DISCOVERING WEBER AND FIELDS If There Had Been Erudite Criticism in the Nineties
Reading edition
From the lowly precincts of the music halls has arisen a new pair of pragmatists. The names that appear on the bills are Weber and Fields, but the hands are the hands of William James. And so and so and so and so.
The method of these zanies is eclectic. From Zeno the Stoic they have taken the doctrine of “six-times-six-is-thirty-six.” From Anaxagoras the theory that the Whole is less than any of its parts. From Francis Bacon the denial of Truth as a substantive. From L. G. B. three dozen woolen stockings and a crate of oranges.
Take for example the scene where Mike and Meyer are discussing occupations (in itself pure dialectics):
Meyer: Vot are you doing?
Mike: Voiking in a nut factory.
Meyer: Doing vot?
Mike: Nutting.
Meyer: Sure—but vot are you doing?
Mike: Nutting.
Meyer: I know, but vot voik are you doing?
Mike: Nutting, I tole you.
Meyer (poking his finger in Mike’s eye): Ou-u-u-u, how I lofe you!
Here we have the new philosophy of the subconscious, the stirrings of a new American humor which derives from the modern German school of Merkwürdigkeit, or Es-giebt-also-es-ist. In the American mind is being born, through the medium of the music hall, a consciousness of national social satire which bids fair to revolutionize thought on this side of the Atlantic. Could a better example be found than the following dialogue between these two super-clowns in their latest show:
Mike (referring to off-stage noises): A soldier has been shot.
Meyer: Vere vos he shot?
Mike: In de eggcitement!
Here, in these words, lies America. The America of today, with its flaring gas lights, its thundering cable cars, the clatter of its hansoms, and the deafening whistle of its peanut stands. The young, vibrant spirit of America, locked in the message of two clowns! And, with the coming of jazz, twenty years from now, we shall see the full expression of the young nation’s strivings toward the Greater Smooch.