Rabbit, remembered

Today is the birthday of one of my favorite writers, the late and great John Updike.

He was prolific in his day, writing 20 novels and a ton of pieces (short stories, criticism), mostly for The New Yorker. His best-known works were the "Rabbit" novels about, what else, a regular guy named Rabbit Angstrom.

Updike became and remained life-long friends with author John Cheever. Despite a rocky relationship at times, their fondness for one another was such that when Cheever was erroneously informed sometime in the mid-1970s by a reporter that Updike had died, he got out of bed, wept and wrote a moving tribute to his old friend.

Here is the complete episode of Updike and Cheever's joint appearance on Dick Cavett's PBS program in the early 1980s.

Updike by reputation remained a "regular guy" despite the fact he rose to the heights of American letters. He found early on he didn't like living in New York City and moved his family to Ipswich, Mass., near Boston.

Remembers Garrison Keillor in The Writer's Almanac:

"After his death of lung cancer in 2009, many of his neighbors remembered him as a down-to-earth fellow, a participant in several civic organizations, a guy in corduroy trousers who played regular poker with the boys."

Just before he died, I remarked to a friend after a Super Bowl party, "You know, I'd love to go to one of these things and, just once, hear someone discussing Updike short stories."

I'm still waiting.

Happy birthday, Mr. Benny!

Yes, yes, today is Valentine's Day. We know all that. (Love you, sweetheart!)

But, today is also the birthday of my all-time favorite comedian, the late and great Jack Benny!

Just in case you don't know him, Benny was a superstar in his day, first on radio and later on television. Coming out of vaudeville, he pioneered what we know now as the situation comedy.

He was also the king of perfect timing. All Jack needed was an exasperated look and an indignantly-uttered, "Well!" to get a laugh. No four-letter words for him.

His vain, miserly alter ego (so different, his friends said, from the warm-hearted real-life Jack Benny) is in my mind THE CHAMP of 20th century American comedy.

You can listen to at least 600 of his classic radio shows here.

And here is part one of a classic TV interview with Mr. Benny and Dick Cavett.

Happy birthday, Mr. Benny!

("Oh, shut up and sing, Dennis!")

Late night nostalgia

Well, this sure puts my blog to shame...

People ask me all the time if I'd been happier had I been born a generation before my time. The short, simple answer is yes.

Honest answer, though, is no. I feel like I get the best of both worlds -- plenty of nostalgia, but with modern technology and convenience. I'd hate to think about putting together our newspapers without desktop computers, for example.

Anyway, to my point. Discovered last night while looking for something else classic clips from Dick Cavett's old late night ABC television show. Very quickly for those who don't know, Cavett was ABC's early '70s competition to Johnny Carson's beloved, ever-popular NBC program. Cavett was intelligent, quirky, and tended to attract eclectic guests -- everybody from Norman Mailer to John Lennon.

Found out, too, that Cavett writes a funny, erudite blog for the New York Times. It can be found at http://cavett.blogs.nytimes.com. Treat yourself to it for a few minutes.

A few days after the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman died, TCM played an entire interview Cavett did with him in the early '70s. I think it was Bergman's American TV debut. Happened to catch it one night when I couldn't sleep. It was fascinating stuff, light-years away from the drivel you'd get on Letterman or Leno.

Surely there's room for such intelligent talk on TV today. Oh, I think Charlie Rose comes close, even if he doesn't ask hard questions and lacks, or at least doesn't display, Cavett's offbeat sense of humor. But you'll never see anything like this (or even what's on Charlie Rose's engaging show) on the Big Four, at least not in the late night time slot.

Take a few minutes and perform a "Dick Cavett" search on YouTube if you get time. If you're a movie buff, be sure and watch the interviews with Orson Welles. That guy was a genius, I don't care what anybody says.

OK, that's enough for now. Peace out. Gotta get back to work.