Steve Martin Writes the Written Word

by Steve Martin

Genres: Literary Fiction; Humor & Satire

Synopsis

With an exclusive new introduction and some never-before-published pieces, a collection of greatest hits from one of the most beloved comedians of our time, Steve Martin, now starring in Hulu's Only Murders in the Building. 

Steve Martin Writes the Written Word is a perfect introduction for new fans and a must-have for longtime fans, showcasing the longevity, range, and—above all—hilarity of the master. ​Filled with his singular characters and musings--Daniel Pecan Cambridge, a modern-day neurotic yearning to break free in The Pleasure of My Company, to the comedic and heartbreaking relationship between Neiman Marcus shopgirl Mirabelle and businessman Ray Porter in Shopgirl, to meditations on bad neighbors and so much more--this collection shows the breadth of Martin's work, which is bolstered by a mix of brand-new and previously published selections of his writing for the New Yorker's "Shouts & Murmurs" column.

A tantalizing page-turner from start to finish that will appeal to a wide range of literary appetites, Steve Martin Writes the Written Word is a brilliant tour through a singular mind. 

Release date: July 8, 2025

Publisher: Hachette Books

Print pages: 432

Sample

Looking out over the East River from my jail cell and still running for public office, I realize that I have taken several actions in my life for which I owe public apologies.

Once, I won a supermarket sweepstakes even though my brother’s cousin was a box boy in that very store. I would like to apologize to Safeway Food, Inc., and its employees. I would like to apologize to my family, who have stood by me, and especially to my wife Karen. A wiser and more loyal spouse could not be found.

When I was twenty-one, I smoked marijuana every day for one year. I would like to apologize for the next fifteen years of anxiety attacks and drug-related phobias, including the feeling that when Ed Sullivan introduced Wayne and Shuster, he was actually signaling my parents that I was high. I would like to apologize to my wife Karen, who still believes in me, and to the Marijuana Growers Association of Napa Valley and its affiliates for any embarrassment I may have caused them. I would also like to mention a little incident that took place in the Holiday Inn in Ypsilanti, Michigan, during that same time. I was lying in bed in room 342 and began counting ceiling tiles. Since the room was square, it was an easy computation, taking no longer than the weekend. As Sunday evening rolled around, I began to compute how many imaginary ceiling tiles it would take to cover the walls and floor of my room. When I checked out of the hotel, I flippantly told the clerk that it would take twelve hundred ninety-four imaginary ceiling tiles to fill the entire room.

Two weeks later, while attempting to break the record for consecutive listenings to “American Pie,” I realized that I had included the real tiles in my calculation of imaginary tiles; I should have subtracted them from my total. I would like to apologize to the staff of the Holiday Inn for any inconvenience I may have caused, to the wonderful people at Universal Ceiling Tile, to my wife Karen, and to my two children, whose growth is stunted.

Several years ago, in California, I ate my first clam and said it tasted “like a gonad dipped in motor oil.” I would like to apologize to Bob ’n’ Betty’s Clam Fiesta, and especially to Bob, who I found out later only had one testicle. I would like to apologize to the waitress June and her affiliates, and the DePaul family dog, who suffered the contents of my nauseated stomach.

There are several incidents of sexual harassment I would like to apologize for:

In 1992, I was interviewing one Ms. Anna Floyd for a secretarial position, when my pants accidentally fell down around my ankles as I was coincidentally saying, “Ever seen one of these before?” Even though I was referring to my new Pocket Tape Memo Taker, I would like to apologize to Ms. Floyd for any grief this misunderstanding might have caused her. I would also like to apologize to the Pocket Tape people, to their affiliates, and to my family, who have stood by me. I would like to apologize also to International Hardwood Designs, whose floor my pants fell upon. I would especially like to apologize to my wife Karen, whose constant understanding fills me with humility.

Once, in Hawaii, I had sex with a hundred-and-two-year-old male turtle. It would be hard to argue that it was consensual. I would like to apologize to the turtle, his family, the Kahala Hilton Hotel, and the hundred or so diners at the Hilton’s outdoor café. I would also like to apologize to my loyal wife Karen, who had to endure the subsequent news item in the “Also Noted” section of the Santa Barbara Women’s Club Weekly.

In 1987, I attended a bar mitzvah in Manhattan while wearing white gabardine pants, white patent-leather slippers, a blue blazer with gold buttons, and a yachting cap. I would like to apologize to the Jewish people, the State of Israel, my family, who have stood by me, and my wife Karen, who has endured my seventeen affairs and three out-of-wedlock children.

I would also like to apologize to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, for referring to its members as “colored people.” My apology would not be complete if I didn’t include my new wife, Nancy, who is of a pinkish tint, and our two children, who are white-colored.

Finally, I would like to apologize for spontaneously yelling the word “Savages!” after losing six thousand dollars on a roulette spin at the Choctaw Nation Casino and Sports Book. When I was growing up, the usage of this word in our household closely approximated the Hawaiian aloha, and my use of it in the casino was meant to express “until we meet again.”

Now on with the campaign!

Writing is one of the most easy, pain-free, and happy ways to pass the time in all the arts. For example, right now I am sitting in my rose garden and typing on my new computer. Each rose represents a story, so I’m never at a loss for what to write. I just look deep into the heart of the rose and read its story and write it down through typing, which I enjoy anyway. I could be typing “kjfiu joewmv jiw” and would enjoy it as much as typing words that actually make sense. I simply relish the movement of my fingers on the keys. Sometimes, it is true, agony visits the head of a writer. At these moments, I stop writing and relax with a coffee at my favorite restaurant, knowing that words can be changed, rethought, fiddled with, and, of course, ultimately denied. Painters don’t have that luxury. If they go to a coffee shop, their paint dries into a hard mass.

I would recommend to writers that they live in California, because here they can look up at the blue sky in between those moments of looking into the heart of a rose. I feel sorry for writers—and there are some pretty famous ones—who live in places like South America and Czechoslovakia, where I imagine it gets pretty dreary. These writers are easy to spot. Their books are often depressing and filled with disease and negativity. If you’re going to write about disease, I would suggest that California is the place to do it. Dwarfism is never funny, but look at the result when it was dealt with out here in California. Seven happy dwarfs. Can you imagine seven dwarfs in Czechoslovakia? You would get seven melancholic dwarfs at best, seven melancholic dwarfs with no handicapped-parking spaces.

I admit that “Love in the time of…” is a great title, so far. You’re reading along, you’re happy, it’s about love, I like the way the word time comes in there, something nice in the association of love and time, like a new word almost, lovetime: nice, nice feeling. Suddenly, the morbid cholera appears. I was happy till then. “Love in the Time of the Oozing Sores and Pustules” is probably an earlier, rejected title of this book, written in a rat-infested tree house on an old Smith-Corona. This writer, whoever he is, could have used a couple of weeks in Pacific Daylight Time.

I did a little experiment. I decided to take the following disheartening passage, which was no doubt written in some depressing place, and attempt to rewrite it under the influence of California:

Most people deceive themselves with a pair of faiths: They believe in eternal memory (of people, things, deeds, nations) and in redressibility (of deeds, mistakes, sins, wrongs). Both are false faiths. In reality the opposite is true: Everything will be forgotten and nothing will be redressed. (Milan Kundera)

Sitting in my garden, as the bees glide from flower to flower, I let the above paragraph filter through my mind. The following new paragraph emerged:

I feel pretty,

Oh so pretty,

I feel pretty and witty and bright.

Kundera was just too wordy. Sometimes the Delete key is your greatest friend.

Writer’s block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they can have an excuse to drink alcohol. Sure, a writer can get stuck for a while, but when that happens to real authors, they simply go out and get an “as told to.” The alternative is to hire yourself out as an “as heard from,” thus taking all the credit. It is also much easier to write when you have someone to “bounce” with. This is someone to sit in a room with and exchange ideas. It is good if the last name of the person you choose to bounce with is Salinger. I know a certain early-twentieth-century French writer, whose initials were MP, who could have used a good bounce person. If he had, his title might have been the more correct “Remembering Past Things” instead of the clumsy one he used. The other trick I use when I have a momentary stoppage is virtually foolproof, and I’m happy to pass it along. Go to an already published novel and find a sentence you absolutely adore. Copy it down in your manuscript. Usually that sentence will lead you naturally to another sentence; pretty soon your own ideas will start to flow. If they don’t, copy down the next sentence. You can safely use up to three sentences of someone else’s work—unless they’re friends; then you can use two. The odds of being found out are very slim, and even if you are, there’s no jail time.

Nothing will make your writing soar more than a memorable character. If there is a memorable character, the reader will keep going back to the book, picking it up, turning it over in his hands, hefting it, and tossing it into the air. Here is an example of the jazzy uplift that vivid characters can offer:

Some guys were standing around when in came this guy.

You are now on your way to creating a memorable character. You have set him up as being a guy, and with that come all the reader’s ideas of what a guy is. Soon you will liven your character by using an adjective:

But this guy was no ordinary guy, he was a red guy.

This character, the red guy, has now popped into the reader’s imagination. He is a full-blown person, with hopes and dreams, just like the reader. Especially if the reader is a red guy. Now you might want to give the character a trait. You can inform the reader of the character trait in one of two ways. First, simply say what that trait is—for example, “But this red guy was different from most red guys, this red guy liked frappés.” The other is rooted in action—have the red guy walk up to a bar and order a frappé, as in:

“What’ll you have, red guy?”

“I’ll have a frappé.”

Once you have mastered these two concepts, vivid character writing combined with adjectives, you are on your way to becoming the next Shakespeare’s brother. And don’t forget to copyright any ideas you have that might be original. You don’t want to be caught standing by helplessly while your familiar “red guy” steps up to a bar in a frappé commercial.

Many very fine writers are intimidated when they have to write the way people really talk. Actually it’s quite easy. Simply lower your IQ by fifty and start typing!

Because topics are in such short supply, I have provided a few for writers who may be suffering in the darker climes. File some of these away, and look through them during the suicidal winter months:

“Naked Belligerent Panties”: This is a good sexy title with a lot of promise.

How about a diet book that suggests your free radicals don’t enter ketosis unless your insulin levels have been carbo-charged?

Something about how waves at the beach just keep coming and coming and how amazing it is (I smell a bestseller here).

“Visions of Melancholy from a Fast-Moving Train”: Some foreign writer is right now rushing to his keyboard, ready to pound on it like Horowitz. However, this title is a phony string of words with no meaning and would send your poor book to the “Artsy” section of Barnes and Noble, where—guess what—it would languish, be remaindered, and die.

Dagnabbit will never get you anywhere with the Booker Prize people. Lose it.

I have one observation about publishers: Whatever their pronouns are, they love it when you call them “babe.”

Now that we’ve established that, you are ready to “schmooze” your publisher. Let’s say your favorite author is Dante. Call Dante’s publisher and say you’d like to invite them both to lunch. If the assistant says something like “But Dante’s dead,” be sympathetic and say, “Please accept my condolences.” Once at lunch, remember never to be moody. Publishers like up, happy writers, although it’s impressive to suddenly sweep your arm slowly across the lunch table, dumping all the plates and food onto the floor, while shouting, “Sic Semper Tyrannis!”

It’s easy to talk about writing and even easier to do it. Watch:

Call me Ishmael. It was cold, very cold, here in the mountain town of Kilimanjaroville.© I could hear a bell. It was tolling. I knew exactly for who it was tolling, too. It was tolling for me, Ishmael Twist,© a red guy who likes frappé. [Author’s note: I am now stuck. I walk over to a rose and look into its heart.] That’s right, Ishmael Twist.®

Finally, I can’t overstress the importance of having a powerful closing sentence.

Last week in Los Angeles, I realized that the birdbath in my garden is by Raphael. I had passed it a thousand times; so had many producers, actors, executives, and the occasional tagalong screenwriter. No one had ever mentioned the attribution “Raphael.” In fact, none of my guests had bothered to attribute it at all, which surprised me since they spend so much time discussing it. When I try to steer the conversation around to my films, my television appearances, and my early work, all I hear back is: “What a charming birdbath.” To me, this is further evidence that the birdbath is a Raphael: One just can’t look away.

Much has been made of the fact that Raphael never sculpted. That may be true, but what is less known is that he designed many avian objects that we today take for granted, including the clothesline and the beak polisher. A birdbath is completely within the oeuvre of the master. Mine is stylistically characteristic of his work, including triangulation (inverted), psychologically loaded negative space, and a carved Madonna holding an infant who looks fifty. Identical birdbaths appear in thirteen of his paintings; there is a Vasari portrait of Raphael painting the birdbath, and there is a scribble in his last diary that in translation reads, “Send my birdbath to Glendale,” which is where I bought it at a swap meet.

In every person there’s an art expert, and I’m sure the one in you wants some proof of authenticity in this age where, every day, Rembrandt van Rijns are being demoted to Rembrandt Yeah Sures.

There are two ways of confirming a work of art: scholarship and intuition. As far as scholarship goes, you can imagine that my copy of Raphael for Dummies is now well thumbed in my quest for authentication. But I needed to find a latter-day Berenson to put the final nail in the coffin of confirmation. The Los Angeles phone book lists two Raphael scholars, although one has a Maui area code. Both have been called in, and they are unanimous in their conclusion: one for, one against. This kind of scholarship proves something, but it can never take you the last mile; it is intuition that confirms attribution every time. How many times have I sat in my garden with the cordless, sipping on a cocktail ice of Prozac and Halcion, ignoring the masterpiece that stood before me? However, everyone has experienced that moment when our inner censor slips away and the volume of our head-noise is turned down low and we realize we are sitting in front of Raphael’s birdbath. It is a swooping cloak of sureness, which falls from heaven and settles over you.

At that moment, I decided there was only one way to finally confirm my intuition to the rest of the world. I would visit the tomb of Raphael, who is buried in the Pantheon in Rome, and commune with the great master himself. (I emphasize the Pantheon italically because, in my dyslexia, I read it as Parthenon and wasted money on a trip to Athens. I suggest a name change for one of them, to avoid confusion. After all, it’s not like one is a river and one is an airport; they’re both buildings.)

Entering the Pantheon, one cannot help but experience a feeling of awe. Looking to the left, one sees the hallowed name Pesto, to the right, a series of popes and pope wannabees. Unfortunately, they are not buried in alphabetical order, so finding Raphael was not easy. I skipped over him a couple of times, because evidently he had a last name and that threw me off. Forgive me, but if I’m looking for the grave of Liberace, I want it filed under Liberace, not Władziu Valentino, etc. Madonna, take note.

I stood before the vault where Raphael has lain for the last four hundred and fifty years. Before I relate to you the next part, I have to tell you a little bit about the Pantheon. It has the world’s largest domed ceiling. A domed ceiling might be a big deal in the world of architecture, but in the world of whispering, it is definitely lousy. Everything comes back to you three times as loud, and even your diction is cleaned up. So when I whispered, “Did you make my birdbath?” everybody in the place heard me except Raphael, who was dead. I whispered again, louder, “Did you make my birdbath?” A few minutes later, a man in a trench coat came up to me and said, “Yes, but the Wide Man wants a green lawn.” He then handed me an envelope containing five hundred million lire and slithered away.

The voice of Raphael did not come to me with his answer until several hours later, when I sat in a café within sight of the Pantheon, sipping a synthetic low-fat coffee mixed with a legal (in Italy) derivative of Xanax and quaalude. The voice emanated directly from the Pantheon and headed across the square to where I was sitting. Raphael, who now must be in heaven and hence has access to practically everything, used Italian but subtitled it with a dialect only my sister and I spoke when we were five. It confirmed that the birdbath was his and that he wanted everyone to know he was not gay.

The Martin Birdbath, as some scholars are now calling it—I objected at first—is still in the garden, although attended by a twenty-four-hour armed guard named Charlie (he’s off on the weekends), whom I have grown to like. I’m not quite sure he knows what he is guarding, but with the parade of academicians trooping through, he’s got to figure that it ain’t cheese. His job, in addition to keeping the birdbath from being stolen, is to keep birds away. This is hard, because to a bird, a birdbath is a birdbath, be it by Raphael or the Sears garden department.

Even though several offers have emerged, I’m not going to sell the Raphael. I’m not even going to mention it to my guests, unless I feel it’s going to get me somewhere. I suppose if I see someone staring at it as though a boom has just been lowered on them, I’ll take them aside and fill them in. I will tell them they are standing in the presence of a master, that they are in touch with the power of the ages, and that they deserve the overused but still meaningful hyphenation “sensitive-type.” Then I will direct them to sit back in my Gauguin-designed lawn chair and enjoy the view. How do I know it’s by Gauguin? It is. I just know it is.

Bored? Here’s a way the over-fifty set can easily kill off a good half hour:

1. Place your car keys in your right hand.

2. With your left hand, call a friend and confirm a lunch or dinner date.

3. Hang up the phone.

4. Now look for your car keys.

(For answer, turn to here and turn book upside down.)

The lapses of memory that occur after fifty are normal and in some ways beneficial. There are certain things it’s better to forget, like the time Daddy once failed to praise you and now, forty years later, you have to count the tiles in the bathroom—first in multiples of three, then in multiples of five, and so on—until they come out even, or else you can’t get out of the shower. The memory is selective, and sometimes it will select 1956 and 1963 and that’s all. Such memory lapses don’t necessarily indicate a more serious health problem. The rule is, if you think you have a pathological memory problem, you probably don’t. In fact, the most serious indicator is when you’re convinced you’re fine and yet people sometimes ask you, “Why are you here in your pajamas at the Kennedy Center Honors?”

Let’s say you’ve just called your best friend, Joe, and invited him to an upcoming birthday party, and then, minutes later, you call him back and invite him to the same party again. This does not mean you are “losing it” or “not playing with a full deck” or “not all there,” or that you’re “eating with the dirigibles” or “shellacking the waxed egg” or “looking inside your own mind and finding nothing there,” or any of the demeaning epithets that are said about people who are peeling an empty banana. It does, however, mean that perhaps Joe is no longer on the list of things you’re going to remember. This is Joe’s fault. He should have a more memorable name, such as El Elegante.

Sometimes it’s fun to sit in your garden and try to remember your dog’s name. Here’s how: Simply watch the ears while calling out pet names at random. This is a great summer activity, especially in combination with Name That Wife and Who Am I? These games actually strengthen the memory and make it simpler to solve such complicated problems as “Is this the sixth time I’ve urinated this hour or the seventh?” This, of course, is easily answered by tiny pencil marks applied during the day.

Note to self: Write article about waxy buildup.

If you have a doctor who is over fifty, it’s wise to pay attention to his changing memory profile. There is nothing more disconcerting than patient and healer staring at each other across an examining table, wondering why they’re there. Watch out for the stethoscope being placed on the forehead or the briefcase. Watch out for greetings such as “Hello… you.” Be concerned if while looking for your file he keeps referring to you as “one bad boy.” Men should be wary if, while examining your prostate, the doctor suddenly says, “I’m sorry, but do I know you?”

There are several theories that explain memory problems of advancing age. One is that the brain is full: It simply has too much data to compute. Easy to understand if you realize that the name of your third-grade teacher is still occupying space, not to mention the lyrics to “Volare.” One solution for older men is to take all the superfluous data swirling around in the brain and download it into the newly large stomach, where there is plenty of room. This frees the brain to house relevant information, like the particularly troublesome days of the week. Another solution is to take regular doses of ginkgo biloba, an extract from a tree in Asia whose memory is so indelible that one day it will hunt down and kill all the humans that have been eating it. It is strongly advised that if taking ginkgo biloba, one should label the bottle Memory Pills. There is nothing more embarrassing than looking at a bottle of ginkgo biloba and thinking it’s a reliquary for a Spanish explorer.

So in summary, waxy buildup is a problem facing all of us. Only a good strong cleanser, used once or twice a month, will save us the humiliation of that petrified yellow crust on our furniture. Again, I recommend an alcohol-free, polymer-based cleanser, applied with a damp cloth. Good luck!

The car keys are in your right hand. Please remember to turn the book right side up.

The recent probe to Mars has returned irrefutable evidence that the red planet is populated with approximately twenty-seven three-month-old kittens. These “kittens” do not give birth and do not die but are forever locked in a state of eternal kittenhood. Of course, without further investigation, scientists are reluctant to call the chirpy little creatures kittens. “Just because they look like kittens and act like kittens is no reason to assume they are kittens,” said one researcher. “A football is a brown thing that bounces around on grass, but it would be wrong to call it a puppy.”

Scientists were at first skeptical that a kitten-type being could exist in the rare Martian atmosphere. As a test, Earth kittens were put in a chamber that simulated the Martian air. The diary of this experiment is fascinating:

• 6:00 A.M.: Kitten appears to sleep.

• 7:02 A.M.: Kitten wakes, darts from one end of cage to another for no apparent reason.

• 7:14 A.M.: Kitten runs up wall of cage, leaps onto other kitten for no apparent reason.

• 7:22 A.M.: Kitten lies on back and punches other kitten for no apparent reason.

• 7:30 A.M.: Kitten leaps, stops, darts left, stops abruptly, climbs wall, clings for two seconds, falls on head, darts right for no apparent reason.

• 7:51 A.M.: Kitten parses first sentence of lead editorial in daily newspaper, which is at the bottom of the chamber.

With the exception of parsing, all behavior is typical Earth-kitten behavior. The parsing activity, which was done with a small ballpoint pen, is considered an anomaly.

Modern kitten theory suggests several explanations for the kittens’ existence on Mars. The first, put forward by Dr. Patricia Krieger of the Hey You Bub Institute, suggests that kittens occur both everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. In other words, we see evidence of kitten existence, but measuring their behavior is another matter. Just when the scientists point their instruments in a kitten’s direction, it is gone, only to be found later in another place, perhaps at the top of drapes. Another theory, put forward by Dr. Charles Wexler and his uncle Ted, suggests that any universe where round things exist, from theoretical spheres to Ping-Pong balls, necessarily implies the existence of a Mover Kitten. The scientific world has responded by saying that the notion of the Mover Kitten is not a concern for legitimate research and should be relegated to the pseudoscientific world. The pseudoscientific world has responded by saying that at least three endorsements from independent crackpots are needed before anything can truly be called “pseudo.”

Some have suggested that the hostility of the Martian climate should be enough to seriously set back the long-term prospects of any species. However, the weakness of Martian gravity is a bonus for felines. They are able to leap almost three times as high as they can on Earth. They can climb twice as far up a carpet-covered post, and a ball with a bell in it will roll almost three times as far. This is at least equal to the distance a mature poodle can roll a ball with its nose.

Even though there could be a big market on Earth for eternal kittens, most scientists agree that the human race should not pursue a further involvement. There are those, however, who believe that having now discovered the creatures, we have a responsibility to “amuse” them. Dr. Enos Mowbrey and his wife/cousin, Jane, both researchers at the Chicago Junebug Institute for Animal Studies, argue that the kittens could be properly amused by four miles of ball string cut into fourteen-inch segments. The cost of such a venture would be:

• Four miles of string: $135

• Segmentation of string: $8

• Manned Mars probe to deliver string and jiggle it: $6 trillion

It is unfortunate that Dr. Mowbrey’s work has been largely dismissed because of his inappropriate use of the demeaning term kitty cat.

The next time you look up at the heavens, know that mixed in the array of stars overhead is a pale red dot called Mars, and on that planet are tiny creatures whose wee voices are about to be thunderously heard on this planet, a meow of intergalactic proportions.

Dear Amanda,

This will be the last letter I write to you. I think we have made the right decision. Thank you for your love. We had a wonderful experience these past five months. I want you to know that our time together will live inside me in a special place in my heart. It is best if we do not phone or write.

Love always,

Joey

Dear Amanda,

I dialed you last night because the Lucy pie episode was on and I knew you’d want to see it. Anyway, while I was leaving a message, I leaned on the phone and accidentally punched in your message-retrieval code. Sorry about that. Who’s Francisco? Just curious.

Joey

Dear Amanda,

I realized that I still had your set of six Japanese sake cups that I bought for you on our trip downtown and was wondering when it might be a good time to drop them off. You can give me a call at the usual number but maybe better at the office up till seven but then try the car or I’m usually home now by seven forty-five. I would like to get these back to you, as I know you must be thinking about them. This will be my last letter.

Regards,

Joey

Dear Amanda,

It was a lucky coincidence that my cat leapt on your speed-dial button last night, as it gave us a chance to talk again. Afterwards, I was wondering what you meant when you said, “It’s over, Joey, get it into your head.” So many interpretations. Just curious. Oh, I found myself on your street last night and noticed a yellow Mustang that I don’t remember ever being at your apartment complex. Is this the mysterious Francisco I’ve heard rumors about? No big deal. Just curious. I left one of the sake cups at your front door; it happened to be in my car. What was that loud music?

With respect,

Joey

Dear Amanda,

This will be the last letter I write to you. I hate to hurt you like this, but I’m s. . .