Here is a little known fact. Leo Tolstoy was a great story teller. Here was a great novelist who wouldn’t think of writing a book of less than 800 pages in length nor involving fewer characters than the town of Derby. But in his day, Tolstoy was known as the “charmer of the salon set.”
He perfected the short anecdote and would regale the fancy hoi polloi with amusing jokes and light hearted witticisms.
The reports in the social columns of the Moscow newspapers would be filled with things like…“and after the story, the Countess Andrushka had to flee the parlour to attend to her make-up…” or then there was this amusing tidbit, “Tolstoy then performed a perfect imitation of the Tsar when he was having gastric difficulty…”
So it should come as no surprise that, being a Russian History major and normally given over to writing things at great length… that I would still be able to master the art of the quickie, much the same way as the great Tolstoy was able to do.
Keep sending your checks in… I have my eye on a flat in South Beach and I am saving up for some acrylic light fixtures.
A young man was extolling the virtues of his beautiful fiancee. His friend exclaimed, “you can’t be serious about marrying her! For crying out loud she’s slept with every guy in Syracuse!!!”
The Bridegroom-to-be thought for bit and then muttered…”Geeze, Syracuse isn’t such a big town.”