The Wit’s Guide to Fall
Or, roasting Mr. Autumn Man
To say that autumn is the best season is like saying the best Starbursts are the red ones — duh, that’s why they sell FaveReds. It’s a verifiable fact that fall is short, varied, colourful, and packed with holidays. And everyone in the Northern Hemisphere has known it since at least 1820, when John Keats published “To Autumn,” the most anthologized poem in the English language.
Which is why the wit has a duty to say: Enough already with the season of mists and knock it off with the mellow fruitfulness.
“Show me a woman who cries when the trees lose their leaves in autumn and I’ll show you a real asshole.”
— Nora Ephron
In her novel Heartburn, Ephron was suitably cynical about autumn. But by the time she hit her rom-com prime, it was all chunky sweaters, all the time. “Don't you love New York in the fall?” Tom Hanks asks in You’ve Got Mail. “It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.” And now #NoraEphronFall is a seasonal meme used to sell knitwear.
“I told some imprecisely imagined interlocutor that each year I hoped to have outgrown being moved by the autumn and each year I hadn't.”
— Brigid Brophy
Which brings us to “It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers,” the second-most popular McSweeney’s piece of all time. The conceit of the 2009 article is a simple, foul-mouthed enthusiasm for the months that end in R, and for that reason it enjoys an annual resurgence at this time of year. A 2017 Atlantic analysis of its enduring popularity posits that fall “has the most enthusiastic fans, and thus attracts vehement haters. For every person excited for pumpkin-spice products to hit the shelves, there is a curmudgeon online calling them basic and bemoaning the inescapable flavor of nutmeg.”
“It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.”
— P.D. James
A similar autumnal alchemy is at work for The Onion’s 2012 story “Mr. Autumn Man Walking Down Street With Cup Of Coffee, Wearing Sweater Over Plaid Collared Shirt.” Here, the protagonist is “the veritable High Priest of the Harvest Season” and he’s not shy to wax on about apple picking, haunted hayrides, and as much leaf peeping as his eyes can handle. A ten-year retrospective of that article finds the same low-stakes conflict at the core of its popularity: “Those who are Mr. Autumn Men were all too happy to be roasted, and those who know Mr. Autumn Men were keen to pass the roasting on.” Mr. Autumn Man, in other words, is the ultimate Fall Guy.
“Fallen leaves lying on the grass in November bring more happiness than daffodils.”
— Cyril Connolly
When my friend Richard was between jobs at this time of year, he decided to update his LinkedIn with a riff on the Seinfeld bit about The Summer of George. Unfortunately, the Fall of Richard sounded a touch too Shakespearean. This same Richard also maintains that the best Starbursts are the orange ones, an incorrect opinion that nevertheless must be commended.
“It suddenly seemed to me that the autumn darkness would push through the glass and pour into the room, and I would drown in it as in ink.”.
— Mikhail Bulgakov
Which brings us inexorably — well, maybe slightly exorably — to the pumpkin spice latte, the beverage that has spent 20 years cashing in on the faux tension between those who love the season and those who wish the lovers would stick a gourd in it. The Times ran a comprehensive history of the PSL this week, so I’ll add only this: When we ran our drinkpiece-thinkpiece in the Post 10 years ago, Adam McDowell nailed the headline with Orange is the new snack.
Leaf it to me
The September Riposte Cards, as quipped by Rebecca West and illustrated by Anjali Chandrashekar, are in the mail this week. It’s not too late to get them by subscribing below! Anjali answers the traditional questionnaire as follows:
What's your go-to item in a well-stocked stationery store?
I love MUJI pens and buy too many of them. Also, nice notebooks, but if they’re too nice, I’ll never use them.Where do you go for inspiration and/or information?
NYC! Although there is plenty of inspiration everywhere if you look close enough. I love to people-watch and observe their quirks. I surround myself with funny people, and that makes for entertaining interactions. I also rely heavily on all types of podcasts to help me keep abreast of what is happening in the world.Is there one joke, witticism, or aphorism you live by?
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” – Albert Einstein.What’s the best thing to put on toast?
Avocado? Eggs? Lately, I've enjoyed whipped ricotta with honey/berries.What work are you most proud of, and how can people support it?
That’s a hard one. I am particularly proud of my first New Yorker cartoon (The Fitted Sheet) since it is SO hard to land a cartoon in print. I currently sell prints of my illustrations and soon my cartoons. They can be found on my website — anjalic.com
Quote Vote
“What a bummer!”
— Meredith Herman, immediately after the splitting of her husband’s pants
When people ask if their lines are good enough to make it into the newsletter, I don’t always say yes. But this one was too ripe to ignore.
Get Wit Quick No. 221 is celebrating great news! My book Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting was hoovered up by LLaMA, Facebook’s version of ChatGPT. I learned this via a searchable database of books3, a compilation of pirated ebooks used to train AI systems. My immediate response was a paraphrase of Woody Allen: “I don’t want to live on in the data set of a large language model. I want to live on in my apartment.” And like Celine Dion, my ❤️ will go on.
I really like your fall emoji image.