'A Sense of Humour is Just Common Sense'

In Ogden Nash: The Life and Work of America's Laureate of Light Verse (2005), Douglas M. Parker reports an unintentional light moment in the poet's professional career:

“Nash was trying to come up with the words for a [Kurt] Weill melody and suggested a title phrase, ‘Love-in-a-Mist.’ Nash thought the phrase—the name of a flower--was a fitting description of how Venus might have felt during a romantic moment in the show; Weill responded with cryptic but implacable opposition, and the title was eventually discarded. Only later did Nash discover that the English word ‘mist’ is also the German word for manure.”

The show was One Touch of Venus (1943), with music by Weill, lyrics by Nash and book by S.J. Perelman. Parker assumes mist was an unintentional misstep but with Nash and Perelman on the job, a reader wonders. One is also tempted to recusitate stereotypes regarding the well-known German sense of humor. Parker suggests that Weill, before explaining the bilingual misstep to Nash, never found it even momentarily amusing. Think about it: “Love-in-a-Shit.” Surely worth a snort or two.

In 1981 the late Clive James published The Crystal Bucket: Television Criticism from the Observer 1976-79. One can read and enjoy James even when he’s writing about television shows that never crossed the Atlantic. Of The Old Show, written by Alan Bennett and directed by Lindsay Anderson, James writes:

“People like Lindsay Anderson can never learn what people like Alan Bennett should know in their bones: that common sense and a sense of humour are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing. Those who lack humour are without judgment and should be trusted with nothing.”

As I was writing this on Monday I learned that Paul Reubens had died at age seventy. Funny people – Jonathan Winters, Charles Portis, Don Rickles – we assume will never die. R.I.P., Pee Wee.