Accidental Blogger

This post contains the writings of Narayan Acharya, a previous contributor and occasional commentator on A.B. who has now acquired the official status of "guest author." Narayan’s reminiscence about S.J. Perelman was in part inspired by a recent humorous piece in McSweeney –  Rilke’s Letters To A Young Plumber.  He suspects that the McSweeney letters are a riff on S.J. Perelman’s story, No Starch in the Dhoti – S’il Vous Plaît. (Dhoti is a sarong style dress worn by Indian men.) Narayan therefore found it necessary to note:

This [the Rilke letters] is a patent rip-off of a story by S.J.Perelman published in the early 50s. "No Starch in the Dhoti, S’il Vous Plaît" appeared in the New Yorker and in the collection "The Road to Miltown", S.J.Perelman, Grove Press, 1952. It documents the acrimonious correspondence between Motilal Nehru [father of Jawaharlal Nehru and grandfather of Indira Gandhi] in Allahabad, and Octave-Hippolyte Pleurniche, his launderer in Paris.

In a three-page preamble to the correspondence,Perelman writes :

"In the course of an article called "Portrait of a Symbol Named Nehru", Mr.Trumbull [former correspondent of the Times in India] had the following to say : ‘Nehru is accused of having a congenital distaste for Americans because of their all too frequent habit of bragging and of being patronizing when in unfamiliar surroundings. It is said that in the luxurious and gracious house of his father, the late Pandit Motilal Nehru – who sent his laundry to Paris – the young Jawaharlal’s British nurse used to make caustic remarks to the impressionable boy about the table manners of his father’s American guests.
"It was, of course, the utter nonchalance of the phrase ‘who sent his laundry to Paris’ that knocked me galley-west."

True, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but the very least McSweeney’s should have done was to acknowledge Perelman, the master of the "occasional piece". Perhaps with "apologies to …".

So Narayan decided (after some prodding from me) to pay his own tribute to Perelman here on our blog and kvetch about his retirement in the same breath.   Thanks, Narayan.

I forget who turned me on to S. J. Perelman, and when.  A partial answer lies in my attic which I have had rehabbed with built-in cases to store all the books I have acquired over the years, minus the ones I was forced to give away in my wrenching move to PA.  "For when I am retired", I would say,  "I’ll not be a bored old fart like you-all."  And here I am, retired, old and bored, with the attention span of five year old, gathering dust, as are my books – am I missing something?.  But I promise you I have read all the humor anthologies I ever bought, most of the Perelmans twice over at least.

My earliest Perelman dates back to ’68.  How do I know?  Carbon dating, in a word – unless that counts as two.  The cover is intact, but the pages are browned beyond belief, falling out in oft-read places as if to say "thats enough – now put away the book and eat your oatmeal".  "How brown", you ask?  "Well … wheatish", I say betraying my Indian roots, using the gold standard of matrimonial ads.  Not as brown as my weathered face, yet darker than my derriere.

There is another tell-tale sign.  On the upper edge of the volume there are the initials LMJ.  Linda Marie Jackson, who in the space of six months used me, discarded me, then graciously offered to store my books when I ran out of rent money, leaving her imprint on my thirty seven babies, dooming me to an endless cycle of use / discard / brand.  I have finally broken the cycle, having earned nirvana, but frankly, I miss being used.  So, ’69 at the very latest, for that was when Linda, ravisher of twenty four year old Indian virgins, moved to the West Coast, never to be heard from again. 

The cover reads : "The Road to Miltown, or Under the Spreading Atrophy, by S.J.Perelman."  Hilarious satire and parody by the master humorist of whom it has been said : ‘Just before they made S.J.Perelman, they broke the mold’. A Black Cat Book, 60¢". 

Open the book and the first page carries a sampling of the delicacies within.  "S.J.Perelman on … a silent screen star : ‘When he tapped a cigarette deliberately on his silver case and cast a cool, speculative glance into a woman’s bodice, you knew she would never survive the rabbit test’."

Scan the Menu and you’ll find : "And Thou Beside Me, Yacketing in the Wilderness"; "I Am Not Now, Nor Have I Ever Been, A Matrix of Lean Meat"; "The Saucier’s Apprentice"; "Whereas the Former Premises Being Kaput –";  "Swindle Sheet with Blueblood Engrailed, Arrant Fibs Rampant";  "Come On In, the Liability’s Fine";  "I’m Sorry I Made Me Cry";  "M Is for the Migraine That She Gave Me";  "You’re My Everything, Plus City Sales Tax";  "Who Stole My Golden Metaphor?";  "It Takes Two to Tango, But Only One to Squirm"; and as many other delicacies that will revive the most jaded palate.  Is this guy nuts?  You can never guess where he’s going!

To think that I am only two degrees of separation removed from this madcap!  I once joined a meditation group, where I met a chap called Stephen who had made a killing in junk bonds and had retired at thirty five to a horse farm in Erwinna, PA, on the banks of the Delaware not ten miles from where I live, where Perelman had retired to a generation earlier after overhearing some bad investment advice at the Algonquin.  Perelman hated bucolic PA; I hate PA period.  Perelman escaped; I haven’t.  But there is hope yet!  As soon as I have read all those books in my attic, I promise myself.

Herewith : "No Starch in the Dhoti, S’il Vous Plait" 

(see samples of the epistolary exchange between the Indian aristocrat and his French washerman starting on page 4 of the pdf file)