Recent Reads: Born Standing Up

Steve Martin’s memoir about his career in stand up comedy is the kind of thing you could read while standing in the bookstore, both because it’s that engaging and that short.  It’s a fascinating look not just at the mechanics behind a life in comedy, but the life that led to it, and away from it as well.

Most interesting to me was the way he manages to explain the troubles of celebrity in a way that doesn’t sound narcissistic.  It’s less about endless autograph seekers ruining dinners than about it symbolizing the end of the experimental and creative burst that led to his fame in the first place.  Once you’re famous people expect something, something very specific, from you.  Famous people aren’t supposed to be fresh or interesting.  They’re known quantities and when when they don’t deliver what we expect, people get upset.  That’s why people boo when musicians won’t play their hits.  And that’s why musicians start to hate their hits.  And ultimately that’s why you won’t see Steve Martin in a white three piece suit anytime soon.

But the book is not a lament, it’s an examination, an attempt to uncover what happened and how.  It’s honest, sometimes strikingly so, and fascinating.  If you desire a peek inside the mind of those who make you laugh, you probably won’t find a better guide than this.