Word: humorists
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...house. "There is just a lucidity and a sanity about him that is so distinctive. He writes clearly because he thinks clearly." Presidential Aspirant Eugene McCarthy once jokingly proposed making Baker U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's; McCarthy confirms that the offer is still open. Says Humorist S.J. Perelman, whose fine, loopy wit has, almost unassisted, maintained The New Yorker's franchise as a funny magazine over the past couple of decades: "You can rely on Baker for honesty in his laughter and his anger. He has the courage to write a serious column when...
Baker did not see himself as a humorist when he started the column, he says, and still doesn't really. His intention was "to write plain English, Anglo-Saxon root words and short sentences for readers of the Times, who were suffocating on polysyllabic, Latinate English." If he had models, he says, they were E.B. White's "Talk of the Town" pieces for The New Yorker and his mentor at the Times, James Reston. Says he: "Reston taught the Times to write English...
...unaware of that, though today he suspects that Mencken was the elderly gentleman who one day called the cops to chase Baker and some fellow ballplayers out of the square. In high school, young Russell was well liked, athletic (he ran the quarter mile) and showed promise as a humorist with a senior-year essay...
When Syndicated Humorist Art Buchwald heard that Russell Baker had won a Pulitzer Prize, he addressed a memo to half a dozen of the nation's top humor columnists accusing Baker of spending $100,000 to lobby for the prize and suggesting a response to any queries about the award: "I have no comment until I read one of Baker's columns." When Baker received the bulletin, he fired off one of his own, thanking his colleagues for planning a gala testimonial dinner in his honor. "Unfortunately, I cannot accept," he added, "as I will be busy throughout...
...HUMORIST...