Word: barnumism
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Sideline Seat. Nowadays, Columnist Rose is waist-deep in the fanciest possible metaphors. At its best, his talk combines the shriller styles of E. E. Cummings, a nightspot headwaiter, P. T. Barnum and a Polo Grounds peanut vendor. But he flavors this potpourri with a cynical wit. "What people don't seem to see," he complains, "is the Billy who sits on the sidelines and laughs at the game...
...Bantam Barnum." Billy Rose's skyrocket career as a showman began with a miserable fizzle called Corned Beef & Roses. Desperately, he rewrote it, renamed it Sweet & Low. Though it had Fanny Brice in some of the original Baby Snooks routines (which Billy wrote), it thudded again. Billy rewrote the show a second time, renamed it Crazy Quilt, and took it on the road. Billed as "A Saturnalia of Wanton Rhythm Featuring Exotic Divertissements," Crazy Quilt played to packed houses at almost every stop. In nine months, Rose recouped his $75,000 outlay and made $240,000 clear profit...
...stale bagels. To keep up the chatter, Billy hired Pressagent Maney. In the next seven years, Maney forced the growth of the real Rose with a rich and soggy compost of legends, half-truths and downright fiction. But Maney also spread Billy's fame as a "Bantam Barnum," "Mighty Midget" and "Basement Belasco...
...Manhattan, where elephants rather than robins mark the arrival of spring, Madison Square Garden was again playing host last week to the Ringling Bros, and Barnum & Bailey circus. This year there were no Stravinsky or Deems Taylor scores, no Balanchine ballets, no suggestion that the circus is a Fine Art. There was no need for the new wrinkles of the war years: there was once again an abundance of new blood. Forty acts-virtually everything but the animals and clowns-were labeled "First Time in America...
There are some public-relations experts who dispute Barnum's dictum that any publicity is good publicity. But few of these heretics work for ball clubs. The Lip gets in print oftener, and apparently without trying, than any other five baseball managers put together. Not until this year has anyone seriously questioned the sales value of this publicity...