Terrible Analogies

At the top of his game, Steve Martin was an absolute madman.  This poet philosopher gave it all spilling blood on stage entertaining the masses and managing a strange kind of weirdness on the printed page.  In his book Cruel Shoes Steve Martin lamented on the wanton destruction of priceless architecture, questioned the assumed ignorance of canines, and mocked the malaise of simpleminded friends.  Equal parts poet and renegade, his minimized style of storytelling made for a quick read, but had wit enough to demand multiple readings.

Before he sunk so low as to make a “Pink Panther 2” sequel, Steve Martin was on the cutting edge of comedy.  Though I’m not quite old enough to have had the opportunity to witness firsthand his psychotic demented genius on stage, I was still lucky enough as a kid to stumble across a first edition of Cruel Shoes in the 80′s and instantly fell in love with his unbalanced, intelligent stream-of-consciousness style of writing.

If anybody doubts how cool Steve Martin was, check out his business card.

Cruel Shoes is a handsome novel to have in any collection.  It’s one that is guaranteed to be targeted by anyone casually perusing your book collection.  It’s easy to find online (although getting up there in price) and is well worth purchasing if only for that gratifying ”wtf” factor it elicits from friends.

My personal favorite entry from Cruel Shoes is “Serious Dogs”.  Enjoy!

Books, Funny Books, Cruel Shoes, Steve Martin