In late November, Steve Martin went to the 92nd Street YMCA in New York City to discuss his new novel, “An Object of Beauty,” with an art critic from the New York Times, in front of a paying audience.
The YMCA has since offered a refund to spectators, saying that the session “did not meet the standard of excellence” they were accustomed to offer.
It was a discussion about art and the collection of art.
The audience came to see Steve Martin.
Okay. I see the problem.
Steve Martin is a very intelligent man. He even studied philosophy (for a while) when he was in college. Did he graduate with a degree in philosophy? No, he did not. He went on to do stand-up comedy, with a banjo and an arrow through his head.
You would think that he'd have a sense of humor about this, since “humor” is how he's been earning his bread and butter for the past thirty years.
But no!
Someone from the YMCA audience the other night sent up a note: “Talk about Steve's career.” And, according to Steve in the Sunday Times, this derailed the whole fascinating conversation about art and life and collecting. Who knows what might have come next? Some fascinating revelation about what it's like to own a Kandinsky, no doubt.
But instead, someone had the nerve! to ask about Steve's movies.
(After he'd had the nerve to make them, of course.)
According to Steve, the YMCA crowd didn't give him a chance. If they'd waited, they would have been treated to gems of conversation! . . . which, evidently, were lacking earlier.
Comedians like to be taken seriously. Groucho Marx was embittered by the need to be a clown his whole life and longed to be taken as an intellectual. Woody Allen keeps making serious movies - I've seen "Interiors" at least twenty times, for whatever it's worth - but people still like the old Woody Allen. An alien in "Stardust Memories" tells Woody: "People on our planet like your movies. Especially the earlier funnier ones."
Steve didn't achieve seriousness the other night by putting on a pair of Marian-the-Librarian glasses and making obvious comments about Edward Hopper.
He achieved pomposity.
Steve, honey: get over thyself.
It is extremely difficult to be taken seriously after being seen pulling handkerchiefs out of your fly.
Just give the people their refunds and shut up.
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