Interview with Ogden Nash Biographer

A transcript of the 2005 PBS interview with Douglas Parker about Ogden Nash can be found here. Parker's discussion with ThinkTank's Ben Wattenberg provides a nice oral history of the stories behind many of Nash's most famous poems. These include his first published poem, about the self-righteous and hypocritical Senator Smoot.


Invocation
(SMOOT PLANS TARIFF BAN ON IMPROPER BOOKS )

Senator Smoot (Republican, Ut.)

Is planning a ban on smut.

Oh rooti-ti-toot for Smoot of Ut.

And his reverend occiput.

Smite, Smoot, smite for Ut.,

Grit your molars and do your dut.,

Gird up your l__ns,

Smite h_p and th_gh,

We'll all be Kansas

By and by...


...Senator Smoot is an institute

Not to be bribed with pelf;

He guards our homes from erotic tomes

By reading them all himself.

Read the full poem here

Ogden Nash poems copyright © by Linell Nash Smith and Isabel Nash Eberstadt

Origins of the Banking Crisis

Pundits routinely trace the roots of the financial system's current tailspin to the sub-prime mortgage boom of the past several years.

Ogden Nash foresaw elements of this crisis germinating over a half century ago. Bankers were a favorite Nash target. In a 1956 issue of the New Yorker, Nash lampooned the banking industry for transforming themselves from sage pillars of savings into financial hucksters.

Business Day in Australia's entitles it's article bemoaning the growth of financial derivatives, with the first two lines of Nash's poem 'Anybody for Money? Or Just Bring Your Own Basket'

Consider the banker
He was once a financial anchor...

Nash goes on to sternly admonish bankers for acting like car salesman, before concluding with:

In Nash's eyes bankers transformed themselves from cornerstones of financial common sense to "behaving so provocatively robbable." As the credit card lending crisis begins to share headlines with the mortgage crisis, we are reminded that Main Street's bank branches were the storefronts for Wall Steet's back rooms: Places where the high velocity, mind blurring complexity of the financial derivatives and securitization market melted into the toxic asset dump that Kate Jennings derides in Business Day.

There has long been a cyclical, good times, bad times pattern in banking: The 90% stock margin lending of the roaring 20's followed by the credit drought of the 1930's. The real estate boom of the 1980's and the ensuing S&L crisis.

As banking's cultural pendulum swings back to prudence, Nash, the former bond salesman, deserves credit for his prescient parody that, like so much of his work, used humor to gain attention for his genuine concern for society's wellbeing.

Ogden Nash poems copyright © by Linell Nash Smith and Isabel Nash Eberstadt

Ogden Nash: Obama Advisor

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue's newest resident has received much advice. He's acted swiftly on Nash's chief recommendations: "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog" and “Dogs are upright as a steeple, And much more loyal than people.”

According to Examiner.com the Obamas have been to the pound but the choice "has been tougher than finding a commerce secretary." Front runners are the Labradoodle and Portuguese Water Dog.

Presumably the Secret Service will be managing Nash's quip that "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of."

Ogden Nash poems copyright © by Linell Nash Smith and Isabel Nash Eberstadt

Ogden Nash 's Dogs

In his twenties, Ogden Nash was a restless advertising copywriter who eventually struck out on his own. Yet his craft continued to display a knack for penning phrases that resonated and became part of the American lexicon.

"A dog is man's best friend" is one that continues to resonate. Nash's views on dogs have had a long lasting impact on others.

According to WTHR, Indianapolis, Ogden Nash was the first to characterize a dog as "man's best friend." It is in fact the first line of "An Introduction to Dogs". Annie Hillard, the Solitary Walker, shares her story of long term affinity with this poem in a recent post. Liesel's Garden Party features a fine picture collage to accompany these verses.

Nash wrote a lot about dogs, I won't try to capture all the verses here, but here are some lesser known ones first published in the New Yorker:

January 08, 1949

For a Good Dog
My little dog ten years ago…

August 21, 1948

Two dogs have I
For years we've had a little dog…

September 19, 1942

Please pass the biscuit
I have a little dog…

October 22, 1949
Poetry

Love me but Leave my Dog Alone
Once there was a handsome man named Mr. Beamington and he…

July 21, 1951

Roll Over And Play Alive Or, Who Says You Can't Teach An Old Dog Tiresome Old Tricks
Brooks are often called rippling, but rivers are really…

October 12, 1957

Fellow-Creatures, Tray and Outre
The truth I do not stretch or shove…

Ogden Nash poems copyright © by Linell Nash Smith and Isabel Nash Eberstadt

More than Twelve Days of Christmas

In an effort to stimulate the 1939 economy FDR extended the Christmas shopping season a full week by moving Thanksgiving to the third Thursday of November. As recently noted by the National Archives , the Crossville, TN Chronicle and Jennifer Howard in D.C., Ogden Nash basted Roosevelt for his judgment:

Thanksgiving, like Ambassadors,
Cabinet officers and
others smeared with political ointment,
Depends for its existence on
Presidential appointment.

- Ogden Nash

Most Americans agreed and Turkey Day was restored to the last Thursday in 1942.


Ogden Nash poems copyright © by Linell Nash Smith and Isabel Nash Eberstadt

Before Heading to the Altar...

... thoughts of Ogden Nash:

The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control.

Ogden Nash

Marriage was one of Nash's favorite topics for verse. This bride to be from Florida expands the O.N. matrimonial archive via an enlightened application of a Nash observation.

Post Election Gripes

The Santa Barbara Independent & Montrose, CO Daily Press remind us that in Nash's view, if you didn't vote, you have no right to complain. They incorporated his poem, Election Day is a Holiday in a pre-election editorial on why voting matters. Some excerpts followed by a link to the full poem:

People on whom I do not bother to dote
Are people who do not bother to vote...

They have such refined and delicate palates
That they can discover no one worthy of their ballots,
And then when someone terrible gets elected
They say There, that’s just what I expected!

And they go around for four years spouting discontented criticisms
And contented witticisms....

And they have discovered that if you don’t take time out to go to the polls
You can manage very nicely to get through thirty-six holes.
Oh let us cover these clever people very conspicuously with loathing,
For they are un-citizens in citizens’ clothing.

They attempt to justify their negligence
On the ground that no candidate appeals to people of their intelligence,
But I am quite sure that if Abraham Lincoln (Rep.) ran against Thomas Jefferson (Dem.),
Neither man would be appealing enough to squeeze a vote out of them.

Election Day is a Holiday

If Nash's eloquence failed to motivate you to scale back your Election Day outing to 18 holes, your patriotic significant other may have bad news for you...