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Fierce Pajamas: An Anthology of Humor Writing from The New Yorker
Fierce Pajamas An Anthology of Humor Writing from The New Yorker Author:David Remnick (Editor), Harry Finder (Editor) When Harold Ross founded The New Yorker in 1925, he described it as a “comic weekly.” And although it has become much more than that, it has remained true in its irreverent heart to the founder’s description, publishing the most illustrious literary humorists of the modern era -- among them Robert Benchley, D... more »orothy Parker, Groucho Marx, George S. Kaufman, James Thurber, S. J. Perelman, Peter De Vries, Mike Nichols, Marshall Brickman, Woody Allen, Donald Barthelme, Calvin Trillin, George W. S. Trow, Veronica Geng, Garrison Keillor, Ian Frazier, Roy Blount, Jr., Bruce McCall, Steve Martin, Christopher Buckley, and Paul Rudnick.
This anthology gathers together, for the first time, the funniest work of more than seventy New Yorker contributors. Parodists take on not only writers like Hemingway and Kerouac, but TV documentaries, Italian cinema, and etiquette books. (Enough have been published, Robert Benchley maintains, “that there should be no danger of toppling over forward into the wrong soup, or getting into arguments as to which elbow belongs on which arm.”) Other pieces offer perspectives on the heights of fame, the depths of social embarrassment, and the ups and downs of love and sex. Such well-loved sketches as Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” take their place alongside light-hearted essays on food, tennis, and taxis, and flights of fancy that follow an apparently simple premise to the point of no return, and sometimes well beyond. Here you will find large insights (Woody Allen: “Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage”) and hard-earned wisdom (Ian Frazier on dating your mom: “Here is a grown, experienced, loving woman -- one you do not have to go to a party or a singles bar to meet, one you do not have to go to great lengths to know”). And, not least, a great deal of helpful advice, including Steve Martin’s on memory and middle age: “Bored? Here’s a way the over-fifty set can easily kill 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.”
A rich selection of humorous verse includes caustic gems by Dorothy Parker, the effortless whimsy of Phyllis McGinley, and Ogden Nash’s unforgettable slapstick prosody, as well as forays by luminaries who ought to have known better, like Robert Graves, Elizabeth Bishop, and W. H. Auden.
A wonderful gift for others, or a delightful treat for oneself, Fierce Pajamas is a treasury of laughter from a publication described by Auden as “the best comic magazine in existence.”
Death in the rumble seat / Wolcott Gibbs --
Dusk in fierce pajamas / E.B. White --
Across the street and into the grill / E.B. White --
On the sidewalk / John Updike --
Save my seat / Mike Nichols --
Hassidic tales, with a guide to their interpretation by the noted scholar / Woody Allen --
The ultimate diary / Howard Moss --
The analytic napkin / Marshall Brickman --
Who's who in the cast / Marshall Brickman --
Health department lists restaurant violations / Daniel Menaker --
The delts of Venus / Charles McGrath --
Notes from the edge conference / Roy Blount, Jr. --
LGA-ORD / Ian Frazier --
Love trouble is my business / Veronica Geng --
In the new Canada, living is a way of life / Bruce McCall --
Corrections / Calvin Trillin --
Stardate 12:00 12:00 12:00 / Christopher Buckley --
Glengarry glen plaid / Frank Cammuso and Hart Seely --
Gum / Scott Gutterman --
What we talk about when we talk about doughnuts / Michael Gerber and Jonathan Schwarz --
Teen times / Paul Rudnik --
Press agents I have known / Groucho Marx --
The greatest man in the world / James Thurber --
The interview / James Thurber --
Let's hear it for a beautiful guy / Bruce Jay Friedman --
The king of jazz / Donald Barthelme --
My Mao ; Our side of the story / Veronica Geng --
Do you know me? / George W.S. Trow --
Gandhi at the bat / Chet Williamson --
Igor Stravinsky: the selected phone calls / Ian Frazier --
We are still married ; Meeting famous people / Garrison Keillor --
Yo, Poe / Frank Gannon --
My life: a series of privately funded performance-art pieces / Susan Orlean --
The A-list E-list / David Brooks --
Mr. Preble gets rid of his wife ; A couple of hamburgers / James Thurber --
Forever panting / Peter De Vries --
The Kugelmass episode / Woody Allen --
Partners / Veronica Geng --
My married life: the whole truth thus far / Mark Singer --
Life without Leann / Larry Doyle --
Zeus the Lutheran / Garrison Keillor --
The very comical lament of Pyramus and Thisbe / Susan Sontag --
Off-ramp / Polly Frost --
Blown away / Lisa Walker --
Here's a really great idea / David Owen --
A short autobiography / F. Scott Fitzgerald --
The cliche expert takes the stand ; The cliche expert tells all / Frank Sullivan --
How to achieve success as a writer / Ruth Suckow --
The rather difficult case of Mr. K*A*P*L*A*N / Leonard Q. Ross --
The notebooks of James Thurber / James Thurber --
Are we losing the novel race? / Michael J. Arlen --
Roland Magruder, freelance writer / Calvin Trillin --
Contemporary writers VI: and interview with Grip Sands / Philip Hamburger --
In the dough / Roger Angell --
Selections from the Allen notebooks / Woody Allen --
I cover Carter / George W.S. Trow --
Notes on my conversations / Polly Frost --
Writing is easy! ; Drivel / Steve Martin --
Emily Dickinson, jerk of Amherst / Andy Borowitz --
The people who had the house before / Robert Benchley --
The catastrophe / William Shawn --
The secret life of Walter Mitty / James Thurber --
I am not now, nor have I ever been, a matrix of lean meat ; Eine Kleine Mothmusik ; Monomania, you and me is quits / S.J. Perelman --
Pnin / Vladimir Nabokov --
Annoy Kaufman, Inc. / George S. Kaufman --
The last repository / H.F. Ellis --
Yma dream / Thomas Meehan --
Ainmosni / Roger Angell --
The high ground, or look, Ma, I'm explicating / Peter De Vries --
Apartment 6-A: after the fall / Ian Frazier --
Spill / George W.S. Trow --
Hearing from Wayne / Bill Franzen --
Stunned / Jack Handey --
He didn't go to Canada / Garrison Keillor --
Post-euphoria / Veronica Geng --
Keith Richards' desert-island disks / Noah Baumbach --
How to become obscene / Upton Sinclair --
Filling that hiatus ; It's fun to be fooled ... it's more fun to know ; Why we laugh--or do we? / Robert Benchley --
Insert flap "A" and throw away / S.J. Perelman --
How to eat an ice- cream cone / L. Rust Hills --
Teaching poetry writing to singles / Veronica Geng --
Dating your mom ; A reading list for young writers / Ian Frazier --
How I write my songs / Donald Barthelme --
Save our bus herds! / Cathleen Schine --
Three great meals / William White --
Read this first / Bruce McCall --
Take it from me / Nancy Franklin --
Changes in the memory after fifty ; The hundred greatest books that I've read / Steve Martin --
Reintroducing me to my habitat ; Thank you for stopping / Jack Handey --
Homework: a parent's guide / Christopher Buckley --
What happened to my money? / David Owen --
On taxi drivers / Alexander Woollcott --
Father isn't much help / Clarence Day --
The night the ghost got in / James Thurber --
Ring out, wild bells / Wolcott Gibbs --
The ballet visits the splendide's magician / Ludwig Bemelmans --
Cloudland revisited: why, doctor, what big green eyes you have! / S.J. Perelman --
Thoughts on radio-televese / John Lardner --
The musical husbands / Adam Gopnik --
Listening to Bourbon / Louis Menand --
Look back in hunger / Anthony Lane --
Tennis personalities / Martin Amis --
Car talk / John Updike --
Critic / E.B. White --
Song to be disregarded ; To a perfumed lady at the concert ; Song of the queen bee / E.B. White --
Rhyme of an involuntary violet ; Fulfilment ; Bohemia / Dorothy Parker --
Mother's home again! / Don Marquis --
Melancholy reflections after a lost argument ; The seven ages of a newspaper subscriber ; Incident in the afternoon / Phyllis McGinley --
Procrastination is all of the time ; To my valentine ; So that's who I remind me of ; Compliments of a friend ; The invitation says from five to seven / Ogden Nash --
Theme and variation / Peter De Vries --
People / W.H. Auden --
Six poets in search of a lawyer / Donald Hall --
The naked and the nude / Robert Graves --
12 o'clock news / Elizabeth Bishop --
Christmas in Qatar / Calvin Trillin --
Duet, with muffled brake drums ; Ocular hypertension / John Updike« less