Born standing up autobiography7/6/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() From his youngest days as an amateur magician he tirelessly studied and analyzed the way audiences reacted to his every move, and he kept careful notes after every performance to help him better calibrate the jokes for the next one. ![]() The art of stand-up comedy is the specific focus of the book, which reveals its California-raised and Disneyland-trained author to be an incredible workaholic and a bit of a laugh-o-meter wonk. Having taken that last step toward personal revelation, Martin now dives completely into the memoir format with Born Standing Up, an autobiography that doubles as a dissertation on how to be funny in front of crowds. ![]() These include a collection of Dadaist prose pieces (“Cruel Shoes”), a brainy play (“Picasso at the Lapin Agile”), and, more recently, a wan love story (“Shopgirl”) involving a mild-tempered and wealthy adult rather like himself. It’s all too easy to package a stage routine into a book, slap on a grinning front-cover portrait and a catchy one-word title (Seinlanguage, Fatherhood) and hope nobody remembers hearing the same funny stories on The Tonight Show last year.īut Steve Martin has never taken the easy way out, and his latest offering will be held to high literary standards by readers who have enjoyed his previous books. Many comedians have written memoirs, but few have risked much in the effort. ![]()
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