We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. by Samantha Irby

Paperback, 288 pgs, Pub May 30th 2017 by Vintage, ISBN13: 9781101912195, Lit Awards: Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Humor (2017)


She's funny, there's no doubt about it. However...you know how some comedians appear to have no 'off' button, or in some cases, no understanding of 'too much'? Yeah. This book makes you ask yourself if Irby is just too much. Open to ANY page and begin reading. You're absorbed immediately. It's a book with only dirty bits left in, none of the boring or predictable bits. Who can live like this?

It's exhausting. But in small doses, it can be just the ticket.

To say Irby has potty mouth is understating, but her instincts for what is funny are undeniable. I tried to find out if she was writing for the stage comedians--she'd be a goldmine considering she comes out with a non-stop new book every year lately--but it looks like she was discovered writing a blog, called "bitchesgottaeat".

We get inklings of what she was like as a youngster: I dare say she was an innocent once...she just wised up faster than all of us. She can write like a dream, and shines a bright light on serious topics. She pokes fun at herself, so you can bet she's not gonna spare you. Weight, race, sexual orientation, class, part of the country...all come under her gaze, and she catches us out.

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I just want to register the notion that Irby has my permission to actually relax a little, not fake-relax as in writing jokes. She doesn't have to be 'on' all the time, though it looks from these popular books that she feels an obligation to keep it up. Nah. Unnecessary. Look, no one else in the world is doing it. Because they can't. Because it may not be that healthy. I'd like to see under the mask ... now, I SAY that, but maybe I don't... really...NO!

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P.S. I am tired of adding 'race' to every book written by a person of color even if they touch on race in their commentary. Like Zadie Smith says in her book of essays, Feel Free: Essays, there was a moment in the history of American literature when the work of Philip Roth and Saul Bellow were so spectacular and spoke to so many of us that Great Jewish-American Writer was turned into Great American Writer. I want that for us again. I acknowledge race, but it's not all there is, as this woman shows us. We're all Americans. Are we ready for that? I feel ready, but I am usually in advance of the pack. (That's not always usually a good thing.)



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What's So Funny About Faith: A Memoir from the Intersection of Hilarious and Holy by Jacob D. Martin

Paperback, 162 pgs, Pub Oct 1st 2012 by Loyola Press, ISBN13: 9780829437393

A couple of weeks ago I finished Barking to the Choir by Greg Boyle, S.J. Boyle’s writing about his ministry in Los Angeles was both deeply aware of the human condition and deeply funny. His humor made us want to examine our own experience for other instances of the kind of vulnerability and human error that make life poignant rather than tragic. Father Boyle mentioned in passing that he decided to become a Jesuit because he found the order socially relevant and really funny. My father was educated by Jesuits, and his admirers always said his humor was Jesuitical: thoughtful and complex. So I went looking for Jesuits and humor and found Jake Martin.

This book was published in 2012, and tells of Jake’s Irish Catholic upbringing, the death of his father when he was young, his fabulously funny females on his mother’s side. Jake watched a lot of television growing up, and, coming from a family of wise-cracking females, he learned early the value of making people laugh. He is able to discuss particular episodes in long-running comedy TV series, which is pretty much lost on me since I never watched more than one or two episodes of any series. More importantly then, Jake seems to have internalized what makes good comedy socially relevant and long-lasting, besides being merely funny. He just touches on this vastly interesting subject area and therefore makes one want to learn more about what comedy is.

Becoming a Jesuit may not seem like much a career path for a boy whose greatest goal was to appear on Saturday Night Live, but actually it would make a brilliant synergy if he could make it work. I saw a short YouTube video of Jake talking about his decision to go into the Jesuits and I was surprised. He seemed much more uncomfortable speaking in front of an audience than I was expecting. All the hand-waving and the aw-shucks unpracticed responses were at odds with the stuff he’d written in this book which seemed to indicate a man who’d reconciled with his earlier bad habits as an ordinary citizen and was looking deeper into the mysteries of both successful comedy and his faith. He seems on solid ground with the theory; why is he uncomfortable in practice and on stage?

He wasn’t funny in the book, but he stoked our interest in finding something funny about faith, about God’s will on earth, and in human vulnerability and striving. I made it hard for him because I opened the book randomly and expected him to land immediately. It actually worked…I continued reading, perplexed at his seeming gentleness and naiveté. Somehow the link between comedy and gentleness has been broken for me. It would surprise me if he could hold his own among the troupe at Second City, a famous improv comedy spot in Chicago where he began his comedic education on stage. Second City was the start for many stars we watch on national television today, so Martin is well-connected in that way.

I hope he can pull it off eventually, if he is just getting started now (actually, five years ago this book was published & we haven't heard of him yet). At least he appears to understand what a big canvas he has and what a huge number of examples he has of everyday ridiculousness.

Just to give you a sense of what I am saying. Please form your own opinions.




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You Can't Spell America Without Me by Alec Baldwin & Kurt Andersen

Hardcover, 288 pgs, Pub Nov 7th 2017 by Penguin Press, ISBN13: 9780525521990

I have a hard time listening to DJT at the best of times, and listening to him at all now is a drain, nearly a year into the most bizarre presidency ever. Therefore I almost didn’t bother with Alex Baldwin’s parody which would have been a pity. I later learned (via NYT Book Review editor Pamela Paul interviews Kurt Andersen) this book was written in collaboration with novelist Kurt Andersen, who knew Trump back in the day. Andersen and Baldwin manage to channel DJT to an extraordinary extent, using DJT's actual words, sentence constructions, and speech idiosyncrasies for reconstructions and deep dives into his psyche.

This is deeply funny and unsettling stuff. Racist, sexist, religionist attitudes leach into his writing ("talking is the new writing"), surely not intentionally—he seems so completely ignorant of it. He makes juvenile jokes about Japanese names and the extent of Japanese disquiet over the cancellation of T.P.P., and expresses a kind of shocked surprise at how much the African American security people earn to protect him, especially after that discrimination suit they won…He blissfully mispronounces Philippine proverbs throughout the work, rendering them in his version of Tagalog, and mangling the translations.

Actual DJT tweets and quotes run into plausible extensions which elaborate his thinking gut feelings. Constantly finding ways to plug his golf courses and properties, branded steaks, wine, and ties, Trump finds his new job is awash in business opportunities: one could use military jets, perhaps, to bring same-day Nebraska grass-fed beef direct to the tables of his hotels. Andersen and Baldwin pick out current themes in American masculinity, politics, art, and critical thought and introduce the rogue element that is DJT.

“The chapter you just read was written personally by me, Donald Trump…this entire book, the words and sentences and the larger sections…the paragraphs, the chapters, all mine…and it's the best...”

By the end of the book, DJT is willing to ship Melania back to Yugoslavia ("I didn’t realize she’d come in illegally…" and "she's 50 years old this year") and he poses himself in front of a camera waving at the departing plane carrying his third wife while, written into the script, a single tear falls silently in the closeup. Sad.

"The president has unlimited Presidential Pardon Power (PPP), which means I could even pardon myself…PPP…"

DJT seems only to love his now 11-year-old son, Barron. He’s "so smart,""he’s like an adult now." One of the riffs I enjoyed most was about Paul Ryan, who looks

"like a smiling vampire…always glances at himself in windows and mirrors…it’s kinda gay…that afternoon Paul Ryan definitely looked untrustworthy. When I have strong instincts, they always mean something."

When you get to the part on North Korea, you will understand the depth of his delusions.

"I’ve never been to North Korea, I never took a course…but discussing it strongly for ten minutes, not with some CIA analyst or some State Department know-it-all, I now totally, completely, absolutely understand…that’s how CEO’s do it."

And his conflation of vote tallies:

"I won sixty percent of the electoral vote which is the same as Reagan and FDR…won of the popular vote."

Arghh.

These two men take the time to make us see the absurdity in DJT’s utterances…they go through all of it…right through his hiring family for jobs hardened professionals have trouble handling, to our foreign relations, the collusion, the shallowness of businessmen’s understanding of cultural relations, the voting…”It Finally Felt Real Like a Movie” is a chapter title, but it does tend to put the whole thing in perspective.

I suggest we take every opportunity to laugh while we can, all the while building up energy to take this clown down. Even if you think you are tired of all things Trump, these men have done a brilliant job of it, so have a listen, or a peruse. Laugh with friends at enemies. The audio is produced by Penguin Audio, and this book has a Whispersync option, a good choice for this title. Published by Penguin Random House.





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