I didn’t expect my throwaway item on Woody Allen to have caused quite so much of a hullabaloo
in
cyberspace. Around this town, Allen is generally thought to be soooo over. Go figure.
In all fairness, let me add this footnote: a few days after Jack Paar’s death last week, one of our local PBS affiliates reran a Paar clip show that included what I gather was Allen’s network TV debut as a standup comedian. I can just barely remember his standup days, and since then I hadn’t seen or heard any of his work from that period. I was struck by how fresh and engaging his style was–free, fantastic, not at all punchline-oriented. Judging by that clip, one could easily imagine him having evolved into an on-stage monologist