On Culture and Other Comestibles

ON CULTURE AND OTHER COMESTIBLES
the quotable Jonathan Caws-Elwitt

The cello is the most delicate-sounding instrument that requires its own airplane ticket.

The lay reader might not recognize the drunken, illegible scrawlings that deface the text as the cryptic, inebriated marginalia that attract the true scholar.

Cubism was afoot, and Picasso was the big toe.

The auction had gone on so long that even the folding chairs began to get up and inch toward the restrooms.

The cuckoo clock is one of those things that we all take for granted, but which could really stand a little explaining.

The Holstein carried off the aria surprisingly well for a performer with an untrained moo.

Hollywood has made a mockery of the fine art of custard-pie fights!

Shakespeare has become a public coat hook.

There was a moment in 1970s radio when every record in the bin had an airbrushed spaceship on the cover.

The poet sang of many things, till the promoter reminded him that he was being paid to recite poetry.

A bun is a roll that someone has brought outdoors.

I had ordered a glass of house wine, and, by golly, this was the housest wine I’d ever tasted.

The breezy charisma of the 1940s screen idol is something that today’s stars seem unable to recapture. I think it may have had something to do with the trouser pleats.

The painting was unveiled, and the bidding began. After a moment of consideration, I decided to bid on the veil.

The crucial dramatic moment had arrived; and, as if on cue, she forgot her lines.

Most experienced camping-trip planners recommend a ban on Tom Swifties after the second day.

I have fond memories of the gorgonzola pasta at a South Miami Beach café with an ocean view. (My view, not the pasta’s.)

Van Johnson may not be one of the greats, but he’s certainly one of the pretty-darn-goods.

Mixed nuts: Nobody can eat just one.

Bell-bottoms are “out”—but you can leave a message on their voicemail.

I’ve known that banana peel since she was a slip of a girl.

Laryngitis is always a conversation piece.

The Cro Magnon era cave held only animal skins, a few crude tools, a clock radio, and a deck of cards.

The cook had made a real dog’s breakfast of the ploughman's lunch.

Life is short and art is expensive.

I’m such a fan of Richard Rodgers that I know all his lyrics by Hart.

Where there’s a curd, there’s a whey.

These tomatoes couldn’t ripen themselves out of a paper bag.

People disparage canned laughter. But when you come home too tired to make up jokes, there’s nothing like just opening up a can of laughter.

An optimist says the glass is half filled; the music critic says the Glass is half Philip.

Sometimes it seems that our world is just too old and too big for originality. (But I bet you’ve heard that before.)

The purpose of artistic criticism is to motivate the public to give art the attention it deserves, if only as a means of screening out the annoying commentary of the critics.

Sociology teaches us that the eccentric behavior which psychologists observe in individuals can be more efficiently analyzed by utilizing economies of scale.

In the wrong hands, second-person narration is the literary equivalent of poor social skills.

Their music goes in one ear and out the other. But not fast enough.

She was eating a personal pan pizza—an entreé that made me feel I was invading her privacy just by being there.

Writers have an unfair advantage in getting books on the market, due to our profession’s longstanding ties to the publishing industry.

I’ve never warmed up to hot toddies.