May Contain Nuts: A Very Loose Canon of American Humor

Michael J. Rosen

Harper Collins, Sep 14, 2004 - Humor - 440 pages

Nutritiousness aside, May Contain Nuts provides 100% of the daily recommended amount of that essential life-enhancer, laughter. With more than 70 contributors and 150 shots from the loose canon of American humor, it's a stellar edition with plenty of real stars from stage and screen(writing):

• Seinfeld's Peter Mehlman • Hairspray's Mark O'Donnell • Ed's Michael Ian Black • and the world's most famous drive-in movie critic, Joe Bob Briggs

Plus, there's Roy Blount Jr. on how to travel "Southern" outside the South; summer recipes from our man in the kitchen, Henry Alford; Firesign Theatre's Phil Austin's yuletide "Tale of the Old Detective"; P. J. O'Rourke's not-so-intimate "Diary of a Country Gentleman"; Daniel Radosh's "PowerPoint Anthology of Literature"; and Tom Gliatto's helpful overview of today's thriving cabaret scene. With umpteen illustrations, many perplexing charts, and our first centerfold ever, this volume is party-sized for your reading pleasure.

New in This Issue

• a comprehensive teacher's guide
• a food section (including a transcript from Van Gogh's early cooking show)
• up-to-the-minute newscrawl
• a preview of the new all Law & Order Network
• "Blues for Advanced Beginners"
• Ingenious and iffy tributes to Orson Welles, Dale Earnhardt, Beck, John Edwards, and Celine Dion

Contents

• Special Interest Tables of Contents: xxxiii
• Girls Behaving Badly: xxxix
• DAVID K GIBSON: xlv
• HENRY ALFORD: 1
• AOL vs Good Cholesterol: 12
• ETHAN ANDERSON: 13
• PHIL AUSTIN: 24
• If the Camel Melts I Spy Federalism 33: 33
• ANDREW BARLOW: 34
• MICHAEL IAN BLACK: 37
• An asterisk denotes stardom and the fact that the May Contain: 40
• ROY BLOUNT: 44
• KIM McCANN: 55
• NANCY COHEN: 56
• bedandbreakfast Henry Alford page 4: 58
• JILL A DAVIS: 64
• ELLIS DICKERSON: 70
• Madrigals vs Freshness: 80
• TOM GLIATTO: 87
• Are You Tangential? 126: 94
• BEN GREENMAN: 102
• BOB HIRSHON: 123
• Shakespeares Hamlet Daniel Radosh page 287: 127
• MARC JAFFE: 136
• MERLE KESSLER: 140
• Life AfterTed: 148
• DANNY LIEBERT: 152
• KURT LUCHS: 164
• MABEL MANEY: 171
• DAVID MARTIN: 179
• Sweden vs Clairvoyancy: 185
• MICHAEL MARTONE: 188
• PETER MEHLMAN: 200
• This Clam Is Near Death: 202
• BRYAN J MILLER: 210
• MARK ODONNELL: 217
• P J OROURKE: 239
• ED PAGE: 253
• NEIL PASRICHA: 268
• LOUIS PHILLIPS: 276
• NEAL POLLACK: 282
• LAURIE ROSENWALD: 294
• Towels vs Catholicsm: 304
• STEPHEN SHERRILL: 308
• BETH TEITELL: 316
• doughnuts Stephanie Brooks page 48: 319
• RICHARD THOMPSON: 322
• 64305: 334
• JOHN WARNER: 339
• JUSTIN WARNER: 350
• Buttered Whale?: 358
• Late Late Show: 369
• MIRTH OF A NATION TEACHERS COMPANION: 372
• Index by Marc Jaffe and Peter Gaido: 397
• Contributor Notes: 417
• Andrew Marlatt: 423
• Permissions: 433

About the author

The editor of More Mirth of a Nation: The Best Contemporary Humor, Michael J. Rosen has been called the unofficial organizer of the National Humor Writer's Union, a pretty good idea for an organization that could offer all kinds of benefits to its struggling members (currently numbering more than 300 who have never been published in The New Yorker or aired on NPR). He has been called other things as well, like in third grade, and then in seventh grade especially, by certain older kids known as "hoods," who made his life miserable, specifically during gym class, lunch period and after school. Later, much later, the Washington Post called him a "fidosopher" because of his extensive publications on dogs, dog training, and dog-besotted people. The New York Times called him an example of creative philanthropy in their special "Giving" section for persuading "writers, artists, photographers and illustrators to contribute their time and talents to books" that benefit Share Our Strength's anti-hunger efforts and animal-welfare causes. As an author of a couple dozen books for children, he's been called...okay, enough with the calling business.

For nearly twenty years, he served as literary director at the Thurber House, a cultural center in the restored home of James Thurber. Garrison Keillor, bless his heart, called it (sorry) "the capital of American humor." While there, Rosen helped to create The Thurber Prize for American Humor, a national book award for humor writing, and edited four anthologies of Thurber's previously unpublished and uncollected work, most recently The Dog Department: James Thurber on Hounds, Scotties and Talking Poodles, happily published by HarperCollins as well.

In his capacity as editor for this biennial, Rosen reads manuscripts year round, beseeching and beleaguering the nation's most renowned and well-published authors, and fending off the rants and screeds from folks who've discovered the ease of self-publishing on the web. Last summer, Rosen edited a lovely book, 101 Damnations: The Humorists' Tour of Personal Hells; while some critics (all right, one rather outspoken friend) considered this a book of complaints, Rosen has argued that humor, like voting and picketing and returning an appliance that "worked" all of four months before requiring a repair that costs twice the purchase price, humor is about the desire for change. It's responding to the way things are compared to the way you'd like things to be. And it's a much more convivial response than pouting or cornering unsuspecting guests at dinner parties.

Bibliographic information

• Title: May Contain Nuts: A Very Loose Canon of American Humor
• Editor: Michael J. Rosen
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Harper Collins, 2004
• ISBN: 0060516267, 9780060516260
• Length: 440 pages
• Subjects: Humor / Form / Essays; Humor / General