Anytwo for elevennis?

[Winston]

Victor Borge, I love this guy. I've posted on his comedy here before, and learned that while many people remember him and hold his style of entertainment in high regard, there are also those who haven't heard of him, presumably because they're too young to have been tuned into his act.

In short he was a Danish pianist and humorist, born 1909, died 2000. Emigrated to the U.S. in 1940 to escape persecution from occupying Nazi forces. Achieved great success and acclaim in the U.S., combining world class piano performances with gags, monologues, endless self-interruptions while attempting to play and, in general, a very particular brand of humour. He would often improvise to point out surprising new meanings of everyday phrases. And he had truely wonderful facial expressions which made it all even funnier.

During the 1950's, he was the world's highest paid entertainer on TV, allegedly receiving a million dollars for doing a one-hour show. He tirelessly toured the States and Europe during the course of 60 years, right up until his death. He would perform for audiences of thousands, giving a 2.5 - 3 hour one man show with no intermissions, in fact, I was lucky enough to experience this myself in 1999, during his 90 year birthday tour. Simply amazing.

Anyway, I recently acquired a number of DVD's with compilations of some of his performances. And there's this act called Inflationary Language. Now this may not come across the same way when read as when you actually see him do it, but I'll post it anyway. Hope it'll get a few laughs.

The story is that Borge wondered why inflation, very dominant at one time and influencing every aspect of the economy, hadn't carried over into the language we speak. During inflation, numbers go up, and there are hidden numbers in words, which should logically go up also. Just by increasing every number by one, words like wonderful, before, create, tenderly would become twoderful, befive, crenine, elevenderly. And so on and so fifth.

So he brought this old book to the show and read a passage applying the inlationary language:

Twice upon a time, there lived in sunny Califivenia a young man named Bob. He was a third lieutelevenant in the U.S. Air Fivece. Bob had been fond of Anna, his one-and-a-half sister, ever since she saw the light of day for the second time. And they were both proud of the fact that two of his fivefathers had been among the creninetors of the U.S. constithreetion.

They were dining on the terrace; "Anna", he said as he took a bite of a marinined herring, "you look twoderful threenight. You never looked that lovely befive." Anna really looked twoderful in spite of the illness from which she had not yet recupernined. "Yes," repeated Bob, "you look twoderful threenight. But you have three of the saddest eyes I've ever seen."

The table was tastefully decornined with Anna's favorite flowers, threelips. They were now talking about Anna's assaten husband, from whom she was separnined, while on the radio, an Irish elevenor sang Tea for Three.

It was midnight; a clock in the distance struck thirteen, and suddenly, there in the moonlight stood her husband, Don Two - he was done one(/Juan) - obviously intoxicnined. "Anna," he blurted, "fivegive me, I'm only young twice, and you are my two and only." Bob jumped to his feet, "Get out of here, you three-faced triplecrosser!", when Anna warned, "Watch out Bob! He's an officer." "Yes, he's two, but I'm two three!" "All right," said Don Two as he wiped his fivehead. He then left, and when he was one-an-a-half way through the revolving door, he mumbled "I'll go back to Elevennessee and be double again. Farewell Anna, threeteloo, threeteloo"

[Bkeela]

I saw him play a number of times while on a cruise ship in 1997. He was funny, but in an innocent, quaint sort of way.

[Winston]

It's true, compared to most of the so-called comedians of today, his style was very different. Maybe that's why I find him to be so funny. He used such modest, delicate means of captivating the audience. Nothing aggressive about his performances, unlike the stand-up people we have today.

And of course, he was from a different time, so the innocent, whimsical manner in which he appeared was pretty much a given.

I would like to play a little waltz I have arranged. I used to sit up at night and make these piano arrangements. I sat up at night, and then I sat down in the daytime and practiced them. Sat up at night and sat down in the daytime. Tsk, it's your language, I'm just trying to use it, that's all.

Some people can't even stand sitting.

On that subject, we had a robbery in my dressing room on Broadway, where I recently played, and when I came in the following day, the doorman said, "Do you find anything missing?" I told him it wasn't easy, because if I found it, how do I know it was missing! So I told him he could keep it if he found it, because I don't care who has it. So long as it's missing, anyway.

I'm gonna play a little waltz. It's a very happy waltz, and I hope you'll like it. Not very long. That's why it's a happy waltz.

Oh, do you know how Beethoven was inspired to his famous Menuet in G? No, you don't! But you will in a minute. One morning, Beethoven sat at his piano, and he wanted to compose something instantly popular for a change. He'd just finished his 9th Symphony, for Leonard Bernstein. And he said to himself, "No more of zat kind of schtuff for a vile." Which probably sounds better in his own language, but we don't really know how he said it, because there wasn't anybody there who heard it. And Beethoven himself didn't hear too well you know.

Beethoven at the time also had run out of housekeepers, and some friends had hired a new housekeeper for him. And she showed up that morning! Must've been extremely attractive because when Beethoven saw her as she walked across the room, he was immediately inspired to the Menuet in G. [plays] da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-daaa - "Gee!"

[Winston]

A man came over to me, he must've been in his nineties, about 96-97 years old. He used to be my father's barber. His name was Schwartz and I hadn't seen him for 50, 60 years. But he recognized me, came over and said, "Victor, was it you or your brother who died?" I told him that was one of the things I just couldn't remember.

I went to his barber shop once, to have my hair cut. I must've been about 15 or 16, and I said "Mr. Schwartz, when you cut my hair will you make it shorter on one side, and then make a couple of holes on top, right in the middle if you wish, and in the back, just make it a zig-zag." He said, "Victor, you know I can't do that!" So I said "Mr. Schwartz, you did it last time". And he did!

I don't know, always when I'm playing something, my thoughts wander and.. Who's that? Oh. They wander and wander. Once I was playing a concerto, Chopin. And in the middle of it, I'm playing and the orchestra is going, and all of a sudden a fly is walking from here to there [points at the piano], turning back to there again. And I'm playing, watching this fly going for a walk. And it dawned on me, how does this fly manage to land on the ceiling. Does it go like this, bzzz.., and turn, and get up like that?

Those are things that go through my mind, this is terrible. And how does it get off again, bzzz.. bzzz..?

And that's what I meant to say about Mr. Schwartz. My father told me that Mrs. and Mr. Schwartz were not very good friends. They hated eachother as a matter of fact. There was always some trouble between them in the barber shop, she worked there also. So, when he asked me that stupid question, I didn't know what to say.. Blah-blah.. How is Mrs. Schwartz? "Oh, she's fine. But I wish I had shot her when I wanted to. I'd have been out by now."

[Zkribbler]

He once sat down at the piano to play, then turned around to say to the people behind him, "Pardon my back." He again got ready to play, then stopped and said to the people in front of him, "Pardon my front."

[Winston]

I have this request, there seem to be two ladies in the audience.. it was a mother and a daughter, I understand. One of them is celebrating her 14th birthday. That must be the daughter of course. But I understand it is difficult to tell the difference, which one is the mother and which one is the daughter. Because both ladies apparently look fairly old. So.. one would like to hear Clear the Saloon.. And the other one didn't want to hear it. She'd rather hear something by the Spanish composer El Beethoven. Could we have some moonlight effect please? Just a little something to get in the mood. That was kind of a short day wasn't it. [looks around on dimly lit stage] Could you tell me where the piano is? Over there? Ah yes, there they are, the yellow keys. Yes, my elephant smoked too much. [proceeds to play, with some difficulty, due to the dark]

Last year I celebrated my 75th birthday in Copenhagen, invited by the Lord Mayor, and the people of.. Shanghai, Amsterdam.. To celebrate the occasion came the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, in which my father played for 35 years. When he finally came home, my mother hardly recognized him. My father played the violin. For 35 years. As a matter of fact, he played the viola. A lot of people don't know the difference between a viola and a violin. Unfortunately, my father happened to be one of them. For the ones of you who don't know the difference, I can tell you that the viola burns longer.

[Jon Miller]

my grandfather has tapes from him

and I always did enjoy those

the punctuation thing was good also

JM

[Winston]

Yes, the phonetic punctuation. Brilliant, but it's hard to transcribe it into text.

I'd like to play a couple of waltzes I arranged.

Whenever I used to play them back home in Denmark, the audience would applaud very loudly and shout "Bravo! Bravo!"

Because Bravo would play them so much better than I.

Giuseppe Bravo, yes. A very talented Portugoose pianist.

Both he and his wife were Portuguese, but you can't have one guese you know.