{"id":9335,"date":"2023-05-26T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-26T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspaperhistory.com\/?p=9335"},"modified":"2023-05-26T01:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-05-26T05:00:00","slug":"charlie-chaplin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/charlie-chaplin\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlie Chaplin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>From the <a href=\"https:\/\/chroniclingamerica.loc.gov\/lccn\/sn83030214\/1915-05-26\/ed-1\/seq-9\/\">New York Tribune, May 26, 1915<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<p>This Chaplin was wondrously comic, they told me,<br\/>For weeks they continued to pester and scold me<br\/>For sneering; I said that his antics were cheap,<br\/>That his slap-stick endeavors would put me to sleep.<br\/>\u201cBut he is so genial,\u201d they said, \u201cand so sunny,<br\/>There <em>never<\/em> was any one equally funny.<br\/>He walks in the quaintest, most curious fashion,<br\/>So you\u2019ll smile with delight or grin with compassion,<br\/>And surely there\u2019s nothing so fatal to gloom<br\/>As a reel in which Charlie is made to consume<br\/>Some peas with a knife; and his quizzical face,<br\/>And the way that he stumbles all over the place<br\/>Is simply immense; you will joyously roar<br\/>Till the usher relentlessly points to the door.<br\/>Why scorn Charlie Chaplin because he displays<br\/>A species of art which wins popular praise?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<p>So I went the next evening to see who was he<br\/>Who seemed to provide such Dickensian glee,<br\/>Whose stupid expressions roused millions of smiles<br\/>And lured hard-earned quarters in fabulous piles;<br\/>I sat and I waited with tremulous pulsing,<br\/>Convinced that I soon would be wildly convulsing<br\/>With uncontrolled giggles; and then on the screen<br\/>Appeared, stumbled, ambled\u2014you know what I mean\u2014<br\/>Our friend Charlie Chaplin; alas and alack,<br\/>With a woebegone gaze and his hand on his back;<br\/>He ran and he fell; and the maniac laughter<br\/>Resounded and rose to the farthermost rafter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<p>He banged all his colleagues, and kicked them around,<br\/>And stepped on their throats as they lay on the ground;<br\/>He ran with his hat on the side of his head;<br\/>And the populace roared till their faces were red.<br\/>Thus then, he continued; and when he had ended,<br\/>The girl that was with me said, \u201cIsn\u2019t he splendid!\u201d<br\/>\u201cO yes,\u201d I replied, with a sorrowful sigh,<br\/>\u201cThe masses adore him, and now I know why:<br\/>With his silly confusion and countenance glum<br\/>Their ideal American Hero has come!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the New York Tribune, May 26, 1915. This Chaplin was wondrously comic, they told me,For weeks they continued to pester and scold meFor sneering; I said that his antics were cheap,That his slap-stick endeavors would put me to sleep.\u201cBut he is so genial,\u201d they said, \u201cand so sunny,There never was any one equally funny.He [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-york-tribune","category-newspapers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9335\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}