Why comedians don't "retire"

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on May 15th, 2008

In the space of just a few weeks, the New York Times has run two interesting profiles of comedians– one, an article on Mort Sahl on the occasion of Sahl’s birthday:

It was Mr. Sahl’s 81st birthday the next day, this past Sunday, so after Saturday night’s show he was given a birthday cake in the dressing room, and everyone sang to him. He blew out the candle and quoted Adlai Stevenson. Mr. Cavett laughed and said it had to be one of the greatest things ever said over a birthday cake.

And another, this one also by the same author, Corey Kilgannon, is a tribute to 93-year-old Prof. Irwin Corey, which contains priceless Corey-ese:

Waiting for his coffee, Mr. Corey explained the meaning of life, at least as he and probably no one else understood it.

“One of the things that you’ve got to understand is that we’ve got to develop a continuity in order to relate to exacerbate those whose curiosity has not been defended, yet the information given can no longer be used as allegoric because the defendant does not use the evidence which can be substantiated by,” he said before finally asking, “What was the question?”

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