The Fable of the Visitor Who Got a Lot for Three Dollars

George Ade Dept.: I’ve heard no reports of an uptick in sales of George Ade’s Fables in Slang despite my promotion of those wonderful works in this column. Of course, you can download an e-book from Gutenberg or get a print-on-demand copy through that online behemoth – but I’m happy to keep supplying you. Newspaperman Ade hit pay dirt when he dreamed up these fables, and once his first collection of them was published, he was able to take a lot of that pay dirt to the bank. llustrations by Clyde J. Newman

                                                                          

THE LEARNED PHRENOLOGIST sat in his Office surrounded by his Whiskers.

Now and then he put a Forefinger to his Brow and glanced at the Mirror to make sure that he still resembled William Cullen Bryant.

Near him, on a Table, was a Pallid Head made of Plaster-of-Paris and stickily ornamented with small Labels. On the wall was a Chart showing that the Orangoutang does not have Daniel Webster's facial angle.

“Is the Graft played out?” asked the Learned Phrenologist, as he waited. “Is Science up against it or What?”

Then he heard the fall of Heavy Feet and resumed his Imitation. The Door opened and there came into the Room a tall, rangy Person with a Head in the shape of a Rocky Ford Cantaloupe.

Aroused from his Meditation, the Learned Phrenologist looked up at the Stranger as through a Glass, darkly, and pointed to a Red Plush Chair.

The Easy Mark collapsed into the Boarding-House Chair and the Man with more Whiskers than Darwin ever saw stood behind Him and ran his Fingers over his Head, Tarantula-Wise.

Moscow on the Mohawk, or Hooked on Russia

From the Food Vault Dept.: This review, which I'd wanted to share much earlier, turned out to be hiding in a computer directory where it shouldn’t have been, another example of glasnost gone wrong. The night of this visit was more memorable than the piece suggests. True, we eschewed dancing to the loud, bad disco music played by two loud instruments and a rhythm box, but the party of twenty that filled up the room became increasingly boisterous, insisting that we join their table (we didn’t) or at least join them in a vodka toast – which we did, but only because they convinced us that their friends in the kitchen were not going to send out our food until we did so. Not surprisingly, the restaurant closed not long after this review appeared, but that closure surely was in the works already.

                                                                                            

LATER, TRYING TO RECONSTRUCT THE EVENING, my wife and I had trouble ascertaining just what it was that pushed it all over the top. The big birthday party, to be sure, and the Russian disco band. The mini-skirted, satin-bloused waitresses added an entertaining touch (and the worry that Schenectady’s fleshaphobic mayor might try to close down this place). Then there was the formidable menu, sporting such unusual items as schti, which our waitress wouldn’t describe because the kitchen was out of it, so why bother?

The current occupant at this address.

Troika – the name refers to the team of three horses that pulls a traditional Russian carriage – occupies a building that went through a few incarnations as Indian restaurants, interrupted by a stint serving Korean food. To put a Russian restaurant there is a delightful idea. The location does seem to be a kiss of death, though.

So my first question would have been about that location. Unfortunately, my follow-up phone calls to manager Ella were unsuccessful. She was too busy with customers to talk one day, which is a good sign; but she couldn’t honor our phone appointment the next day, however, because “she’s having some trouble with the boss,” the phone-answerer whispered, explaining, “I’m just a friend who stopped by to visit today.”

The Old Song and Dance

From the Theater Vault Dept.: Despite my lifelong Lloyd Webber antipathy, I felt inclined to like this show just on the basis of its unusual concept. And I’m a great fan of good dance. But this one turned out to be yet another Lloyd Webber show, and reading my review of it again after all these years (the piece dates back to 1987), I now understand the root of that antipathy. It was a high-school trip to see “Jesus Christ Superstar” on Broadway. I was a senior, and at last had a girlfriend – or so I thought. We sat together on the bus heading into Manhattan, and were adjacent in the theater. But I was by then picking up this-ain’t-gonna-last vibes, and, sure enough, it didn’t. I couldn’t blame it on her – I loved her, with what must have been terrifying first-relationship fervor. I was too self-centered at that point to blame myself, so I had to blame someone. I blamed Lloyd Webber.

                                                                                                 

Melissa Manchester

“SONG AND DANCE,” the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that began a week’s run at Proctor’s Theatre Tuesday night, presents us with a dilemma that is all too characteristic of the contemporary musical-theater stage: Bimbo comes to the city, is too stupid to maintain a successful social relationship, gets mean, regrets it, and acts stupid again. Curtain.

The two acts are divided according to the title: the first is sung; the second, danced. Emma is a Brit who comes to New York to make a success as a hat designer. But, until she gets her green card, she makes time with a succession of mercurial men, culminating in a short-lived affair with a married man from Westport who wants to leave his wife and kids for her. So she dumps him.