An unrivaled raconteur, a neurotic without peer, he is the jongleur of our times. Like those medieval satirists, Levant is allowed to say anything he chooses about contemporary civilization because everyone thinks he's kidding. One can open this book at almost any page and find instant entertainment. When Levant's best-selling Memoirs of an Amnesiac was published, one critic said of it: 'line for line, the funniest book available.' This may also be said of this new work. For again, Mr. Levant presents us with a dazzling, irreverent potpourri f anecdotes, ad libs, witticisms, reminiscences, commentaries about show biz, TV, Hollywood, writers, politicians, musicians - not to mention the Levant family and the whole zany, brilliant, bizarre world of Oscar Levant. Among the notables about whom Levant writes in this new work - many of them are or were his friends - Dorothy Parker, Groucho and Harpo Marx, Leonard Bernstein, Christopher Isherwood, Aldous Huxley, Jack Paar, S. N. Behrman, Truman Capote, Clare Boothe Luce, Arnold Schoenberg, Aldoph Green, George and Ira Gershwin, Noel Coward, Irving Berlin, Judy Garland, Billy Rose, Artur Rubinstein, Benny Goodman, Kenneth Tynan, and Humphrey Bogart. Levant has a passion for the people he impales or praises - especially the great and near great. He is their vicarious confessor, a man who has experienced the gamut of emotion. Born to see the world awry and to immortalize his vision in semantic splendor, in instant, inimitable confections of wit, Levant laughs when it hurts."

    Ernst Bacon offers valuable tips on working, listening, and playing habits in five sections that cover "The Performer," "The Learner," "The Player and Writer," "The Observer," and "Technically Speaking." This edition features an informative Introduction by virtuoso pianist and professor Sara Davis Buechner.