Word: skow
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...really a pure Polish rabbi, he is Gene Wilder doing bits. We are asked to laugh at all too human failings, as we laugh at Tevye's in Fiddler on the Roof, but through some lapse of direction or acting, we are never really shown a man. - John Skow...
...fine journalists: John Skow's loving presentation of Russell Baker was rare and beautiful. Dorothy McCammon Goshen...
...little nervous clearing of the throat, perspiration on the palms and other involuntary manifestations of the trembles at the assignment: a cover story on Russell Baker, the humor columnist who writes so deftly himself that he won this year's Pulitzer Prize for commentary. But Contributor John Skow did not flinch. Says Skow: "I've followed Baker's column since he started it 17 years ago. You can tell merely by reading him that he's a very approachable...
...Skow approached Baker at his Nantucket Island retreat, where he found the columnist on his knees, plucking crab grass from a walk, and looking every bit the compulsive suburbanite sometimes mirrored in his column. Skow spent two days with the Baker family. He toured the island, shared the view from a widow's walk atop the house, and discovered that his 17-year impression of Baker was correct. Reports Skow: "He is not a performer. He is a man who lives very much inside his own head, a thoughtful conversationalist who would just as soon listen as talk...
Fortunately, Skow managed to get Baker talking-about himself, his humor, and the process by which he produces three columns a week. The first step: hours of vacant staring over a typewriter. Says Skow, who has dabbled with humorous writing himself in 23 years as a reviewer and journalist: "When I stare off into space, all I see are overdue phone bills. Baker gets a funny idea three times a week, while I get one about every four years. He is astounding...