Word: borscht
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...owner of a Jewish resort in the Catskills hired a skinny, crazy kid named Mel to amuse the middle-aged couples lounging around the swimming pool. That proprietor could hardly have known it, but in hiring that kid he unleashed a comic force of staggering proportions upon the Borscht Belt and eventually, the rest of the world. Mel Brooks was plainly crazy. He would do anything to get a laugh, and while his written gags frequently bore the stamp of genius, he often resorted to simply slapstick or "dirty" words. Either way, audiences loved him or his material, and today...
...remains a performance as well. Once, Slava bounced into the Russian Tea Room, Manhattan's best-known musicians' hangout and, spotting an old friend across the crowded room, released a full-voiced salutation consisting of several raunchy eleven, twelve-and 13-letter cuss words. The room grew silent. The borscht turned pale. "See!" crowed Slava cheerily. "I learn your language...
...Portnoy was, given to frequent exclamations, flurries of rhetorical questions ("Is she not the single most desirable creature I have ever known?") and carefully italicized emphases. He tosses off one-liners (calling, for instance, his Aunt Sylvia "the Benvenuto Cellini of strudel") as if he has a stable of Borscht Belt writers churning out his material. On the psychiatric couch, Kepesh is a regular lie-down comic: "I cannot maintain an erection, Dr. Klinger. I cannot maintain a smile, for that matter...
With splotches of caviar and borscht still fresh on their lapels, the all-male a capella chorus comes twenty-five strong to perform at Sanders this Friday night, in the first of their public concerts since they returned to the country. What a range in character and style the group boasts of! It has performed from San Francisco to Moscow, is composed of Engineering to Slavic majors, has alumni in international opera companies and huge business corporations, and stores a repertoire of liturgical and secular music ranging geographically from Latvia to Macedonia. But the range stops somewhere. According...
...like the raging energy and fantasy of Henderson the Rain King (1959) do not always thrill to the hothouse introspection of Herzog (1964). Those who can get along with the serious, well-mannered author of Dangling Man (1944) and The Victim (1947) are likely to gasp at the wisecracking Borscht Belt comic who hoofs onstage during parts of Humboldt's Gift. The picaresque hero of The Adventures of Augie March (1953) is a brash New World kid, while a wise Old World man fills the title role of Mr. Sammler's Planet...