FIERCE
PAJAMA5
AN ANTHOLOGY OF HUMOR WRITING FROM THE NEW YORKER
EDITED BY DAVID REMNICK AND HENRY FINDER
RANDOM HOUSE I NEW YORK CONTENT5
Introduction xv
SPOOFS
Death in the Rumble Seat / Wolcott Gibbs 5 Dusk in Fierce Pajamas / E. B. White - 7 Across the Street and into the Grill / E. B. White 10 On the Sidewalk I John Updike 13 Save My Seat / Mike Nichols 16 Hassidic Tales, With a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar / Woody Allen 17 The Ultimate Diary / Howard Moss 21 The Analytic Napkin / Marshall Brickman 25 Who's Who in the Cast / Marshall Brickman 29 Health Department Lists Restaurant Violations / Daniel Menaker 32 The Delts of Venus / Charles McGrath 34 Notes from the Edge Conference / Roy Blount,Jr. 39 v i i i CONTENTS
LGA-ORD / Ian Frazier 43 Love Trouble Is My Business / Veronica Geng 44 In the New Canada, Living Is a Way of Life / Bruce McCall 47 Corrections / Calvin Trillin 51 Stardate 12:00 12:00 12:00 / Christopher Buckley 53 Glengarry Glen Plaid / Frank Cammuso and Hart Seely 56 Gum / Scott Gutterman 58 What We Talk About When We Talk About Doughnuts / Michael Gerber and Jonathan Schwarz 60
Teen Times / PaulRudnick 62
THE FRENZY OF RENOWN
Press Agents I Have Known / Groucho Marx 67 The Greatest Man in the World /James Thurber 70 The Interview /James Thurber 77 Let's Hear It for a Beautiful Guy / Bruce Jay Friedman 85 The King of Jazz / Donald Barthelme 91 My Mao / Veronica Geng 95 Our Side of the Story/ Veronica Geng 100 Do You Know Me? / George W. S. Trow 103 Gandhi at the Bat / Chet Williamson 105 Igor Stravinsky: The Selected Phone Calls / Ian Frazier 110 We Are Still Married / Garrison Keillor 114 Meeting Famous People / Garrison Keillor 118 Yo, Poe / Frank Gannon 123 My Life: A Series of Privately Funded Performance-Art Pieces / Susan Orlean 126 The A-List E-List / David Brooks 128 CONTENTS i x
THE WAR BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN
Mr. Preble Gets Rid of His Wife I James Thurber 133 A Couple of Hamburgers I James Thurber 136 Forever Panting / Peter De Vries 140 The Kugelmass Episode / Woody Allen IAS Partners / Veronica Geng 155 My Married Life: The Whole Truth Thus Far / Mark Singer 157 Life Without Leann / Larry Doyle 160 Zeus the Lutheran / Garrison Keillor 163 The Very Comical Lament of Pyramus and Thisbe / Susan Son tag 174 Off-Ramp / Polly Frost 177 Blown Away / Lisa Walker 182 Here's a Really Great Idea / David Owen 187
THE WRITING LIFE
A Short Autobiography / F. Scott Fitzgerald 191 The Cliche Expert Takes the Stand / Frank Sullivan 193 The Cliche Expert Tells All / Frank Sullivan 198 How to Achieve Success as a Writer / Ruth Suckow 201 The Rather Difficult Case of Mr. K*A*P*L*A*N / Leonard Q. Ross 205 The Notebooks of James Thurber /James Thurber 209 Are We Losing the Novel Race? / Michael J. Arlen 215 Roland Magruder, Freelance Writer / Calvin Trillin 217 Contemporary Writers VI: An Interview with Grip Sands / Philip Hamburger 221 x CONTENTS
In the Dough / Roger Angell 224 Selections from the Allen Notebooks / Woody Allen 231 I Cover Carter / George W. S. Trow 234 Notes on My Conversations / Polly Frost 239 Writing Is Easy! / Steve Martin 243 Drivel / Steve Martin 245 Emily Dickinson, Jerk of Amherst / Andy Borowitz 248
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED
The People Who Had the House Before / Robert Benchley 253 The Catastrophe / William Shawn 256 The Secret Life of Walter Mitty /James Thurber 257 I Am Not Now, Nor Have I Ever Been, a Matrix of Lean Meat / S.J. Perelman Eine Kleine Mothmusik /S.J Perelman Monomania, You and Me Is Quits / S.J. Perelman Pnin / Vladimir Nabokov Annoy Kaufman, Inc. / George S. Kaufman The Last Repository IH. 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 I Jack Handey CONTENTS x i
He Didn't Go to Canada / Garrison Keillor 322 Post-Euphoria / Veronica Geng 327 Keith Richards' Desert-Island Disks / Noah Baumbach 331
WORDS OF ADVICE
How to Be Obscene / Upton Sinclair 337 Filling That Hiatus / Robert Benchley 339 It's Fun to Be Fooled . . . It's More Fun to Know / Robert Benchley 341 Why We Laugh—or Do We? / Robert Benchley 345 Insert Flap "A" and Throw Away I S.J. Perelman 348 How to Eat an Ice-Cream Cone / L. Rust Hills 351 Teaching Poetry Writing to Singles / Veronica Geng 358 Dating Your Mom / Ian Frazier 363 A Reading List for Young Writers / Ian Frazier 365 How I Write My Songs / DonaldBarthelme 367 Save Our Bus Herds! / Cathleen Schine 372 Three Great Meals / William White 374 Read This First / Bruce McCall 377 Take It from Me / Nancy Franklin 380 Changes in the Memory After Fifty / Steve Martin 382 The Hundred Greatest Books That I've Read / Steve Martin 384 Reintroducing Me to My Habitat I Jack Handey 387 Thank You for Stopping I Jack Handey 389 Homework: A Parent's Guide / Christopher Buckley 390 What Happened to My Money? / David Owen 393 x i i CONTENTS
RECOLLECTIONS AND REFLECTIONS
On Taxi Drivers / Alexander Woollcott 397 Father Isn't Much Help / Clarence Day 400 The Night the Ghost Got In I James Thurber 404 Ring Out, Wild Bells / Wolcott Gibbs 408 The Ballet Visits the Splendide's Magician / Ludwig Bemelmans 412 Cloudland Revisited: Why, Doctor, What Big Green Eyes You Have! /S.J Perelman 418 Thoughts on Radio-Televese I John Lardner 424 The Musical Husbands / Adam Gopnik 427 Listening to Bourbon / Louis Menand 435 Look Back in Hunger / Anthony Lane 437 Tennis Personalities / Martin Amis 446 Car Talk / John Updike 448
VERSE
Critic / E. B. White 453 Song to Be Disregarded / E. B. White 453 To a Perfumed Lady at the Concert / E. B. White 453 Song of the Queen Bee / E. B. White 454 Rhyme of an Involuntary Violet / Dorothy Parker 458 Fulfilment / Dorothy Parker 459 Bohemia / Dorothy Parker 459 Mother's Home Again! / Don Marquis 460 Melancholy Reflections After a Lost Argument / Phyllis McGinley 461 The Seven Ages of a Newspaper Subscriber / Phyllis McGinley 462 CONTENTS x i i i
Incident in the Afternoon / Phyllis McGinley 463 Procrastination Is All of the Time / Ogden Nash 465 To My Valentine / Ogden Nash 466 So That's Who I Remind Me Of/ Ogden Nash 466 Compliments of a Friend / Ogden Nash 467 The Invitation Says from Five to Seven / Ogden Nash 468 Theme and Variation / Peter De Vries 469 ?eopk/W.H.Auden 470 Six Poets in Search of a Lawyer / Donald Hall 472 The Naked and the Nude / Robert Graves 474 12 O'Clock News / Elizabeth Bishop 475 Christmas in Qatar / Calvin Trillin 477 Duet, with Muffled Brake Drums I John Updike 479 Ocular Hypertension I John Updike 480
Notes on Contributors 481