What’s on (October) second. Who’s on first, of course, and Tomorrow, the pitcher, will be the third, where you can find I Don’t Know, manning the infield catching Today…I mean, Today catching, and the last one, well, I Don’t Give a Darn. But the right fielder? We never find out his name.
As you’ve probably noticed, that’s the gist of the Who’s on First sketch by Lou Costello and Bud Abbot, whose birthday is today. Abbot was “the greatest straight man ever” according to Groucho Marx, whose birthday is also today. Both Abbot and Marx were born in the 1890s, started their careers doing vaudeville acts, then moved to Hollywood and started making movies — the Marx brothers started releasing movies in the 1930s, and Abbot and Costello began in 1940. In the 1950s, both Marx and Abbot began new careers in television. Marx was more successful, and his “game show” You Bet Your Life ran for 11 years. It was really a comedy interview show using a simple game as a premise. It was designed around Marx’ legendary ability to ad-lib funny lines.
The Marx Brothers really were brothers and remained close their whole lives. Abbot and Costello, though, didn’t get along very well. The rule of thumb about comedy duos in the industry was that the straight man got 60% of the earnings because that role was considered more important. It irked Costello so much that he demanded a 50-50 split, and then after the team moved to Hollywood, demanded 60%. He got it, but the friction between the two got so bad that they split in 1957.
They could have used some advice from Mohandas Gandhi, who was also born on October 2. He’s usually called Mahatma Gandhi, but that’s not really his name — “Mahatma” is an honorific like “Venerable.” He’s also known as Father of the Nation of modern India. As everybody knows, Gandhi was — and really still is — the leading symbol of nonviolent resistance to political and religious oppression and persecution.
Richard III of England, another October 2 baby, was in some ways the opposite of Gandhi, although they both lived on the cusp of historical change. In the case of Richard III, his death in the War of the Roses in 1485 is usually taken as the end of the Middle Ages in England. They’re both cultural icons, too — Richard III largely because of Shakespeare’s play about him. Among other things, the Richard III in the play is usually depicted with a physical deformity. The real Richard III did suffer from scoliosis, but it probably wasn’t very obvious at the time.
In spite of the popular tendency to equate nonviolence with passivity, Richard III and Mahatma Gandhi were both men of action, too. But there are different kinds of action. Wallace Stevens (also born today, as you probably just guessed) put it pretty well in one of his most famous poems, Gray Room:
Although you sit in a room that is gray,
Except for the silver
Of the straw-paper,
And pick
At your pale white gown;
Or lift one of the green beads
Of your necklace,
To let it fall;
Or gaze at your green fan
Printed with the red branches of a red willow;
Or, with one finger,
Move the leaf in the bowl–
The leaf that has fallen from the branches of the forsythia
Beside you…
What is all this?
I know how furiously your heart is beating.
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