Entertainment
Smiley Anders, Champion Writer, Was Also a Champion Reader | Entertainment/Life
Smiley Anders, whose column appeared in this newspaper for many years, will be remembered as an astute scribe, leaving behind thousands of columns and several published collections of his work when he died recently at age 86.
Smiley, a famous writer, was also a tireless reader, as I recalled when I visited his home last December. He had been in poor health and confined to his home for some time, and like many convalescents, Smiley kept the necessities close at hand to avoid having to get up.
Not surprisingly, these must-haves included books. As I chatted with Smiley that morning, I couldn't help but notice two volumes near his elbow. One was a new edition of A Mencken Chrestomathy, a 1949 collection of writings by the Baltimore diarist H.L. Mencken. The other was Pieces of the Frame, an assortment of articles by New Yorker writer John McPhee.
Mencken, a mischievous national commentator who died in 1956, took pleasure in reviving chrestomathia, an old-fashioned word for a choice collection, for his book project.
Smiley was a gentler guy than Mencken, but he shared his hero's keen eye for the bizarre, a preference, in Smiley's case, that prompted him to collect from his loyal readers a steady stream of howling puns , comical spelling mistakes and hysterical malapropisms. I will not repeat them here; they are best sampled in Smiley's own work, always there for the enjoyment of his fans.
Although from different generations, Smiley and I were both fans of Mencken and enjoyed comparing notes about him. In college, Smiley had been assigned to read Newspaper Days, Mencken's exhilarating account of his early years as an ink-stained wretch. What Mencken described struck young Smiley Anders as a job he might enjoy, too.
Years later, I came across Menckens Minority Report in high school. After growing up in the shadow of Watergate, I was drawn to the idea of journalism as something noble and important. Reading Mencken convinced me that it could also be fun.
When Smiley began writing his newspaper column in 1979, the pain of Watergate was still fresh. The same year, Iranian students seized the American embassy in Tehran and took American hostages, triggering a long diplomatic crisis. Then as now, readers woke up every morning to some pretty grim headlines.
But by sharing stories of family bonds, good deeds and good humor, Smiley offered us each morning a forgiving mirror in which we could see the best of ourselves reflected. It was a daily exercise in possibilities, a reminder of how we could support the community and how the community could support us.
I was heartened to see Smiley with a book by McPhee, the veteran magazine journalist still writing at 93. This underlined for me the great gift that Smiley had also given in writing for as long as he had.
Smiley had placed a bookmark in the middle of McPhe's book, a little nod to the new chapters to explore. It seemed like a poignant gesture of expectation on the part of my brave friend as illness darkened his days.
What I will cherish about Smiley is that he wrote and read throughout his life, always wanting to know what happened next.
Email Danny Heitman at [email protected].
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Sources 2/ https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/entertainment_life/smiley-anders-champion-writer-was-a-champion-reader-too-danny-heitman/article_9cd13284-21cd-11ef-b83c-e7ef0923fe4c.html The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article |
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