Mike Nichols and Elaine May were what “grown up” funny sounded like, floating through an open door on a cloud of Kent cigarette smoke. The sound was black and white with silver silences. Except for the recording of their Broadway revue, their albums offered no audience to cue laughter with laughter. They were desiccant-dry and precise as a tonearm stylus. Their characters were immediate, vivid, finely tuned in lilting disharmony. They were a knife and a fork, politely, delicately stabbing and slicing, feeding me food I’d never tasted and would forever crave.

And the movies… The movies.

Farewell, Mike. Thank you for sending up Vanguard.