Adam Begley Quote
With his romantic weakness for gags—inherited from his father, along with his talent for pratfalls—Updike was a willing participant in the Lampoon’s elaborately orchestrated social frivolity. During his Fools’ Week in February 1951, he starred in a stunt he remembered with what seems today somewhat misplaced pride; he called it his one successful impersonation. Disguised as a blind cripple selling pencils, he stationed himself in front of Widener Library; a couple of his fellow fools, dressed as priests, bought some pencils and then began to argue with him, claiming to have been shortchanged. The quarrel drew a crowd—whereupon the two priests pulled large codfish from under their cassocks and pelted him, in his blind
With his romantic weakness for gags—inherited from his father, along with his talent for pratfalls—Updike was a willing participant in the Lampoon’s elaborately orchestrated social frivolity. During his Fools’ Week in February 1951, he starred in a stunt he remembered with what seems today somewhat misplaced pride; he called it his one successful impersonation. Disguised as a blind cripple selling pencils, he stationed himself in front of Widener Library; a couple of his fellow fools, dressed as priests, bought some pencils and then began to argue with him, claiming to have been shortchanged. The quarrel drew a crowd—whereupon the two priests pulled large codfish from under their cassocks and pelted him, in his blind
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About Adam Begley
Begley is the son of Sally (Higginson) and novelist Louis Begley. He graduated from Harvard College in 1982, and from Stanford University with a Ph.D. in English and American literature in 1989.
His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement, The Spectator, and The Atlantic.
He lives with his wife, Anne Cotton, in Great Gidding, Cambridgeshire. His stepdaughter is the novelist and art critic, Chloë Ashby.
He is the author of biographies of John Updike and the 19th-century French photographer Nadar. His biography of Harry Houdini appeared in the Yale Jewish Lives series. He is a frequent contributor to the Paris Review's Art of Fiction series.
He is currently at work on a book about Harvard College.