oscaragain - The Monday Morning Memo

Even if Oscar Wilde hadn’t “taken a walk on the wild side” sexually, he’d still have been an outsider.

The Wildes were Protestants in late-1800’s Ireland – a country which was aggressively Catholic. They were also Protestant supporters of Irish nationalism.

This unique combination of beliefs made them outsiders by religion as well as outsiders within their own religious community.

Deeply influenced by this “outsiderness” during his formative years, Oscar developed a slicing wit.

But he wasn’t the first to confuse scalpel and pen.
Let’s not forget Alexander Pope.

Nor was he the last to walk on the wild side.
Remember Lou Reed in 1972?
(Wow. Has it really been 38 years?)

“Robin Williams goes for the long ball in every stand up. He doesn’t know where to stop. He doesn’t want to know. Thomas Wolf didn’t know where to stop in is prose, Keats in his poetry. ‘Load every rift with ore,’ he said. Ted Williams went for the long ball in his way on the baseball field. Remember the shift that other teams put on Williams? He always hit into it and through it, not to stick it to them, I think, simply because he wanted to hit the ball where he wanted to hit the ball. He probably could have hit 500 away from the shift, but, no. Remember his last home run in his last career at bat, how he refused to acknowledge the Boston fans, the same guy who hit into the shift? So the story of Tin Cup is the old one about safety and risk. And the point is that to be alone with one’s ability is the most secure position possible. It is where self-respect lies. It’s the story of Christopher Columbus. It’s the story of Don Quixote, and it’s a love story. “

- Roger Rosenblatt

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