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Fact: "New" Plus "Jack Handey" Often Equals Laughter
Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: books, comedy, design, humor, Jack Handey, Paul Simms, Shouts & Murmurs, Steve Martin, Woody Allen
Jack Handey has a book coming out! I just learned this, and it made me happy. Pub date is April 8! The title story, “What I’d Say to the Martians,” might be the funniest thing I’ve read in the past five years; you can read it here. How much “Shouts & Murmurs” stuff has made it to book form? I reckon Woody Allen and Steve Martin have pulled it off. Anyone else?
I love the cover, too:
New York’s Upright Citizens Brigade has been hosting a series of highly entertaining reading events to promote Ben Karlin’s new anthology, Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me. I went to the one last Thursday, and fellow “Shouts and Murmurs” alum Paul Simms read part of his very funny chapter.
At one point Brooke Shields showed up and told a great story about dating the not-yet-outed frontman for a very popular 1980s singing duo that must, alas, remain nameless.
Fun fact: Brooke Shields has never written a “Shouts & Murmurs” item!
About us
Hello! We're a small band of media enthusiasts, culture addicts, and journalists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, formerly a New Yorker fan site, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, politics, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
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Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Writing on theater: reviews (for Time Out Chicago; imperfect but workable search results)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
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Comments
I can’t believe I missed that UCB show! I wanted to go, but somehow got the Rejection Show and that show mixed up in my brain!
But I sat next to Brooke Shields and her husband, Chris, at Fanelli’s the other night, and she didn’t tell me any of this! Hmph! Oh, well! But her husband did tell me about a remake of The Land of the Lost he’s working on, which I was very pleased to hear of!
Was it George Michael? That was the talk of my middle-school corridors! Plus, of course, Michael Jackson. I always liked Brooke Shields, in part because for a while we had the same eyebrows.
Let’s see, don’t forget phenom Simon Rich, most of whose clever confections in Ant Farm were originally Shouts; who else? Remember when that piece by Andy Borowitz, “Pavlov’s Brother,” was made into a Toronto Fringe Festival play?
I bet we’d get some clues from those end-of-year roundups the magazine does of Books From Our Pages.
My favorite Jack Handey piece? “Ideas for Paintings.”