Avoiding the promotional copy I must write for a book on Florentine architecture by listening to Steve Martin's trio of late-70s comedy albums. First time I've heard them since I was fully past the pubertal stage, and this is what I have to say: aside from the stadium show that makes up half of the second record (and which is a document of a phenomenon more than an honest-to-god comedy act), they hold up pretty damn well. Two things strike me now as I listen to these things. First, the guy worked his ass off. There are no approximations here; he honed something until it was exactly what he wanted it to be. (What a dogged worker he was. Think it would be funny to add some banjo-playing or juggling to the act? No problem, just spend a few years learning it.)
Second thing that strikes me is how Martin can take neither himself nor the audience seriously. He lampoons the whole concept of an audience with impossible sing-alongs, transparent pandering (check the absurdly technical joke for plumbers), meaningless confessions. His act is as totally free of vanity as it is of earnestness; all he can commit to is his intelligence and discipline.
For your convenience,
this guy has put links to all these albums on his blog. No Ukrainian-bride pop-up windows, no exotic file formats to convert, no Portuguese passwords to decipher, just good old-fashioned, illegally-shared recordings we can all download and enjoy.
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