The Sincerest Form of Ridicule (Pynchon, Parody, and Chandler Again

[Robin Landseadel]

	"In the ancient schools of rhetoric, parody fell under the aegis of
	irony, but it developed out of what the Romans called imitatio:
	budding orators imitating the compositions of master stylists not
	only to learn their tricks but to surpass them. Thus parody pays
	tribute even as it ridicules."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703846604575448083053935368.html

	If I were Robert Stack,
	there would be no unsolved mysteries.
	If I were Robert Stack,
		I would walk in godly pride;
		would have pride of hair,
		would wear makeup and be damned
		proud of it.
	If I were Robert Stack,
		I would know the score, and the score,
		it would know me,
	and I would sleep without dreams,
		and my hands
		would tremble and my eyes
		would close when
		the well within me emptied
		of all but
		the terror of desire,
	and I would get free suits,
		double-breasted one day,
		single-breasted the next.

Nick Tosches



On Aug 28, 2010, at 11:33 AM, alice wellintown wrote:

> By ERIC ORMSBY
> Literary parody is often described as verbal caricature. It's true
> that both parody and caricature rely on the exaggeration of quirks and
> idiosyncrasies for satiric purposes. But their differences go deeper.
> Caricature plays on the monstrous for comic pay-off; it turns earlobes
> into wind-flaps, lips into gaudy sausages. Parody can be just as
> crude, but usually it is slinkier, more insinuating; there's something
> snugly parasitic in its intimacy. The parodist must inhabit his
> victim's voice down to its least inflections—with close and lingering
> attention to those very flourishes an author is proudest of—only to
> turn the voice to ridiculous effect. The trick is to yoke the
> unmistakable manner to a grotesquely disproportionate subject.
>
> Parody is a form of impersonation, obviously, but also collaboration.
> What makes it so pleasurable, as Mr. Gross's anthology shows on every
> page, is not just the accuracy of the performance, though that's
> certainly essential. In the funniest parodies, there is the faint but
> unmistakable sense of giddy collusion; and in such improbable duets
> the parodist can't always be distinguished from the parodied.
>
> —Mr. Ormsby is a writer in London.
>
>
> In Today's WSJ