“You can certainly use some highbrow expressions, when you set yourself to it, Archy,” I said to the incredible cockroach. But the conceited insect kept right on butting his opinions out on the keyboard.
the legitimate stage
is afraid of ranting
the legitimate stage is afraid
of any breadth of gesture
the legitimate stage is afraid
of being kidded if it puts across
a genuine fervor of emotion
it is all tightened up and narrowed down
by its various fears
but the movies from the start
have had to please the millions
in order to exist in a business way
and they have had to keep in touch
with the mind of the mob
and the mob always wants a hero in a story
with whom it can identify itself
in some attempt to break through
into a better condition of existence
the great fault of the movies
has also been their great virtue
that is their necessity to cater to millions
it has compelled them to keep in touch
with the modern equivalent of folk lore
every now and then they have blundered
into doing something with a touch
of the universal in it just
because they follow ignorantly
this instinctive hunch of theirs
Archy ceased to write, and held his head with four of his feet. I thought he was grieving for the condition of the theater, and asked him if this was the case.
no he said
the theater has deserted me
and i am willing to let it go
it saddens me a little to think
that thousands of generations of us
devoted cockroaches are left in the lurch
but the fact is that the legit stage
is no longer the theater in a big way
the moving picture is the theater now
the living and real theater
archy flies
well boss i have had
some experiences you know that
fellow with the teeth that glitter
and the eyes that glitter who
comes in to see you and
who has been talking about his aeroplane
for six months you thought he
was always a liar and
so did i he is the kind of a liar who
looks so much like a liar no one
believes him when he tells the
truth i thought i would call
his bluff so i crawled into
his outside breast pocket the other day
and went out to a place near mineola
with him he really has an aeroplane he
went up in it the next morning and
i went along boss i must have
picked out the wrong position i sat
on top of one of the planes thinking i would see
more of the country boss
dont ask me for any sensations the
only thing i felt was wind i felt
like a sigh in a cyclone i had
about as much control of myself as a
bullet that is going through the
barrel of an airgun i dont want
to rub anything in boss but it
was as hard to hang onto as the water
wagon which is a simile
you may be able to appreciate i
i must have picked out the wrong position
dug all my feet and claws
and teeth in but the wind rushed by
me like a church scandal going
through a little village i would have
felt nausea if
my stomach hadnt been scared to death
it was only a question of time before i
would let loose thank heaven i thought i am
not an elephant i didnt
want to die again so soon just because
i can come to life again is
no reason for overworking a good thing too
many deaths and transmigrations look
vulgar and ostentatious
and when i did let go i must have
been two miles high around and
around i spun whirling like a flake of
soot that has been flipped
off of a devils wing between the
worlds and is spinning back home to
hell and beneath me it looked
like hell there was a vast expanse of water
with the sun making it
seem like melted metal i suppose i said
i will get all my feet wet now and
take my death of cold if a fish
dont eat me and just then i saw
beneath me a great fish grinning as if
he had heard a joke on the
bottom of the sea and come up to
laugh at the cosmos get that
cosmic stuff boss it goes great in some
circles i lit on one of his great white teeth
and waited for the gulp that should land
me in his interior department oh
lord i said if i ever see dry land i
will never mock at that jonah story
again i dont want to die in
midocean and be reincarnated as a
sardine or as an oyster
a cockroach isnt much but
he has a look in in society where
an oyster is never mentioned except as an
article of food but if it
must be it must be kismet and karma and
that bunch of bullies vote us the way they
please we are only instructed delegates
in the universal convention every
time i die it makes me more of a fatalist and
i waited for him to gulp but
he didnt gulp i hopped over to
the next tooth to the right as you go in
and investigated and finally climbed
out where his upper lip would have been if he had
had one and worked up to his eye it was
glassy in death i was floating on a dead shark
and it was all the more unpleasant
because he had not had any dental work done for a
long time or else he had adenoids or maybe
he had died of ptomaine poisoning boss what i am
delicately trying to convey is
that he had been dead so long he had a right to
be ashamed of it just then i
heard human voices and looking around i saw
two young men in bathing suits and
br /> a motor boat a shark a shark cried one
of them put her about the motor is still
busted said the other row row for your
life but wait said the first one this
shark seems deceased bill lets haul him to land
and say we slew him right o torn says
bill it will make a hit with all the girls he
attacked us says torn and i jumped into the water and
cut his throat with my jackknife you
did eh says bill what was i doing then put two
slashes into him which they did one for each and
fastened him to the stern of their boat with a
line and as they towed him to the beach with
me sitting listening they fixed
up an awful lie talk about ovations boss when they