Today I discovered in my mailbox Christopher Cerf‘s “The World’s Largest Cheese,” a bizarre and occasionally brilliant book (Jorn Barger called it “a wonderful bit of fluff”) that I ordered used for a few bucks recently. Far and away the best portion of the book is the “See The Merinos” series of illustrations, which I’m happy to find somebody has already scanned in and put online. The one-time Harvard Lampoon writer is today best known for his contributions to “Sesame Street” and as creator of “Between the Lions” (my old friend Gene Barretta illustrates the “Between the Lions” books, by the way), and has parents are known as the founders of Random House. I get the sense that he’d like to put this book behind him.
I’ve intended to create a fan page for “The World’s Largest Cheese” since 1994. My guess is that blog entry will have to constitute that.
I’m astonished (in a long-term, simmering kind of way) that The World’s Largest Cheese hasn’t been re-issued and become a cult classic. The kind of people who like They Might Be Giants (that would be geeky types with a sense of humor) would go nuts over it.
I just took a look around the house to find my copy, and can’t lay my hands on it. It was a book my brother (I think he was in college at the time) bought as a Christmas present for my mother. She never did like it. I guess she’s not the “Seethe Thumper Enos there, with his long, shaggy Eire” type of person.
For the uninitiated, I should explain that the seminal sentence in the progression of homonyms is “See the merino standing there, with his long shaggy hair.” You can think up your own twisted version of the sentence, or borrow Waldo’s book.
Greatest. Book. Ever. Written.