Two hearts that stopped as one
September 2, 2009
ART CARNEY
In a 1956 episode of “The Honeymooners,” Ed Norton (Art Carney) is advising Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason) that one of their neighbors reads all the mail that comes into the building. To illustrate his point, Norton tells Ralph what the Kramdens’ gas bill was the previous month. And then he congratulates Ralph for breaking the all-time low gas bill record set by the Collyer Brothers in 1931.
The studio audience laughs, because they remember the Collyer Brothers, whose macabre death had occurred only about nine years before that episode was filmed. Homer and Langley Collyer, offspring of a well-to-do family, lived in a mansion in what was then high-fashion Harlem — remaining there after their father inexplicably abandoned them in 1919 and moved downtown. By that time the brothers were well educated — at least one of them had graduated from nearby Columbia — but instead of pursuing careers in engineering or admiralty law, they gradually withdrew from society, living like hermits and literally filling the house with tons of newspapers, bicycles, firearms, electric motors, musical instruments — a collection far too varied to be characterized, although it is usually referred to as “junk.”
LANGLEY COLLYER
In 1947, the two men died in the house under tragic circumstances. Langley Collyer had been killed by one of the booby traps he had assembled to ward off intruders and Homer, who was blind and largely helpless, had died of starvation, just a few feet from his brother’s body. Police and laborers removed 103 tons of material from the house, which was condemned and razed.
E.L. Doctorow has written a novel, “Homer and Langley,” being released this month, which consists of what Doctorow describes of his “reading” of the Collyer Brothers’ lives. By that he means that the book is not a history; in fact, he said he did no research, which may be an exaggeration, but he makes his point. He was curious, not about morbid details that had been repeated again and again, but about what motivated the two men to shut the world out of their lives or rather, as he puts it, to “emigrate” to a life within their home, a life lived on their own terms.
HOMER COLLYER'S BODY IS REMOVED FROM THE HOUSE
Doctorow was interviewed on NPR today — specifically, on “All Things Considered: — and his remarks suggested more respect for the Collyers than they usually are afforded. Certainly he eschewed the ridicule that an Ed Norton couldn’t help but attach to the names. The writer apparently doesn’t begin with a judgment about the brothers — or about people who don’t choose to live as others do. He begins with curiosity about how their lives fit into the whole picture of life in their time. He also said that he was saddened by a comment made in the novel by Homer, who is the narrator: “What could be more terrible than to be turned into a mythic joke?”
A story based on the Doctorow interview, the audio, and an excerpt from the novel are at this link:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112346577
It wasn’t her money I was after
September 1, 2009
Archie Comics
I turn my back on a woman for 50 years, and this is what happens. Veronica Lodge has agreed to marry Archie Andrews. I will admit that Archie has aged a lot better than I have, although he’s 10 months older, but I still consider this the height of perfidy.
The news has been out for a long time, but the comic book containing the engagement story arrived on news stands today — or so I’m told. I didn’t have the heart to look.
Meanwhile, the news today that Disney is going to buy Marvel Entertainment — Spider Man, Captain America and all — got me to thinking about the other comics I read, when I wasn’t fawning over Veronica.
My pantheon was Plastic Man, Blackhawk, the Green Lantern, Superman and Batman. Plastic Man had one of the most complicated personal histories of any comicbook hero. I don’t want to go into it here (I do have to teach the first class of the semester tomorrow morning) but one aspect of it is reminiscent of the Toxic Avenger, now an off-Broadway attraction, thanks to the George Street Playhouse. Toxie, to his intimates, was a nerd who was thrown into a vat of toxic chemical waste that turned him into a superhuman mutant. Plastic Man was an underworld figure who was accidentally sprayed with a chemical that made his body so flexible that he could bend himself into any shape, though he retained the red color and black-and-yellow stripes of his body suit. I remember him, for instance, disguising himself as an icicle, but even as a kid I didn’t understand why his pursuers couldn’t spot an icicle with that color scheme.
I don’t know whether this Disney transaction is good or bad, but I did read an analysis of the financial aspects of the engagement of Archie and Veronica. Roma Luciw, writing in The Globe and Mail, examined whether a couple with such disparate underpinnings — a wealthy she and a middle-class he — should enter into a prenuptial agreement. You can read what the experts think at this link:
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