Entertainment
Bob Newhart was more than an actor or comedian – he was a literary master
Bob Newhart, initially a stand-up comic, used literary techniques in his routines, earning the Mark Twain Prize. His one-sided conversations engaged and entertained audiences.
Mark Canada, Indiana University Kokomo
If you knew Bob Newhart only as an actor – most notably as the star of the legendary “Bob Newhart Show” but also in a minor though memorable role in the movie “Elf” – you may not have thought of him as a literary figure.
However, Newhart, who died on July 18, 2024, at the age of 94, began his rise to stardom as a stand-up comic, crafting and delivering such brilliant monologues as “Driving Instructor” and “Bus Drivers School.” In those bits, he demonstrated a mastery of diction, dialect, character and dialogue worthy of the title “literary master.”
In my view, there is perhaps no more fitting recipient of the Mark Twain Prize than Newhart, who received it in 2002.
As a literary scholar, I typically study traditional poetry and fiction by canonical authors such as Twain and Edgar Allan Poe. But the mastery of language and character is not the sole possession of poets and novelists. Newhart demonstrated that stand-up comedy could also be an art form. https://www.youtube.com/embed/8KSUSk2-JXc?wmode=transparent&start=0 Bob Newhart accepts the Mark Twain Prize in 2002.
‘The old humble bit’
One of his masterpieces is his “Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue” stand-up routine, built around a quirky but timely premise.
Having witnessed the rise of advertising and public relations in the 1950s and 1960s, Newhart imagined a scenario from an earlier age. What if, he asked, there had been no real man with the mind and stature of Abraham Lincoln during America’s Civil War?
The advertising industry, he goes on to say, “would have had to create a Lincoln.” He then performs a one-sided imaginary telephone conversation between a press agent and someone employed to play the part of this manufactured Lincoln – introducing it with a line that would become iconic for Newhart, saying the conversation would have gone “something like this.”
The “something” that ensues is a tightly crafted, six-minute routine worthy of the term “poem.” Indeed, Newhart deployed some of the same literary devices wielded by previous masters such as Twain and Alexander Pope.
Like Twain, Newhart had a marvelous ear for dialect and seasoned his monologue with little bits of slang and jargon to capture the breezy speech of a stereotypical press agent.
“Hi, Abe, sweetheart, how are you, kid?” he begins. “How’s Gettysburg?”
Delivered quickly and offhandedly, the lines, like so much of Newhart’s stand-up work, are subtle, but effective – dead on without being too on the nose. Throughout the bit, he deploys similar little touches of diction – as when the agent refers to “Four score and seven,” the famous first words of the Gettysburg Address, as a “grabber.”
Herein lies another, even more effective, source of humor. Lincoln’s opening is famously lyrical and formal, the epitome of elocutionary eloquence, and the agent has reduced it to a “grabber.” This kind of deflation echoes an old satirical genre known as the “mock-epic.” As practiced by the Enlightment-era English poet, translator and satirist Alexander Pope and others, it draws its humor from the contrast between the sublime and the mundane or even ridiculous.
Newhart returns to the device when he has the agent try to explain to the made-up Abe the logic behind the line “The world will little note, nor long remember.”
Lincoln’s original line is graceful, alliterative and nearly perfectly iambic – an oratory gem if there ever was one – but, for the agent, it’s simply “the old humble bit.” https://www.youtube.com/embed/HTG3glnwoKE?wmode=transparent&start=0 Bob Newhart performs ‘Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue.’
Character is key
Master writers of humor or, for that matter, fiction in general, will tell you that character is key. Get the characters right, and humor – or drama – will follow.
With more of his delightfully subtle touches, Newhart paints a hilarious picture of the naive bumbler the agency has to craft into a Lincoln. Again, as is often the case with humor, irony helps to achieve the desired effect – in this case, humor.
Lincoln was an eloquent, noble figure. He was larger than life – and certainly larger than this dimwit, who doesn’t even get the joke when one of the agency’s “gag writers” supposedly dashes off a line on Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.
The agent shares it with the fake Abe, saying, “They got a beautiful squelch on Grant. The next time they bug ya about Grant’s drinkin’ … you tell ’em you’re gonna find out what brand he drinks and send a case of it to all your other generals.”
After a short pause, the agent says, with Newhart’s famous stammer, “Uh, no, no, it’s, it’s like, like the brand, uh, was the reason he won.” Finally, after another short pause, the exasperated agent snaps, “… use it, it’s funny.” https://www.youtube.com/embed/XaUYQZR-y7I?wmode=transparent&start=0 Bob Newhart performs ‘Driving Instructor.’
Give the audience credit
This last “exchange” demonstrates the most ingenious aspect of Newhart’s humor: his signature one-sided conversation, which he also used to hilarious effect in “Driving Instructor” and other routines.
Now you know why the opening sequence of “The Bob Newhart Show” has Newhart answering a phone – an homage to his then-famous stand-up gag.
We never hear the voice of “Abe” but rather hear only the agent’s side of the conversation. It might seem like a minor detail, but this artifice means that we as the audience have to play an active role in the comedy. We hear the agent’s side and have to imagine what he is hearing. Sometimes the agent repeats what he supposedly hears, but, in this instance, when the agent is trying to explain the punchline of the Grant joke, the burden is on us.
Here again Newhart was employing an old device. In a dramatic monologue such as Robert Browning’s serious poem “My Last Duchess,” the poet leaves out key details, forcing us to detect them and complete the only partially told story.
The device is especially effective in comedy because, as Newhart knew on some level, we all like to feel smart. By putting us in the position of filling in the blanks in the conversation, Newhart gives us the opportunity to feel a little extra satisfaction and to create some of the humor ourselves by crafting our own sense of the rube on the other side of the conversation.
It was the master stroke for a master craftsman. With this brilliant touch, Newhart turned us all into comedians.
Mark Canada, Chancellor and Professor of English, Indiana University Kokomo, Indiana University Kokomo
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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art, culture and humanities
Tiff Massey’s ‘7 Mile & Livernois’ exhibition isn’t just about a neighborhood – it’s a tribute to Black Detroit
Samantha Noël, Wayne State University
“7 Mile + Livernois” at the Detroit Institute of Arts celebrates Detroit as a place for Black women to live and create by elevating both the work of the featured artist, Tiff Massey, and the community from which she comes.
The exhibition draws attention to how Detroit is represented in the national – and even global – imagination.
As an art historian who specializes in modern and contemporary art of the African diaspora, I found the exhibition absolutely mesmerizing. I appreciate the ways in which the show recognizes the desire for belonging and self-expression among Black people. I also admire how the show empowers and inspires anyone who visits it.
Named for an avenue of Black fashion
Massey’s exhibition is named for her childhood neighborhood, which is also a vitally important historic, cultural and economic center of Black Detroit.
More popularly known as the Avenue of Fashion because of its many clothiers, the area near the intersection of Seven Mile Road and Livernois Avenue was an epicenter of Black commerce until the 1967 Detroit Rebellion sent shoppers to suburban malls.
A resurgence of enterprise and an increase in government funding are revitalizing the area by removing abandoned buildings and supporting redevelopment. It’s part of a citywide trend of increased investment and population growth over the past decade or so.
The exhibition poignantly explores the magnificent stylings of previous generations and how Black Detroiters draw from this tradition when they dress and accessorize today.
Throughout history, in many African diasporic communities, dressing in “Sunday’s best” was a way of asserting one’s humanity and dignity. Without question, this exhibition celebrates the importance of this cultural practice.
Monumentalizing the everyday
The exhibition features recent works plus two new sculptures by Massey commissioned by the Detroit Institute of Art. Her new work is juxtaposed with pieces from the museum’s permanent collection.
At the entrance of the exhibition, cubic forms of silver metal are interlinked and attached to the center of the outer wall of the galleries in a sculpture called “Whatupdoe” (2024), which is also a beloved greeting among Detroiters. Even bigger cubic forms emerge from the wall both in square and rectangular shapes and rest on the floor. Resembling a statement necklace, the sculpture occupies much of the gallery space.
The change in scale gives it architectural flare, bringing to mind the buildings and houses lining the streets of Detroit, and the many people living both inside and outside the buildings. The conjoined links symbolize the ties that bind the diverse neighborhoods and connect generations of people to the city.
Celebrating the built environment
“I Got Bricks” (2016) consists of serial collections of metallic blocks that are shaped like gemstones set into jewelry. The six clusters of glistening slabs echo the shapes of bricks used to build early to mid-20th century architectural structures, but are presented in geometric and varied arrangements.
The work speaks again to the notion of seeing oneself in the built environment. “I Got Bricks” suggests that neighborhoods once viewed disparagingly can be seen as sites of beauty that reflect the histories of many African American families who overcame great odds and led extraordinary lives.
“Quilt Code 6 (All Black Everything)” (2023) is a gorgeous wooden installation painted in black that encompasses iconography and design motifs from the city, as well as the artist’s archive. An Afro comb, the Cadillac logo, a pair of hot combs, the Black Panther Party logo, an Adinkra symbol, and design motifs found on building facades are some of the imagery featured on this work.
It’s positioned near mid-century sculptor, Louise Nevelson’s “Homage to the World” (1966), which also is painted black but features detritus from the streets of New York City. This juxtaposition highlights how both works employ similar compositions to convey two different worldviews, one of a African American woman born in the late 20th century and the other of a European American woman born in the late 19th century.
“I’ve Got Bundles and I Got Flewed Out (Green)” (2023) is a similar installation with an array of green and yellow hairpieces of varying textures and styles displayed on a black-hued background. The theme of artifice as integral to the beauty rituals of Black women comes to mind.
The objects conveyed in “I Remember Way Back When” (2023) and “Baby Bling” (2023) are easily identifiable for many Black women and other women of color, particularly those who were children in the 1970s and ‘80s.
The former depicts barrettes, while the latter features hair elastics with balls on each end. The 11 enlarged objects in both works are painted in stunning red and arranged horizontally, literally making a big deal of how Black girls present themselves to the world.
These nostalgic works are juxtaposed with minimalist artist Donald Judd’s vertically rendered “Stack” (1969), which uses a series of green rectangular forms to bring to mind modernist architecture.
Making art in the Motor City
Metalsmithing is closely tied to Detroit’s reign as a mecca of industry in the early 20th century. During that period, the city gained a labor force of African Americans fleeing the South, as well as immigrants from Europe, the Middle East and even Latin America and the Caribbean.
In “Fulani” (2021), “39 Reasons I am not Playing” (2018) and “Everyday Arsenal” (2018), Massey adeptly reveals how the everyday objects of self-adornment celebrated in the show share a history with the metalsmithing of the automobile industry in the Motor City.
The galleries filled with Massey’s work invite viewers to pay more attention to everyday objects and the built environment that surrounds us.
“7 Mile and Livernois” runs at the Detroit Institute of Arts through May 11, 2025. Admission is free for residents of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties.
Samantha Noël, Associate Professor of Art History, Wayne State University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Entertainment
Rising Alternative Pop Star Ali Berke Delivers an Electrifying Performance at NYC’s iHeartRadio Dunkin’ Music Lounge
December 10, 2024, – The vibrant atmosphere of New York City’s iHeartRadio Dunkin’ Music Lounge was electrified by the soulful sounds of rising alternative pop star, Ali Berke. Hailing from Long Island, NY, the 24-year-old artist has been making waves in the music industry with her unique voice, heartfelt lyrics, and an affinity for connecting with her audience. The intimate performance attracted fans from near and far, showcasing Ali’s remarkable talent and dynamic stage presence.
Ali’s set featured a collection of her original works, each infused with themes of resilience, love, and change. Among the standout tracks was her catchy holiday hit, “My Christmas Wish,” alongside powerful anthems like “Turbulence” and “Do You Hear Me?” With over 15 original songs released and hundreds more written, Ali’s dedication to her craft is evident in every note she sings. Her music resonates on a personal level, and her storytelling ability captivates listeners, making each performance a journey through her experiences and emotions.
In addition to her impressive performance at the Dunkin’ Music Lounge, Ali has shared the stage with pop luminaries, including AJ McLean of the Backstreet Boys, and graced major venues such as New York Fashion Week. She has captivated audiences across the country, performing at locations that range from bustling malls to world-renowned concert halls. Each performance showcases her authentic storytelling and raw emotion, earning her recognition and admiration from fans and media alike.
“It was such an honor to perform at the Dunkin’ Music Lounge,” Ali expressed after her performance. “It was an incredible opportunity to connect with listeners on a personal level, and to share my music and my journey with everyone in the room. Inspiring others through my story and my songs is something I feel truly passionate about.”
Despite her rapidly rising success, Ali remains grounded and deeply committed to inspiring her audience. Her ability to stay connected to her roots fuels her passion, and she aspires to uplift others through her music. Known affectionately as “Ali The Anthem Girl,” she has set an ambitious goal of becoming one of the first women to perform the national anthem at all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums—a mission that has gained her widespread recognition and support.
Fans eager to relive the excitement can catch highlights from her electrifying performance on social media. Ali’s Instagram (@AliBerkeOfficial) and Z100’s (@z100newyork) channels offer a glimpse into her world, showcasing moments from her life as an artist. Furthermore, the full video of her performance is available on the Dunkin’ Music Lounge NYC website and Z100’s YouTube channel, along with a special interview featured on the Dunkin’ Music Lounge podcast.
As Ali Berke continues her ascent in the music industry, she remains focused on sharing her journey with authenticity and passion. Her captivating performances and relatable lyrics offer a source of inspiration, fostering a strong connection with her audience. To keep updated on her newest releases and upcoming performances, follow Ali on social media at @AliBerkeOfficial.
For more information, visit: dunkinmusicloungenyc.com
About Ali Berke
Ali Berke is a 24-year-old alternative pop artist from Long Island, NY. With her compelling stage presence and powerful lyrics, she is quickly emerging as a standout star in the music scene. Her music not only reflects her personal journey but also invites listeners to engage with themes of resilience, love, and transformation. Recognized in major media outlets such as The Chicago Tribune, New York Post, and PIX11, Ali’s relentless drive and passionate storytelling continue to resonate and inspire fans worldwide.
Follow Ali on social media: @AliBerkeOfficial.
Source: Ali Berke
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(Family Features) During the holiday season, few things bring the same enjoyment as finding the perfect gift and watching in excitement as your loved one opens it up.
If you’re still searching for the right gift and you’ve got gamers, someone curious to try gaming or a loved one who needs a relaxing hobby on your nice list, Xbox can provide an outlet to unwind and connect with friends, regardless of where they love to play. It is all about making gaming easy to access and available for everyone – whether you love to jump on a console, PC or smart TV, it’s easy to play anywhere.
To help keep the playing experience fun andsafe, the Xbox Family Settings app for Android or iOS allows you to easily tailor the online gaming experience from anywhere, including managing screen time, filtering content, setting purchasing and communication controls and receiving weekly activity reports. These customizable settings help parents ensure the right balance of gaming with time for school, homework, sports and time with friends.
Find the full holiday guide featuring devices, games, subscriptions and more at Xbox.com.
Embark on New Gaming Adventures
With new console options joining the lineup this holiday season, there are even more ways to play the biggest games of the year like Indiana Jones and The Great Circle™ and family favorites like Minecraft. From the sleek, compact design of the Xbox Series S – 1 TB, which offers double the storage of the Xbox Series S – 512 GB and is still the smallest Xbox console ever, to the Xbox Series X – 1TB Digital Edition and the Xbox Series X – Galaxy Black Special Edition, players can enjoy Quick Resume, lightning-fast load times and gameplay of up to 120 frames per second. Pair one with a custom controller or accessory from Xbox Design Labfor a unique and personalized stocking stuffer.
Play Anywhere You Are
Wherever the holidays take you and your loved ones, a monthly membership to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate lets you dive into games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and Forza Motorsporton consoles, PCs and cloud with handheld devices, PCs, smart TVs and mobile phones.With access to hundreds of games across genres, it offers something for every type of player – from casual explorers to dedicated fans and everyone in between. Plus, with new titles added all the time and premium benefits like member deals and discounts of up to 20% off select games in the catalog, and up to 10% off related game add-ons, it’s truly the gift that keeps on giving.
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock (family opening gifts)
SOURCE:
Microsoft
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