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Sunday, January 21, 2018

Thornton P. Knowles On Pretentious Humor

The bartender at a writer's conference I spoke at in Morgantown, West Virginia wore a name tag that read, TRUMAN CAPOTE. In the spirit of the joke, I ordered an "In Cold Bloody Mary". The barkeep didn't even crack a smile. I guessed it wasn't a West Virginia kind of joke, then realized it was simply pretentious, professorial humor. It wasn't funny. I got fall-down drunk that night worrying that I had morphed from a writer into a cold-blooded academic.

Thornton P. Knowles

4 comments:

  1. Hey, Thornton P, I thought your remark was very clever and funny, not to mention approprite for the occasion. Perhaps the bartender is one of those I'll-wait-till-the-movie-comes-out people!But what do I know- I'm just an old (unpublished) writer!

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    1. You raise an interesting point regarding the movie which was better than Capote's book. I just watched it the other day. Thanks for the comment.

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