FIERCE
PAJAMA5
AN A N T H O L O G Y OF H U M O R W R I T I N G
FROM THE NEW YORKER
E D I T E D BY D A V I D
AND HENRY
R A N D O M
H O U S E
REMNICK
FINDER
I
N E W
Y O R K
CONTENT5
Introduction
xv
SPOOFS
Death in the Rumble Seat / Wolcott Gibbs
Dusk in Fierce Pajamas / E. B. White
5
-
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 ii 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 andJonathan Schwarz
60
Teen Times / PaulRudnick
62
T H E
F R E N Z Y
O F
R E N O W N
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
The A-List E-List / David Brooks
126
128
CONTENTS
T H E
W A RB E T W E E N
ix
M E NA N D W O M E N
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
W R I T I N G
L I F E
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? / MichaelJ. 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
F U N N Y
T H I N G
H A P P E N E D
The People W h o 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
C O N T E N T S
xi
He Didn't Go to Canada / Garrison Keillor
322
Post-Euphoria / Veronica Geng
327
Keith Richards' Desert-Island Disks / Noah Baumbach
WORDS
OF
331
A D V I C E
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 ii
CONTENTS
R E C O L L E C T I O N S
A N D R E F L E C T I O N S
On Taxi Drivers / Alexander Woollcott
Father Isn't Much Help / Clarence Day
The Night the Ghost Got In I James Thurber
397
400
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
C O N T E N T S
x i ii
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