December 20, 1973 [Sleeper]
About eight years ago I saw Woody Allen's nightclub act--the bit that stays with me is his account of group therapy baseball teams, in which a kid on the Neurotics steals second, then feels guilty and goes back to first.
That kid grows up and is frozen solid in Sleeper, and wakes up in a gag-man's dream: a future of endless over-sized props, from bananas to noses to chickens--but he's still neurotic, and a narcissist, and a cynic, and most of all the exasperated pragmatist--with an eye on the Orbs that life has to offer, the Pleasure Principle finally at his fingertips. Whether as fugitive or robot, revolutionary or the only cellist in a marching band, Allen remains the nebbish, the kvetcher, the kibbitzer, the Wandering Jewish schlemiel-schlimazel, one losing his ice cream from the cone--to land on the other's shoe. After an Allen performance I feel a Yiddishness seeping in--no, tugging at the sleeve, and I look down where the little guy winks, mincing around and a real pain--but charming somehow, eager for both of us to always have our way, despite the glasses and Larry Fine haircut.
That kid grows up and is frozen solid in Sleeper, and wakes up in a gag-man's dream: a future of endless over-sized props, from bananas to noses to chickens--but he's still neurotic, and a narcissist, and a cynic, and most of all the exasperated pragmatist--with an eye on the Orbs that life has to offer, the Pleasure Principle finally at his fingertips. Whether as fugitive or robot, revolutionary or the only cellist in a marching band, Allen remains the nebbish, the kvetcher, the kibbitzer, the Wandering Jewish schlemiel-schlimazel, one losing his ice cream from the cone--to land on the other's shoe. After an Allen performance I feel a Yiddishness seeping in--no, tugging at the sleeve, and I look down where the little guy winks, mincing around and a real pain--but charming somehow, eager for both of us to always have our way, despite the glasses and Larry Fine haircut.
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