Man of ActionBy JAMES PARKER June 25, 2013書評超人簡史：一個半人半神的獨行者JAMES PARKER 2013年06月25日
“Superman!” gasps Lois Lane, freshly scooped from beneath the nodding carbines of a South American firing squad. “Right!” says the boxy blue-and-red figure who holds her in his arms. “And still playing the role of gallant rescuer!” His mouth is set in a kind of grimace, but with dimples. Is he frowning? Tautly grinning? And what can he mean by “still playing the role”? This is only the second Superman comic ever, from July 1938, and already our hero — caped and airborne, with Lois coiled against his unbreachable bosom — is carrying a freight of super-irony.
“超人！”剛從南美行刑場的卡賓槍下逃過一劫的洛伊斯·萊恩(Lois Lane)氣喘吁籲地喊道。 “是我！”穿著紅藍衣衫的壯漢把她攬在懷裡，肯定地回答道，“我還在扮演英勇的救世主角色！”他咧著嘴，似乎在做鬼臉，但露出了酒窩。他在皺眉嗎？還是在緊張地咧嘴笑？他說“還在扮演這個角色”，這又是什麼意思？這只是自1938年7月以來的第二部《超人》漫畫，但是我們的英雄——穿著披風，飛來飛去，將洛伊斯護在他堅實的胸前——已經開始蘊含著巨大的諷刺。
Then again, as we learn from “Superman,” Larry Tye's exhaustive and engaging book, irony attends every phase of this story. Superman's creators — Jerry Siegel (writing) and Joe Shuster (drawing) — were a pair of Cleveland geeks whose underdoggery was purer almost than the alpha-male prowess of the pulp heroes they adored: Tarzan, Hugo Danner, Clark (Doc) Savage Jr. and so on. Both the sons of immigrant Jewish tailors, Siegel and Shuster were uncool, and they were girl- less. They had no money. Shuster, the artist, was horribly nearsighted. And how they toiled, through lost nights of teenage-dom, at their secret weapon: their made-up ultrabeing, their hero to out-hero them all. First , in a misfire, he was naughty (a mind-reading tramp called “the Super-Man”), then he was good. Then very good. At last, on what Tye calls “a hot summer night of divinelike inspiration,” it happened: the elements fused, and the 19-year-old Siegel, scribbling madly in his bathroom, came up with the doomed planet Krypton, Lois Lane, Clark Kent the mild-mannered reporter. . . .
從拉里·泰伊(Larry Tye)詳盡、迷人的《超人》(Superman)一書裡，我們發現，故事發展的每個階段都伴隨著諷刺。超人的創造者——傑里·西格爾（Jerry Siegel，腳本作者）和喬·舒斯特（Joe Shuster，漫畫作者）——是一對來自克利夫蘭的怪人。他們從小就不被人看好，就像廉價漫畫書裡他們崇拜的英雄一樣——比如泰山(Tarzan)、雨果·丹納(Hugo Danner)和小克拉克·薩維奇(Clark Savage Jr.)— —甚至比他們還要卑微。他們都是猶太移民的孩子，父母做著裁縫活兒，他們土里土氣，沒有女孩喜歡。他們都沒錢。漫畫創作者舒斯特還有高度近視。在青春期無數個迷惘的夜晚，他們努力製造自己的秘密武器：一個自己造出來的超級生命，超越所有英雄的英雄。一開始，他們寫的英雄有點壞（是個會讀心的流浪漢，名叫“超級男人”），這次嘗試不太成功。後來他成了好人。之後，成了大好人。最後，在一個被泰伊稱作“神啟般的炎熱的夏夜”，一切就這樣發生了：各種元素融合在了一起，19歲的西格爾在衛生間裡瘋狂地一頓塗鴉，編出了滅亡的氪星球、洛伊斯·萊恩、溫和的記者克拉克·肯特(Clark Kent)……
Four years later, after many rejections, the boys finally got a Superman comic onto the newsstands: Action Comics No. 1, June 1938. The comics writer Grant Morrison, in his 2011 book “Supergods,” describes the cover image as looking “like a cave painting waiting to be discovered on a subway wall 10,000 years from now.” Superman, his body flexed with a terrible rectitude, is hoisting a car over his head and crushing its front end against a boulder. In the foreground a man flees wildly , “clutching his head,” as Morrison observes, “like Edvard Munch's Screamer, his face a cartoon of gibbering existential terror.” And no wonder: this Superman is dynamically angry, an avatar of decency outraged, bashing through doors and tossing goons over the treetops. “Don't get tough!” growls an interrupted wife beater. Says Superman: “Tough is putting mildly the treatment you're going to get! You're not fighting a woman, now!”
在遭到無數次退稿後，《超人》漫畫終於在四年後面市了：刊登在1938年6月的《動作漫畫》(Action Comics)第一期上。漫畫作者格蘭特·莫瑞森(Grant Morrison)，在2011年出版的他的新書《超級眾神》(Supergods)裡說，這本漫畫的封面好像是“等待一萬年後被人在地下洞穴裡發現的壁畫”。一身正氣的超人正將一輛轎車舉過頭頂，把車頭砸向一塊巨石。在圖片前部，一個男人正“抱頭鼠竄”，如莫瑞森所述，“像極了愛德華·蒙克(Edvard Munch)《吶喊》裡的人物，他的臉因為極度恐懼而變形了。”也難怪：此刻的超人儼然是正義的化身，他義憤填膺，破門而入，把暴徒扔向樹梢。 “你別動粗！”打老婆的人被攔住了，所以大聲喊道。超人說：“對你這種人，動粗就算是客氣的了！這次你的對手可不是女人了！”
Equally potent are the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” shenanigans of poor Clark Kent, his alter ego, heartily scorned by Lois. Sad, really, that this magnificent and double-natured figure had already been sold, rights, image and all, to the publishers of Action Comics for $130 — a deal that Tye, with hyperbole worthy of a Golden Age comics editor, calls the “original sin” of the comics industry and “a swindle on the order of the Dutch West India Company's 1626 purchase of Manhattan from the natives for $24.” (In “Supergods,” Morrison takes a soberer view: “Superman was a foot in the door. . . . I'd suspect that both Siegel and Shuster imagined they'd create other, better characters. ”)
跟《小屁孩日記》(Diary of a Wimpy Kid)裡的惡作劇一樣有趣的是他的另一個身份——可憐的克拉克·肯特——他總是被洛伊斯從心底里鄙視。可惜的是，這個迷人的有著雙重身份的人物已經被售出了——版權、形象、所有的一切——以區區130美元的價格賣給了《動作漫畫》的出版商。拉里·泰伊以黃金年代動漫（指的是20世紀30年代末到40年代末或50年代初的時期，現代漫畫得以出版並廣泛流行——編註）雜誌編輯誇張的口吻，稱這個交易是漫畫業的“原罪”，是“赤裸裸的詐騙，堪比荷蘭西印度公司1626年用24美元從土著居民手中購買曼哈頓”。 （在《超級眾神》中，莫瑞森對這件事的看法更冷靜：“超人只是成功的第一步……我懷疑西格爾和舒斯特都以為他們能創造出其他更好的人物。”）
And so he was launched — not flying yet, still leaping in eighths of a mile, but with the wind beneath his cape. He proliferated and diversified into different lines of comic books. A slow and fantastical increase in powers was witnessed, as the collective reader-mind became absorbed in his possibilities. Tye (whose previous books include a biography of Satchel Paige) is very good on this, on the steady daydreamlike magnification of Superness: “His million-decibel yell had enough intensity and pitch to topple tall buildings . What if a building fell on him? A tickle at most. His nostrils were super-acute. His typing was super-fast. . . . His gaze was intense enough to hypnotize a whole tribe of South American Indians at once. He could converse with a mermaid in her native tongue and beat a checkers expert his first time playing.” He was a champion of the oppressed, and his values were solidly New Deal — he took down slumlords, arms dealers and random unincorporated bullies. In real- world court he successfully faced first Wonder Man and then Captain Marvel (“the World's Mightiest Mortal”), charging them with being Superman knockoffs.
所以，他被發射了出去——還不會飛，只是一跳就能躍過200米，不過得借助披風下面的風力。超人衍生出不同的漫畫系列。我們見證了他的能力在慢慢地、神奇地增強，因為讀者們想出的各種各樣的超能力，都被集中在了他身上。泰伊（他之前還寫過薩奇·佩吉[Satchel Paige]的傳記）非常擅長像描述白日夢般形容超人的超能力：“他的怒吼有百萬分貝，強度之大，聲音之高，可以震塌高樓。要是樓塌了砸著他怎麼辦？沒關係，對他來說跟撓痒癢一樣。他的鼻子超級靈敏。他打字的速度超快……，他的眼神可以瞬間催眠一整個南美印第安部落。他能用美人魚的母語跟她說話。第一次下棋就能打敗國際象棋大師。”他是被壓迫者的鬥士，他的價值觀完全是“羅斯福新政”的理念——他收拾惡房東、軍火商和惡霸。在現實世界的法庭上，他先是打敗了“神奇先生”(Wonder Man)，接著又打敗了“神奇船長”（Captain Marvel，“世界上最偉大的人”），指控他們是超人的冒牌貨。
But he was a lonely, lonely man-god. Was he even a real superhero? On his native Krypton (now destroyed) he would have been normal, after all: it was only Earth's “slighter gravity pull” that gave him his superstrength. And Lois might dote upon the all-conquering Superman, but she despised Clark Kent. Was there anyone out there who could love them both — love him, that is, in the totality of his being? Displaced religiosity swirled, still swirls, around him . He is Christlike in his virtue and singularity. He is also, according to Tye, Jewish, from his Judaic-sounding real name, Kal-El, to the Moses-on-the-Nile echoes of his infantile voyage to Earth. Tye diagnoses Superman's “lingering heartsickness” as “survivor's guilt” and adds, “A last rule of thumb: When a name ends in 'man,' the bearer is Jewish, a superhero or both.”
但他是個孤獨的半人半神。他是真正的超級英雄嗎？在他的故鄉氪星球（已經被摧毀了），他只是個正常人，只是因為地球引力較小，才讓他力量超強。洛伊斯迷戀的是能戰勝一切的超人，卻鄙視克拉克·肯特。會有人同時愛他的兩個身份嗎？他的宗教傾向始終是個謎團。他的品德和獨特性像耶穌。同時，如泰伊所說，他身上也有猶太元素。他的真名Kal-El聽起來像個猶太名字，他在嬰兒時期被送往地球避難，像極了摩西被放在尼羅河上逃生。泰伊將超人“揮之不去的抑鬱心情”歸咎於“倖存者的內疚”，並補充說，“還有一個經驗就是：如果一個人的名字以man結尾，那麼這個人不是猶太人，就是超級英雄，或者是個猶太超級英雄。”
Tye's account of Superman's 1946 run-in with the Ku Klux Klan is slightly muffled, perhaps because it has been thoroughly covered elsewhere. (The radio show “Adventures of Superman” took on the Klan in a 16-episode series called “Clan of the Fiery Cross.”) But he makes up for it with a sizzling portrait of the extraordinary Mort Weisinger, a brutal, obese bottom-liner who was also, in a crowning Supermanic irony, the franchise's most fabulous and poetic editor. When Weisinger fired a well-respected artist in 1966, and said artist then asked if he'd heard right, Weisinger said, “Do you need a kick in the stomach to know when you're not wanted?” And yet it was the Weisinger years that gave us Brainiac, Bizarro, the full terror of kryptonite, a gorgeous, pulsing sprawl of Superman mythology. “He divined a fairy-tale universe,” Tye writes, “with its own laws of nature.”
泰伊對1946年“超人大戰3K黨”的講述有點含混不清，也許是因為其他地方對此有完整的介紹。但是他對另一個人的精彩講述彌補了這一點，這個人就是與眾不同的莫特·維新格(Mort Weisinger)。他冷酷、肥胖、唯利是圖，最諷刺的是，他也是《動作漫畫》最優秀、最有想像力的編輯。 1966年維新格辭掉一位很受尊重的藝術家時，藝術家問他是不是聽錯了，維新格說，“還需要給你肚子上踢一腳，你才知道這兒不需要你了嗎？”但是正是在維新格做編輯的那些年，我們有了布萊尼亞克(Brainiac)和逆反超人(Bizarro)這一系列氪星大反派和一個個華麗的、讓人熱血沸騰的超人神話。 “他開啟了一個神話世界”，泰伊寫道，“按照他自己的法則。”
For me the story lessens in excitement the closer it gets to the present: the predictably gritty reboots of the comic book, the megabucks '70s and '80s movies. As a reading experience, this all represents a bit of a petering-out. It's in the middle of Tye's book, in the thick of it, that you find the luscious old-school moments — as when George Reeves, less than thrilled to be TV's first Superman, introduces himself to Phyllis Coates, the new Lois Lane, and says , “Well, babe, this is it: the bottom of the barrel.” He's quite wrong, of course: Superman will be 75 next year, and his barrel is apparently bottomless. Mighty, solitary, wearing his underpants on the outside as if in an endless anxiety dream, he flies on.
在我看來，這個故事到現在，已經越來越沒意思了：《動作漫畫》要重啟《超人》系列，好萊塢也會繼續拍攝曾在20世紀七八十年代票房大賣的《超人》電影。作為一種閱讀體驗，《超人》已經顯出疲態。而在泰伊的書中，在其最精彩的部分，你能找到那種老派的強烈的感官刺激。喬治·李維（George Reeves，第一個出現在電視劇裡的超人）把自己介紹給菲利斯·科茨（Phyllis Coates，洛伊斯·萊恩的扮演者）時，不溫不火地說道， “嗯，小妞，就這樣了：就要到尾聲了。”他真是大錯特錯：超人到明年就75歲了，但是很明顯他的故事還遠沒結束。他還在飛翔，強大而孤獨，彷彿在無邊的焦慮的夢中……內褲依然穿在外面。
James Parker writes the Entertainment column for The Atlantic.
Copyright © 2013 The New York Times Company. All rights reserved.
本文最初發表於2012年7月8日。
本文作者詹姆斯·帕克(James Parker)為美國《大西洋月刊》(The Atlantic)娛樂專欄撰稿。
翻譯：王艷
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超人包可華(幽默文選). 文学, Art Buchwald著茅及銓譯, 臺灣皇冠出版社, 無出版年份 原著為 1972
在舅公的译著中，有不少包可华（Art Buchwald）的作品，他似乎对这位美国华府 ...包
*****【2007司大紀元1月19日訊】（大紀元記者岳芸綜合報導）享譽美國逾半世紀的幽默專欄作家包可華（Art Buchwald），1月17日晚間因腎衰竭病逝在華盛頓的兒子家中，享年81歲。他的家人在美東時間1月18日宣布這項消息。
包可華在2006年2月截肢，腎臟也有毛病。醫師告訴他，終其一生，他必須洗腎。他嘗試接受，但很快就決定去安寧病房，平靜地選擇自然死亡。他很感謝那裡親切溫柔的看護，尊重他的決定，並幫他走完人生最後一段的旅程。據上個月台灣《人間福報》報導。
安寧病房不提供治療，只提供照護，包可華在五個月後奇蹟式的出院。他說：「我們每個人都和上帝有個電話熱線，只要它不響，你就可以苟延殘喘一陣子。」
包可華發現，老年人在面對自然死亡，往往看了醫師後不久就想自殺。他說，醫師和護士步入病房時總是板著臉，他的處方？「應該把他們送到迪士尼樂園受訓。」
有評述道，在包可華籌備自己的喪禮等一切後事時，他變成哲學家，思考人生的終極問題，答案很簡單，他到人世走一遭，就是要逗大家笑。「所以我又開始寫作，並發現寫得很棒。」
另據法新社報導，2006年2月，包可華拒絕洗腎，他的醫生當時認為，他將因腎衰竭只有三週好活。到了5月23日，他在例行的《華盛頓郵報》專欄表示：「四個月過去了，連醫生都無法解釋的原因，我的腎臟還在繼續工作。」
包可華幽默的調侃自己有點沮喪，未如醫生所預測將很快死去，他必須再刮鬍子、重寫遺囑、改變喪禮進行的程序，還有，買了一支新手機。
「我從來不知道逐漸死去是這麼好玩。」他表示：「我愈受到公眾注意，我的腎臟也愈受到注意，與其說安靜地走入黑夜，其實我每天都在開記者會。」
撰有《柏楊版資治通鑒》的台灣作家柏楊曾說，要歸功於九年二十六天的牢獄之災，使他潛心讀史，開始對中國綿長歷史的爬梳工作。如果沒有這場牢獄，他認為自己無論怎麼搖筆桿，充其量也就像聞名於世的美國包可華，只是個寫幽默雜文的專欄作家。
「包可華」之名譯自《聯合報》專欄作家何凡之手，1967年起，何凡翻譯美國家喻戶曉的「包可華專欄」，每週一篇，二十年如一日，曾陸續出版十四集《包可華專欄》，總共七百多篇。
****包可華笑對死神 2006/4
聯社華盛頓四日電】
以詼諧筆調諷喻時事聞名國際的美國幽默作家包可華(Art Buchwald，已因腎功能衰竭，住進華盛頓一所安寧療護院，並決定放棄洗腎治療，據稱只有幾周可活。不過，對於自己兩個多月還沒死，包可華說，連醫師都想不透。
即使死亡逼近，這位普立茲獎專欄作家仍堅持讓每分每秒過得精彩。包可華說，他不怕死，也不為之沮喪。生性樂觀開朗的他不但沒有躺著等死，還成天撰寫專欄，與每天來探訪他的好友追憶過去的美好時光。80歲的包可華說：「這是告別最好的方式。」
一如暢銷書「最後14堂星期二的課」（Tuesdays with Morrie）作者與臨終的大學教授每周智慧相見，包克華每周也在療護院與家人、以及媒體和政治圈的名流好友談天說地。
因血管問題而在今年1月鋸掉一條小腿的包克華說，截肢對他的「精神打擊非常大」，而且可能是促成他拒絕洗腎的原因。面對死神召喚卻顯得平靜的包可華說：「我不怕死，我的生命豐富美好，已經活80歲了，沒什麼好怕的。」
對於放棄治療的決定，他說：「親人、朋友、大家都不喜歡這主意，但一旦做了這決定，大家也只好尊重我。」他的選擇激起外界關注，也為他帶來新的「粉絲」。自2月7日住進安寧療護院以來收到上百封信，其中一部分成為他6日專欄的主題。
包可華在1995年出版的前傳「離家」（Leaving Home）中說，幽默感是他的「救世軍」。他在第二次世界大戰後成為南加州大學詼諧雜誌的執行編輯，以及學生報的專欄作家。他在1948年輟學，前往巴黎，成為綜藝報（Variety）的特派記者，同時為紐約先驅論壇報（New York Herald Tri-bune）撰寫專欄。包可華1962年回美國，展開專欄作家的職業生涯，華盛頓權力掮客常是他筆下揶揄的主題。1982年，他贏得新聞界最高榮譽普立茲獎。
生命將盡的包可華說，人們無須太在意何時死亡，而是該自問：「為何到人世走一遭？」至於包可華怎麼看他在世間80多年？他說：「當然是讓人歡笑。」
【2006/04/05 世界日報
人生的層次──殷海光最後的話語
鄭安國∕文 (20060406)
本文為自由主義學者殷海光，最後一場公開的演講── 「人生的意義」的過往，作者係當時演講會的策劃者與主持人，因而撰寫此文回憶這段四十年前的塵封舊事。 ──編者
四十年前的四月八日星期五下午二時，當時的自由主義大師殷海光先生在台北市木柵國立政治大學六三○教室發表他最後、也是最重要的一次公開演講「人生的意義」。也許是殷海光先生也預知這是他的一次重要演說，所以他的演說就是鏗鏘有力的用「今天是一九六六年四月八日」做為開場白。 筆者當時是這次演講會的策劃者與主持人，四十年來，經常浮現腦際的不只是殷海光先生在演講中那種凜然的風骨；做為一個大二政治系學生，對殷海光的景仰以及籌辦這次在當年深具爭議性的演講會的周折，更是成為大學生活中最深刻的回憶。
對於現在的年輕人來說，知道殷海光的人雖然不多，但由於殷海光是台灣走向自由民主道路上的一位思想巨人，這場演講會的周折，也反映了威權時代轉型中的面貌。
四十年前雖處於威權時代，但是大學生對自由民主的嚮往，仍甚熱切。當時我們一群以政治系、外交系、公共行政系為主的同學組成了西潮學社；有別於以辦活動為主的其他學生社團，西潮學社是讀書會形式，每週聚會，由一位同學報告讀書心得，所讀之書以社會科學及文史哲學課外書為主，偶爾舉辦對外演講座談。設社務委員，每兩月任輪值主席，負責這兩個月的活動。我是一九六六年三、四月的輪值主席。
殷海光的著作「思想與方法」、「海耶克和他的思想」，以及翻譯的「到奴役之路」，都是我們愛好的讀物。因此當時我就想邀請他來政大演講，也向西潮社的主要成員陸錦雯及其他同學們報告了這個構想，大家都很贊同。我當然知道當時台大教授殷海光開課都受到限制，且有好幾年不准公開演講。基於反抗威權的理念，還是決定一試。
當時電話並不普遍，所以我向台大經濟系的同學陳松打聽到殷海光先生的住址後，在三月底的某日晚上，直接前往殷海光在溫州街十八巷十六弄九號的寓所。那是一幢像是經過改造後的日式單門獨院的平房。那天下著微雨，沿門摸索了一陣才找到，按了門鈴，即聽見兩隻猛犬的吠聲。殷海光先生親自開門，雖見過他的照片，但仍訝異於四十七歲的他，竟是如此蒼老。雖然未有先約，但殷海光對我的來訪並沒有很意外，可能還是常有一些他不認識的慕名求教者吧！
殷海光先生領我進屋裡，那是一間陳設簡單的小客廳。我向殷海光說明來意，也向他報告西潮學社的性質，他對我們的心意有點嘉許，但對於邀請他演講，他卻很直率的說：「那是不可能的，你知道他們已經幾年不讓我演講嗎？」我說：「知道。」他說：「他們怕我。」我表示，我們還是想試一試。連在台大開課都限制重重，要在相對保守的政大演講，看起來更是困難。也許殷海光也有突破限制的韌性，所以他終於同意我們一試。
談到演講的主題，他說：「就談『人生的意義』好了。」。對我這個學政治的學生來說，其實是希望他談些政治、思想方面的主題，對聽眾來說也比較有吸引力。不過他說「人生的意義很重要，現在就是太多人重視生物層面的東西，而忽略了更重要的價值。」我終於瞭解這個平凡題目中的深意。
敲定了題目、敲定了時間，回到學校向西潮學社報告，大家都很興奮，於是就向訓導處提出申請，也選定了當時政大最大的一間教室，可以容納一百餘人的六三○教室。申請書送出後，我們沒想到很順利的就獲得訓導處的批准。殷老師也沒想到他居然被解凍了。
我們立即製作了幾張海報，張貼在學校各個主要地點。不料在演講前三天，四月五日星期二，訓導處火速通知我，訓導長約我見面。訓導長葉尚志是政大第一期的學長，是一位和藹可親的長者，由內政部人事處長轉任。見面後，葉訓導長很客氣，但很明確的告訴我，有關方面對於殷海光演講有意見，希望能夠停辦。我聽後雖覺意外，但從籌劃之初即已預期可能會有一些干擾，所以並不訝異。我乃反問，現在全校同學都知道這個活動，若現在宣佈停辦，大家會怎麼想？對政府的形象是不是更加不好？葉訓導長說：「可是他們怕會出問題」。我想了一下表示，如果他們耽心殷海光講一些他們認為刺激性的話，我想我可以跟殷海光溝通一下。因為我實在不希望演講被取消，所以自作主張的作了一點妥協。葉訓導長同意我的看法。
當天晚上我就趕去殷海光家，告訴他這個狀況，殷老師聽後用他慣有厭惡威權的語氣說，「我就知道他們這些人的想法，這些俗人，我才不會談政治。」翌日上午我告訴葉訓導長，殷海光在演講中不會談政治問題，只談人生哲學問題。葉訓導長說，好吧，我跟他們溝通一下。有關單位終於對這次演講放行。
四月八日那天二點不到，六三○教室已擠滿了人。這是政大學生社團辦演講難得一見的盛況。我略作介紹之後，殷海光即開始他這場重要的演講。我們依照殷海光先給我們的「人生的界域」手繪圖，繪於黑板上。
殷海光將人生分成四個層次，最低層是物理層，次低層是生物邏輯層，上一層生物文化層，最上層是真、善、美、理想、道德層。殷海光說，人應「擴展我們的界域，由單純的物理層，進為生物邏輯層，再由此發展到生物文化層，繼續發展。然後人類有真善美的意識，有理想、有道德，這就是價值層，這層就是人之所以為人的層級。」
殷海光也提出一個兩難式，就是如果我們要滿足衣食等生物邏輯，而勢必犧牲道德或理想，處此困境之下，我們怎麼作決定。他提出幾個原則：第一，我們萬不可在自己的生存並未受到威脅時，為了換取現實利益而犧牲道德原則。第二，在我們的生活勉強可過時，萬不可因要得到較佳報酬而犧牲他人。第三，當我們因生活困難而被迫不得不放棄若干作人的原則時，我們必須儘可能作「道德的抗戰」，把道德的領土放棄得愈少愈好，尚且要存心待機，「收復道德的失地」。復次，我們有我們的好惡。如果經濟貧困了，我們的好惡是否就要放棄，是否就不能講了。還有尊嚴問題，如果人的經濟價值不能滿足，尊嚴是否可以不顧？
這番話不只語重心長，而且邏輯嚴謹，可以說是殷海光面對橫逆考驗而凝鍊出來高貴而務實的人生智慧。
演講非常成功，但事後從訓導處一直傳出要對我嚴格處分的消息，我感受到一些壓力，唯自忖一切依規定來，如處分我，那麼如何處分核准這次演講的人。因此也就淡然處之了。我根據錄音帶，非常仔細的作了一個錄音記錄，於四月二十日送去請殷海光先生訂正，並於一九六六年五月發表在我所負責的議事規則研習會的「議事會刊」上。在此之後，殷海光並未再發表過公開演講，其所著「中國文化的展望」且於是年六月被禁。
一年後的一九六七年四月二十日，我去台大活動中心聽易君博老師的演講，殷海光也在座，我趨前問候，他緊握我手說：「真是恍如隔世」。我見他較一年前更形蒼老，乃問其身體狀況，他說：「一個多月前得了胃病，正所謂心腹之患。」沒想到二天後，因李敖之敦勸，去宏恩醫院檢查，發現竟是胃癌，而於四月二十五日住入台大醫院726病房。翌日，我與陸錦雯前往探視，他的病榻邊放著一本正在看的英文書「Life Against Death」，顯示他求生的意志。是日，當時任教政大的金耀基老師、王曉波也都來探視照顧。唯終於一九六九年五十歲的英年齎志以歿。所以這篇演講記錄陳鼓應稱之為「殷海光最後的話語」，一些大學並以這篇文章為教材。如今在網路上也可搜尋取閱。
現在，重讀這篇文章，一字一句，每個語調，均是殷海光的風格、心境。全文雖然未觸及政治，但是其期許反更高遠，四十年後，仍令人低迴不已。
即使死亡逼近，這位普立茲獎專欄作家仍堅持讓每分每秒過得精彩。包可華說，他不怕死，也不為之沮喪。生性樂觀開朗的他不但沒有躺著等死，還成天撰寫專欄，與每天來探訪他的好友追憶過去的美好時光。80歲的包可華說：「這是告別最好的方式。」
一如暢銷書「最後14堂星期二的課」（Tuesdays with Morrie）作者與臨終的大學教授每周智慧相見，包克華每周也在療護院與家人、以及媒體和政治圈的名流好友談天說地。
因血管問題而在今年1月鋸掉一條小腿的包克華說，截肢對他的「精神打擊非常大」，而且可能是促成他拒絕洗腎的原因。面對死神召喚卻顯得平靜的包可華說：「我不怕死，我的生命豐富美好，已經活80歲了，沒什麼好怕的。」
對於放棄治療的決定，他說：「親人、朋友、大家都不喜歡這主意，但一旦做了這決定，大家也只好尊重我。」他的選擇激起外界關注，也為他帶來新的「粉絲」。自2月7日住進安寧療護院以來收到上百封信，其中一部分成為他6日專欄的主題。
包可華在1995年出版的前傳「離家」（Leaving Home）中說，幽默感是他的「救世軍」。他在第二次世界大戰後成為南加州大學詼諧雜誌的執行編輯，以及學生報的專欄作家。他在1948年輟學，前往巴黎，成為綜藝報（Variety）的特派記者，同時為紐約先驅論壇報（New York Herald Tri-bune）撰寫專欄。包可華1962年回美國，展開專欄作家的職業生涯，華盛頓權力掮客常是他筆下揶揄的主題。1982年，他贏得新聞界最高榮譽普立茲獎。
生命將盡的包可華說，人們無須太在意何時死亡，而是該自問：「為何到人世走一遭？」至於包可華怎麼看他在世間80多年？他說：「當然是讓人歡笑。」
【2006/04/05 世界日報
Art Buchwald, Whose Humor Poked the Powerful, Dies at 81
The cause was kidney failure, said his son, Joel. Mr. Buchwald, long a pillar of Washington life, died at his son's home, where he had been living for most of the last eight years.
Mr. Buchwald's syndicated column was a staple for a generation or more of newspaper readers, not least the politicians and government grandees he lampooned so regularly. His life was a rich tale of gumption, heartbreak and humor, with chapters in Paris, Washington and points around the globe.
But perhaps no year of his life was as remarkable as the last. It became something of an extended curtain call. Last February, doctors told him he had only a few weeks to live. "I decided to move into a hospice and go quietly into the night," he wrote three months later. "For reasons that even the doctors can't explain, my kidneys kept working."
Refusing dialysis, he continued to write his column, reflecting on his mortality while keeping his humor even as he lost a leg. He spent the summer on Martha's Vineyard, published a book, "Too Soon to Say Goodbye," in the fall and attended a memorial for an old friend, the reporter R. W. Apple Jr. of The New York Times. He gave interviews and looked on as his life was celebrated.
"The French ambassador gave me the literary equivalent of the Legion of Honor," he wrote. "The National Hospice Association made me man of the year. I never realized dying was so much fun."
Once described as a "Will Rogers with chutzpah," Mr. Buchwald found enthusiastic readerships on both sides of the Atlantic. Early on, he became nearly everyone's favorite American in Paris for his satirical column in the European edition of The New York Herald Tribune. When he returned from overseas to write a new column, from Washington, he became even more popular. At its peak, it appeared in some 500 newspapers.
He delighted in stirring the pot — never maliciously, always vigorously. The world was mad (or at least a little nutty), he said, and all he was doing was recording it. He did it so well that he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1982.
Across the world stage, he saw theater of the absurd, and he made an effort to immerse himself in it. He went to Yugoslavia to chase goats; he went to Turkey in search of a Turkish bath, writing that he was astonished when the Turks told him that they had no such thing.
During the cold war, he marched alongside missiles, tanks and troops in a May Day parade in East Berlin. Another time, he rented a chauffeured limousine to tour Eastern Europe. He wanted the people there to know, as he put it, alluding to his plump physique, what a "bloated, plutocratic capitalist really looked like."
More often, though, he skewered targets closer to home. In the Watergate years, he wrote about three men stranded in a sinking boat with a self-destructive President Richard M. Nixon. As the president hid food under his shirt, he bailed water into the vessel.
Making Readers Smile
In the early 1960s, Mr. Buchwald theorized that a shortage of Communists was imminent in the United States and that if the nation was not careful, the Communist Party would be made up almost entirely of F.B.I. informers.
"The joy of his column was not that it was side-splitting humor," his friend Ben Bradlee, the former editor of The Washington Post, said last February, "but that he made you smile."
It was an amiable and wry brand of wit that sprang from a man who had been reared in foster homes and an orphan asylum and who had decided, when he was 6 or 7, that his life was so awful that he should make a living making everybody laugh, even if he did not always laugh along with them. He had at least two serious bouts of depression in his middle years and regarded himself as occasionally suicidal.
Arthur Buchwald was born on Oct. 20, 1925, in Mount Vernon, N.Y., to Joseph and Helen Buchwald. His father had fled Austria for the United States to avoid service in the Austro-Hungarian army and opened a business making drapes and slipcovers. His mother, the former Helen Klineberger, had immigrated from Hungary.
The youngest of four children and the only son, Mr. Buchwald virtually never saw his mother. Suffering from delusions, she was admitted to a mental hospital a few weeks after his birth and was confined for the remaining 35 years of her life. Her son was not permitted to visit her when he was a child and decided not to after he became an adult. "I preferred the mother I had invented to the one I would find in the hospital," Mr. Buchwald wrote in a best-selling 1994 memoir, "Leaving Home."
By his own account he had always wondered whether his birth had somehow been responsible for her illness, and when he sought help for his depression, he said, he confessed to his psychiatrist that he had conducted "a lifelong search for someone to replace her."
Mr. Buchwald soon parted from his father as well. Joseph Buchwald, unable to support his children after his business ran dry during the Depression, placed his son in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York. Mr. Buchwald was shuttled to a series of foster homes, including a Queens boarding house for sick children — he had rickets — run by Seventh-day Adventists.
There, young Arthur, a Jew, was taught that eating meat, fish and eggs was sinful. Years afterward, he wrote, "There is still a tiny Seventh-day Adventist inside of me screaming to get out every time I make a pass at a tuna fish sandwich."
Mr. Buchwald remained at the home until he was 5. He and his father and sisters were eventually reunited and lived in Hollis, Queens.
With the start of World War II, Mr. Buchwald, still in high school, ran away to join the Marines, hitchhiking to North Carolina. "The Marine Corps was the first father figure I had ever known," he wrote. Assigned to the Fourth Marine Air Wing, he spent most of his tour on a Pacific atoll cleaning aircraft guns and editing his squadron's newsletter while earning a sergeant's stripes.
After the war, Mr. Buchwald went to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles under the G.I. Bill and became managing editor of the campus humor magazine. But he neglected to tell the university that he had not finished high school. Officials told him that he could continue to take courses but that he could not be considered for a degree. (Thirty-three years later, the university gave him an honorary doctorate.)
Mr. Buchwald decided to continue his education in Paris. "My dream was to follow in the steps of Hemingway, Elliot Paul and Gertrude Stein," he wrote. "I wanted to stuff myself with baguettes and snails, fill my pillow with rejection slips and find a French girl named Mimi who believed that I was the greatest writer in the world."
Not yet 23, he sailed to Paris on a converted troop ship and enrolled at the Alliance Française, also under the G.I. bill. Soon he talked his way into a job with The Herald Tribune's Paris-based European edition writing a column about entertainment and restaurants for $25 a week.
The column, "Paris After Dark," caught on, and by the early 1950s, The Tribune had syndicated it internationally. His own favorite, friends said, was a 1952 column in which he explained Thanksgiving to the French, using a liberal amount of French translation, even of English names like Miles Standish (Kilometres Deboutish).
Mr. Buchwald became the subject of headlines himself in 1957. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was in Paris attending a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization when Mr. Buchwald, weary of the soft questions lobbed at Mr. Eisenhower by the press, wrote a column about a fictitious news conference in which reporters demanded to know, among other things, when the president started eating his morning grapefruit. The column incensed the president's press secretary, James C. Hagerty.
"Unadulterated rot," Mr. Hagerty called it.
Mr. Buchwald countered that he had "been known to write adulterated rot" but never "unadulterated rot."
Readers seemed to find vicarious pleasure in following the adventures of an expatriate but ordinary American flirting with royalty and the jet set without becoming a snob. In one column, he told readers that he had not been invited to the Grace Kelly-Prince Rainier wedding because of a family feud: "The Buchwalds and the Grimaldis have not spoken since Jan. 9, 1297." When Gary Cooper paid him a visit, he wrote a column of dialogue in which the famously reticent actor did all the talking and Mr. Buchwald replied with "yup" and "nope."
Mr. Buchwald often wrote about his wife and their three children. He had met Ann McCarry, a publicist for the fashion designer Pierre Balmain, in Paris, and they were married in 1952. They adopted three children, each born in a different country, and all survive their father — Joel (born in Ireland), of Washington; Connie Marks Buchwald (Spain) of Culpepper, Va.; and Jennifer Buchwald (France) of Roxbury, Mass. Two sisters — Edith Jaffe of Bellevue, Wash., and Doris Kahme of Delray Beach, Fla., and Monroe Township, N.J. — and five grandchildren also survive. Mrs. Buchwald died in 1994.
In his 14 years in Paris, Mr. Buchwald became as much a celebrity as those whose names he dropped in his columns. But it was in Washington, where he moved in 1962, that his fame took off.
By 1972, his column was appearing three times a week in about 400 newspapers in the United States and in 100 other countries. His nearest rival was his friend Russell Baker of The Times, whose "Observer" column appeared in other papers as well. "Buchwald is incomparable," Mr. Baker once said. "And he is brave, too, doing one of the hardest things in the world to do — to be funny, in exactly the same sort of way in regard to tone and technique, three times a week."
Mr. Buchwald's satire grew more biting in Washington. When President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to the Dominican Republic in 1965 with the stated purpose of protecting Americans there during a rebellion, Mr. Buchwald wrote a column about the last remaining one, a tourist named Sidney, who was being detained by the Dominican authorities so that the American soldiers would not pull out.
Occasionally a Washington insider would grouse about a Buchwald column, but his victims rarely bled. And he never hinted at his own political leanings in his columns. "He was a people person and not much interested in politics," Mr. Bradlee said.
An Influential Circle
Mr. Buchwald was as visible in Washington as he had been in Paris. He was often seen in sleek restaurants like the Sans Souci, holding court with a bevy of influential friends like Ethel Kennedy and Edward Bennett Williams, the co-owner of the Washington Redskins.
On Martha's Vineyard, where Mr. Buchwald had a summer home, one friend was the novelist William Styron. Mr. Buchwald played poker there with the journalists Carl T. Rowan and David Brinkley, the Johnson aide and later motion picture figure Jack Valenti, and the diplomat Llewellyn Thompson. He kibbitzed with the columnists Rowland Evans and Robert D. Novak, and he dressed in a flea-bitten rabbit suit to play the Easter bunny at a party he gave every year.
Another friend, the CBS correspondent Mike Wallace , said Mr. Buchwald could not escape his depression even at his summer retreat.
"Three of us — Bill Styron, he and I — suffered depression simultaneously, so we walked around in the rain together on Martha's Vineyard and consoled each other," Mr. Wallace said in a phone interview last February. "I traveled a lot on '60 Minutes,' and no matter where I was, every single night I got a call from Art Buchwald to listen to the same tale of woe. He did the best to make life palatable, to help you be optimistic, to let you know he believed you would beat it. We both did, and so did Bill. We named ourselves the Blues Brothers." Mr. Styron died in November.
Mr. Buchwald's column was the cornerstone of a virtual industry. He recycled it in hardcover anthologies and used it as the basis for radio and television appearances. He was always in demand on the lecture circuit or as a master of ceremonies, holding forth with mock-seriousness and a New York accent. He also had two novels published. One had its origins in Mr. Bradlee's office.
"A guy showed up in my office covered with bandages and blood and told me he was a recent graduate of Sing Sing," Mr. Bradlee said. "He had done time for murder and was broke. He became a thorn in my side, and I got sick of him, so I sent him to Buchwald, just to get him out of my office. Art locked him up in a room and wrote a book about him, 'A Gift From the Boys.' The guy had been deported and his mob friends gave him a girl as a goodbye present."
The novel, published in 1958, became the basis of the 1960 movie "Surprise Package" with Yul Brynner.
Mr. Buchwald's other novel, "The Bollo Caper," published in 1974, was an ecological fairy tale for children and adults about a leopard hunted for his fur. It was adapted as a 1985 television movie.
Mr. Buchwald's also wrote a stage comedy, "Sheep on the Runway," about a pundit named Joseph Mayflower. It had a Broadway run in 1970, delighting audiences but alienating the columnist Joseph Alsop, who felt the pompous villain of the piece had been modeled after him.
Almost 20 years later, Mr. Buchwald sued Paramount Pictures, demanding to be paid for a script idea that he contended was the basis for the hit movie "Coming to America," about an African prince (Eddie Murphy) who visits the United States and winds up working at a menial job. In 1990, a Superior Court in California ruled in his favor.
Mr. Buchwald remained heavyset throughout his life, avoiding exercise, he said, because it was dangerous to his health. He gravitated toward big cigars and rich pastries. He wrote a second memoir, "I'll Always Have Paris," in 1996. And he established a scholarship for "the most irreverent student" in journalism at U.S.C.
It was an irreverence rooted in hurt, his friends said. "No matter what went wrong in his life, he could make a job out of setbacks, out of things that had gone wrong," Mr. Wallace said. Even after he had checked himself into the hospice and refused dialysis, his spirits remained up as he accepted a stream of visitors.
A Legacy of Joy
"I said to him the other night at the hospice, 'What are you going to leave behind, buddy?' " Mr. Wallace said in February. "He said, 'Joy!' He almost shouted it."
As he continued to write his column, he found material in his own survival. "So far things are going my way," he wrote in March. "I am known in the hospice as The Man Who Wouldn't Die. How long they allow me to stay here is another problem. I don't know where I'd go now, or if people would still want to see me if I weren't in a hospice. But in case you're wondering, I'm having a swell time — the best time of my life."
Nadine Brozan contributed reporting.
“Superman!” gasps Lois Lane, freshly scooped from beneath the nodding carbines of a South American firing squad. “Right!” says the boxy blue-and-red figure who holds her in his arms. “And still playing the role of gallant rescuer!” His mouth is set in a kind of grimace, but with dimples. Is he frowning? Tautly grinning? And what can he mean by “still playing the role”? This is only the second Superman comic ever, from July 1938, and already our hero — caped and airborne, with Lois coiled against his unbreachable bosom — is carrying a freight of super-irony.
“超人！”剛從南美行刑場的卡賓槍下逃過一劫的洛伊斯·萊恩(Lois Lane)氣喘吁籲地喊道。 “是我！”穿著紅藍衣衫的壯漢把她攬在懷裡，肯定地回答道，“我還在扮演英勇的救世主角色！”他咧著嘴，似乎在做鬼臉，但露出了酒窩。他在皺眉嗎？還是在緊張地咧嘴笑？他說“還在扮演這個角色”，這又是什麼意思？這只是自1938年7月以來的第二部《超人》漫畫，但是我們的英雄——穿著披風，飛來飛去，將洛伊斯護在他堅實的胸前——已經開始蘊含著巨大的諷刺。
Then again, as we learn from “Superman,” Larry Tye's exhaustive and engaging book, irony attends every phase of this story. Superman's creators — Jerry Siegel (writing) and Joe Shuster (drawing) — were a pair of Cleveland geeks whose underdoggery was purer almost than the alpha-male prowess of the pulp heroes they adored: Tarzan, Hugo Danner, Clark (Doc) Savage Jr. and so on. Both the sons of immigrant Jewish tailors, Siegel and Shuster were uncool, and they were girl- less. They had no money. Shuster, the artist, was horribly nearsighted. And how they toiled, through lost nights of teenage-dom, at their secret weapon: their made-up ultrabeing, their hero to out-hero them all. First , in a misfire, he was naughty (a mind-reading tramp called “the Super-Man”), then he was good. Then very good. At last, on what Tye calls “a hot summer night of divinelike inspiration,” it happened: the elements fused, and the 19-year-old Siegel, scribbling madly in his bathroom, came up with the doomed planet Krypton, Lois Lane, Clark Kent the mild-mannered reporter. . . .
從拉里·泰伊(Larry Tye)詳盡、迷人的《超人》(Superman)一書裡，我們發現，故事發展的每個階段都伴隨著諷刺。超人的創造者——傑里·西格爾（Jerry Siegel，腳本作者）和喬·舒斯特（Joe Shuster，漫畫作者）——是一對來自克利夫蘭的怪人。他們從小就不被人看好，就像廉價漫畫書裡他們崇拜的英雄一樣——比如泰山(Tarzan)、雨果·丹納(Hugo Danner)和小克拉克·薩維奇(Clark Savage Jr.)— —甚至比他們還要卑微。他們都是猶太移民的孩子，父母做著裁縫活兒，他們土里土氣，沒有女孩喜歡。他們都沒錢。漫畫創作者舒斯特還有高度近視。在青春期無數個迷惘的夜晚，他們努力製造自己的秘密武器：一個自己造出來的超級生命，超越所有英雄的英雄。一開始，他們寫的英雄有點壞（是個會讀心的流浪漢，名叫“超級男人”），這次嘗試不太成功。後來他成了好人。之後，成了大好人。最後，在一個被泰伊稱作“神啟般的炎熱的夏夜”，一切就這樣發生了：各種元素融合在了一起，19歲的西格爾在衛生間裡瘋狂地一頓塗鴉，編出了滅亡的氪星球、洛伊斯·萊恩、溫和的記者克拉克·肯特(Clark Kent)……
Four years later, after many rejections, the boys finally got a Superman comic onto the newsstands: Action Comics No. 1, June 1938. The comics writer Grant Morrison, in his 2011 book “Supergods,” describes the cover image as looking “like a cave painting waiting to be discovered on a subway wall 10,000 years from now.” Superman, his body flexed with a terrible rectitude, is hoisting a car over his head and crushing its front end against a boulder. In the foreground a man flees wildly , “clutching his head,” as Morrison observes, “like Edvard Munch's Screamer, his face a cartoon of gibbering existential terror.” And no wonder: this Superman is dynamically angry, an avatar of decency outraged, bashing through doors and tossing goons over the treetops. “Don't get tough!” growls an interrupted wife beater. Says Superman: “Tough is putting mildly the treatment you're going to get! You're not fighting a woman, now!”
在遭到無數次退稿後，《超人》漫畫終於在四年後面市了：刊登在1938年6月的《動作漫畫》(Action Comics)第一期上。漫畫作者格蘭特·莫瑞森(Grant Morrison)，在2011年出版的他的新書《超級眾神》(Supergods)裡說，這本漫畫的封面好像是“等待一萬年後被人在地下洞穴裡發現的壁畫”。一身正氣的超人正將一輛轎車舉過頭頂，把車頭砸向一塊巨石。在圖片前部，一個男人正“抱頭鼠竄”，如莫瑞森所述，“像極了愛德華·蒙克(Edvard Munch)《吶喊》裡的人物，他的臉因為極度恐懼而變形了。”也難怪：此刻的超人儼然是正義的化身，他義憤填膺，破門而入，把暴徒扔向樹梢。 “你別動粗！”打老婆的人被攔住了，所以大聲喊道。超人說：“對你這種人，動粗就算是客氣的了！這次你的對手可不是女人了！”
Equally potent are the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” shenanigans of poor Clark Kent, his alter ego, heartily scorned by Lois. Sad, really, that this magnificent and double-natured figure had already been sold, rights, image and all, to the publishers of Action Comics for $130 — a deal that Tye, with hyperbole worthy of a Golden Age comics editor, calls the “original sin” of the comics industry and “a swindle on the order of the Dutch West India Company's 1626 purchase of Manhattan from the natives for $24.” (In “Supergods,” Morrison takes a soberer view: “Superman was a foot in the door. . . . I'd suspect that both Siegel and Shuster imagined they'd create other, better characters. ”)
跟《小屁孩日記》(Diary of a Wimpy Kid)裡的惡作劇一樣有趣的是他的另一個身份——可憐的克拉克·肯特——他總是被洛伊斯從心底里鄙視。可惜的是，這個迷人的有著雙重身份的人物已經被售出了——版權、形象、所有的一切——以區區130美元的價格賣給了《動作漫畫》的出版商。拉里·泰伊以黃金年代動漫（指的是20世紀30年代末到40年代末或50年代初的時期，現代漫畫得以出版並廣泛流行——編註）雜誌編輯誇張的口吻，稱這個交易是漫畫業的“原罪”，是“赤裸裸的詐騙，堪比荷蘭西印度公司1626年用24美元從土著居民手中購買曼哈頓”。 （在《超級眾神》中，莫瑞森對這件事的看法更冷靜：“超人只是成功的第一步……我懷疑西格爾和舒斯特都以為他們能創造出其他更好的人物。”）
And so he was launched — not flying yet, still leaping in eighths of a mile, but with the wind beneath his cape. He proliferated and diversified into different lines of comic books. A slow and fantastical increase in powers was witnessed, as the collective reader-mind became absorbed in his possibilities. Tye (whose previous books include a biography of Satchel Paige) is very good on this, on the steady daydreamlike magnification of Superness: “His million-decibel yell had enough intensity and pitch to topple tall buildings . What if a building fell on him? A tickle at most. His nostrils were super-acute. His typing was super-fast. . . . His gaze was intense enough to hypnotize a whole tribe of South American Indians at once. He could converse with a mermaid in her native tongue and beat a checkers expert his first time playing.” He was a champion of the oppressed, and his values were solidly New Deal — he took down slumlords, arms dealers and random unincorporated bullies. In real- world court he successfully faced first Wonder Man and then Captain Marvel (“the World's Mightiest Mortal”), charging them with being Superman knockoffs.
所以，他被發射了出去——還不會飛，只是一跳就能躍過200米，不過得借助披風下面的風力。超人衍生出不同的漫畫系列。我們見證了他的能力在慢慢地、神奇地增強，因為讀者們想出的各種各樣的超能力，都被集中在了他身上。泰伊（他之前還寫過薩奇·佩吉[Satchel Paige]的傳記）非常擅長像描述白日夢般形容超人的超能力：“他的怒吼有百萬分貝，強度之大，聲音之高，可以震塌高樓。要是樓塌了砸著他怎麼辦？沒關係，對他來說跟撓痒癢一樣。他的鼻子超級靈敏。他打字的速度超快……，他的眼神可以瞬間催眠一整個南美印第安部落。他能用美人魚的母語跟她說話。第一次下棋就能打敗國際象棋大師。”他是被壓迫者的鬥士，他的價值觀完全是“羅斯福新政”的理念——他收拾惡房東、軍火商和惡霸。在現實世界的法庭上，他先是打敗了“神奇先生”(Wonder Man)，接著又打敗了“神奇船長”（Captain Marvel，“世界上最偉大的人”），指控他們是超人的冒牌貨。
But he was a lonely, lonely man-god. Was he even a real superhero? On his native Krypton (now destroyed) he would have been normal, after all: it was only Earth's “slighter gravity pull” that gave him his superstrength. And Lois might dote upon the all-conquering Superman, but she despised Clark Kent. Was there anyone out there who could love them both — love him, that is, in the totality of his being? Displaced religiosity swirled, still swirls, around him . He is Christlike in his virtue and singularity. He is also, according to Tye, Jewish, from his Judaic-sounding real name, Kal-El, to the Moses-on-the-Nile echoes of his infantile voyage to Earth. Tye diagnoses Superman's “lingering heartsickness” as “survivor's guilt” and adds, “A last rule of thumb: When a name ends in 'man,' the bearer is Jewish, a superhero or both.”
但他是個孤獨的半人半神。他是真正的超級英雄嗎？在他的故鄉氪星球（已經被摧毀了），他只是個正常人，只是因為地球引力較小，才讓他力量超強。洛伊斯迷戀的是能戰勝一切的超人，卻鄙視克拉克·肯特。會有人同時愛他的兩個身份嗎？他的宗教傾向始終是個謎團。他的品德和獨特性像耶穌。同時，如泰伊所說，他身上也有猶太元素。他的真名Kal-El聽起來像個猶太名字，他在嬰兒時期被送往地球避難，像極了摩西被放在尼羅河上逃生。泰伊將超人“揮之不去的抑鬱心情”歸咎於“倖存者的內疚”，並補充說，“還有一個經驗就是：如果一個人的名字以man結尾，那麼這個人不是猶太人，就是超級英雄，或者是個猶太超級英雄。”
Tye's account of Superman's 1946 run-in with the Ku Klux Klan is slightly muffled, perhaps because it has been thoroughly covered elsewhere. (The radio show “Adventures of Superman” took on the Klan in a 16-episode series called “Clan of the Fiery Cross.”) But he makes up for it with a sizzling portrait of the extraordinary Mort Weisinger, a brutal, obese bottom-liner who was also, in a crowning Supermanic irony, the franchise's most fabulous and poetic editor. When Weisinger fired a well-respected artist in 1966, and said artist then asked if he'd heard right, Weisinger said, “Do you need a kick in the stomach to know when you're not wanted?” And yet it was the Weisinger years that gave us Brainiac, Bizarro, the full terror of kryptonite, a gorgeous, pulsing sprawl of Superman mythology. “He divined a fairy-tale universe,” Tye writes, “with its own laws of nature.”
泰伊對1946年“超人大戰3K黨”的講述有點含混不清，也許是因為其他地方對此有完整的介紹。但是他對另一個人的精彩講述彌補了這一點，這個人就是與眾不同的莫特·維新格(Mort Weisinger)。他冷酷、肥胖、唯利是圖，最諷刺的是，他也是《動作漫畫》最優秀、最有想像力的編輯。 1966年維新格辭掉一位很受尊重的藝術家時，藝術家問他是不是聽錯了，維新格說，“還需要給你肚子上踢一腳，你才知道這兒不需要你了嗎？”但是正是在維新格做編輯的那些年，我們有了布萊尼亞克(Brainiac)和逆反超人(Bizarro)這一系列氪星大反派和一個個華麗的、讓人熱血沸騰的超人神話。 “他開啟了一個神話世界”，泰伊寫道，“按照他自己的法則。”
For me the story lessens in excitement the closer it gets to the present: the predictably gritty reboots of the comic book, the megabucks '70s and '80s movies. As a reading experience, this all represents a bit of a petering-out. It's in the middle of Tye's book, in the thick of it, that you find the luscious old-school moments — as when George Reeves, less than thrilled to be TV's first Superman, introduces himself to Phyllis Coates, the new Lois Lane, and says , “Well, babe, this is it: the bottom of the barrel.” He's quite wrong, of course: Superman will be 75 next year, and his barrel is apparently bottomless. Mighty, solitary, wearing his underpants on the outside as if in an endless anxiety dream, he flies on.
在我看來，這個故事到現在，已經越來越沒意思了：《動作漫畫》要重啟《超人》系列，好萊塢也會繼續拍攝曾在20世紀七八十年代票房大賣的《超人》電影。作為一種閱讀體驗，《超人》已經顯出疲態。而在泰伊的書中，在其最精彩的部分，你能找到那種老派的強烈的感官刺激。喬治·李維（George Reeves，第一個出現在電視劇裡的超人）把自己介紹給菲利斯·科茨（Phyllis Coates，洛伊斯·萊恩的扮演者）時，不溫不火地說道， “嗯，小妞，就這樣了：就要到尾聲了。”他真是大錯特錯：超人到明年就75歲了，但是很明顯他的故事還遠沒結束。他還在飛翔，強大而孤獨，彷彿在無邊的焦慮的夢中……內褲依然穿在外面。
James Parker writes the Entertainment column for The Atlantic.
Copyright © 2013 The New York Times Company. All rights reserved.
本文最初發表於2012年7月8日。
本文作者詹姆斯·帕克(James Parker)為美國《大西洋月刊》(The Atlantic)娛樂專欄撰稿。
翻譯：王艷
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超人包可華(幽默文選). 文学, Art Buchwald著茅及銓譯, 臺灣皇冠出版社, 無出版年份 原著為 1972
在舅公的译著中，有不少包可华（Art Buchwald）的作品，他似乎对这位美国华府 ...包
舅公姓茅名及铨，有关他的情况我知之甚少。他到大陆探亲时，曾赠送我一本1990年8月再版的自撰小说：《何处是 归程》，在书后的“跋之跋”概述了他的简历：“我一直不务正业，学的是化工，也曾在公私工厂稳住岗位，爬到顶尖地位，但总觉得不甚带劲。于是出来搞发明、 办杂志，后来居然到中国时报爬了八年格子，好像仍然意犹未尽，继续努力中。”舅公是个多产作家，台湾中央图书馆里有几十张书卡载著着他的名字。《何处是归程》是他根据1959年在纽约、波士顿、费城一带的所见所闻而写成的，在皇冠杂志上连载，“两年间，月月催稿，急如星火。”这部作品是舅公自己较为满意的，1990年春他二度返回大陆故乡省亲，亲朋好友们向其索书，但“几乎连孤本都找不到”，他就以再版的《何处是归程》“充个壳子”。他还出版了散文与短篇小说集《翡冷翠的一夜》、报刊专栏结集《中流随笔》。舅公的儿子曾和我说起，他父亲是台湾皇冠出版社第一批十四位签约的基本作家之一，其他十三位是︰司马中原、尼洛、朱西宁、季季、段彩华、桑品载、高阳、张菱舲、华严、冯冯、魏子云、聂华苓、琼瑶 。这些知名作家中有不少人尊称舅公为“老师”，其中包括著名作家琼瑶。
舅公年青时热衷于发明创造，并获得多项美国专利。1970年曾赴日本参观大阪博览会，并为在台视主持的“发明天地”节目走访东京十二频道。写书对他来说或未专攻，不敢言大作星布，倒亦小品盈架了。他一生还翻译了不少英美名著，我知道的就有（美）汤姆士·哈里斯（Thomas Harris）的《红色龙》、（美）史蒂芬·金（Stephen King）和（美）彼得·史超伯（Peter Straub）的《魔符》、（美）温伯（Wambaugh,J.）的《灿烂宫》、（美）金（King,S.）的《燃烧的凝视》，这些译作都是舅公独立完成的，他同时还合作翻译了一些外国作品，计有：（美）罗宾斯（Robbins,H.）的《再见珍妮》、（英）赫特（Holt,V.）的《妩媚的面具》、史超伯（Straub,P.）的《鬼的故事》。
在舅公的译著中，有不少包可华（Art Buchwald）的作品，他似乎对这位美国华府政论专栏作家、被誉为“报界卓别林”的幽默大师情有独钟，先后翻译出版了《尼克森台上台下》、《包可华出击》、《包可华白宫沉沦记》、《包可华看世界》、《超人包可华幽默文选》、《包可华与尼克森》等。我想舅公对包可华的偏爱，应源于他的个性，因为他本人的谈吐也不乏幽默诙谐。曾记得陪同他老人家去龙井品茗，席间的他，海阔天空，谈笑风生，使晚辈如临春风，如沐秋水。而如今我和舅公“阴阳隔世”，每每回想起来不禁令人怅然若失。*****【2007司大紀元1月19日訊】（大紀元記者岳芸綜合報導）享譽美國逾半世紀的幽默專欄作家包可華（Art Buchwald），1月17日晚間因腎衰竭病逝在華盛頓的兒子家中，享年81歲。他的家人在美東時間1月18日宣布這項消息。
包可華在2006年2月截肢，腎臟也有毛病。醫師告訴他，終其一生，他必須洗腎。他嘗試接受，但很快就決定去安寧病房，平靜地選擇自然死亡。他很感謝那裡親切溫柔的看護，尊重他的決定，並幫他走完人生最後一段的旅程。據上個月台灣《人間福報》報導。
安寧病房不提供治療，只提供照護，包可華在五個月後奇蹟式的出院。他說：「我們每個人都和上帝有個電話熱線，只要它不響，你就可以苟延殘喘一陣子。」
包可華發現，老年人在面對自然死亡，往往看了醫師後不久就想自殺。他說，醫師和護士步入病房時總是板著臉，他的處方？「應該把他們送到迪士尼樂園受訓。」
有評述道，在包可華籌備自己的喪禮等一切後事時，他變成哲學家，思考人生的終極問題，答案很簡單，他到人世走一遭，就是要逗大家笑。「所以我又開始寫作，並發現寫得很棒。」
另據法新社報導，2006年2月，包可華拒絕洗腎，他的醫生當時認為，他將因腎衰竭只有三週好活。到了5月23日，他在例行的《華盛頓郵報》專欄表示：「四個月過去了，連醫生都無法解釋的原因，我的腎臟還在繼續工作。」
包可華幽默的調侃自己有點沮喪，未如醫生所預測將很快死去，他必須再刮鬍子、重寫遺囑、改變喪禮進行的程序，還有，買了一支新手機。
「我從來不知道逐漸死去是這麼好玩。」他表示：「我愈受到公眾注意，我的腎臟也愈受到注意，與其說安靜地走入黑夜，其實我每天都在開記者會。」
撰有《柏楊版資治通鑒》的台灣作家柏楊曾說，要歸功於九年二十六天的牢獄之災，使他潛心讀史，開始對中國綿長歷史的爬梳工作。如果沒有這場牢獄，他認為自己無論怎麼搖筆桿，充其量也就像聞名於世的美國包可華，只是個寫幽默雜文的專欄作家。
「包可華」之名譯自《聯合報》專欄作家何凡之手，1967年起，何凡翻譯美國家喻戶曉的「包可華專欄」，每週一篇，二十年如一日，曾陸續出版十四集《包可華專欄》，總共七百多篇。
****包可華笑對死神 2006/4
聯社華盛頓四日電】
以詼諧筆調諷喻時事聞名國際的美國幽默作家包可華(Art Buchwald，已因腎功能衰竭，住進華盛頓一所安寧療護院，並決定放棄洗腎治療，據稱只有幾周可活。不過，對於自己兩個多月還沒死，包可華說，連醫師都想不透。
即使死亡逼近，這位普立茲獎專欄作家仍堅持讓每分每秒過得精彩。包可華說，他不怕死，也不為之沮喪。生性樂觀開朗的他不但沒有躺著等死，還成天撰寫專欄，與每天來探訪他的好友追憶過去的美好時光。80歲的包可華說：「這是告別最好的方式。」
一如暢銷書「最後14堂星期二的課」（Tuesdays with Morrie）作者與臨終的大學教授每周智慧相見，包克華每周也在療護院與家人、以及媒體和政治圈的名流好友談天說地。
因血管問題而在今年1月鋸掉一條小腿的包克華說，截肢對他的「精神打擊非常大」，而且可能是促成他拒絕洗腎的原因。面對死神召喚卻顯得平靜的包可華說：「我不怕死，我的生命豐富美好，已經活80歲了，沒什麼好怕的。」
對於放棄治療的決定，他說：「親人、朋友、大家都不喜歡這主意，但一旦做了這決定，大家也只好尊重我。」他的選擇激起外界關注，也為他帶來新的「粉絲」。自2月7日住進安寧療護院以來收到上百封信，其中一部分成為他6日專欄的主題。
包可華在1995年出版的前傳「離家」（Leaving Home）中說，幽默感是他的「救世軍」。他在第二次世界大戰後成為南加州大學詼諧雜誌的執行編輯，以及學生報的專欄作家。他在1948年輟學，前往巴黎，成為綜藝報（Variety）的特派記者，同時為紐約先驅論壇報（New York Herald Tri-bune）撰寫專欄。包可華1962年回美國，展開專欄作家的職業生涯，華盛頓權力掮客常是他筆下揶揄的主題。1982年，他贏得新聞界最高榮譽普立茲獎。
生命將盡的包可華說，人們無須太在意何時死亡，而是該自問：「為何到人世走一遭？」至於包可華怎麼看他在世間80多年？他說：「當然是讓人歡笑。」
【2006/04/05 世界日報
人生的層次──殷海光最後的話語
鄭安國∕文 (20060406)
本文為自由主義學者殷海光，最後一場公開的演講── 「人生的意義」的過往，作者係當時演講會的策劃者與主持人，因而撰寫此文回憶這段四十年前的塵封舊事。 ──編者
四十年前的四月八日星期五下午二時，當時的自由主義大師殷海光先生在台北市木柵國立政治大學六三○教室發表他最後、也是最重要的一次公開演講「人生的意義」。也許是殷海光先生也預知這是他的一次重要演說，所以他的演說就是鏗鏘有力的用「今天是一九六六年四月八日」做為開場白。 筆者當時是這次演講會的策劃者與主持人，四十年來，經常浮現腦際的不只是殷海光先生在演講中那種凜然的風骨；做為一個大二政治系學生，對殷海光的景仰以及籌辦這次在當年深具爭議性的演講會的周折，更是成為大學生活中最深刻的回憶。
對於現在的年輕人來說，知道殷海光的人雖然不多，但由於殷海光是台灣走向自由民主道路上的一位思想巨人，這場演講會的周折，也反映了威權時代轉型中的面貌。
四十年前雖處於威權時代，但是大學生對自由民主的嚮往，仍甚熱切。當時我們一群以政治系、外交系、公共行政系為主的同學組成了西潮學社；有別於以辦活動為主的其他學生社團，西潮學社是讀書會形式，每週聚會，由一位同學報告讀書心得，所讀之書以社會科學及文史哲學課外書為主，偶爾舉辦對外演講座談。設社務委員，每兩月任輪值主席，負責這兩個月的活動。我是一九六六年三、四月的輪值主席。
殷海光的著作「思想與方法」、「海耶克和他的思想」，以及翻譯的「到奴役之路」，都是我們愛好的讀物。因此當時我就想邀請他來政大演講，也向西潮社的主要成員陸錦雯及其他同學們報告了這個構想，大家都很贊同。我當然知道當時台大教授殷海光開課都受到限制，且有好幾年不准公開演講。基於反抗威權的理念，還是決定一試。
當時電話並不普遍，所以我向台大經濟系的同學陳松打聽到殷海光先生的住址後，在三月底的某日晚上，直接前往殷海光在溫州街十八巷十六弄九號的寓所。那是一幢像是經過改造後的日式單門獨院的平房。那天下著微雨，沿門摸索了一陣才找到，按了門鈴，即聽見兩隻猛犬的吠聲。殷海光先生親自開門，雖見過他的照片，但仍訝異於四十七歲的他，竟是如此蒼老。雖然未有先約，但殷海光對我的來訪並沒有很意外，可能還是常有一些他不認識的慕名求教者吧！
殷海光先生領我進屋裡，那是一間陳設簡單的小客廳。我向殷海光說明來意，也向他報告西潮學社的性質，他對我們的心意有點嘉許，但對於邀請他演講，他卻很直率的說：「那是不可能的，你知道他們已經幾年不讓我演講嗎？」我說：「知道。」他說：「他們怕我。」我表示，我們還是想試一試。連在台大開課都限制重重，要在相對保守的政大演講，看起來更是困難。也許殷海光也有突破限制的韌性，所以他終於同意我們一試。
談到演講的主題，他說：「就談『人生的意義』好了。」。對我這個學政治的學生來說，其實是希望他談些政治、思想方面的主題，對聽眾來說也比較有吸引力。不過他說「人生的意義很重要，現在就是太多人重視生物層面的東西，而忽略了更重要的價值。」我終於瞭解這個平凡題目中的深意。
敲定了題目、敲定了時間，回到學校向西潮學社報告，大家都很興奮，於是就向訓導處提出申請，也選定了當時政大最大的一間教室，可以容納一百餘人的六三○教室。申請書送出後，我們沒想到很順利的就獲得訓導處的批准。殷老師也沒想到他居然被解凍了。
我們立即製作了幾張海報，張貼在學校各個主要地點。不料在演講前三天，四月五日星期二，訓導處火速通知我，訓導長約我見面。訓導長葉尚志是政大第一期的學長，是一位和藹可親的長者，由內政部人事處長轉任。見面後，葉訓導長很客氣，但很明確的告訴我，有關方面對於殷海光演講有意見，希望能夠停辦。我聽後雖覺意外，但從籌劃之初即已預期可能會有一些干擾，所以並不訝異。我乃反問，現在全校同學都知道這個活動，若現在宣佈停辦，大家會怎麼想？對政府的形象是不是更加不好？葉訓導長說：「可是他們怕會出問題」。我想了一下表示，如果他們耽心殷海光講一些他們認為刺激性的話，我想我可以跟殷海光溝通一下。因為我實在不希望演講被取消，所以自作主張的作了一點妥協。葉訓導長同意我的看法。
當天晚上我就趕去殷海光家，告訴他這個狀況，殷老師聽後用他慣有厭惡威權的語氣說，「我就知道他們這些人的想法，這些俗人，我才不會談政治。」翌日上午我告訴葉訓導長，殷海光在演講中不會談政治問題，只談人生哲學問題。葉訓導長說，好吧，我跟他們溝通一下。有關單位終於對這次演講放行。
四月八日那天二點不到，六三○教室已擠滿了人。這是政大學生社團辦演講難得一見的盛況。我略作介紹之後，殷海光即開始他這場重要的演講。我們依照殷海光先給我們的「人生的界域」手繪圖，繪於黑板上。
殷海光將人生分成四個層次，最低層是物理層，次低層是生物邏輯層，上一層生物文化層，最上層是真、善、美、理想、道德層。殷海光說，人應「擴展我們的界域，由單純的物理層，進為生物邏輯層，再由此發展到生物文化層，繼續發展。然後人類有真善美的意識，有理想、有道德，這就是價值層，這層就是人之所以為人的層級。」
殷海光也提出一個兩難式，就是如果我們要滿足衣食等生物邏輯，而勢必犧牲道德或理想，處此困境之下，我們怎麼作決定。他提出幾個原則：第一，我們萬不可在自己的生存並未受到威脅時，為了換取現實利益而犧牲道德原則。第二，在我們的生活勉強可過時，萬不可因要得到較佳報酬而犧牲他人。第三，當我們因生活困難而被迫不得不放棄若干作人的原則時，我們必須儘可能作「道德的抗戰」，把道德的領土放棄得愈少愈好，尚且要存心待機，「收復道德的失地」。復次，我們有我們的好惡。如果經濟貧困了，我們的好惡是否就要放棄，是否就不能講了。還有尊嚴問題，如果人的經濟價值不能滿足，尊嚴是否可以不顧？
這番話不只語重心長，而且邏輯嚴謹，可以說是殷海光面對橫逆考驗而凝鍊出來高貴而務實的人生智慧。
演講非常成功，但事後從訓導處一直傳出要對我嚴格處分的消息，我感受到一些壓力，唯自忖一切依規定來，如處分我，那麼如何處分核准這次演講的人。因此也就淡然處之了。我根據錄音帶，非常仔細的作了一個錄音記錄，於四月二十日送去請殷海光先生訂正，並於一九六六年五月發表在我所負責的議事規則研習會的「議事會刊」上。在此之後，殷海光並未再發表過公開演講，其所著「中國文化的展望」且於是年六月被禁。
一年後的一九六七年四月二十日，我去台大活動中心聽易君博老師的演講，殷海光也在座，我趨前問候，他緊握我手說：「真是恍如隔世」。我見他較一年前更形蒼老，乃問其身體狀況，他說：「一個多月前得了胃病，正所謂心腹之患。」沒想到二天後，因李敖之敦勸，去宏恩醫院檢查，發現竟是胃癌，而於四月二十五日住入台大醫院726病房。翌日，我與陸錦雯前往探視，他的病榻邊放著一本正在看的英文書「Life Against Death」，顯示他求生的意志。是日，當時任教政大的金耀基老師、王曉波也都來探視照顧。唯終於一九六九年五十歲的英年齎志以歿。所以這篇演講記錄陳鼓應稱之為「殷海光最後的話語」，一些大學並以這篇文章為教材。如今在網路上也可搜尋取閱。
現在，重讀這篇文章，一字一句，每個語調，均是殷海光的風格、心境。全文雖然未觸及政治，但是其期許反更高遠，四十年後，仍令人低迴不已。
即使死亡逼近，這位普立茲獎專欄作家仍堅持讓每分每秒過得精彩。包可華說，他不怕死，也不為之沮喪。生性樂觀開朗的他不但沒有躺著等死，還成天撰寫專欄，與每天來探訪他的好友追憶過去的美好時光。80歲的包可華說：「這是告別最好的方式。」
一如暢銷書「最後14堂星期二的課」（Tuesdays with Morrie）作者與臨終的大學教授每周智慧相見，包克華每周也在療護院與家人、以及媒體和政治圈的名流好友談天說地。
因血管問題而在今年1月鋸掉一條小腿的包克華說，截肢對他的「精神打擊非常大」，而且可能是促成他拒絕洗腎的原因。面對死神召喚卻顯得平靜的包可華說：「我不怕死，我的生命豐富美好，已經活80歲了，沒什麼好怕的。」
對於放棄治療的決定，他說：「親人、朋友、大家都不喜歡這主意，但一旦做了這決定，大家也只好尊重我。」他的選擇激起外界關注，也為他帶來新的「粉絲」。自2月7日住進安寧療護院以來收到上百封信，其中一部分成為他6日專欄的主題。
包可華在1995年出版的前傳「離家」（Leaving Home）中說，幽默感是他的「救世軍」。他在第二次世界大戰後成為南加州大學詼諧雜誌的執行編輯，以及學生報的專欄作家。他在1948年輟學，前往巴黎，成為綜藝報（Variety）的特派記者，同時為紐約先驅論壇報（New York Herald Tri-bune）撰寫專欄。包可華1962年回美國，展開專欄作家的職業生涯，華盛頓權力掮客常是他筆下揶揄的主題。1982年，他贏得新聞界最高榮譽普立茲獎。
生命將盡的包可華說，人們無須太在意何時死亡，而是該自問：「為何到人世走一遭？」至於包可華怎麼看他在世間80多年？他說：「當然是讓人歡笑。」
【2006/04/05 世界日報
Art Buchwald, Whose Humor Poked the Powerful, Dies at 81
By RICHARD SEVERO
Published: January 19, 2007
Art Buchwald, who satirized the follies of the rich, the famous and the powerful for half a century as the most widely read newspaper humorist of his time, died Wednesday night in Washington. He was 81. Skip to next paragraph
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Steven Senne/Associated Press
Art Buchwald spoke at an auction in Edgartown, Mass. in August 2006. Multimedia
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The cause was kidney failure, said his son, Joel. Mr. Buchwald, long a pillar of Washington life, died at his son's home, where he had been living for most of the last eight years.
Mr. Buchwald's syndicated column was a staple for a generation or more of newspaper readers, not least the politicians and government grandees he lampooned so regularly. His life was a rich tale of gumption, heartbreak and humor, with chapters in Paris, Washington and points around the globe.
But perhaps no year of his life was as remarkable as the last. It became something of an extended curtain call. Last February, doctors told him he had only a few weeks to live. "I decided to move into a hospice and go quietly into the night," he wrote three months later. "For reasons that even the doctors can't explain, my kidneys kept working."
Refusing dialysis, he continued to write his column, reflecting on his mortality while keeping his humor even as he lost a leg. He spent the summer on Martha's Vineyard, published a book, "Too Soon to Say Goodbye," in the fall and attended a memorial for an old friend, the reporter R. W. Apple Jr. of The New York Times. He gave interviews and looked on as his life was celebrated.
"The French ambassador gave me the literary equivalent of the Legion of Honor," he wrote. "The National Hospice Association made me man of the year. I never realized dying was so much fun."
Once described as a "Will Rogers with chutzpah," Mr. Buchwald found enthusiastic readerships on both sides of the Atlantic. Early on, he became nearly everyone's favorite American in Paris for his satirical column in the European edition of The New York Herald Tribune. When he returned from overseas to write a new column, from Washington, he became even more popular. At its peak, it appeared in some 500 newspapers.
He delighted in stirring the pot — never maliciously, always vigorously. The world was mad (or at least a little nutty), he said, and all he was doing was recording it. He did it so well that he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1982.
Across the world stage, he saw theater of the absurd, and he made an effort to immerse himself in it. He went to Yugoslavia to chase goats; he went to Turkey in search of a Turkish bath, writing that he was astonished when the Turks told him that they had no such thing.
During the cold war, he marched alongside missiles, tanks and troops in a May Day parade in East Berlin. Another time, he rented a chauffeured limousine to tour Eastern Europe. He wanted the people there to know, as he put it, alluding to his plump physique, what a "bloated, plutocratic capitalist really looked like."
More often, though, he skewered targets closer to home. In the Watergate years, he wrote about three men stranded in a sinking boat with a self-destructive President Richard M. Nixon. As the president hid food under his shirt, he bailed water into the vessel.
Making Readers Smile
In the early 1960s, Mr. Buchwald theorized that a shortage of Communists was imminent in the United States and that if the nation was not careful, the Communist Party would be made up almost entirely of F.B.I. informers.
"The joy of his column was not that it was side-splitting humor," his friend Ben Bradlee, the former editor of The Washington Post, said last February, "but that he made you smile."
It was an amiable and wry brand of wit that sprang from a man who had been reared in foster homes and an orphan asylum and who had decided, when he was 6 or 7, that his life was so awful that he should make a living making everybody laugh, even if he did not always laugh along with them. He had at least two serious bouts of depression in his middle years and regarded himself as occasionally suicidal.
Arthur Buchwald was born on Oct. 20, 1925, in Mount Vernon, N.Y., to Joseph and Helen Buchwald. His father had fled Austria for the United States to avoid service in the Austro-Hungarian army and opened a business making drapes and slipcovers. His mother, the former Helen Klineberger, had immigrated from Hungary.
The youngest of four children and the only son, Mr. Buchwald virtually never saw his mother. Suffering from delusions, she was admitted to a mental hospital a few weeks after his birth and was confined for the remaining 35 years of her life. Her son was not permitted to visit her when he was a child and decided not to after he became an adult. "I preferred the mother I had invented to the one I would find in the hospital," Mr. Buchwald wrote in a best-selling 1994 memoir, "Leaving Home."
By his own account he had always wondered whether his birth had somehow been responsible for her illness, and when he sought help for his depression, he said, he confessed to his psychiatrist that he had conducted "a lifelong search for someone to replace her."
Mr. Buchwald soon parted from his father as well. Joseph Buchwald, unable to support his children after his business ran dry during the Depression, placed his son in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York. Mr. Buchwald was shuttled to a series of foster homes, including a Queens boarding house for sick children — he had rickets — run by Seventh-day Adventists.
There, young Arthur, a Jew, was taught that eating meat, fish and eggs was sinful. Years afterward, he wrote, "There is still a tiny Seventh-day Adventist inside of me screaming to get out every time I make a pass at a tuna fish sandwich."
Mr. Buchwald remained at the home until he was 5. He and his father and sisters were eventually reunited and lived in Hollis, Queens.
With the start of World War II, Mr. Buchwald, still in high school, ran away to join the Marines, hitchhiking to North Carolina. "The Marine Corps was the first father figure I had ever known," he wrote. Assigned to the Fourth Marine Air Wing, he spent most of his tour on a Pacific atoll cleaning aircraft guns and editing his squadron's newsletter while earning a sergeant's stripes.
After the war, Mr. Buchwald went to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles under the G.I. Bill and became managing editor of the campus humor magazine. But he neglected to tell the university that he had not finished high school. Officials told him that he could continue to take courses but that he could not be considered for a degree. (Thirty-three years later, the university gave him an honorary doctorate.)
Mr. Buchwald decided to continue his education in Paris. "My dream was to follow in the steps of Hemingway, Elliot Paul and Gertrude Stein," he wrote. "I wanted to stuff myself with baguettes and snails, fill my pillow with rejection slips and find a French girl named Mimi who believed that I was the greatest writer in the world."
Not yet 23, he sailed to Paris on a converted troop ship and enrolled at the Alliance Française, also under the G.I. bill. Soon he talked his way into a job with The Herald Tribune's Paris-based European edition writing a column about entertainment and restaurants for $25 a week.
The column, "Paris After Dark," caught on, and by the early 1950s, The Tribune had syndicated it internationally. His own favorite, friends said, was a 1952 column in which he explained Thanksgiving to the French, using a liberal amount of French translation, even of English names like Miles Standish (Kilometres Deboutish).
Mr. Buchwald became the subject of headlines himself in 1957. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was in Paris attending a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization when Mr. Buchwald, weary of the soft questions lobbed at Mr. Eisenhower by the press, wrote a column about a fictitious news conference in which reporters demanded to know, among other things, when the president started eating his morning grapefruit. The column incensed the president's press secretary, James C. Hagerty.
"Unadulterated rot," Mr. Hagerty called it.
Mr. Buchwald countered that he had "been known to write adulterated rot" but never "unadulterated rot."
Readers seemed to find vicarious pleasure in following the adventures of an expatriate but ordinary American flirting with royalty and the jet set without becoming a snob. In one column, he told readers that he had not been invited to the Grace Kelly-Prince Rainier wedding because of a family feud: "The Buchwalds and the Grimaldis have not spoken since Jan. 9, 1297." When Gary Cooper paid him a visit, he wrote a column of dialogue in which the famously reticent actor did all the talking and Mr. Buchwald replied with "yup" and "nope."
Mr. Buchwald often wrote about his wife and their three children. He had met Ann McCarry, a publicist for the fashion designer Pierre Balmain, in Paris, and they were married in 1952. They adopted three children, each born in a different country, and all survive their father — Joel (born in Ireland), of Washington; Connie Marks Buchwald (Spain) of Culpepper, Va.; and Jennifer Buchwald (France) of Roxbury, Mass. Two sisters — Edith Jaffe of Bellevue, Wash., and Doris Kahme of Delray Beach, Fla., and Monroe Township, N.J. — and five grandchildren also survive. Mrs. Buchwald died in 1994.
In his 14 years in Paris, Mr. Buchwald became as much a celebrity as those whose names he dropped in his columns. But it was in Washington, where he moved in 1962, that his fame took off.
By 1972, his column was appearing three times a week in about 400 newspapers in the United States and in 100 other countries. His nearest rival was his friend Russell Baker of The Times, whose "Observer" column appeared in other papers as well. "Buchwald is incomparable," Mr. Baker once said. "And he is brave, too, doing one of the hardest things in the world to do — to be funny, in exactly the same sort of way in regard to tone and technique, three times a week."
Mr. Buchwald's satire grew more biting in Washington. When President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to the Dominican Republic in 1965 with the stated purpose of protecting Americans there during a rebellion, Mr. Buchwald wrote a column about the last remaining one, a tourist named Sidney, who was being detained by the Dominican authorities so that the American soldiers would not pull out.
Occasionally a Washington insider would grouse about a Buchwald column, but his victims rarely bled. And he never hinted at his own political leanings in his columns. "He was a people person and not much interested in politics," Mr. Bradlee said.
An Influential Circle
Mr. Buchwald was as visible in Washington as he had been in Paris. He was often seen in sleek restaurants like the Sans Souci, holding court with a bevy of influential friends like Ethel Kennedy and Edward Bennett Williams, the co-owner of the Washington Redskins.
On Martha's Vineyard, where Mr. Buchwald had a summer home, one friend was the novelist William Styron. Mr. Buchwald played poker there with the journalists Carl T. Rowan and David Brinkley, the Johnson aide and later motion picture figure Jack Valenti, and the diplomat Llewellyn Thompson. He kibbitzed with the columnists Rowland Evans and Robert D. Novak, and he dressed in a flea-bitten rabbit suit to play the Easter bunny at a party he gave every year.
Another friend, the CBS correspondent Mike Wallace , said Mr. Buchwald could not escape his depression even at his summer retreat.
"Three of us — Bill Styron, he and I — suffered depression simultaneously, so we walked around in the rain together on Martha's Vineyard and consoled each other," Mr. Wallace said in a phone interview last February. "I traveled a lot on '60 Minutes,' and no matter where I was, every single night I got a call from Art Buchwald to listen to the same tale of woe. He did the best to make life palatable, to help you be optimistic, to let you know he believed you would beat it. We both did, and so did Bill. We named ourselves the Blues Brothers." Mr. Styron died in November.
Mr. Buchwald's column was the cornerstone of a virtual industry. He recycled it in hardcover anthologies and used it as the basis for radio and television appearances. He was always in demand on the lecture circuit or as a master of ceremonies, holding forth with mock-seriousness and a New York accent. He also had two novels published. One had its origins in Mr. Bradlee's office.
"A guy showed up in my office covered with bandages and blood and told me he was a recent graduate of Sing Sing," Mr. Bradlee said. "He had done time for murder and was broke. He became a thorn in my side, and I got sick of him, so I sent him to Buchwald, just to get him out of my office. Art locked him up in a room and wrote a book about him, 'A Gift From the Boys.' The guy had been deported and his mob friends gave him a girl as a goodbye present."
The novel, published in 1958, became the basis of the 1960 movie "Surprise Package" with Yul Brynner.
Mr. Buchwald's other novel, "The Bollo Caper," published in 1974, was an ecological fairy tale for children and adults about a leopard hunted for his fur. It was adapted as a 1985 television movie.
Mr. Buchwald's also wrote a stage comedy, "Sheep on the Runway," about a pundit named Joseph Mayflower. It had a Broadway run in 1970, delighting audiences but alienating the columnist Joseph Alsop, who felt the pompous villain of the piece had been modeled after him.
Almost 20 years later, Mr. Buchwald sued Paramount Pictures, demanding to be paid for a script idea that he contended was the basis for the hit movie "Coming to America," about an African prince (Eddie Murphy) who visits the United States and winds up working at a menial job. In 1990, a Superior Court in California ruled in his favor.
Mr. Buchwald remained heavyset throughout his life, avoiding exercise, he said, because it was dangerous to his health. He gravitated toward big cigars and rich pastries. He wrote a second memoir, "I'll Always Have Paris," in 1996. And he established a scholarship for "the most irreverent student" in journalism at U.S.C.
It was an irreverence rooted in hurt, his friends said. "No matter what went wrong in his life, he could make a job out of setbacks, out of things that had gone wrong," Mr. Wallace said. Even after he had checked himself into the hospice and refused dialysis, his spirits remained up as he accepted a stream of visitors.
A Legacy of Joy
"I said to him the other night at the hospice, 'What are you going to leave behind, buddy?' " Mr. Wallace said in February. "He said, 'Joy!' He almost shouted it."
As he continued to write his column, he found material in his own survival. "So far things are going my way," he wrote in March. "I am known in the hospice as The Man Who Wouldn't Die. How long they allow me to stay here is another problem. I don't know where I'd go now, or if people would still want to see me if I weren't in a hospice. But in case you're wondering, I'm having a swell time — the best time of my life."
Nadine Brozan contributed reporting.