ours, any grandchildren would improve the world and the rationale behind it was a break current mood. from wondering about mine. I do not know Eric Amelie or very many of the I think rich brown’s piece on faanfiction people who post on either of the Historic overstated the role which it played in earlier Madison FB groups. I certainly know who Stuart fandoms a bit; I think fiction really focused on Levitan and some other regulars are, but none of fandom was always fairly rare in the menu of them are people I knew when I lived there. I genre parodies and satires that fanzines offered. have just recently got a ping from some new It was also not enough to be about fandom; to be distant relatives on Ancestry, so I’m looking real fanfiction, a piece must be written for forward to wasting a few days on family trees in fandom as well. This the difference between, . This highlights what South say, The Cacher in the Rye by Carl Brandon and Brooks Street means to me; the family had a Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb. house on it for decades, and I think the moment Both are works about fandom; but any idiot can the last elderly Oakey or Rubens resident died, enjoy McCrumb, while only a true fan is likely the place collapsed into a pile of gray dust. to find Carl Brandon all that funny. I’ll look forward to that 2-ounce fanzine! ALPHABET OBSESSION, Jae Leslie Adams: QUEST FOR SLEEP, Hope Kiefer and Karl So many fanzines have been done in the effort to Hailman: I sometimes ponder how much use up mimeograph paper or envelopes; doing a different the world is from when my zine to use a windfall of postage stamps seems grandparents retired, or even my parents, which like such a natural that I’m surprised I can’t seems like it happened not that long ago. They think of anyone else doing it. Madison’s Covid celebrated retirement by moving to warm places, adaptations, as you describe them, sound pretty traveling, enjoying the benefits of what they’d close to the way things have gone here. Carrie’s built. Now, I don’t think that we have managed yoga studio may be doing nothing but online to build that much anyway, but there’s certainly sessions for the rest of the year; my favorite no question of enjoying it. We have lived our print shop is back in regular operation, but they entire lives listening to historians point out the still prefer to accept jobs by email and only one parallels between the post-war West and the customer can be in the store at a time. Masks are Roman Empire. Now, up to our asses in pretty universal at the grocery store and post barbarians and epidemics, we seem to be saying office, but only about half the people we “So that’s what ‘decline and fall’ means.” encounter seem to be wearing them when we Anyway, it doesn’t look like we’ll be making take our walks. 3 miles a day is pretty many trips to Jamaica or Hawaii in our impressive, Jay; we get nowhere near that. retirement. I feel like 42-page apazines is about Reading about your grandkids and their interest the most indulgent pastime I can afford right in worms and bugs was fun. We added a now, and I’m particularly glad we don’t have muskrat to the list of creatures we have seen in more than 20 members this month… and around the Meadowbrook pond this spring [Comments continue next page] ------…if you see him around the house, kiss him for me. ------

35 ------This is the biggest electric train a boy ever had. ------Comments on Turbo-Apa #407, consummated: SONOVA QUARK, Steven Vincent Johnson: was going to write something about the potential Great intimidation comes in small packages, The for La’adan to inspire a new generation of mathematics of your presentation are generally activists, and then a civil war broke out. And I beyond me (although one over r squared is a pretty had all this reaction on the concept of lumping simple equation), but the graphics communicated versus splitting as applied to popular media. But what you meant to say most admirably. I agree: a it just seems kind of stupid now, and I’m already lot of squinting for those early observers to have mortified at spending 31 pages talking about the seen Mercury’s orbital precession. The plots look Marx Brothers. very much like art to me, which I suspect is one reason why the subject is so compelling to you. I Clearly, my most important coping mechanism really wish I could offer more, but the haze in in all this has been watching old movies. I’ve which you put me was still a very pleasant place. discovered that there is a rather erudite and COMING TO GRIPS, Walter Freitag: Oh, that entertaining fandom devoted to the Marx naughty knotweed. I thought your tactic of making Brothers, and would love to be able to make the plant expend energy for nothing was both some sort of contribution – happily, sf fandom logical and philosophically sound, a characteristic provides me with an audience for material that feature of your gardening logs. I might have also everyone in Marx fandom already knows by asked what required the least expenditure of heart. And committing 90 minutes or two hours energy on my part; in our case, since we were on to a film is becoming much easier to do than the fringes of an infestation, pulling the shoots out devoting 12 or 14 hours to entire seasons of when they were about a foot tall seemed to require episodic shows. the least sustained effort. But we still see a few The pictures of Madison Fans in the 1970s which come up every spring, after 10 years of concerted Diane has posted to Facebook have been really effort by the neighbors to eradicate it. wonderful! I’m planning to include a reprint from I know a number of people who are generally another visitor to Madison in that era, so I wonder assuming that their respiratory distress and body if you (Diane) will remember them at all. aches, plus a lingering sense of sickness afterward, A ZINE OF ONE’S OWN, Catie Pfeifer: I represent some mild form of The Virus. It is a empathized with your dilemma in getting halfway novel experience for most Americans to contract a through a book and finding it difficult to finish. cold or a seasonal flu and seriously wonder if it Accepting another person’s recommendation for a will kill them, but that’s probably going to become book, movie or music always makes me anxious; the new normal. Having lived without that one is expected to consume their gift in quick time expectation for most of our lives, I think we’re and return with a positive review. With books, I forced once more to confront the fact that we revert to a style of reading that I developed for squandered a golden age. We have lived in a time class materials written in an onerous style, when death from a contagious illness seemed far- skimming, hunting for the salient points I need to fetched, so much so that we forgot it was even write a cogent review. When a work begins to possible. We’ll see if we ever have the opportunity affect me emotionally in a way I don’t like – rage, to forget it again. sorrow, ennui – I try to armor myself against it by THINGS THAT BEGIN WITH Q, Jim Hudson ignoring as much of the author’s prose as possible, and Diane Martin: Reading through this issue, and read the remainder out of order, jumping to the with a lot of reasonably cheerful responses to the end to ruin the tension.. And sometimes, when I pandemic and other problems, I’m stunned again can’t make myself do even that much, the book how quickly things keep changing. When we somehow drifts away on the tide. I start reading wrote our last entries, we had no idea that something good, and the metaphors part. George Floyd was about to die, and that his death would seemingly alter the whole world. I   

36 Fanmail from Some Flounder Department: Letters to CAPTAIN FLASHBACK I have single coin I have from the Ostrogothic Taral th Empire in the early 6 century. It was minted in 245 Dunn Ave. #2111 the reign of Theodoric, and also shows little Toronto M6K 1S8 sense that there had been a great decay of civic CANADA standards of coinage … though it does bear [email protected] some stylistic difference, the similarity is

th striking. On the obverse, there is a bust of the May 27 , 2020 king in helmet and cuirass. On the reverse is as motif of Romulus and Remus, suckled by a One thinks of the Fall of Rome happening wolf. The coin is not in good shape, not that that overnight, perhaps between a late-night snack is the fault of the coiners. Examples of this and the last Western emperor’s sudden attack of bronze half-follis are rare in good condition, and the runs at 2 a.m., but the case is more hard to come by even as worn as this one. complicated than the average person imagines. After a string of virtual non-entities that were PS – Give this a good proofreading. I’m awful controlled by various German generalissimos, at it. one named Odoacer realized that he didn’t need a puppet emperor at all, and send the imperial I finished reading the article on the Vandals with regalia back to Constantinople, and the Eastern interest. Very detailed, and about a topic I knew Emperor. He ran what was left of the Western little about. Empire while under siege by Goths, eventually reaching an agreement to divide Italy. This was After the last line on page 9, there are missing a grave miscalculation, since Odoacer was words ... or even perhaps a line. murdered while giving a toast to his new partner, Theodoric, in 512. Thereafter Italy was ruled by I’ve read Lest Darkness Fall at least twice and the Ostrogothic Empire… must admit that I was disappointed that it was about a period of Roman history that was more It is generally assumed that Rome fell about the politics of the Ostrogothic Kingdom completely apart, and no semblance of the old than I liked. But I read that a long time ago and order remained, but in fact life continued more have broader interests than I did then. Since or less the same for most Romans in Italy. then, I’ve occasionally wondered how history Theodoric kept Romans and Germans in more or might have played out differently – who less separate political frameworks, creating a could not wonder and also read SF? In my two-state realm. Perhaps this was inherently mind, I want to know how the Western Empire unstable, but the Ostrogothic Empire did endure might have evolved if Constantine had been until 540 AD, which is about as good as could killed and been unable to consolidate the West be expected in such treacherous times. Ordinary under a Christian emperor. I have little doubt in functions of the state continued or less my mind that the Christians could not have continuously throughout. dominated the 4th. and subsequent centuries on the basis of the number of believers in the I was intrigued by the image of the silver siliqua church, nor could they have succeeded in you pictured. I have numerous similar, small, winning over the pagan majority without silver coins, but the most recent from the decades of state terror conducted by the house of Western Empire would have been from about Constantine. But there are other questions that the same period. The last siliqua I own is from could be asked that are as interesting. the time of Arcadius and Honorious, in the early 5th century. They look remarkably similar. If What if the Romans had been able to rally the there was a breakdown of the civil order in barbarians at their door in a federated Visigothic lands, it doesn’t show in the coins. defense? Instead of simply admitting Vandals,

37 Goth’s, Lombards etc., was there any possibility that the united tribes with Roman troops and organization might have driven the Huns back. Probably not – I doubt the tribes would cooperate well enough, and Roman attitudes would likely not be diplomatic enough.

[APH: The coalition you suggest was put together by the Roman general Flavius Aetius in 451 AD, when the Huns were defeated at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plain, Aetius built a coalition that included the Visigoths, the Salian Franks, the Burgundians, Alans, Armoricans, Saxons and the Olibrones, whoever they were. The Hunnic army included even more subject and allied people, including the Amali Goths, more Franks, Rugians, enlisted the fierce Khazars in his two front-war Sciri, Thuringians, still more Burgundians, against the Avars and the Persians. He ravaged Herul and Gepids. I see why this makes a lot of modern Iran and Iraq so thoroughly that neither casual students glaze over and lose consciousness; Empire was able to effectively oppose the honestly, it’s a bit like listening to a seven-year- Prophet’s armies in the 630s. One might say that old list all their Pokémon. if the Byzantines won big, they really lost. The error you pointed out on page 9 is corrected I think the expansion of Islam indicates that in the online edition. Thanks for the note. Christianity was part of a long-term trend In the wake of this success, the Romans toward monotheism that took place in many definitely saw the Visigoths as the policeman of cultures of late antiquity. The Zoroastrian faith Gaul and Hispania, and they were really the which originated in Persia gave rise to the club that Romans used to clear the Vandals and worship of Mithra, originally an angelic or the Suevi out of Iberia. Maybe there is divine being known as a yazata in the something to the notion that the Vandals were Zoroastrian faith. Romans created a cult with more obstreperous than their barbarian practices that echo later Masonic tradition and colleagues, because they remained antagonistic spread it all over the Empire between the 1st and toward Rome decades after many other groups 4th Centuries. The popularity of the Mithraic had become allies or clients. Gunderic and Mysteries was what really ended much of the old Gaeseric were unusually bitter enemies of the Italic pagan tradition of the Empire, and Empire; one might suspect they resented the fact Christians prudently incorporated significant that the Romans had their Father killed…. elements of Mithraic practice into their observance of Saints’ Days and other traditions The Eastern Empire had a long history of ill- of the calendar. Religion was a tool which the advised efforts to expand or reclaim territory state used to unify people from multiple through military conquest, which tended to ethnicities and ideologies; Constantine certainly damage the regions they wished to possess. The thought that the Faith was the best thing since struggle for Gothic Italy is the best-known such sliced bucellatum for giving his troops and the case, but the long war with Persia did immense citizenry a sense of common purpose. damage to Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Armenia, Cilicia, etc. The Emperor Heraclius, Quite delighted to get your letter. I should have who conducted a brutal campaign to recover the known that using the siliqua as the front-page “True Cross” from the Persians in the 620s, illustration would lure you in! ------Of course Democracy doesn’t work. We are supposed to work it. ------

38 I REMEMBER ENTROPY DEPARTMENT: [This month we’re taking a look at Madison in 1974, as seen through the eyes of Australian fan Leigh Edmonds. Edmonds visited Madison during his trip across America in the company of his partner Valma Brown, as the delegate of the Down Under Fan Fund. Their trip included Discon II, the 1974 World Convention in Washington DC. Edmonds was the first Australian to win the fund and naturally wanted to visit Madison resident Lesleigh Luttrell, who had travelled to Australia as the first DUFF winner in 1972. His trip report, EMU TRACKS OVER AMERICA, was published in the late fall of 1974. I’ve selected some incidents from his Madison visit – the entire fanzine is available at fanac.org, where you can also see the cover art by Steve Stiles.] ------There, but for the grace of God, goes God. ------EMU TRACKS OVER AMERICA main differences are that Spot and Bill are By Leigh Edmonds lazy and fat while Nemo and Maya are just as lazy but not so fat. Nemo, who once used MADISON to be “Little Nemo” but is no longer “Little” Madison would have to be one of the nicest probably keeps fit with a running battle with little towns we’ve seen. It felt like the ideal another cat on the block. Very soon after of “Hometown USA” that used to come we’d arrived Nemo and his sparring partner across from all those Hollywood movies. disturbed our snack with their activities. We It’s not a spectacular place in comparison to wandered out to look at the fight which was most cities we visited, but if we have to live quite exciting and they knew what they were in the USA, we might easily choose it (and doing because they were over the fence in it’s not too far from Minneapolis). the next yard so we could see them but not Our hosts for the couple of days were Hank interrupt. After a while Lesleigh who was and Lesleigh Luttrell, we’d met Lesleigh more concerned with the fight than we were, before in 1972 when DUFF brought her to ran off and quickly returned with a bucket of Australia so it was good to be able to meet water which she dumped on them. Stopping her again. Hank was somebody we’d been in mid gouge they looked at her as if to as if looking forward to seeing and doing so was to ask, “Now what did you go and do that a real pleasure. They are both quiet people for?” Then they returned to their fight.) but by no means dull, and we enjoyed our Sometime during our stay, Hank and stay very much. Lesleigh brought out a map and showed us They live on the ground floor of what seems the layout of Madison. There are lakes on all to be a typical northern US house. It is old sides and in the middle is the Capitol and comfortable with just enough room for building about which the rest of the city is them, their collection of books, magazines planned. Of course maps don’t mean too and comix and their cats – Nemo and Maya. much by themselves. I didn’t think to ask if (These cats are, by the way, remarkable being more or less surrounded by water ever because they are so similar to Spot and Bill. lead to flooding but who cares, it’s all very Bill and Nemo are both black males, Spot picturesque. One afternoon when Lesleigh and Maya are sort of splotchy females. had finished class they took us in their little When Lesleigh had stayed with us she’d green car for a drive round the immediate commented that the cats were so similar but countryside. We drove around one of the I really hadn’t believed it. But it’s true, the small lakes and they told us that the

39 We began in a cooperative bookshop where Hank had business to conduct and while he was at it Valma and I stalked up and down the rows of book, being tempted by many but in the end buying two versions of Alice in Wonderland and cheap tarot cards. The cards were understandable but two versions of the same story were a bit strange and I could not explain it. Somehow Valma wandered into a drug store, she wanted to buy something while Hank and I carried a couple of cartons of Rennebohm’s lunch counter, Madison, 1979 whatever he’d picked up at the bookshop back in the car. When University owns all the land around it so that we returned Valma hadn’t emerged from the it is maintained in its natural condition. To store. We waited for a while. But she didn’t the botanist this would probably mean hours return. After a while more we gave up and of enjoyable crawling around looking for went in to find her. She hadn’t become lost, interesting things but to most people it she’d simply become absorbed in wandering would simply mean a beautiful bit of road to around looking at what Americans can buy drive along with overhanging trees, tall in their shops and how much they have to bushes and lots of uncut grass. Being a pay for them. Many times both of us got reasonably short drive a lot of people pedal trapped into doing this and could pass a around the lake on their bicycles and I’d good hour in a shop without spending a cent imagine that the energy spent would be well but having a good time all the same, so I worth the trouble. In fact, of all the places didn’t blame her. From there we marched we visited Madison would have had the straight next door into another book shop, largest population of bicycles. I wondered pre-owned books for a change. My nose led about this but Hank explained it very me straight to the music section which was logically when he reminded us that laden down with shelf after shelf of old Madison, as well as being the state capitol, textbooks on such dull topics as harmony is a college town and students usually aren’t and counterpoint. Bleah! But still I looked at affluent enough to afford a car. them all and even bought a couple. SPENDING SPREE A few doors down was a record shop full to On Wednesday, the first real day we spent in overflowing with highly desirable goods of Madison, Hank wasn’t working so we went which we bought a few, not wishing to with him to a few bookshops and other overexpend ourselves too early in the day. places of commercial interest. I don’t know We were beginning to fully realise what a if he planned it, but we spent the most part day shopping can mean and we were of the day spending money. determined to make the most of it, spending

40 up too big in the first hour can spoil the rest of the day so we had to watch ourselves. After the warm-up session Hank said it was time to break for lunch and took us to a place that served Mexican food over the counter as one buys hamburgers. Lesleigh was there waiting for us so we bought our lunch and settled around a table […] Lesleigh commented that the University Bookshop was having a sale and took off back to class. Workmen take down the last elm tree on State Street, 1974 Hank led us to the bookshop and turned us The next day Hank had to go to work and loose. Valma went off and looked at books, I Lesleigh had classes. We decided to walk up looked at the records which all seemed so Main Street to the Capitol and whatever else cheap that they were being given away. there was to be seen. Lesleigh gave me an Valma found the book that she was after and umbrella to protect us from the rain and then she and Hank stood and watched while escorted us up to the Capitol and pointed out I looked through all the boxes of records for the “Buy and Sell Shop” before we left. the occasional one worth buying. Hank was First things first we sat ourselves down at asking Valma if I always acted that way in the counter of the drugstore on the corner front of records by the time I had inspected and had something to eat. These drugstores every record in the last box. Another are fascinating places, a little bit of travelers’ cheque was written out and we everything and not much of anything and headed down State Street again. Staggering that applies to food also. A little old lady sat under the weight of our acquisitions, but next to us and asked us how she should paint smiling. The afternoon faded into a haze, an her trolly. I didn’t know exactly what she orgy of spending. meant and after having talked with her for a By the time we reached home and said hello bit I was not willing to ask. She also asked to Maya and Nemo I understood what us what we thought about umbrellas and Lesleigh had written in her DUFF report growing trees before we extracted ourselves. about the prices of books and records in Talking to strangers can sometimes be Australia. I gloated over our treasures and interesting, sometimes dull and sometimes reflected that even though we were on embarrassing, especially when the stranger holidays and whole lot looser with money is tending toward senility. than we would have been at home we could Valma drooled over the rings at the “Buy have never been able to buy so much for so and Sell” while I inspected the other stuff in little. With prices like that it is no wonder the shop, most of it old and battered, though that Americans are said to be such there were a couple of nice old mechanical consumers, they can afford it. adding machines which made rhythmic clunking sounds when I operated them.

41 Valma was having a hard time selecting We were shown the supreme Court, the Senate which of the many rings she would like to buy and the Lower House. The tour was instructive but finally settled on one which suited her. By but the mass of facts and figures the guide that time she and the couple of people behind spouted went in one ear and out the other. It the counter had held quite a conversation (to was right after the election so nobody was which I added the occasional comment from doing anything so all we saw were lot of behind the adding machines) and everybody empty benches. Just as well perhaps because seemed to be quite excited at having a couple I’d once sat through a couple of hours of the of people from Australia in their shop. We Lower House of New South Wales in session spent a couple of hours entertaining the locals and that was enough to last me for many years with our funny accents and our strange ways. yet. Impressive, in a perverse sort of way were the patriotic mosaics and murals, the guide The amazing thing about Main Street was the explained the symbolism which was just as lack of similarity with State Street, the latter well for otherwise the whole lot would have has the feeling of being a shopping district in a been a complete waste. college town, but Main Street is definitely the place where one sees the state capitol. One The tour ended in front of a lift which we took couldn’t fail to, the capitol building looms up to a little museum filled with civil war over everything and I could imagine some history. Most of the history was local elected representative of the people ducking Wisconsin and didn’t mean a thing to me since across the road to the corner drugstore for a we know so little about the war. Some things, quick bite to eat during some particularly though, like the set of surgical implements boring proceedings. (In our travels, we saw were all too meaningful (especially the great four capitol buildings, in Washington, meat cleaver which must have been used to Providence, Madison and St. Paul. To my hack off limbs). We didn’t stay there long. untutored eye they all looked the same, the The guide had told us that if we found the details may have been different but there is right corridor and the right door we could get always that big dome mounted over the top of up on the roof of the building and walk around it all,) From our spot in the drugstore, from the beside the base of the dome. After a great deal door of the Buy and Sell and from just about of searching we found our way up a short everywhere in the centre of Main Street the flight of stairs which led there, the man in one capitol building dominated the skyline. office must have been glad to see us go Lesleigh had said she thought there was a because we walked past his open door enough guided tour through the building so we went times to make him wonder what we were through the small park which surrounds it and thinking we were doing. Through the door wandered around inside, ogling the massive Madison lay spread out below us so we took neo-classical architecture and trying to find a the appropriate photographs of the streets and place where we could find out about tours. We the stone carvings around the base of the dome found the required counter but there was no and then went back to Hank and Lesleigh’s one there. Later we went back but we centered where we described our adventures in great through another door which had the times of detail over dinner. the tours listed on it in large print. We were five minutes late but there was a woman with a bunch of people following her looking up at    the inside of the dome, so we joined them. ------There’s millions to be made out here and your only competition is idiots. Don’t let this get around. ------

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