Steve Martin occasionally writes for the magazine "The New Yorker" in the "Shouts and Murmurs" column. One of the funniest things I've ever read was his piece on the "Times New Roman Corporation" announcing a shortage of periods. The gist of it was to urge people to use alternative punctuation until the supply of periods could be replentished. One of the things that really cracked me up was that they had plenty of ellipses [?spelling? Alex wonders] but no periods. And of course the piece itself is written with but a single period, which is at the very end.
I'll see if I can find it and post it here.
One of the great things about Mr. Martin is that he is a master of both physical and intellectual comedy. It's so admirable that the same man who can write such funny columns can act so silly as well. Take for example the scene in "Roxanne" when he falls out of the tree and lands in front of a group of old ladies. To cover up his real reason for having been up in the tree he announces that he was abducted by aliens who came to earth to make love to older women "because they really knew what they were doing." He describes the aliens as having suction cups for feet, and proceeds to imitate them, walking around making pop! pop! pop! noises with his mouth. My eyes are actually watering with joy just to remember it.
It would be interesting to see Martin as a funny/witty character in a serious story, like maybe _Hamlet_. It's been years since I've seen it, but I thought Bill Murray was excellent in his remake of "The Razor's Edge."
