Reply To: Topical News Humor

[Patte Rosebank]

Tom Lehrer is a truly amazing person…especially when you consider that his liner notes about “being prepared to deny, under oath, having anything to do with these songs” wasn’t just an idle bit of satire, in those dark days of McCarthyism.  As a member of the faculty at Harvard, he stood to lose a lot, if someone had decided to investigate him further for his “subversive tendencies”.

I’ve loved his songs since I was really little, when I used to watch “The Electric Company” (the original one, NOT the current drek).  He did several songs for it, including “Silent E”, “L-Y”, “N’T”, “SNore, SNiff, SNeeze”, and “The HOUnd Song”.

When I got a little bit older, I discovered his more satirical canon, and I got a copy of “The Tom Lehrer Songbook”.  To this day, one of my vocal warm-ups (for enunciation) is to sing through “The Elements”.  And it was a proud day for this little mathematical illiterate (ilcalculate?) when I learned the concept of “New Math” from his song about it.

I’ve written to him 3 times in the past 25 years, and he’s always written back.  This puts me well into the running for the title of World’s Laziest Stalker.

In his first letter to me, he said something that makes so much sense, that it’s always stuck with me: 

“Next to money, I like adulation best.”

(Works for me!)

 

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