The Book Trailer as Self-Parody: Stars Gary Shteyngart with James Franco Cameo

in Books, Comedy, Literature | May 16th, 2011

What can we say about Gary Shteyn­gart? The nov­el­ist appeared last year in The New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 Fic­tion Issue (which list­ed authors “who cap­ture the inven­tive­ness and the vital­i­ty of con­tem­po­rary Amer­i­can fic­tion.”) He teach­es writ­ing at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty and counts James Fran­co as one of his stu­dents. And he’s will­ing to hus­tle a lit­tle to sell a book. When his nov­el Super Sad True Love Sto­ry came out last sum­mer (find NYTimes review here), the quirky Leningrad-born author (key to under­stand­ing what comes next) released a satir­i­cal, self-dep­re­cat­ing trail­er to pro­mote his book. Jef­frey Eugenides, Jay McIn­er­ney, Edmund White, Mary Gait­skill and Fran­co him­self all get in on the joke … which gets bet­ter as it goes along.

Shteyn­gart’s book just came out in paper­back last week. To mark the occa­sion, Fresh Air re-aired an inter­view with him (sans accent) last week. His book is also avail­able as an audio down­load via Audible.com, and here’s how you can snag a free copy…

Relat­ed:

Review­ing Jonathan Franzen’s “Free­dom” with Wit

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1956 Home Movie: Laurel & Hardy Together for the Last Time

in Comedy, Film | May 13th, 2011

There is no exact date for this silent home movie shot at the Rese­da, CA home of Stan Lau­rel’s daugh­ter, Lois. But the year must have been 1956, because, dur­ing that year, Oliv­er Hardy, the oth­er mem­ber of the great com­ic duo, lost more than 150 pounds, result­ing in a com­plete change of his out­ward appear­ance. Hardy had a mild heart attack in 1954 and start­ed look­ing after his health. But let­ters by Stan Lau­rel indi­cate that Oliv­er was also suf­fer­ing from can­cer. In Sep­tem­ber 1956 — prob­a­bly not long after this movie was made — Oliv­er suf­fered a major stroke, which left him unable to speak and con­fined to bed for sev­er­al months. Then, at the begin­ning of August 1957, he had two more strokes and slipped into a coma from which he nev­er recov­ered. He died on August 7 that year.

Exact­ly one week after Oliv­er’s death, Stan gave a rare radio inter­view and recount­ed the moment when he and Oliv­er met for the first time. The full, one-hour inter­view can be enjoyed here. Stan died on 23 Feb­ru­ary 1965 after suf­fer­ing a heart attack of his own. He was buried at For­est Park Memo­r­i­al Park in Bur­bank. Footage from the funer­al shows celebri­ties such as Dick Van Dyke, Buster Keaton and George Chan­dler in atten­dance. Stan’s friend Dick Van Dyke deliv­ered this mov­ing eulo­gy.

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A Daily Dose of Jerry Seinfeld

in Comedy | May 9th, 2011

Jer­ry Sein­feld has decid­ed to go on tour, and as if to remind us that his stand-up life pre­ced­ed his decade-plus dom­i­nance of net­work TV, he’s also archived the best bits from a com­e­dy career that now spans over 25 years. (He first appeared on nation­al tele­vi­sion in 1977.) The new site/archive will fea­ture just a few clips, mak­ing new ones avail­able each day. It’s a smart move; the steady trick­le of new jokes will no doubt keep fans hun­gry.

For a reminder of the days when it was Sein­feld him­self who was hun­gry, here’s a set from 1981, his first appear­ance on HBO. He’s being pre­sent­ed by the pitch-per­fect Smoth­ers Broth­ers, who intro­duce the bare­ly known come­di­an as “Jer­ry Ste­in­feld.”

via NYT

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

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Spy Magazine (1986–1998) Now Online

in Comedy, Media | April 28th, 2011

You want to know why Rupert Mur­doch runs the world and you don’t? Here’s a hint: In 1990, Spy Mag­a­zine (now archived at Google Books) sent Mur­doch and a slew of oth­er wealthy celebri­ties checks for $1.11 as a prank. Mur­doch cashed his right away — because even when he was just a low­ly bil­lion­aire, the guy under­stood mon­ey.

And the edi­tors at Spy (1986–98) under­stood celebri­ty cul­ture, which is why they became arguably the most influ­en­tial mag­a­zine of the late 20th cen­tu­ry, or, in Dave Eggers’ words “cru­el, bril­liant, beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten and per­fect­ly designed, and feared by all.” Com­bin­ing an ele­gant house style, barbed satire, and a healthy dose of class-rage, Spy inspired a rad­i­cal tonal shift in Amer­i­can jour­nal­ism just in time for the arrival of a per­fect­ly suit­ed new plat­form: The Inter­net.

You can read more about the mag­a­zine’s lega­cy in Will Hines’ excel­lent arti­cle Div­ing into the Archives of Spy, The Fun­ni­est Mag­a­zine Ever, at the com­e­dy blog Split­sider. Before accus­ing Hines of hyper­bole, take a look at some of his finds:

Joe Queenan sends up the The Cult of Bob Dylan

The edi­tors list Clin­ton’s First 100 Lies

Newt Gin­grich, top­less, on the cov­er

And that’s with­out even start­ing on the true clas­sics from the 80’s. It’s all at Google Books. Enjoy.

via Split­sider

Relat­ed:  The Onion: Fake News Site Launch­es Real Archive

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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“Jersey Shore” in the Style of Oscar Wilde

in Comedy, Theatre | April 27th, 2011

We gid­di­ly present “Jer­sey Shore” Gone Wilde, as per­formed by the cast of The Impor­tance of Being Earnest, a pro­duc­tion cur­rent­ly being staged by the Round­about The­atre Com­pa­ny in New York City.

Go ahead and catch this inspired mashup of Vic­to­ri­an com­e­dy and MTV “real­i­ty” at Play­bill Video in 5 parts … unless you have work to do this after­noon.

via @MaudNewton

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

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Tina Fey Brings Bossypants Tour to Google

in Books, Comedy | April 26th, 2011

A day after Pres­i­dent Oba­ma con­duct­ed his much pub­li­cized town hall meet­ing at Face­book, Tina Fey, the star of 30 Rock and the author of the new book Bossy­pants, head­ed to Google, just a few miles down the road.

Last May, Googlers had their riotous romp with Conan O’Brien. Now they get their 60 min­utes with anoth­er come­di­an who came of age on NBC. The con­ver­sa­tion led by Eric Schmidt teach­es you the secrets of improv, how to take pic­tures like a mod­el, the pros & cons of goof­ing on Sarah Palin, and why male and female com­e­dy writ­ers dif­fer in fun­da­men­tal­ly odd ways. Tina Fey is fun­ny. But some­times fun­nier is watch­ing Schmidt try­ing to keep the con­ver­sa­tion from going off the rails. Scroll to the 8:20 mark, and you’ll see what I mean.

Just an fyi: Tina Fey actu­al­ly nar­rates the audio­book ver­sion of Bossy­pants, and you can snag it for free through this Audible.com deal. Details here.

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Updated Book Titles: Less Pretentious, More Accurate

in Comedy, Literature | April 11th, 2011

Over at OhNoThey­Did­n’t, you can find some alter­na­tive titles for some of the most famous books ever writ­ten — or, in ONDT’s own words, titles that are “more accu­rate and less pre­ten­tious” than the orig­i­nals.

Before click­ing over to the (slight­ly NFSW) whole col­lec­tion, test your high/low cul­tur­al agili­ty by try­ing to guess a few orig­i­nals from their updates:

1. My Dad is Cool­er Than Your Dad

2. Emo­tions Are For Poor Peo­ple

3. Shake­speare Minus the Good Writ­ing

4. Lik­able Rapists

5. White Peo­ple Ruin Every­thing

If you got all five right, nay, if you got any right, we’re count­ing on you for the Clue­less sequel.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Rachmaninov Had Big Hands

in Comedy, Music | March 15th, 2011

Igudes­man & Joo are a musical/comedy duo per­form­ing in the US and Cana­da this spring. This clip, “Rach­mani­noff Had Big Hands,” starts out a lit­tle slow­ly but gets enter­tain­ing fair­ly quick­ly. If you like com­bin­ing com­e­dy and clas­si­cal music, then don’t miss anoth­er pro­gram recent­ly high­light­ed on Open Cul­ture: Bill Bai­ley’s Remark­able Guide to the Orches­tra.

Thanks to Sara for send­ing this our way…

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