DOCSLIB.ORG

Fierce Pajama5

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Fierce Pajama5 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.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Local Pictures Needed for Coming Celebration
    VOL. Ill, NO. 49 • $1.00 A YEAR "~potllgllt NOVEMBER 13, 1958 • TEN CENTS A WEEKLY NEWSMAGAZINE A· D A I L Y H A B I T Will You Be There? "YEARS AGO" SCHEDULED LOCAL PICTURES NEEDED FOR BY LOCAL PLAYERS Mrs. Betty Sherwin, Chairman1 Motor Service, Albany County COMING CELEBRATION "Years Ago, 11 a comedy by Chapter, American Red Cross, Ruth Gordon, will open at the announced today the second an­ Hudson and Champlain sail a­ pictorial history exhibit, includ­ Bethlehem Central Junior High nual training •course for those in­ gain • • • and ideas about their ing many periods of town his­ School on Wednesday, Novem­ terested in joining as volunteer historical time and period are tory, is being sought. ber 19, at 8:30 p.m. The play, drivers. The course, under the causing many a group and com­ It is not necessary to have a which is presented in arena style leadership of Mrs. E.L. Larcher, mittee to unfurl their sails and pictme of Hemy Hudson riding by the Slingerlands Community Training Chairman for the Ser­ establish their communities par­ at anchor at the mouth of the Players, will run for four suc­ 1 vice, is scheduled for November ticipation in New York State s Normanskill; or of Albery Bradt, cessive nights. All seats are re­ 12, 19, and 25, and December year of Historical obserVances, who leased mill privileges on the served. Tickets may be ordered 3 and 10, fl'om 7:30 to 9:30 which begins January 1, 1959. No"rmanskill in 1630, and is con­ by telephoning 9-4158 or may be p.m.
    [Show full text]
  • Stories Matter: the Complexity of Cultural Authenticity in Children's Literature (Pp
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 480 339 CS 512 399 AUTHOR Fox, Dana L., Ed.; Short, Kathy G., Ed. TITLE Stories Matter: The Complexity of CulturalAuthenticity in Children's Literature. INSTITUTION National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana,IL. ISBN ISBN-0-8141-4744-5 PUB DATE 2003-00-00 NOTE 345p. AVAILABLE FROM National Council of Teachers ofEnglish, 1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana,.IL 61801-1096 (Stock no. 47445: $26.95members; $35.95 nonmembers). Tel: 800-369-6283 (Toll Free); Web site: http://www.ncte.org. PUB TYPE Books (010).-- Collected Works General (020) -- Opinion Papers (120) EDRS PRICE EDRS Price MF01/PC14 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Childrens Literature; *Cultural Context; ElementaryEducation; *Literary Criticism; *Multicultural Literature;Picture Books; Political Correctness; Story Telling IDENTIFIERS Trade Books ABSTRACT The controversial issue of cultural authenticity inchildren's literature resurfaces continually, always elicitingstrong emotions and a wide range of perspectives. This collection explores thecomplexity of this issue by highlighting important historical events, current debates, andnew questions and critiques. Articles in the collection are grouped under fivedifferent parts. Under Part I, The Sociopolitical Contexts of Cultural Authenticity, are the following articles: (1) "The Complexity of Cultural Authenticity in Children's Literature:Why the Debates Really Matter" (Kathy G. Short and Dana L. Fox); and (2)"Reframing the Debate about Cultural Authenticity" (Rudine Sims Bishop). Under Part II,The Perspectives of Authors,
    [Show full text]
  • Good Chemistry James J
    Columbia College Fall 2012 TODAY Good Chemistry James J. Valentini Transitions from Longtime Professor to Dean of the College your Contents columbia connection. COVER STORY FEATURES The perfect midtown location: 40 The Home • Network with Columbia alumni Front • Attend exciting events and programs Ai-jen Poo ’96 gives domes- • Dine with a client tic workers a voice. • Conduct business meetings BY NATHALIE ALONSO ’08 • Take advantage of overnight rooms and so much more. 28 Stand and Deliver Joel Klein ’67’s extraordi- nary career as an attorney, educator and reformer. BY CHRIS BURRELL 18 Good Chemistry James J. Valentini transitions from longtime professor of chemistry to Dean of the College. Meet him in this Q&A with CCT Editor Alex Sachare ’71. 34 The Open Mind of Richard Heffner ’46 APPLY FOR The venerable PBS host MEMBERSHIP TODAY! provides a forum for guests 15 WEST 43 STREET to examine, question and NEW YORK, NY 10036 disagree. TEL: 212.719.0380 BY THOMAS VIncIGUERRA ’85, in residence at The Princeton Club ’86J, ’90 GSAS of New York www.columbiaclub.org COVER: LESLIE JEAN-BART ’76, ’77J; BACK COVER: COLIN SULLIVAN ’11 WITHIN THE FAMILY DEPARTMENTS ALUMNI NEWS Déjà Vu All Over Again or 49 Message from the CCAA President The Start of Something New? Kyra Tirana Barry ’87 on the successful inaugural summer of alumni- ete Mangurian is the 10th head football coach since there, the methods to achieve that goal. The goal will happen if sponsored internships. I came to Columbia as a freshman in 1967. (Yes, we you do the other things along the way.” were “freshmen” then, not “first-years,” and we even Still, there’s no substitute for the goal, what Mangurian calls 50 Bookshelf wore beanies during Orientation — but that’s a story the “W word.” for another time.) Since then, Columbia has compiled “The bottom line is winning,” he said.
    [Show full text]
  • Ii. Theory and Practice of Editing New Yorker Articles
    II. THEORY AND PRACTICE OF EDITING NEW YORKER ARTICLES This was written by Wolcott Gibbs around 1937, apparently at the request of Katharine White, who was then trying out a succession of new fiction editors. Though it has passed into New Yorker legend, "Theory and Practice" was a working document and fairly reflected the magazine's guidelines and tastes of the time. [--from Genius in Disguise: Harold Ross of the New Yorker, by Thomas Kunkel (Carroll & Graf,NY 1995] THE AVERAGE CONTRIBUTOR TO THIS MAGAZINE IS SEMI-LITERATE; that is, he is ornate to no purpose, rull of senseless and elegant variations, and can be relied on to use three sentences where a word would do. It is impossible to lay down any exact and complete formula for bringing order out of this underbrush, but there are a few general rules. 1. Writers always use too damn many adverbs. On one page, recently, I found eleven modifying the verb "said": "He said morosely, violently, eloquently," and so on. Editorial theory should probably be that a writer who can't make his context indicate the way his character is talking ought to be in another line of work. Anyway, it is impossible for a character to go through all these emotional states one after the other. Lon Chancy might be able to do it, but he is dead 2. Word "said" is O.K. Efforts to avoid repetition by inserting "grunted," "snorted," etc., are waste motion, and offend the pure in heart. 3. Our writers are full of cliches, just as old barns are full of bats.
    [Show full text]
  • Announcing the 17Th Annual New Yorker Festival, October 7-9, in New York City Featuring Louis C.K., Jonah Hill, Sarah Silverman
    Announcing the 17th Annual New Yorker Festival, October 7-9, in New York City Featuring Louis C.K., Jonah Hill, Sarah Silverman, Bjarke Ingels, Tavi Gevinson, Roger Stone, Daniel Craig, Jhumpa Lahiri, David Letterman, Nan Goldin, Father John Misty, Zadie Smith, Keegan-Michael Key, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jeremy Lin, Alicia Garza, Jenji Kohan, and More Than 100 Others (New York, N.Y. – September 6, 2016)—On October 7, 8, and 9, 2016, The New Yorker will present its seventeenth annual Festival, a three-day celebration that brings the magazine to life, as New Yorker writers and editors sit down with the world’s most prominent writers, artists, filmmakers, actors, comedians, activists, architects, and politicians. In addition to talks and panel discussions, the foremost cultural event of the season will feature live performances, film and theatre previews, and excursions throughout New York City. Since the Festival’s inception, events have sold out quickly, drawing nearly twenty thousand people from around the world every year. The full program guide is available at newyorker.com/festival and on the New Yorker Fes- tival app, available for iPhone and Android devices. The September 12, 2016, issue of the magazine, on newsstands now, also features the Festival schedule. Below is the program lineup, in brief. To request press credentials, e-mail Adrea Piazza at [email protected]. Please specify which event(s) you are interested in covering. This year’s one-on-one interviews include: • The comedian, actor, producer, and director Louis
    [Show full text]
  • Portraits in the Life of Oliver Wolcott^Jn
    'Memorials of great & good men who were my friends'': Portraits in the Life of Oliver Wolcott^Jn ELLEN G. MILES LIVER woLCOTT, JR. (1760-1833), like many of his contemporaries, used portraits as familial icons, as ges- Otures in political alliances, and as public tributes and memorials. Wolcott and his father Oliver Wolcott, Sr. (i 726-97), were prominent in Connecticut politics during the last quarter of the eighteenth century and the first quarter of the nineteenth. Both men served as governors of the state. Wolcott, Jr., also served in the federal administrations of George Washington and John Adams. Withdrawing from national politics in 1800, he moved to New York City and was a successful merchant and banker until 1815. He spent the last twelve years of his public life in Con- I am grateful for a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Research Opportunities Fund, which made it possible to consult manuscripts and see portraits in collecdüns in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, New Haven, î lartford. and Litchfield (Connecticut). Far assistance on these trips I would like to thank Robin Frank of the Yale Universit)' Art Gallery, .'\nne K. Bentley of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and Judith Ellen Johnson and Richard Malley of the Connecticut Historical Society, as well as the society's fonner curator Elizabeth Fox, and Elizabeth M. Komhauscr, chief curator at the Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford. David Spencer, a former Smithsonian Institution Libraries staff member, gen- erously assisted me with the VVolcott-Cibbs Family Papers in the Special Collectiims of the University of Oregon Library, Eugene; and tht staffs of the Catalog of American Portraits, National Portrait Ciallery, and the Inventory of American Painting.
    [Show full text]
  • Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Adapted Screenplays
    Absorbing the Worlds of Others: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s Adapted Screenplays By Laura Fryer Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of a PhD degree at De Montfort University, Leicester. Funded by Midlands 3 Cities and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. June 2020 i Abstract Despite being a prolific and well-decorated adapter and screenwriter, the screenplays of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala are largely overlooked in adaptation studies. This is likely, in part, because her life and career are characterised by the paradox of being an outsider on the inside: whether that be as a European writing in and about India, as a novelist in film or as a woman in industry. The aims of this thesis are threefold: to explore the reasons behind her neglect in criticism, to uncover her contributions to the film adaptations she worked on and to draw together the fields of screenwriting and adaptation studies. Surveying both existing academic studies in film history, screenwriting and adaptation in Chapter 1 -- as well as publicity materials in Chapter 2 -- reveals that screenwriting in general is on the periphery of considerations of film authorship. In Chapter 2, I employ Sandra Gilbert’s and Susan Gubar’s notions of ‘the madwoman in the attic’ and ‘the angel in the house’ to portrayals of screenwriters, arguing that Jhabvala purposely cultivates an impression of herself as the latter -- a submissive screenwriter, of no threat to patriarchal or directorial power -- to protect herself from any negative attention as the former. However, the archival materials examined in Chapter 3 which include screenplay drafts, reveal her to have made significant contributions to problem-solving, characterisation and tone.
    [Show full text]
  • Michael Krasny Has Interviewed a Wide Range of Major Political and Cultural Figures Including Edward Albee, Madeleine Albright
    Michael Krasny has interviewed a wide range of major political and cultural figures including Edward Albee, Madeleine Albright, Sherman Alexei, Robert Altman, Maya Angelou, Margaret Atwood, Ken Auletta, Paul Auster, Richard Avedon, Joan Baez, Alec Baldwin, Dave Barry, Harry Belafonte, Annette Bening, Wendell Berry, Claire Bloom, Andy Borowitz, T.S. Boyle, Ray Bradbury, Ben Bradlee, Bill Bradley, Stephen Breyer, Tom Brokaw, David Brooks, Patrick Buchanan, William F. Buckley Jr, Jimmy Carter, James Carville, Michael Chabon, Noam Chomsky, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Cesar Chavez, Bill Cosby, Sandra Cisneros, Billy Collins, Pat Conroy, Francis Ford Coppola, Jacques Cousteau, Michael Crichton, Francis Crick, Mario Cuomo, Tony Curtis, Marc Danner, Ted Danson, Don DeLillo, Gerard Depardieu, Junot Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Joan Didion, Maureen Dowd. Jennifer Egan, Daniel Ellsberg, Rahm Emanuel, Nora Ephron, Susan Faludi, Diane Feinstein, Jane Fonda, Barney Frank, Jonathan Franzen, Lady Antonia Fraser, Thomas Friedman, Carlos Fuentes, John Kenneth Galbraith, Andy Garcia, Jerry Garcia, Robert Gates, Newt Gingrich, Allen Ginsberg, Malcolm Gladwell, Danny Glover, Jane Goodall, Stephen Greenblatt, Matt Groening, Sammy Hagar, Woody Harrelson, Robert Hass, Werner Herzog, Christopher Hitchens, Nick Hornby, Khaled Hosseini, Patricia Ireland, Kazuo Ishiguro, Molly Ivins, Jesse Jackson, PD James, Bill T. Jones, James Earl Jones, Ashley Judd, Pauline Kael, John Kerry, Tracy Kidder, Barbara Kingsolver, Alonzo King, Galway Kinnell, Ertha Kitt, Paul Krugman, Ray
    [Show full text]
  • Catalog Records April 7, 2021 6:03 PM Object Id Object Name Author Title Date Collection
    Catalog Records April 7, 2021 6:03 PM Object Id Object Name Author Title Date Collection 1839.6.681 Book John Marshall The Writings of Chief Justice Marshall on the Federal 1839 GCM-KTM Constitution 1845.6.878 Book Unknown The Proverbs and other Remarkable Sayings of Solomon 1845 GCM-KTM 1850.6.407 Book Ik Marvel Reveries of A Bachelor or a Book of the Heart 1850 GCM-KTM The Analogy of Religion Natural and Revealed, to the 1857.6.920 Book Joseph Butler 1857 GCM-KTM Constitution and Course of Nature 1859.6.1083 Book George Eliot Adam Bede 1859 GCM-KTM 1867.6.159.1 Book Charles Dickens The Old Curiosity Shop: Volume I Charles Dickens's Works 1867 GCM-KTM 1867.6.159.2 Book Charles Dickens The Old Curiosity Shop: Volume II Charles Dickens's Works 1867 GCM-KTM 1867.6.160.1 Book Charles Dickens Nicholas Nickleby: Volume I Charles Dickens's Works 1867 GCM-KTM 1867.6.160.2 Book Charles Dickens Nicholas Nickleby: Volume II Charles Dickens's Works 1867 GCM-KTM 1867.6.162 Book Charles Dickens Great Expectations: Charles Dickens's Works 1867 GCM-KTM 1867.6.163 Book Charles Dickens Christmas Books: Charles Dickens's Works 1867 GCM-KTM 1868.6.161.1 Book Charles Dickens David Copperfield: Volume I Charles Dickens's Works 1868 GCM-KTM 1868.6.161.2 Book Charles Dickens David Copperfield: Volume II Charles Dickens's Works 1868 GCM-KTM 1871.6.359 Book James Russell Lowell Literary Essays 1871 GCM-KTM 1876.6.
    [Show full text]
  • The Ultimate Cure for the Fake News Epidemic Will Be More Skeptical Readers
    BEHAVIOR & SOCIETY The Ultimate Cure for the Fake News Epidemic Will Be More Skeptical Readers New algorithms will help—but users' skepticism is the ultimate weapon By David Pogue on February 1, 2017 Credit: Thomas Fuchs “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President.” “FBI Agent Suspected in Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead of Apparent Murder-Suicide.” “Rush Reveals Michelle's Perverted Past After She Dumps on Trump.” Those headlines didn't come from the New York Times or CNN; they were likely written by teenagers in Macedonia. Those fake news stories were written as clickbait, designed to draw readers to fake-news sites, where the Balkan teens made money by selling ads. If last fall's election will go down in history as the Election of Unintended Consequences, those fake stories are no exception. They wound up circulating copiously on Twitter and Facebook; on the latter, the top-20 fake stories actually triggered more clicks than the top-20 real ones. Fake news became fodder for ugly partisan warfare online, too. Worst of all, it might have affected the presidential election results. Remember, 44 percent of U.S. adults get their news from Facebook. You wouldn't think that fake news would be controversial. Surely we all agree that something as important as a presidential election should be based on truth. Can't we just ask Facebook and Twitter to block fake news? We can, but they can't. The problem isn't technological—it's philosophical. “Identifying the ‘truth’ is complicated,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in response to the phenomenon of fake news.
    [Show full text]
  • 2011 Elena Daniela
    ©2011 ELENA DANIELA (DANA) NEACSU ALL RIGHTS RESERVED POLITICAL SATIRE AND POLITICAL NEWS: ENTERTAINING, ACCIDENTALLY REPORTING OR BOTH? THE CASE OF THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART (TDS) by ELENA-DANIELA (DANA) NEACSU A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Communication, Information and Library Studies Written under the direction of John V. Pavlik, Ph.D And approved by ___Michael Schudson, Ph.D.___ ____Jack Bratich, Ph.D.______ ____Susan Keith, Ph.D.______ ______________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey MAY 2011 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Political Satire and Political News: Entertaining, Accidentally Reporting or Both? The Case of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (TDS) by ELENA-DANIELA (DANA) NEACSU Dissertation Director: John V. Pavlik, Ph.D. For the last decade, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (TDS ), a (Comedy Central) cable comedy show, has been increasingly seen as an informative, new, even revolutionary, form of journalism. A substantial body of literature appeared, adopting this view. On closer inspection, it became clear that this view was tenable only in specific circumstances. It assumed that the comedic structure of the show, TDS ’ primary text, promoted cognitive polysemy, a textual ambiguity which encouraged critical inquiry, and that TDS ’ audiences perceived it accordingly. As a result I analyzed, through a dual - encoding/decoding - analytical approach, whether TDS ’ comedic discourse educates and informs its audiences in a ii manner which encourages independent or critical reading of the news. Through a multilayered textual analysis of the primary and tertiary texts of the show, the research presented here asked, “How does TDS ’ comedic narrative (primary text) work as a vehicle of televised political news?” and “How does TDS ’ audience decode its text?” The research identified flaws in the existing literature and the limits inherent to any similar endeavors.
    [Show full text]
  • Twitters, Titters, and the Onion He Says
    Montage Art, books, diverse creations 14 Open Book 16 Chapter and Verse 18 Cinéaste’s Orgy 19 Off the Shelf 20 Women in a Woeful World Last year, he directed The On- ion’s coverage of the tumultuous 2008 election; with the political intensity now dialed down, he is focusing on its online presence, including Twitter and Facebook pages and partnerships with You- With a front page from The Onion projected in the Tube, iTunes, and Google. He led background, Thurston a redesign of the website and is emcees the 2009 SXSW working to extend The Onion’s Interactive Web Awards. voice into new online outlets and platforms like the iPhone. “All that conversation about newspapers online,” Twitters, Titters, and The Onion he says. “I love being a part of it.” His media tastes Baratunde Thurston fuses politics, portals, and punch lines. are certifiably twenty-first century: “Twitter and Face- by craig lambert book are my primary means of following people and in- ou’re saying, “Not another The energetic Thurston (baratunde.com/ stitutions.” He has been booked to host a 10- one of these techno-geeky blog) has a job that taps his triad of pas- part television series premiering in August black guys with political pas- sions: since 2007, he’s been Web and politi- on the Science Channel, Popular Science’s Fu- sions who does stand-up com- cal editor of The Onion, the satirical weekly ture Of, which will examine how technologi- edy and blogs.” But that’s Ba- newspaper that appears free in sidewalk cal innovations of today will reshape our ratundeY Thurston ’99.
    [Show full text]