(Amazon has a better picture of this book, but wants to link it to the audio edition.)
Title: Born Standing Up
Author: Steve Martin
Author's web site: http://www.stevemartin.com/
Date: 2007
Publisher: Scribner /
Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 978-1-4165-5365-6
Length: 207 pages
Illustrations: black and
white photos
Quote: “I did stand-up
comedy for eighteen years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years
were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success.”
This is the one of his
books (he’s written four more ordinary books and seven plays) in which Martin
reminisces about being a stand-up comic, rather than simply writing his jokes
in the form of stories or essays. It is, naturally, a very funny book.
“The comedian’s slang
for a successful show is ‘I murdered them,’ which I’m sure came about because you
finally realize that the audience is capable of murdering you.”
“I had seen knocking
knees in animated cartoons but hadn’t believed they afflicted small boys.”
“My father…liked to sing
around the house. he emulated Bing Crosby and Dean Martin, and my mother loved
it…She was a good piano player and kept encouraging me to sing for her…After
the downbeat, what came out of my mouth was an eight-year-old boy’s attempt to
imitate his dad’s deep baritone. I plunged my voice down as low as it could
go…My mother…collapsed in laughter and could not stop…I was forever after
reluctant to sing in public.”
“Disneyland opened in
Anaheim, California, on a day so
sweltering the asphalt on Main Street was as soft as a yoga mat.”
“I was…billed as ‘Steve
Martin: Youth and Magic’…The programs appeared from the printer with the
perfect prescient typo: ‘Steve Martin: Mouth and Magic.’”
For anyone who remembers
the 1970s and wants to laugh about it, Born
Standing Up is guaranteed to provoke so many nostalgic giggles that you’ll
probably have to explain things to the kids. What more can I say? Well, I laughed more while reading this book than I did while watching some of Martin's movies.
Additionally, it's a Fair Trade Book. Buy it here, $5 per book + $5 per package + $1 per online payment (if you pay cash for a real postal money order, the post office will collect its own surcharge), and we'll send $1 to Martin or a charity of his choice.
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