Paul Gadzikowski

In Mr. Daly's A.P. English, senior year of high school, we were to pick a literary work from a provided list and do a report on it in front of the class. I don't recall whether it was compulsory or optional that we work in teams but I did my report with Noel Anderson. The list consisted exclusively or nearly so of works I knew nothing of, so for the vague Arthurian connection I chose Lawrence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy and read that. Well, I say I read it... The edition I found had an introduction by Christopher Morley, who contended that no one but the proofreader has ever read all of Tristram Shandy, and I did not prove him wrong.

When Noel and I did our presentation I introduced it: "Most humor consists of a chain of logic with one bad link. People may think the form of humor consisting of all bad links but one originates with Woody Allen or the Marx Brothers, but it goes back at least as far as 1767. In order to incorporate this facet of Tristram Shandy into our presentation on it, my partner and I have commited our presentation outline to index cards and have painstakingly put them in order in a stack ..."

Meanwhile behind me Noel was shuffling the index cards.