Changes of tone and style should be as frequent as changes of speaker and subject. Anecdote should not pile on anecdote but be mixed with observation, quip, hypothesis, question, etc. This is not just for the sake of variety. In conversation, unlike bridge, it’s bad taste to follow suit. If Miss A mentions that she knows an actress with 240 pairs of shoes, only a beast would let on that he’s met a countess who owns three hundred. It is your duty as host to mitigate such trespasses. You have to say something to the effect of “Yes, the countess does own three hundred pairs of shoes. But her father was so impoverished by European tax laws that he was forced to marry a wealthy insect, and therefore the lady in question has six feet.”
It is, in fact, your duty to see to the smooth running of all conversational machinery. In a perfect situation, this means nothing but keeping the glasses full. But usually you also need to curtail monopolization by the skilled, solicit participation from the dull, and excuse that participation to the spirited. You must dress nettled pride with compliments, perform oral surgery to remove people’s feet from their mouths, and, if argument gets completely out of hand, pretend the maid just had a baby in the kitchen.
Remember that trick. You’re also the person who will eventually have to make everyone shut up and go home.
An Alphabet for Schoolboys
Consisting of simple verses replete with sound advice on manners and learning and admonishments both moral and otherwise
A is for Algebra, thoroughgoing bore. To pass it is asked you, no less and no more. For though algebra’s dreary, complex, and abstruse, Thank God, out of school, it’s of no further use.
B is for Beer. It makes you act lewd And stupid and loud. It’s a ruinous fluid For people with taste, for people who think. Beer is not nice. It’s a bad thing to drink. The consumption of beer is low-class and risky. Stick to gin, vodka, cocaine, and whiskey.
C is the mark you should always have made. It’s a simple and forthright and manly-type grade. For an “A” gives your peer group sad indication Of a social life lacking inspiration, While “B” is overreaching for most humankind, Yet displays lassitude in the genius mind, And “D” is the sign of a mental defective, And “F” invites violent parental invective. “C” is the best. It shows moderation, The goal of philosophers in each age and nation.
D is for Drugs, that’s to say, marijuana. A most common flora with your age of fauna. This herb is mind-widening; it improves your
perspective,
And makes you intuitive, kind, and perceptive. It heightens your senses, sets your psyche free, Causes you to care for ecology, And imbues you with other qualities that Let people sneak up and crap in your hat.
E is for Effort. Never let it show. If you look like you’re trying, people will know That you have aspirations, that you are ambitious. They’ll consider you dangerous, pushy, malicious. Traditional society is not forgiving Of the upwardly mobile. They’re made to work for a
living.
F is for Failure, a horrible curse. Success is the only thing known that is worse. People like goof-offs, losers, and quitters. Towards champions and victors they feel little but bitter. Pretend you succeeded and say that you spurned it. But if you succeed, don’t let on that you earned it. There’s something for which folks have more hate
reserv’d
Than for chance success. It’s success
deserv’d.
G is for solid Geometry
Which mystifies you as it mystified me. So much so, in fact, I’m afraid I’m not deft Enough to go rhyme it. I’ll make another rhyme on F: F is for Fun—toot-toot! beep-beep! Have it all now. It doesn’t keep.
H is for Hard-ons, erections in your pants, During gym, in the lunch line, and at the Y dance. Don’t blush, don’t blow off your head with a Mauser Because of the rude bulging tent in your trousers. Just wait, relax, thirty years from this fall You’ll feel total elation to have one at all.
I stands for Integration, interethnical mix, Where busing gives society’s inequities the fix. Don’t slug your new schoolmate or whack his nappy
dome.
Don’t slap him or tease him or arson his home. Cheer him instead on field, in gym, at race, And win money bet on his oddly hued face.
J is for Jack-off, a.k.a. masturbation. Do it each school night and twice on vacation. It’s much less expensive than what you do with your
dick
When you’re grown up—as you will find all too quick.
K is for Kleenex suffused with your love. (Vid. poem for J directly above.)
L is for Latin, a language so peaked Even the Romans of yore do not speak it. If you don’t believe what I say, go see Reruns of I, Claudius from the BBC.